Welcome back to the Gentleman's Gazette in our series is it worth it today we discuss
Dom Perignon champagne and see whether it's worth your money
so first of all what is champagne?
in the US it's a term that it's broadly used for any kind of sparkling wine however champagne
technically is only sparkling wine that is grown in a specific region in France in this
video, we talk about champagne from the designated Champagne region in
France, not the other stuff today the Dom Perignon champagne is quite well known similarly
to maybe the Veuve Clicquot however while a Veuve Clicquot costs
between forty and fifty dollars don't Dom Perignon usually sells for around 150 over
the years Dom Perignon has become synonymous with a great champagne for
wine lovers and in this video we discuss whether it's worth to invest 150 dollars for the simple
vintage version or even 360 dollars for the vintage Rose in
order to evaluate whether it's worth it let's look a bit at the history of the house Dom
Perignon was a French Benedictine monk who lived in the 17th century and word is on the
street that he invented champagne it turned out it's
a myth but humans are suckers for good stories that's why you still sometimes can hear that
he invented champagne over the years fame was stuck on the brand name
and in 1936 Moet Chandon acquired the Dom Perignon brand to release it as the first
premium champagne ever since it has enjoyed somewhat of a celebrity status for example
at the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana Magnum bottles of Dom Perignon 1961 were served
a Magnum bottle is simply one of that is one
and a half litres and twice the size of a regular bottle of champagne which is just
750 milliliters while most bottles at the store only come in 750 milliliters champagne
bottles actually come in all kinds of different sizes the biggest
ones are the sovereign which consists of 35 bottles or twenty-five and a quarter liter
the largest champagne bottle out there consists of 40 regular bottles or
30 liters it's called Melchizedek if you want those bottles as you can imagine they are
very very expensive so what makes Don Perignon special and stand out from other champagnes
first of all a Dom Perignon is always a millesime which is the French word for vintage and it
means that the champagne was made from the single crop of one year and only that one
of a good year for example Dom Perignon we have here is a vintage 2009
which consists of the crop of 2009 I think they didn't have one in 2010 11 12 13 and
even 14 and only 15 and 16 are new vintages but they're still being aged
and not available for purchase quite yet because of that every Dom Perignon vintage tastes
different other champagnes that don't have a vintage year are always made so they taste
the same similarly which tastes the same no matter
if you're in India Brazil or the US the parent company or Maison which means house or champagne
house in French was founded in 1743 as moet and cie 90 years later PR Gabriele
Chandon joined Moet to form Moet and Chandon this brand is still around today and it's
a number one Maison sells the most bottles of champagne in the
world in 1971 Moet and Chandon merged with Hennessy which was a producer of cognac in
1987 Louis Vuitton took them over and build the largest luxury group in the
world they're still around today and better known as LVMH or LVM which means Louis Vuitton
Moet Hennessy if you look at playing numbers Moet and Chandon releases
about 26 million bottles a year 10 million in Dom Perignon just 5 as you can see because
Dom Perignon is rarer it's also more expensive however does this factor of rareness warn
the price about 3 times as much so here are differences between a regular champagne from
France and a premium French Champagne for example a Moet and Chandon Brut Imperial non-vintage
is produced from over a hundred different wines from over 200 different crus which are
the villages where the grapes are grown every
Maison tries to maintain a specific character of champagne in their non vintage series every
year and they achieved that by blending different wines to always get that same taste profile
that is very recognizable because most afficionados will always return to the same brand whose
flavor profile they've grown very fond of in general in a Brut Imperial you'll find
flavors of citrus apple honey maybe brioche and other flavors it's considered to be a
light delicate wine I think it's a good but not necessarily a remarkable champagne that
being said every person has different taste buds and because of that things taste
differently just because you see a rating somewhere that says Oh 99 points doesn't mean
you'll actually like it so with champagne it really pays to follow your own palate your
own tongue and simply go with what you would like yes
it is true more expensive wines usually have more interesting flavors there are stronger
