Dom Perignon
Brut
Champagne
2008

The producer

Technically the prestige cuvee for the mammoth house of Moet et Chandon but with an individual personality so that it is never referred to as anything except “Dom Perignon” or simply “Dom”.

The Moet vineyard holdings of nearly 1200 hectares allow ample choice for Dom and various vineyards are dedicated to its production – Pinot Noir from Ay, Ambonnay, Bouzy, Mailly and Verzenay and Chardonnay from Avize, Chouilly, Cramant and Le Mesnil, all Grand Crus - only the best fruit from these villages are used for Dom.

First produced in 1921, Dom and Cristal were the first prestige cuvees released and remain top of mind when considering fine Champagne. Dom Perignon is currently produced in three versions. The Vintage, the Rose, and the Plenitude 2 (or P2).  Before the 2000 vintage, P2 was named ‘Oenotheque’.

The wine

Dom Perignon is a vintage champagne only. Each vintage expresses both the character of the unique vintage while being true to the character of Dom Perignon.

Only the best grapes are selected. And the unique blend tends to hover around  50/50 – of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir – depending on the vintage, providing refined tension between richness and depth, and freshness and refinement. Spending a minimum of around 8 years on lees in the cellars before release, this special wine is  made only in select years where fruit is of the highest quality.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.