Julien pits two of the world’s oldest champagne houses against each other… Who will come out on top? Julien’s tasted Moët & Chandon a few times before — how will it fare against Taittinger?
Transcript:
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Today, I’m very excited to be tasting and comparing two iconic brands of champagne Moët & Chandon on one side, Taittinger on the other. These two houses have a really long and rich history, some of the oldest wineries on the planet. They are both known, of course, for producing high quality, elegant champagnes. Taittinger is supposedly a little finer, but which one is actually the best, and which one should you buy?
00:00:31:18 – 00:00:55:05
How about everyone? Welcome to your new Bonner Private Wines video, where we learn together about wine weekly. I am your host, Julien Miquel, Bordeaux trained winemaker, a French wine maker with quite a long history of making fine wine all around the world. I’m a scientific person, but also a writer, and I’ve been making wine videos here on YouTube for over five years now.
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So what have we got today? Well, we are continuing comparing the top brands of champagne in our quest to find the best buys, the best quality. So far we’ve tested Veuve Clicquot and Ruinart, you can watch those videos right here if you haven’t seen them yet. And today we are exploring Taittinger. I visited Taittinger in Reims a few years ago and met the owners, so it should be really interesting to taste it back to back with the famous, the illustrious, Moët & Chandon, which I’ve never done, to taste them side by side.
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So let’s get into it now.
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So what have we got here? Two elegant champagnes. But how is it relevant to compare those two brands? Well, first, they are both extremely iconic and popular. In fact, they are two of the three oldest champagne houses. Some of the most iconic brands, of course. So the most established brands that everyone knows about. Moët & Chandon is the third oldest brand, founded in 1733 by Jean-Baptiste Moet, while Taittinger is the second oldest.
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Founded in 1734 by Pierre Taittinger. Which is the oldest champagne house, you may be wondering? Well, it’s another one. It’s Ruinart, that I tasted, again you can watch that video right here. Moët—and yes, that’s how you pronounce it, it’s not Moët. This is the largest champagne house in the world, believed to be producing somewhere around 200 million bottles of champagne each year.
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It’s the staple name everyone knows about. And a bit of a reference point, of course, when it comes to quality and taste. Now, I’m not going to pour it just yet. No, it is not quite the best champagne all the time. More about this in a moment, but it’s a very solid and extremely consistent brand. It’s a bit of our reference point.
00:03:18:06 – 00:03:48:08
Taittinger, on the other hand, is well known for its elegance and refined style of champagne characterized by a high proportion of Chardonnay grapes. This emphasis on Chardonnay contributes to the house’s signature lightness and the finesse and the freshness. That’s what they say. That’s what it’s reputable for. Their champagnes often exhibit crisp and clean palate with a bit of a distinctive minerality. That’s on paper. In practice,
00:03:48:10 – 00:04:10:09
well, let’s see how they compare in terms of style and taste. Also, Taittinger is one of the very few top champagnes that is not owned by LVMH or Louis Vuitton. Enormous luxury group, but it’s more of a large family owned operation. They own quite a bit of their vineyards as well, which is quite nice and a fun fact.
00:04:10:11 – 00:04:36:00
Moet has often been the sponsor for the US and French Tennis Open, also the ATP World Tour, so more it goes a little bit better with tennis and golf, it seems. While Taittinger is associated with Formula One Monaco Grand Prix in particular. Yes, it’s overflowing a little bit. So it seems that energy goes a little bit better with driving.
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I mean, well, celebrating after driving. Anyways, enough background info, let’s get pouring those babies and taste them.
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And by the way, if you are interested in learning more about champagne, there are many fascinating videos on the channel that I’ve made over the years. I’ll link to them right here and more at the end of the video as well, so make sure to stay tuned for that. Let’s start with Moet & Chandon, our reference point; I’ve tasted it a few times against other champagnes, have scored it an 89 out of 100 points, while I scored Veuve Clicquot and 81 and Ruinart 92.
00:05:28:07 – 00:05:54:14
So curious to see where it lands. I’m going to be scoring those wines afterwards. We have this delicious lemon yellow color. There’s a little bit of orange hues, but it’s really not marked. It’s really bright. It is a little foamy, you might be wondering why I’m using those glasses. Well, they help concentrate all the flavors in all the aromas so you can really smell the wine really well.
00:05:54:14 – 00:06:21:19
It also brings out quite a bit of the bubbles. So when you get, you get to taste them. You’re not just invaded with all the fun fuzziness of the wine and you can taste it actually better what it’s got inside. So really nice color. Yes, I’m loving the brioche that comes through, it’s a little bit citrusy; straight up bright lemon, not too ripe a lemon, but not too tart either.
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It’s not green lemon. It’s really a zesty, zesty lemon brioche, a little bit of spices. There’s a touch of vanilla there, a bit of, nutmeg. And to the background. So a nice complex and balanced aromatic profile to the nose. Let’s get tasting.
00:06:47:13 – 00:07:17:01
Ooh, yeah. Straight away. The creaminess of the texture is really, really soothing. Really soft on your palate. The bubbles are fine, especially when it’s got a bit of time to, uh, let some of those bubbles out in the glass. It’s really, really soft and creamy. You get a lot of brioche. Again, these really ripe and zesty lemon to the palate straight away and then come in all the spices.
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There’s a bit of sense of an oakiness, a bit of hazelnut, roasted hazelnut through the background. The nutmeg, the cinnamon, the vanilla, it’s delicately smoky too to the background, so quite a broad spectrum of flavors, very, very creamy. After the smoothness of the texture that you get at first, then in the acidity, the minerality that tickles your palate and it underlines the citrus notes really, really well.
