This is a fantastic and refined Blanc de Blancs. So layered and complex, with lemon curd, chalk, hazelnuts, pastries, baked apples and almond croissants. Structured and tightly wound, with almost imperceptible bubbles. Delicious salty notes at the end. Beautiful. Drink or hold.

From the Grand Crus of Avize, Chouilly, Cramant, Mesnil-sur-Oger, and Oger, the 2012 Champagne Blanc De Blancs Comtes De Champagne comes back swinging after last year's release and assumes a more noble and layered profile. Displaying a bright golden yellow hue, it has fantastic aromatic complexity, with wonderful custardy and classic aromas of lemon curd, crème brûlée, shortbread, and honeysuckle. The nose is hard to resist, and on the palate, it’s full-bodied, with a refined and pillowy mousse and a delicate warmth on the finish. It hits a lot of the right marks in this vintage, offering plenty of purity and balance, and will certainly provide a very wide drinking window for enjoyment. It’s just such a pleasurable wine, 2012 marks an exceptional return for this cuvée, which will have another 2-3 decades of life ahead. - Audrey Frick

Taittinger elegantly captures the power and generosity of the 2012 vintage in the Comte de Champagne Blanc de Blanc 2012. Rich and seductive, the nose is replete with ripe yellow apple, lemon tart, buttered warm brioche and honeycomb. Medium to full-bodied, the ample and generous palate brims with notes of lemon curd, honey and toast enlivened by a spirited acidity and mouthwatering salinity to add considerable finesse to the long finish. Delightful and refreshing throughout, the bottle tasted was disgorted in January 2023 and finished with a nine gram per liter dosage. - Sarah Mayo

The 2012 Comtes de Champagne is gorgeous. Warm and resonant in the glass, the 2012 Comtes shows all the allure that makes this vintage so appealing. The combination of bright citrus, mineral and floral notes typical of Comtes, enhanced by the soft contours of the vintage, makes for an inviting, open-knit Champagne that is quite showy right out of the gate. Light tropical accents on the finish add an exotic flair. Usually I recommend cellaring just-released Comtes, but that won't be necessary here. - By Antonio Galloni on May 2022

A gorgeous blond bombshell of a Champagne, fragrant with roasted hazelnut, vanilla and smoke notes that waft through layers of poached pear and quince, pastry cream, pain d'épices and candied ginger. This is sculpted by a vibrant acidity that's seamlessly knit to the plush, silky mousse and chalky underpinning. Drink now through 2033. — A.N.

From the very first whiff, this expresses energy, depth and complexity. Aeration reinforces this impression, while also revealing scents of orchard fruit, like apricot, but also exotic fruit, as well as hazelnut and delicate autolytic notes - pastry in particular. On the palate, it is rich and full-bodied, with satisfying sapidity on the long finish. Five to eight years of further cellaring would be ideal, and even more for aficionados of Champagne with marked bottle maturity.

(95+ points) From a high-maturity vintage shaped by a mid-September harvest and reduced yields owing to significant frost and mildew pressure, the 2012 Blanc de Blancs Comtes de Champagne—disgorged in 2022 with a dosage of nine grams per liter—is showing nicely, offering aromas of mocha, pear, peach and dried flowers mingled with notes of browned, buttered toast. Full-bodied, deep and muscular, with a sweet, enveloping core of fruit, it is an ample and textural Comtes, though without the tension of the 2013 or 2014 editions, and it will age on its concentration rather than its acidity. - Kristaps Karklins