{"id":1388,"date":"2019-10-31T14:07:34","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T14:07:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1388"},"modified":"2019-11-04T19:11:42","modified_gmt":"2019-11-04T19:11:42","slug":"taittinger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1388","title":{"rendered":"Taittinger"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of a long boulevard in Reims sits the Taittinger headquarters.\u00a0 It sits on the site of a former Abbey of St. Nicaise that was destroyed by some zealots during the French Revolution.\u00a0 Nothing remains of the Abbey, or at least not above-ground.\u00a0 The ancient monks were winemakers themselves and they dug their cellars below their Abbey\u2019s grounds, utilizing in part cellars created in the Fourth Century by the Romans, who were quarrying stone for buildings in the town.\u00a0 So while all cellar tours are pretty much the same, a visit to Taittinger has quite a lot of history to it.<\/p>\n

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Stairs used by the monks of St. Nicaise to enter the cellars<\/em><\/p>\n

Taittinger is one of Champagne\u2019s largest houses, based on the number of cases produced.\u00a0 Their wines are noted for their elegance and floral notes.\u00a0 It is also the parent company of California\u2019s Domaine Carneros<\/a>.\u00a0 Although anyone can reserve a tour and tasting, we used our membership in Domaine Carneros to obtain a private one.<\/p>\n

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Note that this storage cave contains 99,000 bottles of Comtes de Champagne<\/em><\/p>\n

Today, the cellars in Reims are used solely to mature their top Champagne, the Comtes de Champagne.\u00a0 Deep below ground (18 meters or nearly 56 feet) you will see stack after stack of bottles that they age for at least 10 years.\u00a0 It is quite imposing.<\/p>\n

But there are some things that you will not see.\u00a0 For one, you won\u2019t see the facilities for storing their other Champagnes, such as their Brut Reserve or their ros\u00e9.\u00a0 For another, you won\u2019t see the location where they actually crush the grapes and vinify their wines.\u00a0 And you won\u2019t see the Ch\u00e2teau de la Marquetterie that appears on their bottles, just as the Domaine Carneros winery appears on the labels of the American sparkling wines.\u00a0 The ch\u00e2teau is actually in a small village called Pierry.\u00a0 You cannot visit it, but you can look at it.<\/p>\n

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Ch\u00e2teau de la Marquetterie in Pierry<\/em><\/p>\n

What you can see in the caves in Reims is a lot of history.\u00a0 It does look yellow, because they use sodium lights to do the minimum damage to the Champagne.\u00a0 You see stairways that the monks used to descend into the cellars.\u00a0 You see beehive shaped vaults where the Romans excavated stone.\u00a0 And you see the convocation area where the monks gathered centuries ago.<\/p>\n

After touring you do get a chance to taste the Champagne.\u00a0 The least expensive tour gets you a glass of the Brut Reserve, while the top-priced tour includes that wine plus the Comtes de Champagne, both white and pink.<\/p>\n

Every trip to Champagne should include a visit to one of Grandes Marques<\/em>, of which Taittinger is one of the leaders.\u00a0 Alas, some of these are rather industrialized; the historical interest of the Taittinger caves gives you a reason to choose this one.<\/p>\n

Oh, and by the way, Americans.\u00a0 It\u2019s not pronounced TAT-in-jer.\u00a0 You should say tet-ahn-ZHAY.\u00a0 It\u2019s good to know if you go.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the end of a long boulevard in Reims sits the Taittinger headquarters.\u00a0 It sits on the site of a former Abbey of St. Nicaise that was destroyed by some zealots during the French Revolution.\u00a0 Nothing remains of the Abbey, or at least not above-ground.\u00a0 The ancient monks were winemakers themselves and they dug their … Continue reading Taittinger<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1388"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1407,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions\/1407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}