flavor profiles and it will linger longer in your mouth that being said if you don't
like the flavor in the first place it doesn't matter so with a
millesime or vintage champagne from Dom Perignon all those things change it really depends
on how much Sun how much rain how much dryness there was in a specific
year but it's good to keep in mind that you only get a good champagne or maybe an outstanding
champagne most critics agree that the recent best Dom Perignon
champagne was the vintage 2002 which is harder to find and more expensive than let's say
the vintage 2009 the selection of the grapes in the Dom Perignon champagne
is more rigorous and the Pickers wait until the grapes have a better ripeness because
of that the chef de cavee or the cellar master may add different flavor profiles
maybe a little more pH or acidity rather than sugars or sweetness
however the differences doesn't end with what goes into the bottle Moet and Chandon is aged
for three years while Dom Perignon is aged for seven
years because of that the Dom Perignon has a proportionally bigger
depth of aromas so objectively those are the big differences between a regular champagne
the Dom Perignon champagne and is it worth the difference in price
I believe that's impossible to objectively judge the merits of wine there's always a
strong element of subjectivity because our palates are all so different while it will
surely be a different experience I am willing to bet that most
people won't be able to pick out a Dom Perignon in a
blind testing and chances are that people with a regular palate that are not used to
champagne actually prefer the non vintage champagnes because they're
usually a little more zesty crisper so is DOm Perignon worth it I would say yes if you're
willing to enter the world of fine wine and champagne and you want something special
maybe to celebrate achievement in your life or that of someone else I believe Dom Perignon
is not worth it if you just want to impress someone with the bottle
and the money you can spend on champagne or if you haven't gotten used to less expensive
versions of champagne because that way you're probably not going
to enjoy it to the same level as you would as you have a more developed palate take some
time to really taste all the nuances and if you drink the Dom Perignon early on without
having any base benchmarks it's probably not going to be as an exciting of an experience
so in general is champagne worth it compared to let's say a Prosecco or a cremant which
is a different sparkling wine or a different area in France personally I believe yes because
it has a unique flavor profile that you don't quite get from others now if you find a little
vineyard in maybe Germany and you think there are superior to champagnes by all means go
for it and enjoy it you're now ready to taste some champagne please check out this video
where I show you how to chill pour drink and enjoy champagne the proper way in
today's video wearing an outfit that I would typically wear for a party in my home around
Christmas maybe Christmas Eve or New Year's because this of a burgundy velvet dinner jacket
that I had custom-made it's double-breasted with a shawl collar four buttons but it
only buttons on the bottom level that shows more of my chest opted for a reflective mother-of-pearl
buttons because it's nice in the evening and I added cuffs to the jacket sleeves for my
shirt I chose a regular dress shirt because overall it's a more casual black-tie
outfit I could have also worn a proper black tie shirt with shirt studs of course I'm still
wearing French cuffs with cufflinks in this case from Fort Belvedere
with malachite green stones because it's very much in line with
christmas-themed you can find these cufflinks in our shop here in the same vein I combined
it with a silver and malachite pinky ring because it picks up the green and red tones
in the outfit my bowtie is likewise velver but
it's special because it's a single and Velvet self tie bow tie and you can find it in our
shop here as you can see it stands up by itself and it's just slightly
more elegant than a regular velvet bow tie which you can also find
in our shop in my chest pocket wearing a white linen pocket square which you can also find
in our shop just like the Fort Belvedere boutonniere here which is
white and small and works with a width of lapel my slacks are black tuxedo pants with
a sight Gallon in silk satin pairing them with over the calf charcoal and
gray socks for more relaxed look than let's say a black silk sock no matter what you choose
you can find all of them in our shop here because I'm at home I am wearing green velvet
slippers that again go with the green of my cufflinks
and the burgundy tone of my dinner jacket I know that my dinner
jacket doesn't have any vents which is a style typical for evening wear because it's more
elegant