The label's cellar master reveals the nuances in making a great bottle of Champagne, as well as how extreme weather can ruin a vintage.

Tak, tak, tak. Smmmmmackkkkkk.
Vincent Chaperon, <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/lady-gaga-dom-perignon-champagne-collaboration">Dom </a><a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/lady-gaga-dom-perignon-champagne-collaboration">P&eacute;rignon&rsquo;</a><a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/pop-culture/lady-gaga-dom-perignon-champagne-collaboration">s</a> Chef de Cave, is in <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/barcelona-fashion-trend-summer-looks">Barcelona</a>, tasting and detailing the nuances of Dom P&eacute;rignon Vintage 2015. As he thoughtfully swishes the liquid elixir on his tongue and decodes its complexities, one would be forgiven for thinking they were backstage at a runway show, listening to a creative director of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/lvmh-prize-2024-winner-finalists-designers">LVMH's</a> esteemed conglomerate [LVMH owns Moet &amp; Chandon] detail the inspiration behind their latest fashion collection.&nbsp;
The root of both fashion and wine practices are in French savoir-faire. For Chaperon, champagne-making transcends mere methodology: it is an art. &ldquo;<a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/travel-living/how-to-shop-for-natural-wine">Wine</a> is about nature; wine is about craftsmanship. But wine can be art, as art is the embodiment of an aesthetic vision and an emotion.&rdquo;&nbsp;
If art was absent from Chaperon's youth, nature filled the void. &ldquo;I have a lot of agronomists in my family, a lot of people [in my family] were doing things with nature.&rdquo; Though his father was a forester, Chaperon's most profound influences came from his grandparents. His grandmother owned a vineyard in Bordeaux, and her family had been making and selling wine since the 15th century. &ldquo;So really, wine is in my DNA,&rdquo; he admits.

Portrait of Vincent Chaperon in the Dom Pérignon vineyards; All images courtesy of Dom Pérignon

&nbsp;&ldquo;Wine can be art, as art is the embodiment of an aesthetic vision and an emotion.&rdquo;

So, does Chaperon consider himself a creative, akin to those who helm <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion-week/dior-spring-summer-2025-show-paris-fashion-week">Dior</a> and <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/a-comprehensive-history-of-maison-louis-vuitton">Louis Vuitton</a>? &ldquo;No, I am not from an artistic family, not at all,&rdquo; he says with a laugh. &ldquo;I was not exposed to craft, art, or painting. A little bit of music,&rdquo; he allows. Instead, poetry and the classics shaped his youth, which may very well explain why his musings on wine have a certain romantic flair.&nbsp;
Chaperon&rsquo;s journey took him from Bordeaux&rsquo;s storied terroirs to Montpellier&rsquo;s prestigious oenology program, and then on to a stint abroad in Chile. Upon his return to <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/travel-living/french-interior-designers-to-follow-on-instagram">France</a>, Chaperon traded the warmth of Bordeaux for the austere elegance of France's coolest wine region: Champagne. He joined Mo&euml;t &amp; Chandon in 1999, and in 2005, moved over to Dom P&eacute;rignon under the tutelage of the maison&rsquo;s former Cellar Master, Richard Geoffroy, a Champagne-world legend. After an intense thirteen-year apprenticeship and declaring four vintages together, it was time for Geoffroy to pass the baton. In 2019, Chaperon was named Chef de Cave at Dom P&eacute;rignon.
As the newest custodian of the maison&rsquo;s legacy, Chaperon fully understands the necessary balance &ldquo;between mastery and risk&rdquo; when creating a champagne vintage. &ldquo;It's important to be able to select, to be able to get rid of the noise of your flavor. Mastery is necessary to understand, to pilot, to decide.&rdquo;

