Represented by Amine Ghanem*

Attending:
Chicago
Los Angeles

*in Chicago

“I’m drinking the stars!” Legend has it that Dom Pierre Pérignon coined the phrase to describe his experience when he sought out to create the best wine in the world. Contrary to popular belief, Dom Pierre Pérignon did not invent Champagne, but he is without doubt the appellation’s spiritual father.

During his lifetime, Dom Pierre Pérignon carried out numerous trials and experiments that significantly raised the quality of Champagne wines—by improving soil conditions, blending different grape varieties to harmonize their characteristics, and developing a slow, gentle press to extract clear, white juice from black grapes.

In the time of Dom Pierre Pérignon, wines had historically been named or referenced in accordance with the villages they originated from, but once served at Versailles and enjoyed by Louis XIV, the “wine of Father Pérignon” became one of the most sought-after wines in France.

Today, Dom Pérignon is created by Chef de Cave, Vincent Chaperon, whose creative ambition is a perpetual quest for harmony as a source of emotion – a harmony found between the character of a given year and five aesthetic and sensory values: precision, intensity, tactility, minerality, complexity.

Dom Pérignon only creates vintage champagnes. Every creative process faces constraints, and for Dom Pérignon, it is the unyielding commitment to bear witness to the harvest of a single year, whatever the challenges, even going as far as not declaring a vintage.  

The assemblage is the foundation of the Dom Pérignon style. This assemblage always includes a blend of grape varieties and terroirs across the 17 Grand Crus and the Premier Cru from its birthplace in Hautvillers. The paradox and complementary elements of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir create vibration and tension. The assemblage is guided by timeless principles and an ambition to always create an enhanced whole with ever-more tension, rhythm, completeness, and complexity.

Time is part of the Dom Pérignon equation - time for active maturation on the lees in the darkness of the cellars, allowing each vintage to reveal itself. It takes no fewer than eight years in the cellar before Dom Pérignon expresses its first Plénitude and becomes the first Vintage release. After close to 15 years, continuing its elaboration on lees, a vintage will be elevated to a new summit of expression, Plénitude 2.

Time is further expressed in Dom Pérignon’s third dimension: Color, through the Rosé. While the Vintage matures for a minimum of eight years, the Rosé requires a minimum of 12 years in the cellars. Blended with red wine from Aÿ, Bouzy, and Hautvillers, Dom Pérignon Rosé is a bold expression—a radical exploration of freedom.