Producer | Moet & Chandon |
Country | France |
Region | Champagne |
Varietal | Chardonnay, Pinot Noir |
Vintage | 2010 |
Sku | 38268 |
Size | 1.5L |
Mineral and stone and steel. Dried flowers. Lots of dried fruits such as peaches. Apricot. So much intense fruit character. Wild flavors and complexity. A real pastry shop in the glass here. Full but not heavy. Wonderful flavors. Exotic. Drink now or hold.
The 2010 Dom Pérignon is hard to get a read on today. I have tasted it four times over the last few months, and my feeling is that it is still not totally put together. Apricot, pastry, chamomile, mint and light tropical notes are all signatures of a hot vintage with a very fast final phase of ripening that trails only 2002 and 2003 in terms of sugars. Of course, the year had plenty of challenges. The first part of the year was marked by cold and very dry weather during the winter and spring. June saw heat and some stress in the vines. July and August were quite warm, with heavy rains on August 15 and 16 that caused a widespread outbreak of botrytis that accelerated rapidly in the days leading up to harvest. Chef de Caves Vincent Chaperon explained that Chardonnay was favored over Pinot because better aeration within the clusters helped fend off rot, while parcels that had been less stressed by the June heat also suffered less from the effects of botrytis. Perhaps because of the unevenness in the season, there is also something disjointed about the 2010. While sugars were high, so were acidities, just behind 2008 in the decade of the 2000s. It will be interesting to see where the 2010 goes over time. It is the first vintage made under the direction of Vincent Chaperon, who worked alongside outgoing Chef de Caves Richard Geoffroy for many years. (Originally published in August 2020)
A charming, demonstrative vintage for this cuvée, the 2010 Dom Pérignon bursts with notes of mandarin, golden orchard fruit, toasted bread, almonds and petrol. Medium to full-bodied, rabid and ample, with a fleshy core of fruit and an open-knit, giving style, it has taken on a bit of texture since I last tasted it, but it remains fundamentally forward and immediate. William Kelley
A vintage Vincent Chaperon is convinced has been misguidedly overlooked. 54% Chardonnay, 46% Pinot Noir. Dosage 5g/l. This bottle was disgorged February 2019. For the background see this article.
Amazingly, obviously, Dom P on the nose – the powerful lemon-mousse nose came soaring out of the glass long before my nose got anywhere near it. Massive intensity of complex aroma hints that this might be a little blowsy on the palate but not a bit of it. It's really tense and tight and has a certain fumy smokiness to the very concentrated palate. But its most marked feature is the persistence of the finish. This, along with the concentration, makes me confident we will be seeing this in a P2 version, even though 15% of the potential Pinot Noir was left on the ground. Definitely not a weak vintage of Dom P.
Quantity: |