Taittinger Nocturne City Lights Sec Champagne N/V
This is a sweet sparkling wine, made as a Sec, though it came across as less sweet than the last time.
Region: Champagne · Type: Sparkling · Vintage: NV · Producer: Taittinger · Grape: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier
Tasted 2025-01-17
In the glass
It is a sweet sparkling wine. Even so, it seemed less sweet than the last time, and that was also remarked on. That may have been because the red wines tasted at the same sitting were all very sweet.
Producer
The house of Taittinger began a new family history in 1932, and in 2006 Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger brought the champagne house back under family control. With its British partner Hatch Mansfield, Taittinger founded Domaine Evremond in Kent, England. It was the first time a Champagne house had invested in the United Kingdom with the ambition of producing a top quality sparkling wine.
Site
The house of Taittinger owns the second largest vineyard in Champagne: 288 hectares across 37 vineyards in the Côte des Blancs, the Marne Valley, the Montagne de Reims and the Aube. The name Domaine Evremond comes from Charles de Saint-Évremond (1613 to 1703), a 17th-century French man of letters known as the first ambassador for the wines of Champagne. He is buried in Poets' Corner, the place in Westminster Abbey in London where writers are laid to rest.
Vinification
This wine is a Sec, a Champagne sweetness level with clearly more sweetness than Brut. A blend of several harvests is aged on its lees for four years before dégorgement, the removal of the yeast lees from the bottle. The dosage, the sugar added at the end, is cane sugar, and there is twice as much of it as in Brut Réserve, the house's basic cuvée. The blend is Chardonnay 40%, Pinot Noir 35% and Pinot Meunier 25%.