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  • Country ranking ?

    13
  • Producer ranking ?

    2
  • Decanting time

    15min
  • When to drink

    now to 2030
  • Food Pairing

    Sashimi and sushi

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Geoffroy characterised 2008 as “a miraculous vintage” due to a cool summer and a general expectation that it would be an average year when this notion was turned on its head by a sunny September.

Chaperon added that the years 2008 and 2009 marked a period of “dynamic reflection and huge debate to make Dom Pérignon as bright, as precise as it has always been but to make it richer, more fleshy.” Both he and Geoffroy compared 2008 to 1996 due ...

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The Story

 At the end of the 17th Century, Dom Pierre Pérignon stated his ambition to create ‘the best wine in the world’.  On 29 September 1694, Dom Pierre Pérignon wrote that his mission was to create “the best wine in the world.” He dedicated himself to improving viticulture techniques, perfecting the art blending grapes from different crus, and introduced the gentle and fractional pressing to obtain white wine from black grapes.Ever since, the House...

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Wine Information

“It was a miracle year,” Geoffroy began. In a decade characterised by sunny and warm summers, the grey and overcast skies of 2008 were unexpected and unwelcome. “It wasn’t proper ripening weather… so we accepted it would be an average vintage,” Geoffroy added. However, nothing in Champagne is a foregone conclusion. Indeed, as in 2000 and 2006, a miraculous September was the saviour of the vintage. As the pickers began harvesting the grapes, th...

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Vintage 2008

2008 -The Champagne vintage set to make history!

A first taste of leading winemakers’ 2008 champagnes reveals a miraculous vintage, bubbling with potential, which – whisper it – might just prove the greatest in living memory.

2008 was not, by any standards, a vintage year for the financial world. And for the greater part of it, 2008 was a pretty poor year for Champagne too: spring was freezing, summer gloomy and overcast. But then, aroun...

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Tasting note

color

Medium, Green-Yellow and Bright

ending

Medium, Round and Pure

flavors

Vanilla, Honey, Nutty, Buttery, Citrus and Dried-fruit

nose

Youthful, Pure, Fresh and Ripe

recommend

Yes

taste

Balanced, Complex, Full-bodied, Round, Harmonious and Vigor

Verdict

Transparent and Sophisticated

Written Notes

The 2008 Dom Pérignon is a Champagne born from a year of contrasts. Despite a summer dominated by grey skies, the harvest arrived under perfect conditions, with bright blue skies and refreshing north-northeasterly winds. This miraculous turnaround resulted in grapes of exceptional ripeness and balance, producing a wine of remarkable clarity and precision.

On the nose, the 2008 Dom Pérignon reveals a refined bouquet of citrus, green apple, and white flowers, accented by notes of almond, brioche, and a hint of smoky minerality. The palate is both powerful and elegant, offering vibrant acidity well balanced by a creamy texture. 

The finish is long, refreshing, and impeccably structured, with lingering notes of citrus and a touch of smokiness. The 2008 Dom Pérignon is a vintage of exceptional balance and sophistication, destined to age beautifully while delivering immense pleasure already now.

  • 98p

This champagne seems to have received endless accolades from anyone who has tasted to it, so this is simply adding to the swelling adoration.

2008 is proving itself worthy of the hype – any vintage compared with 1988, my fave vintage, will certainly get my attention and it seems a just comparison. It has turned out to be the perfect champagne to bring Richard’s glittering career to a deserved conclusion.

The wine itself is pretty much an equal split of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, wonderfully complex with precision, finesse, piercing length and knife-edge balance. Notes of honey, florals, grapefruit, gunflint, stonefruit and more. Slight hints of nuts and even sesame seeds with an oystershell-like salinity. This is a wine which will age for a very long time, though is glorious now. Dosage is just 5 grams/litre. There is an entrancing, graceful power behind it. Its subsequent incarnations, P2 and P3, should be even more deserving of reverential awe, whenever they come to the market (don’t hold your breath – it will be many years). Even the wine in its current form, should be cellared for as long as you can. For me, 98, with potential to go even higher.

  • 98p

Pale lemon yellow. Lemons, minerals, nuanced, fruit driven, some brioche nose. Fresh acidity, elegant mousse, smooth, refined and detailed, lovely balance, long. 96

 

 

  • 96p

Tightness and restraint still on a nose of great finesse, but the palate reveals already surprising sumptuousness and creaminess. Smoky, with fragrant white flowers and soft, toasty tones. The long and pure palate brings a cool breeze of attractive acidic and mineral tension

  • 95p

The best Dom since 2002. A vintage with very restrained, powerful style that has been released non-sequentially after the 2009. This has a lighter stamp of highly curated, autolytic, toasty aromas than many recent releases. Instead, this delivers super fresh and intense aromas of lemons, grapefruit and blood-orange peel. Incredible freshness here. The palate has a very smoothly delivered, berry-pastry thread with light, sweet spices, stone fruit and fine citrus fruit. This really delivers. Drink now or hold.

  • 98p

A wonderful bottle with very typical character. Champagne colour with fine perlage. Classic nose with aroma reminiscent of flintstone, fine toasting touches, Brioche, ripe yellow stone fruit, tangerine peel, hints of vanilla, ripe apricots, complex nose. On the palate excellent mousseux, fine acidity, creamy texture, repeating the flavour of the nose, excellent depth and length. A wonderful, classic bottle.

