Simon Field MW reviews 2008 Dom Pérignon Plénitude 2.
Montesquieu and Montaigne both lived in Bordeaux. Montesquieu owned a modest vineyard, and Montaigne wrote an essay “On Drunkenness.” Both were interested in wine, clearly, but only to embellish the finer points of stoical and political philosophy. Winemakers make wine, and philosophers philosophize; coincidence of the two worlds should be by way of felicitous celebration of the former or cerebral assessment from the latter.
In the rarified world of Dom Pérignon, however, wine and something approaching philosophy are inextricably linked. The wine itself is magnificent—all the more so this outstanding Plénitude 2 from 2008—but one has to battle through a linguistic quagmire to get a sense of its unparalleled quality, learning en route that its creation has been “an eternal journey, which unfolds like a spiral,” thereby engendering “emotion through harmony” and exuding “an essential radiant vitality.” The wine is described as it “unfurls like a Kanagawa wave, scintillating, radiating […]. Uplifting.” Chef de cave Vincent Chaperon is a master of this genre of glossy hyperbole.
He is also an outstanding winemaker, who has, if anything, raised the stakes since succeeding Richard Geoffroy in 2018. The pair had by then already worked together for more than a decade, however, so Chaperon was present at the gestation of this, one of the most celebrated Doms in recent history. The P2 is essentially a late-disgorged version of the original, its additional seven years on lees monitored by reference to lunar cycles and the rotation of the planet. Given the superb quality of the vintage, it is also likely that a final parcel will be released seven or so years hence, to be named P3 and to command even more reverence. Chaperon explains the quality and potential longevity in terms of the two halves to the growing season in 2008: the first, which ran into August, cool, damp and gray; the second, later, warmer, brighter, and with lifted atmospheric pressure. The unusual juxtaposition of the mediocre and the superb, meteorologically speaking, has somehow forged a wine of unparalleled brilliance, with creative tension and cerebral complexity both writ large. Chaperon maintains that the long aging under cork has permitted the most modest oxidation, which in turn has concentrated the phenolic texture of the wine, thereby broadening its enzymatic potential and enriching its structure. Through it all, the seam of acidity, courtesy of the long, cool ante-season, persists and upholds a structure that does not stint on either the horizontal or the vertical elements—very complete, that is. The wine is an equal blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, both superb in 2008, it seems, its fruit sourced from a core of 300ha (750 acres), all of which are owned by LVMH and allocated to Dom Pérignon. That is as close to specific terroir as we are likely to get.
Related
Plénitude 2: Taste the test
Chaperon invites us to an exhibition (named “Creation Is an Eternal Journey”) in London’s Tate Modern that draws us along a spiral-shaped pathway and, we are advised, celebrates the three ages of Dom Pérignon. First, the “past,” through association with historical cultural icons such as Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol, and Jeff Koons; then the “present,” through a partnership with seven modern icons (Zoë Kravitz, Iggy Pop, and Tilda Swinton among them), who are celebrated through design, photography, and film; and finally, the “future,” which graphically illustrates the progress of the pre-assemblage 2024 vintage. Are time present and time past both present in time future? It’s hard to say. This is an eclectic, multicultural immersion, in other words, at the end of which we are met with the prospect of four new releases: In addition to the 2008 P2, we are soon to encounter the 2017 and 2018 Dom Pérignon, neatly marking the handover between Geoffroy and Chaperon, and finally the 2010 Rosé, made in very small quantities.
Chaperon calls assemblage the “foundation and fountainhead” of the Dom Pérignon style. Behind the rhetoric and fanfare, there is nothing especially radical or original about the Dom Pérignon philosophy. If the sound and fury add to the sense of luxury and occasion, as they surely do, they do little to enhance the most important experience of all, which, thankfully, is both restorative and reaffirming. Worthy of inclusion in Montaigne’s most famous essay, “De l’Experience,” because the tasting experience is the only true test of qualitative merit.
Tasting
2008 Dom Pérignon Plénitude 2
Content from our partners
Rich burnished gold, lustrous, chatoyant, playful; plentiful bubbles. A spiraling vortex of potential, if you prefer. The aromatics are generous, then fabulous: Red berries, verbena, and sour honey defer to buttered toast, flint, and a hint of iodine; beeswax and truffle only a year or two away. For now, it is all about tension, yellow-fruit stones coated in spice and sourdough, a firm and vigilant strand of acidity upholding the line, statuesque and yet pliant, restrained and yet texturally broad. Fulsome and generous on the finish, which has only just started… | 97–98
