The Heritage of Champagne Taittinger

There is only one Champagne. What is so unique about this region as a place to make sparkling wine? You know, the taste is really a question of culture. When you start to do something for the first time, you want to imitate. So you want to duplicate. But in Champagne, it has started since many years. So we are not duplicating again. And we are just more and more fine and precise and trying to respect the tradition. But also, we are ready to look a little bit forward, something different. Some would say that the elegance of a wine like Tatin J perhaps wouldn't let it age. But we know better. It depends the cuvee. Some of the cuvees are made to be drink at once. They can be kept. But after, it becomes something else. For the Brut, so for the non-vintage, this is the case. For the Comte de Champagne, with really our cuvee of exception, we keep it 10 years here in those cellars. And after, you can drink it 20 years, 30 years, 40 years after. So it's a long life for the wine. So one of the world's great Champagnes, in my opinion, is the Comte de Champagne, the Blanc de Blanc. Tell us a bit about that, the history and how it came about. It came in 52. It was a choice of my great-grand-uncle, François Tatin J. And for him, it was important at this stage to make an homage to the Chardonnay, to the style of the house, and also to Thibault the Fourth, who is the main character, the ambassador of the house, present on each bottle of Tatin J. So he decided to create this cuvee. And to make something, to make the best we can do with the Chardonnay. So we just choose the best here. That's why it's a vintage. We are working only with first-press juice, only with the cru, the Grand Cru of the Cote de Blanc. They are very well known for their precision, pureness, and each has a style. So it's a perfect blending. A couple of things I love that's so unique about the comp is the bottle shape. And it's still hand-riddled. For us, it's important to keep a part of tradition for those big wines. It had something which is the softness. Nothing is violent in the process, and we love that. Like a style which is perfectly clean, delicate, intention. You have something which plays with the balance. This is not hard to drink. This is important to us, to obtain a wine which is comfortable for the people that drink. But in the same time, we are hiring more and more the precision, the tension. It has to be like a diamond, very clean and perfect. What is your vision of the company, say, down the road the next 20, 30, 40 years? It's a question of family spirit. I think this is very important to consider that Tétangé has also to reinvent itself and to improve always. But the most important is probably to be able to transmit also the heritage full of tradition, full of respect for the past. We are kind of guardian of this beautiful wine. I want it to stay alive for many years.