Wine Advisor
Dom Perignon, P2 Plenitude Brut Rose 1996
View analysis
Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: William Kelley
Wafting from the glass with notes of pear, citrus oil, wheat toast, iodine, smoke and dried white flowers, the 1996 Dom Pérignon P2 is medium to full-bodied, layered and incisive, with a chalky, tight-knit core, excellent concentration and racy acids, concluding with a long, sapid finish. The 1996 is still quite reserved, but in all its various incarnations—from the original release, the Oenothèque and the P2—it has been consistently superb. Readers with bottles in their cellars need be in no hurry to pop corks, as the wine still has a long future ahead of it.
About the Producer
Dom Pérignon has always stuck to its founder's vision: always excellent yet always improving. Each vintage is made through delicate assemblage and adjustment, resulting in the mysterious blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes. It isn’t specifically what Dom Perignon created in his forty seven years as the cellar master at the Abbey of Hautvillers, it is the innovations and enhancements that he discovered. At this time in history, sparkling was thought of as faulty wine and was quite dangerous as refermenting in bottle caused explosions. Dom Perignon resolved to sparkling wine tastier and safer. He pioneered the mixing of base wines from specific vineyards to enhance the style. So he hand-picked the fruit to ferment by blind tasting the grapes to assess them strictly on their flavour and the way they might style once blended with alternative grapes he had access too. This was a serious departure from the quality wine creating techniques of the day. He additionally pioneered the pressing of red grapes and straightaway fermenting the juice to create white wines from red grapes. With regards to safety, he introduced the utilization of thicker glass bottles able to withstand the pressures of sparkling wines and used Spanish corks rather than wood to seal the bottles. These corks were traditionally tied to the bottlenecks with Hemp string, a forerunner of today's wire metal cages. Many celebrities enjoy success with Dom Pérignon. In 1995, rapper Little Shawn, protégé of Diddy at that time, dedicated a whole song to the champagne brand. The music video also featured a cameo appearance of late rap star Notorious B.I.G. drinking Dom Pérignon. To put it short: A bottle of 'Dom P' stands for success!
