Michael Edwards reviews the newly released Dom Pérignon P2 Rosé 1996 along with its older sisters, the 1995 & 1993...
Dom Pérignon’s chef de cave Richard Geoffroy was eloquently realistic about Champagne’s place in the world, talking before the launch of the Dom Pérignon P2 Rosé 1996.
‘There’s one world of fizz,’ he said directly, ‘Champagne is not alone, there are many good sparkling wines in both hemispheres. We cannot take anything for granted.’
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Dom Pérignon P2 Rosé reviews:
Certainly, from Tasmania to Trento and Mendocino County to Mesnil- sur- Oger, we live in a golden age of sparkling wine as much as we do of fine still wines.
‘The Champenois, need to raise their game to protect their status and the grandeur of their wines. But it is the grandeur of constraints, of different challenges of one vintage to another.’
Dom Pérignon in its famous non-oxidative style ages slowly over many years Each vintage undergoes three peaks of maturity or plénitudes. In the years between these peaks, when the bottles are resting on their lees, the wine is undergoing a transformation and metamorphosis.
The three vintages shown had their own unique challenges:
1996
A year like no other in a difficult test of maturity and very high acidity.
1995
Superb, bountiful fruit and vinosity
1993
A Cinderella, whose beauty was forgotten in the recession of its time, now in full bloom.
‘DP is the Ying and Yang of Pinot and Chardonnay, with 17- 20 percent red wine added in the Rosé,’ Geoffroy rounds up. ‘We are making a statement about Pinot Noir. We are really going for it.’
