Vinco Fine Wines

Comtes de Champagne is Taittinger's prestige wine. It is made only in the years the house judges good enough, in small quantities, from the first pressing of Chardonnay grown in five grand cru villages of the Côte des Blancs: Avize, Chouilly, Cramant, Oger and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. It then rests for ten years, 18 metres underground, in the fourth-century chalk cellars of Saint-Nicaise in Reims.

2015 was a hot, dry summer. Cellar master Alexandre Ponnavoy calls it a difficult year for Chardonnay, because the drought held back ripening and caught many other houses out. Taittinger had the luxury of picking from parcels in those five villages that had ripened fully, and kept the balance. The 2015 has broader shoulders than usual, with the precision and purity Comtes lovers expect.

100% Chardonnay; dosage 9 g/l, 12.5% ABV, disgorged July 2025. Released on 8 October 2026.

Antonio Galloni places Valentini among Italy's top dozen estates, on a par with Gaja, Giacosa and Quintarelli. The family farms naturally at Loreto Aprutino, in the hills behind Pescara, and only a small fraction of each harvest is bottled under its own label. Francesco Paolo Valentini has made the wines since 2006, now alongside his son Gabriele.

Nothing is bottled unless it resembles the wines his father made. On that test there has been no Valentini Montepulciano since 2015, and no Cerasuolo in 2020, 2021 or 2023.

Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo 2025. Montepulciano given the briefest time on its skins: wild cherry and dried herbs, a salty finish, and the structure to improve in bottle for years. Production is roughly a quarter of the Trebbiano.

Trebbiano d'Abruzzo 2022. The wine on which the name rests, from the old local Trebbiano Abruzzese. Closed and smoky on opening, wanting a decanter and some patience, then lemon peel, salt and toasted depth. It ages for decades.