Taittinger

History

1. 1734

   A merchant beside the abbeys

   Jacques Fourneaux founded a wine trading house in Reims and worked with the Benedictine abbeys of Saint-Remi and Saint-Nicaise, which then had the best vineyards and chalk cellars in the area. After the First World War the Forest-Fourneaux firm moved to a townhouse on rue du Tambour, where in the 13th century Count Thibaud IV, known as the Songwriter, had lived.

2. 1870

   Flight from Lorraine

   The Taittingers, a family of wine merchants from Lorraine, moved to the outskirts of Paris after the Franco-Prussian War so as not to become German citizens. They were involved with Champagne as traders, but did not yet have a house of their own.

3. 1932

   A château from the war years

   Pierre Taittinger bought from Forest-Fourneaux the Château de la Marquetterie near Épernay, which he had come to know during the First World War, when it housed a command post. Since the 18th century the vineyards around the château have been planted with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The estate was developed by the Benedictine Brother Jean Oudart, one of the fathers of Champagne, and later belonged to the writer Jacques Cazotte, guillotined in 1792. Wine Spectator dates the purchase of the house a year earlier, to 1931.

4. 1952

   Beneath the Saint-Nicaise abbey

   François Taittinger, who ran the firm from 1945, moved it into the cellars of the former Saint-Nicaise abbey. The monastery was built in the 13th century above 4th-century chalk pits dug out by the Romans. In 1952 came Comtes de Champagne, a Champagne from Chardonnay alone, named in honour of the counts who had lived in the firm's former headquarters.

5. 1960

   The Claude era

   After François died in an accident, his brother Claude ran the house for 45 years. Production grew from 85,000 to 410,000 cases a year, and the vineyard area doubled. Claude founded a cookery competition for young chefs in 1967, a series of artist-decorated bottles in 1983, and in 1987 the Domaine Carneros winery in the Napa Valley.

6. 2006

   Sold and bought back

   In July 2005 most of the 38 heirs sold the Taittinger group, with its hotels and Baccarat crystal, to the American fund Starwood Capital. Champagne was in uproar: a fund geared to quick profit did not fit a wine that ages for years. On 31 May 2006 Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger, Claude's nephew, together with Crédit Agricole Nord Est, bought back the Champagne house for 660 million euros, with 288.84 ha of vineyards and 12-13 million bottles in the cellars.

7. 2020

   The fourth generation

   Since 1 January 2020 the house has been headed by Vitalie Taittinger, previously marketing director for 12 years, while her brother Clovis runs sales. The house has rebuilt the historic Saint-Nicaise, in June 2025 opened the Polychrome restaurant by the cellars and is modernising production in a programme running to 2030. Since 2017 it has grown vines in the county of Kent; the first bottles of the English sparkling wine Domaine Evremond went on sale in spring 2025.

People

Curiosities

1. In the novel “Casino Royale” Ian Fleming has Bond order a 1945 Taittinger. The sommelier recommends the 1943 Blanc de Blancs of the same brand, and Bond tells Vesper Lynd that it is a little-known brand, “but it is probably the finest champagne in the world”. source
2. In the film “From Russia with Love” (1963) Sean Connery chills a bottle of Taittinger in a river, and on the Orient Express he orders a Blanc de Blancs. The SPECTRE agent, who orders red Chianti with fish, later slips a sleeping draught into Tatiana's glass of Taittinger. source
3. anecdote General de Gaulle treated Nikita Khrushchev to one of the first vintages of Comtes de Champagne, the 1955. The Soviet leader is said to have remarked: “We don't have this at home”. source
4. The food critic Périco Légasse, writing in the weekly “Marianne”, called Comtes de Champagne “the Montrachet of Champagne”. source
5. From 1952 to the release of the 2008 vintage, the house released only 37 vintages of Comtes de Champagne. source
6. The cookery competition founded by Claude Taittinger in 1967 still runs today; the 59th edition was named ArsNova. source
7. The Taittinger Collection series consists of bottles dressed by artists, from Victor Vasarely to Roy Lichtenstein. The thirteenth, from 2016, was designed by the photographer Sebastião Salgado. Lichtenstein's portrait now hangs in the house's reception. source
8. anecdote Clovis Taittinger is known for saying that Champagne is the best way to say “I love you” in any language. source
9. In 2017 Taittinger became the first Champagne house to plant vines in England, at Chilham in the county of Kent. The first 100,000 bottles of Domaine Evremond came out in 2025. source