Dom Pérignon - rethinking simplicity.
Tasting the last three releases side-by-side with Chef de Cave Vincent Chaperon.
"Dom Pérignon is about the tension between simplicity and complexity. We want Dom Pérignon to be approachable, but reaching this simplicity needs a lot of architecture to succeed”
Vincent Chaperon, Chef de Cave, Dom Pérignon
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Dom Pérignon - 2013, 2012, 2010
I was quite taken by Vincent Chaperon’s use of the term ‘simplicity’ at the London launch of Dom Pérignon 2013. Most of the time we think about complexity as the sign of a good wine, and simplicity the sign of a basic one. Simplicity, in this sense, though, is unity of form. It’s sculpture. It’s the alien spacecraft touching down in 2016’s Arrival, a strangely-perfect, smooth and simple ovoid form that we know is anything but simple on the inside:
In Science Fiction, the simpler the form of the spacecraft, the more advanced the civilisation. Borg cubes anyone?
Few wines embody Champagne’s dual personality as much as Dom Pérignon. Lady Gaga has been doing a spot of work for them. There are glow-in-the-dark editions, sparkly label editions…and quite a lot of bottles. Attitudes toward it seem to fall into the following pattern: if you’re deep into wine, you know it’s something serious. If you’re just a little bit into wine, you might be suspicious of the brand-shininess. And if you’re not into wine at all….you know it’s something serious.
Serious it certainly is.
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