A gallery at the Trace Dom Pérignon Révélations 2024 Exhibition

The declaration of a Champagne vintage is no small affair. It requires an alignment of nearly perfect conditions; if the fruit harvested in a certain year does not meet the maison&rsquo;s criteria, a vintage for that year will not be declared. Far more than a mere date on a label, a vintage represents nature's finest hour, captured in liquid form. Every bubble carries the signature of that season's sunshine, rainfall, and human toil in the vineyard. When such a year presents itself, the maison must follow strict protocols: every grape must be harvested from that singular season, and the wine must slumber in bottles for &ldquo;six, seven, maybe 10 years,&rdquo; according to Chaperon. This rarity and exclusivity transforms each vintage bottle into a testament to a specific moment in time when nature's benevolence met human ambition. To paraphrase the words of those who craft these liquid masterpieces: A vintage champagne is not made, it reveals itself.
On more than one occasion, however, nature has not been so generous. Extreme weather and global warming have exacerbated the challenge of winemaking&mdash;and so has the physical activity of picking grapes in the European heat of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/beauty/beauty-launches-august-2024">August,</a> rather than in <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/beauty/september-2024-beauty-launches">September</a>&nbsp;or <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/beauty/best-beauty-picks-for-october-2024-skincare-haircare-makeup">October</a>. After exhaustive trials and the evaluation of hundreds of wines, Chaperon&rsquo;s intuition was confirmed: He could not declare a 2023 vintage.&nbsp;
Though the vintage as a whole fell short of Dom P&eacute;rignon's exacting standards, individual Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs had captured Chaperon&rsquo;s attention, so much so that he decided he needed to leave a &ldquo;trace&rdquo; of his efforts. So, during the height of summer in Barcelona, Chaperon opened the doors to a special exhibition, a first of its kind, dubbed Trace: Pr&eacute;-Assemblages 2023. The exhibit and limited-release book (only several hundred copies were published) documents a year at the Dom P&eacute;rignon vineyards&mdash;and captures the fragments of the vintage that never was to be. From snapshots of wall carvings in a 1673 wine cellar, to super-sized photos of discarded grape skins and seeds during the racking process, to a study of companion plants, Trace is a photographic diary of the art of winemaking.

Guests at a Dom Pérignon Révélations 2024 solo tasting

Though there was no new <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/watches/vintage-womens-watch-shopping-maintenance-guide">vintage</a> to celebrate, Chaperon does have another wine to be proud of: Dom P&eacute;rignon Vintage 2006 P2. At Dom P&eacute;rignon, P stands for Pl&eacute;nitude, a scale of measurement that has three levels. The Pl&eacute;nitudes of Dom P&eacute;rignon represent one of wine's most fascinating expressions of time and evolution. &ldquo;It was a way to share the behavior of our wine, the complexity of the action of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/tag-heuer-carrera-extreme-sport">time</a> on our wines,&rdquo; Chaperon explains. In this unique system, a single vintage is released in stages, or &lsquo;windows of opportunity,&rsquo; each revealing a different facet of the wine&rsquo;s maturation.&nbsp;
P1, the first Pl&eacute;nitude, emerges after approximately eight years of aging. This initial release showcases the vintage in its first full expression of harmony and complexity. P2 arrives around 16 to 20 years after harvest. Here, it reaches a new summit of energy, precision, and intensity. P3, appearing after roughly 30 to 40 years, represents the final metamorphosis in which the wine achieves its ultimate expression. This multi-tiered concept challenges traditional notions of peak drinking windows, suggesting instead that a great vintage moves through multiple peaks of expression. &ldquo;Time is in the equation of all very deep and complex luxury products,&rdquo; Chaperon muses, in his particular poetic manner. &ldquo;We are human beings, living in the present and reflecting on the past, projecting into the future.&rdquo;
The irony of meeting Chaperon for the first time at a Dom P&eacute;rignon celebration for a 2023 champagne vintage that did not exist was not lost on this observer. Yet, the traces the winemaking process left behind tells just as compelling a story. It&rsquo;s a story of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/what-is-frenchness-fashion-art-culture-history">French savoir-faire</a>, patience, and creative ambition. A story of shepherding Dom P&eacute;rignon, and the art of champagne, into the future.

A gallery at the Dom Pérignon Révélations 2024 Exhibition

A Champagne pour at the Dom Pérignon Révélations 2024 dinner, photo by Harold de Puym

The 'Mastery and Risk' in Making Vintage Champagne, According to Dom Pérignon

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