Elite Traveler November-December 2018

“That’s why timing is everything. It can take years to understand the impact on one single move.”

time as the house’s longest-tenured chef de cave with his riskiest vintage, and that Dom Pérignon would honor his legacy by including both men’s names on the bottle — a first for the house. Both agree that it’s not an ordinary vintage, which was first indicated by the weather before harvest when a cool, cloudy and gloomy summer yielded to bright sunshine in September. Taking advantage of the conditions, Geoffroy took the unusual step of extending the harvest to four weeks, a significant increase, in order to ripen the fruit as fully as possible. Chaperon describes the process by saying “we were lucky enough to have the time and the good weather to follow the maturity of each plant, to wait for the right moment… to take advantage of the freshness, the acidity, the purity of the fruitiness, which was there naturally in this year because of this really cool, cloudy weather.” It’s a perfect example of risk and magic coming together to create something special. This weather brings to mind the 1996 vintage, which Geoffroy partially agrees with. “I suspect the 2008 is one of a kind. There’s that resemblance to ’96,

others, or if he is only treating his ego. Wine making and cuisine shouldn’t be an ego trip.” Chaperon echoes this sentiment, recalling how he learned to balance humility, patience and ambition by working with Geoffroy, whose teaching style he compares to “a Japanese guru.” It was the opportunity to work with Geoffroy that caused him to extend his time in Champagne (he had originally planned to spend just a few years at the house), despite the fact that his family and his roots are in Bordeaux. “I think the most important thing Richard had me do is really to understand that Dom Pérignon would help me achieve my dreams and mature as a man.” As he looks to the future, Chaperon says, “the more vintages we go through, the more robust the project is. We keep improving just by the simple fact of experience.” Each harvest allows them to learn a little bit more, to have more data to compare the next to, which allows them to trust their guts and take risks, which brings them to this year’s release of the 2008 vintage. It’s fitting that Geoffroy would end his

and yet the physiology and the whole profile of the year is different.” Speaking like a Monday-morning quarterback, he declares that he picked too early in 1996, which partially inspired the long harvest in 2008. “We could have gone for extra ripeness in ’96, and I think we learned our lesson because in 2008, we definitely picked it as ripe as we could by delaying and pushing, possibly more than anybody else.” And even after the long harvest, the 2008 vintage needed more time. Chaperon says “it took longer to open up. It made us switch the order of the release [with 2009].” As Geoffroy considers his (nearly) three decades spent at Dom Pérignon while enjoying the new vintage, I see satisfaction and pride radiating from him. Satisfaction that his time has brought Dom Pérignon to the top of the champagne world, and that each year taught him valuable lessons to pass on to Chaperon, who has clearly absorbed these messages. And pride, that he has emboldened his successor to do what many young winemakers wouldn’t dream of: to shake up Dom Pérignon with each vintage.

Left to right The 2008 Vintage; Richard Geoffroy and Vincent Chaperon among the vines

Photo Pascal Montary