  • 98p

The 2008 Dom Pérignon is the first time the estate has released a wine out of order (the 2009 was released before the 2008) but the estate loved the wine so much they felt it warranted additional aging. This is a rich, powerful wine that still shows incredible purity and elegance, with a stacked, concentrated feel on the palate. It’s rare to find such a mix of ripe, pure, concentrated fruit paired with this level of purity, focus, and precision. This is a legendary Dom that surpasses all the great vintages of Dom I have experience with, including the 1990, 1996, and 2002.

  • 98p

Tasted in August 2019 in Helsinki, Finland. One of the 20 champagnes tasted. Beautifully scented nose, very complex, rich and long, sublime, sophisticated. Immensely impressive. The winner of the tasting in my opinion

  • 98p

The 2008 Dom Pérignon is fabulous, but quite remarkably, it was even more open when I tasted it a year ago. Bright, focused and crystalline in its precision, the 2008 is going to need a number of years before it is at its best. Lemon peel, white flowers, mint and white pepper give the 2008 its chiseled, bright profile. Several recent bottles have all been magnificent. What I admire most about the 2008 is the way it shows all the focus, translucence and energy that is such a signature of the year, and yet it is also remarkably deep and vertical. In other words, the 2008 is a Champagne that plays in three dimensions.

  • 98p

Dom Pérignon 2008 / 18.5p / This keenly-anticipated wine has deliberately been held back to be released after the Dom Pérignon 2009 and in fact will not be released commercially until towards the end of 2018 (although it already seems pretty good to me). Geoffroy reminded me that the growing season was no picnic - in fact he described all but the end of it as 'miserable' because it was so overcast and the disease pressure was so high. Fine weather at the end finally ripened the grapes though acid levels were notably high. I wondered whether, since the grapes were harvested just as the global financial crisis was beginning to bite, they reduced the quantity made of Dom P, but no. 'We made lots!', he assured me. 
Brisk, tiny mousse. Notably rich nose - very Dom P! There's a hint of something marine on the nose (Michael Broadbent's oyster shells?) and then extremely tight and lacy - it somehow reminded me of a sponge because of springy texture. Masses of energy here, as well as the usual flirtatiousness. It will continue to open out, I'm sure. I tasted it very cool and then went back to it at almost room temperature a couple of hours later and it stood up extremely well. The official Geoffroy description of this vintage is 'athletic' and 'vertical'. 'All 2008s are bright in terms of fruit; we want ours to shine white light. We have deliberately warmed it up a bit, working on the muscle to better integrate the acidity.'

  • 95p

Dom Pérignon 2008 Legacy Edition had an exclusive launch in Finland. It was such a joy to celebrate the launch with Dom Pérignon Club in Hotel Kämp! Absolutely astonishing champagne - expect it to be 100-pointer in future, now 97 points! So pure, energetic, vibrant, and concentrated. The dry mouthfeel is refined but rich with intense mousse. Long and lingering aftertaste with great precision. Thank you Aki Keskitalo and team Kämp, and Philipp and Pekka from Moet Hennessy Finland! And thank you Richard Geoffroy and Vincent Chaperon for creating such a super champagne! Long live your Legacy!

  • 97p
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Information

Origin

Reims, Champagne

Other wines from this producer

Brut Impérial

Dom Pérignon Oenothèque

Dom Pérignon Oenothèque Rosé

Dom Pérignon P2

Dom Pérignon P2 Rosé

Dom Pérignon P3

Dom Pérignon Résérve de l'Abbaye

Dom Pérignon Rosé

Dom Pérignon Rosé P3

Grand Vintage

Grand Vintage Collection

Grand vintage rosé

MCIII

MCIII 001.14

Moët Ice Impérial

Nectar Imperial

Nectar Imperial Rosé Dry

Rosé Impérial

Saran

Vinothèque

Vintage

Vintage rosé

Inside Information

The aesthetic ideal of Dom Pérignon

The sensory universe of Dom Pérignon is infinitely complex—or at least that’s how it appears to me. Attempting to map it out is a daunting task. How would I know? Because I have tried! Ever since I became Dom Pérignon’s chef de cave, I have strived to experience, explore and sense the singularity of Dom Pérignon. Each person I meet contributes to this by sharing a unique view of Dom Pérignon, which in turn nourishes my inspiration.

One such person is Alexandre Schmitt, a trained perfumer who decided to bring his expertise to the world of wine. During our first encounter, we started by focusing on the aromatic palette of Dom Pérignon. One idea leading to another, we ended up discussing extensively the concept of objectifying subjectivity—turning sensations, reflexively linked to memories and inherently personal, into perceptions that can be precisely identified and can thus gain somewhat of a universal quality.

Our brains intuitively turn sensations into mere evocations, reaching out to souvenirs, impressions and emotions. In this sense perception operates associatively: this is why various tasters can name a combination of aromas differently based on their own experiences. It therefore becomes all the more important to delimit a common ground allowing us to share our perceptions with each other. I plan to provide significant examples in two upcoming entries revolving around Dom Pérignon vintages from 2002 to 2006, and the concept of Plénitudes.

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