2008 Champagne Dom Pérignon, Brut

The 2008 Dom Pérignon is a huge, powerful Champagne and also clearly one of the wines of the vintage. This is one of the most reticent bottles I have tasted, so much so that I am considering holding off opening any more bottles! The 2008 has always offered a striking interplay of fruit and structure. Today, the richness of the fruit is especially evident. Readers who own the 2008 should be thrilled, but patience is a must. 

Drink 2028 - 2058

The 2008 Dom Pérignon Rosé is impossibly youthful. Pinot Noir, notably from Hautvillers lieu-dit Chants de Linottes) and Aÿ Vauzelles), bring vibrant red berry and pomegranate fruit overlaid with hints of smoke and spice from the 12 years the wine spent on the lees. The wine makes a powerful impact on the palate, with its grand, wonderful mousse and lively fresh acidity balancing out the wine-like vinous texture and depth of flavour. The ’08 DP Rosé has impressive power yet never loses sight of its elegance and delicacy; it should start to open in a few years and will continue to improve for another 50 years.

Drink 2030 - 2075

Deep and generous, yet driven, with delicious salted butter and salted caramel notes underneath the initial lemon and chalk. Really expands on the palate in all directions. Lemon cream and shortcrust. Creamy yet underpinned by a sharp backbone of acidity throughout. 

Drink or hold

Tasted blind. Very fresh and lively and creamy, lovely undertow. Long and tense. Really refreshing.

Drink 2019 - 2030

Easily the best Champagne I had all year, first tasted at a château lunch. I couldn't stop thinking about it, and eventually bought a bottle for my husband's 50th. Just so much power and precision, while still having the delicacy, easy glamour and the most moreish delivery of fresh acidities and fleshy citrus. At it opens, toasted brioche, liqourice root and oyster shall curl out of the glass. Richard Geoffroy cellar master.

Drink 2021 - 2034

A wine hyped by so many me included) and tasted more than a dozen times over the last two years. Richard Geoffroy ex-chef-de-cave) has performed a masterstroke, delivering that seemingly impossible combination of production volume and quality. Using his experience of the similar 1996 vintage, Geoffroy patiently waited before picking the entire harvest took almost a month!) to ensure the wines had better balance and phenolic ripeness.

One of the best young Dom Perignons I have tasted, a perfect blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir neither grape dominating), the “struck-match”, reductive character doesn’t dominate as much as some vintage. Sublime, cool fruited on the palate, compact with hidden density and a creamy finish that goes on and on. This will be a Dom Perignon for your children, but if you’re a selfish parent like I am, there will likely be none left to inherit!

Unquestionably the finest Dom Pérignon of the decade, the 2008 Dom Pérignon is drinking brilliantly today, wafting from the glass with notes of citrus oil, ripe orchard fruit, peach, buttered toast, pastry cream, iodine and smoky reduction. Full-bodied, rich and fleshy, it's vinous and layered, with a deep core of sweet fruit, racy acids and a long, saline finish. The 2008 is ageing very gracefully.

Drink 2020 - 2040