Archive for August, 2010

This is the tale of two bottles of Dom Pérignon, from the exceptionally warm and dry vintage of 1976; born on the same day in the spring of 1977; and having spent the first seven years of their existence together in our cellars.

The first bottle was part of the original release of Vintage 1976 Dom Pérignon, disgorged in 1984. This bottle traveled from France to Sarajevo (Yugoslavia at the time) to start a new life, resting in the cellars of a famous restaurant. It managed to survive through the Bosnian war that tore the country apart… until a winemaker friend (who happens to be the only flying winemaker in Champagne!) recently acquired it on the premises–Sarajevo now being in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He brought it back home to Hautvillers, making it a really well-traveled bottle of wine!

The second bottle never left its birthplace, for a more peaceful life: instead of being disgorged after seven years, the wine kept maturing slowly and actively on the lees (of the yeast which made it sparkling in this very bottle), in the deep and cool wine library of Dom Pérignon. This extended period of undergoing a subtle and mysterious process of yeast maturation–we call it autolysis–gradually refined the aroma profile and the mouthfeel of the wine, all the while minimizing the action of oxidation (and thereby improving ageworthiness). I selected this bottle from our library for a one-off Œnothèque re-release five years ago: 1976 Dom Pérignon Œnothèque was hand disgorged (à la volée) in 2004. Dosage was really minimalist, actually the lowest ever in the history of Dom Pérignon.

Both bottles were eventually reunited (after so many years!) in the Abbaye of Hautvillers and we were fortunate enough to taste them next to each other. The original release Vintage had aged beautifully, showcasing powerful and opulent tertiary aromas, as could be expected from a 34-year-old wine. The more recently disgorged bottle stood out by its baffling freshness, intensity and complexity, putting the vintage under a new light. Both wines–the exact same blend from the same vintage–were outstanding in their own right. We could literally taste two different expressions of Dom Pérignon side by side; in my personal view the 1976 Œnothèque being truer to the spirit of Dom Pérignon with its magnified and incomparable precision, vibrancy and mouthfeel.

Two great wines, so close and so different, unmistakably Dom Pérignon.

The choice of wine glass is a rather hot topic for wine lovers, and understandably so. In a previous blog entry, I mentioned that I had selected the Riedel Vinum XL glass for our 1990 Dom Pérignon Rosé Oenothèque, which lead to even more questions about which glass to use with each specific Dom Pérignon wine. Truth be told, and although it might come as a surprise, I wish I could ultimately use only one glass for Dom Pérignon, regardless of vintage or assemblage. Creating this glass would be the one challenge reflecting my ideal of simplicity and purity.

For the time being, though, I tend to use any glass which is ample enough to allow the wine to express itself, improving the mouthfeel, but not that large a glass that it would be detrimental to the whole experience by stretching the substance of the wine too thin. Such a glass will also provide enough space for the wine to breathe and develop, which is typically critical for all Dom Pérignon wines. I definitely prefer this approach to decanting. To be quite honest, I do not expect from a wine glass to magnify the sensation of how a wine tastes or feels–I am quite happy if a wine glass can instead simply do justice to the wine, participating with other factors (such as temperature) to as perfect an experience as possible.