00:07:49:06 – 00:08:20:12
So we have a champagne here that is super, super balanced. It’s quite complete, essentially. Not overly complex, but very complete and quite complex too, yeah, all of this variety of flavors is actually really good. And the balance, the acidity, the texture, the smoothness is really, really well, I mean, you can’t really fault Moët & Chandon, they have this extreme consistency that they’re famous for.
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And it’s a really good champagne. Let’s get into Taittinger. And I see you, I see that about 85% of you watching are not subscribed to the channel yet, which is not very nice. We want to get to 10,000 subscribers before the end of the year. Fingers crossed. So please help us achieve these goal and produce more content like this for you.
00:08:44:16 – 00:09:20:11
Now let’s see how it compares for the color, the frothiness of the bubbles. Well, they’re all a little frothy, especially, in those glasses. If I compare the color and it seems a little bit more… a bit paler, a bit shinier, a yellow, color, a little bit less orange hues to it. It seems the chardonnay to me is the dominant grape in this blend, and it has a little bit less color because, of course, the other grapes are red grapes, Pinot noir and Pinot meunier.
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So Chardonnay has a little bit less color. But let’s smell.
00:09:27:17 – 00:09:57:05
Straight away, this is, a little bit less expressive, an aromatic profile. You can smell a little bit less, the, the aromas, but they are a little bit finer. The brioche is less warm just out of the oven. This one had a brioche you know, when it’s really warm and you just open the oven and you get all that huge buttery sense of brioche, here you have a little bit of brioche where it’s delicate.
00:09:57:05 – 00:10:30:09
It’s a it’s a cold brioche scent. So a little bit less buttery, a little bit less generous. But it’s there. The citrus is also there. It’s also more limey here, so it’s more of a lime citrus than lemon, a little bit less obviously spicy as well. But this leaves room to other aromas, subtler aromas, finer aromas. I’m getting a little bit of pear, a little bit of white peach, a little bit of white flowers as well.
00:10:30:09 – 00:10:59:12
It’s quite floral. So, there’s the spices are bit more herbal as well. There’s a bit of aniseed, a bit of a bit of acacia leaves. So really, really delicate herbal spices, incense. So there’s more room because there’s less ripe and lemon, there’s less exuberance from the fruit. There’s less exuberance from the spices. There’s no smokiness that
00:10:59:12 – 00:11:32:02
I can detect also, and it leaves room for the more delicate aromas to be expressed the pear, the apple, the peach, the apricot, and those delicate flowers too. So a finer impression to the aromatic profile. It’s more balanced, more a piece. It’s more soothing, at least to smell it. But let’s taste.
00:11:32:04 – 00:12:01:19
While the palate is weightier, the body, I believe, is bigger, but also the concentration is more significant, especially the acids. I think it’s the influence of the chardonnay. You get really, really strong acidity, but because it’s got its body that is also bigger, well, the balance is respected. It’s still very well balanced, but it feels heavier, more body, also more acidity.
00:12:01:23 – 00:12:27:03
So it feels denser on your palate, more weight. And that’s a positive sign. It’s usually the sign of a better champagne flavor wise. Well, it’s very much on the lime. It’s got a very delicate hazelnut, but it is not roasted hazelnut. It’s just more fresh hazelnut just out of the tree. You get those herbal characters that linger to the finish.
00:12:27:03 – 00:12:56:13
It’s quite long as well because it’s more concentrated. So overall you get a more acidic and finer champagne, but less expressive. Is that a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Well, it depends on your sort of level of appreciation. Do you prefer more acidity, more freshness, more minerality in a champagne, or do you prefer a more straightforward, more exuberant a champagne where you’re going to be able to detect and analyze the flavors a bit more easily?
00:12:56:15 – 00:13:27:01
For me? Well, generally speaking, we as wine connoisseurs would appreciate the denser champagnes. The more mineral champagnes, the more Chardonnay driven champagnes. They’re, generally speaking, more appreciated for the high end restaurants, for the wine critique. So I’m going to go for Taittinger first. I’m going to score it a 91 out of 100 points, just on par with Veuve Clicquot, I think Veuve Clicquot and Taittinger in this case, are pretty much, on the same level with different expression.
00:13:27:01 – 00:13:47:20
Veuve Clicquot is a little bit more generous, more on the Moët & Chandon style, more expressive, but at a higher level of concentration than Moët & Chandon though, more interesting. If I were to pick between Veuve and Taittinger personally, I would go with Veuve because I like a bit more tropical fruit and a little bit less acidity. But that’s a personal taste.
00:13:47:20 – 00:14:20:04
I know a lot of people prefer more acidity, more freshness, more minerality, and if that’s what you’re after, Taittinger is the brand to go for, at least at this level, the prices are about similar of those two. So definitely for a more impressive, more refined, more concentrated champagne, definitely Taittinger is a better buy. But if you want a simpler, easier to appreciate a more drinkable, approachable champagne, my attention is always excellent.
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This video is produced by the Bonner Private Wine Club, the best wine club in America. We select, and I do help selecting as well, top quality small producer handcrafted wines from France and Italy and Spain, Argentina and beyond. We explore the whole world together and I do explain the wines to all our members, all those ones you can easily get delivered at home.
00:14:44:17 – 00:15:06:11
I’ve been part of it for five years now. Check it out via the link in the video description. And here you have it a comparison test. The taste test between champagne, Moët & Chandon and Taittinger. Let us know in the comments which one you prefer, if you’ve tasted any of those, what did you think of Moët & Chandon? Do you usually buy it?
00:15:06:13 – 00:15:32:22
Have you ever had it? What do you like about it or not? Let us know in the comments! That was it for me today. I’ll link to a few interesting champagne videos for you, including the Veuve Clicquot and Ruinart videos for you here. See you soon in the wonderful world of wine. Cheers!
