Centuries of historical past, custom and demanding acclaim have ensured Dom Pérignon is, as we speak, one among Champagne’s most-loved premium manufacturers. With its 2015 classic now launched, we spoke to Dom Pérignon’s Cellar Grasp, Vincent Chaperon, to seek out out extra in regards to the story and philosophies behind the long-lasting title.
Dom Pérignon is one among Champagne’s most recognised names. Its historical past spans almost 400 years; all through that point, it has been one of many main pioneers in high quality Champagne manufacturing. To today, its wines are praised as amongst the best to emerge from the area.
A legacy of mastery
Upholding such a legendary repute isn’t with out its pressures – one thing not misplaced on present Cellar Grasp, Vincent Chaperon. But, as he remembers, his childhood ready him higher than most.
“Wine has at all times been in my blood,” he says, as we start our interview at No.3 St James’s Avenue. “I grew up in Bordeaux; my father’s household has at all times been within the wine enterprise. The Chaperons have been négoce in Libourne from the fifteenth century, and my grandmother used to have an property in Pomerol, Château Nénin.” His earliest reminiscences, he reminisces, have been of working by these esteemed Proper Financial institution vineyards.
What precipitated him to uproot from Bordeaux and enterprise into the world of Champagne? “It was fairly stunning,” he muses. An opportunity alternative, to work at Moët & Chandon in 1999, set him on a trajectory that will final a lifetime. “In my head, it might solely be for 2 or three years, to find this unbelievable world of bubbles. However I stayed.”
Now, it’s been 25 years since he moved to the area – 20 of which he has spent at Dom Pérignon, and the final 5 of these in his position as Cellar Grasp. “The position isn’t straightforward to explain,” he says, when requested what a mean day seems like. “It’s very ‘full’.” Vincent oversees each stage of the wine’s cycle, from winery, to reap, to cellar. “There isn’t a sooner or later which is analogous.”
Heritage and individuality
With a heritage as lengthy and revered as Dom Pérignon’s, there comes an inevitable query: as its Cellar Grasp, how has Vincent put his personal mark on the wine?
“After all, this is a vital query, when it’s not your personal enterprise,” Vincent says. “However it’s a must to lead it as if it was your personal. It’s a problem, to seek out the proper stability between the heritage of Dom Pérignon, between the persona of the wine and your personal sensitivity – what you may, and will, deliver.” He believes that this factor of individuality, seamlessly blended with custom, is important. “You should deliver one thing, to make the wine alive, and trendy in its time.”
For this, he says, a Cellar Grasp must have a strong understanding each of the model they work with, and of their very own talent. “Dom Pérignon began over 300 years in the past, so there’s a really profound heritage – it’s a must to perceive it completely. And it’s a must to know who you might be, and what you’ll be able to add to this unbelievable, stunning trajectory.”
A practice of vintages
Producing classic Champagnes has at all times been a key function of Dom Pérignon, and is definitely a novel method within the area. As Vincent explains, Champagne growers usually favour non-vintage manufacturing – for good motive.
“That comes from the truth that the local weather could be very harsh, very inconsistent,” he explains. “It’s very tough to develop vines in such a northerly place. We undergo hail, by frost, by rain.” Nearly all of Champagne’s producers want to select one of the best grapes from every year and mix them with these from earlier vintages, making certain regular manufacturing and a constant type.
This isn’t the case at Dom Pérignon. Right here, solely grapes from every particular classic are used, and solely in one of the best years. It’s one of many key causes their wines are seen as being a few of the most premium, expressive Champagnes in the marketplace.
“It makes it a problem, an actual problem, to make Dom Pérignon yearly,” Vincent says. Nonetheless, he believes understanding that is key to understanding his wines. “Making classic Champagne is one thing traditional, like Bordeaux or Burgundy.”
The staff could solely declare three out of ten vintages, if circumstances are poor, but each one among these three could be seen as successful. “I feel that releasing a classic is at all times one thing very particular,” Vincent continues. “It’s a pleasure, to have the ability to share it with the world.”
Trying to the longer term
Given the influence of Champagne’s local weather on its wines, Vincent is agency about the truth that classic winemakers should work inside nature’s boundaries, recognising what circumstances have given them to work with every year. “Then, it’s a must to be able to orientate it in a course which is your personal,” he says. This intervention ought to work in tandem with the impacts of nature: “a double motion,” Vincent says, “which should be a seamless dynamic.”
He stays aware, although, of maintaining custom entrance and centre. We communicate briefly of the “out of the field” improvements sweeping by the Champagne world: of wines aged underwater, in gold, or in house; of latest blends; and more and more creative bottles.
“I feel that experimentation has at all times been on the core of luxurious superb wine,” he says. “Particularly for Dom Pérignon. Our founder, Dom Pierre Pérignon, the Benedictine Monk, modified the trajectory of Champagne drastically. He’s thought-about as a non secular father of Champagne as we speak. The talent he actually had was a everlasting sense of experimentation.”
Nonetheless, he’s cautious of straying too removed from the trail. “The concept is to not discover instructions which aren’t about us; our thought is basically to grasp our heritage, our custom, and to push the boundaries of what we’re doing inside the course of our exact imaginative and prescient.”
A exact classic
Dom Pérignon’s newest classic, the 2015, has simply been launched. As Vincent recounts, the classic got here with its personal challenges – which examined the staff immensely.
“2015 tells us in regards to the evolution of Champagne,” he explains; it is a classic that factors to the way forward for what we will count on from the area. “It was a really heat classic, however extra exactly, it was very sunny. Most of all, I’d say it was dry; we definitely had the longest drought now we have ever had in Champagne, in trendy instances.”
But, Dom Pérignon was ready. “We work with 900 hectares of Grand Cru and Premier Cru land,” says Vincent. “So, we may go to the plots which weren’t so affected, and choose one of the best Pinot Noir and one of the best Chardonnay.”
All these components have resulted in a really particular wine. “There may be density in 2015,” Vincent describes. “Quite a lot of focus and richness, and due to the drought, a sure assertivity, a sure authority.”
He likens it to wines from 1995, 2003 and 2005: all wines needing just a little time to “unfurl their true persona”. But, with time, he feels these are the wines that actually characterize the way forward for Champagne. “It’s a really strong, very direct, linear wine.”
The 2015 classic of Dom Pérignon is now in the stores on bbr.com.
