2008 Dom Pérignon Brut Champagne

(Notes from Decanter panel tasting.) Michelle Cherutti-Kowal MW: Brioche, almonds and red apples on the nose and palate. Great balance with dosage and acidity. Excellent combination of fruit and bottle age. Stefan Neumann MS: Top-notch salty, mineral, iodine-like aromas. Showing a wonderful sourdough-like character with delicate roasted nuts. Depth and drive, elegance and power. Matt Walls: Deep, intense, full-bodied style of Champagne, voluminous, generous, very powerful and thunderous. Very long – this is a great wine. So harmonious. (10/2021)

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. (12/2018)

Seven champagnes were submitted for this tasting at prices significantly higher than this great wine. It's a simple outcome of supply and demand, for Dom's production is measured in millions of bottles each year. There are often several vintages on sale, none better than this vibrant, elegant, incredibly youthful 2008. *Gold, Top 100 of 2019* (6/2021)

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 master-stroke, delivering that seemingly impossible combination of production volume and quality. Using his experience of the similar 1996 vintage, Geoffroy patiently waited before picking (in fact 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! *5 Stars* (SP) (5/2020)

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. (7/2022)

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 thinking about 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. (AG) (11/2021)

I had not tasted a bottle of the 2008 vintage of Dom Pérignon since my interview with Richard Geoffroy at the abbey in Hautvillers just a few months before Monsieur Geoffroy retired. I was very happy to see it generously added by John Chapman to our lineup for the second Vega Sicilia vertical that I reported on in the previous issue, as it is a wine of the same superb quality as all those great old Únicos. As I noted in my feature on Dom Pérignon, the 2008 is an absolutely classic vintage for this wine, which means it is structured, structured, structured, and at twelve years of age, still an absolute infant! The primary bouquet offers up a promising blend of apple, lime peel, menthol, superb minerality, a touch of young DP botanicals and tons of upper register smokiness. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and rock solid at the core, with brisk acids, refined mousse, bruising backend mineral drive and a very long, very pure and seamlessly balanced finish. I scored this a touch lower than the bottle in Hautvillers, but I suspect that this is just the result of context and the wine has not lost any of its luster- it has only hidden its essence even further behind its electric girdle of acidity. This is years away from its apogee, but has utterly brilliant potential. (JG) 96+ (5/2020)

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 aging very gracefully. (WK) (8/2022)

There’s power to this graceful Champagne, with the vivid acidity swathed in a fine, creamy mousse and flavors of toasted brioche, kumquat, pastry cream, candied ginger and poached plum that dance across the palate. An underpinning of smoky mineral gains momentum on the lasting finish. *No. 5 Top 100 Wines of 2018, Collectible* (AN) (9/2018)

Really complex nose. Tight and layered. Very much a 2008 with very high acidity but much more undertow and embroidery than the Grande Dame 2008. Still very youthful. I’d be tempted to decant this, almost! 18.5++/20 points (JR) (6/2019)