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7 notes
Plénitude is Dom Pérignon's theory that Champagne peaks more than once. The same 2008, held fifteen more years on the lees and disgorged in 2024 — the cool vintage's blade of acidity intact, only the edges quietly smoothed.
The rosé is the bottle Dom Pérignon skips in years it does not like, and takes more than a decade to release in the years it does. The 1998 arrived in the shadow of 1996 — and quietly kept the better balance.
The ripest, most flamboyant Dom Pérignon of its era — a year so warm that the house later admitted it had picked the Chardonnay too ripe. Nineteen years from the harvest, opened before two Californian Chenin Blancs, which is not the usual company.
1993 was a rained-on harvest that most Champagne houses quietly skipped. Dom Pérignon made a rosé from it anyway — and at twenty-seven years, on a friend's dining table, it opened a six-bottle evening.
For the first time in the house's history, Dom Pérignon released a vintage out of order — 2009 ahead of 2008. The reason was not that 2009 was better. It was that 2009 was ready.
The same wine as the 2000 vintage bottling, held back and left on its lees for sixteen years instead of eight. The theory is that Champagne matures in steps rather than along a curve.
The Œnothèque programme launched in 2000 with two vintages, and 1985 was one of them. The designation has since been retired in favour of P2 and P3 — which makes the word on this label a small piece of Champagne's recent administrative history.