When I was organising the in depth tasting of Blanc de Blancs champagnes, vintage and unvintaged, for the on-trade magazine Imbibe last September, I was questioned if there was an all Chardonnay Dom Pérignon cuvée to include in the mix. No I said, winemaker Richard Geoffroy would never do that, for him DP is all about blending the two pre-eminent varieties grown in Champagne’s vineyards, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Contrasting their different characteristics in a roughly 50/50 blend is what makes Dom Pérignon special, you couldn’t make a single vineyard or single varietal Dom Pérignon, he leaves that territory to Krug.
Contrary to what I said yesterday originally in this post, Dom Pérignon still isn’t making a Blanc de Blancs style. The wine I tasted this morning with head winemaker Richard Geoffroy was in fact the regular, if we can call it that, first release of the Dom Pérignon blend from 2005. And while the blend by coincidence has a relatively high 60% Chardonnay portion to 40% Pinot Noir, it is still a blend of the two, not a Blanc de Blancs.
We also tasted the the second release, newly dubbed P2, of Dom Pérignon 1998 which is now really strutting its stuff as well as two DP rosés, the new 2004 and the re-released, sublimely complex 1995 rosé, the first ‘P2 rosé’ (although there was a re-release of the 1990 DP rosé in 2010). There will be more about these wines shortly, although the new 2004 white Dom Pérignon will not be commercially available until around April. There’s also a short video with Richard talking about the two rosés that will be put up on the site in the next few days.