Champagne Moet Chandon Dom Perignon Brut 2013

It’s here! Freshly swept from the delivery truck and into our chilled vortex of a warehouse is the newest vintage of the iconic Dom Pérignon! Champagne’s 2013 vintage has produced some of the most seamless, boisterously intense, and longest lived Champagnes of this century – with some experts even questioning whether we’ll ever have a year like it again! So, to score THE 2013 vintage Dom Pérignon for over 40% off and sitting pretty on a 97 point score? It is ON!

The Dom Pérignon name is a household icon – everyone’s heard of it, but not everyone gets the chance to try it. Dom Pérignon is practically the end-all, be-all of legendary Champagnes – and the 2013 absolutely shows up and lives up to the hype. It’s fallacy that Benedictine monk Dom Pierre Pérignon created the first-ever Champagne wine, however, it is true that he remains a righteous historical figure in the famous drink’s rise to eternal popularity. As the first to blend different base wines for complexity and harmony, he also initiated the use of cork tree closures on bottles, as well as optimized the method to bottle up bubbly and keep it, well, bubbly. While the first vintage of Dom Pérignon wasn’t released until 1921, 200-plus years after his death, he’s still credited as being a trailblazer in winemaking during his time.

2013 as a whole is a true testament that patience is indeed a virtue, especially when it comes to Champagne. Initially, critics wrote the year off as a middling vintage, nary worthy of a second glance, but in the years since, they’ve had to eat their words – now declaring 2013 to stand among some of the top vintages in the past 50 years. It’s highlighted as one of the latest harvests in recent history (the grapes were picked at the tail-end of September!), and the long growing season, with its extreme climatic ebbs and flows, created a sternly focused, linear, and near-perfect vintage that celebrates both the concentration and ageability of these wines, unlike most any other vintage Champagne.

Dom Pérignon cellar master Vincent Chaperon described the 2013 vintage as having intense longevity but without any obstinance or domineering acidity. Above all, he believes the hallmark will be the Champagne’s integration – or the sense that this wine will continue drinking beautifully over a good deal of time. Open it up to a titillating perfume of green apples, underripe mangoes, and honeysuckle with the after-notes of buttery, oven-fresh croissants, lemon oil, and honeyed almonds. Oozing charm and elegance, as one might expect, the palate continues the ride of ripe fruits – melons, mandarins, apricots, and a drip of smashed raspberry juice – and then teases out a lengthy finish of toasted brioche, candied ginger, and a light touch of that signature Dom Pérignon smokiness. The complexities are windingly scrumptious, though its delicate and earthy freshness will leave you ravenous for another glass. It’s clear, they’re the best of the best for good reason – at 97 points and 40% off, it’s foolish to not make this yours and try some for yourself!