Departing chef de cave Richard Geoffroy quite rightly calls 2008 ‘the miracle year'. Perfect ripening allowed the longest ever harvest, with four weeks available to select when, where and what to pick. The result is a magnificently complex and deceptively approachable DP, with wonderful aromatics from the off. On the palate it's very young, with classically sweet and bright citrus and oyster shell notes together with honey and nougat. This is very lithe, supple and long, with fabulous acidity and éclat. Until a couple of years ago the '08 was quite tight, but recently it has really opened up, according to Geoffroy. This can be enjoyed now but will also age effortlessly for many years yet. (Drink between 2018-2040)

The best Dom since 2002. A vintage with very restrained, powerful style that has been released non-sequentially after the 2009. This has a lighter stamp of highly curated, autolytic, toasty aromas than many recent releases. Instead, this delivers super fresh and intense aromas of lemons, grapefruit and blood-orange peel. Incredible freshness here. The palate has a very smoothly delivered, berry-pastry thread with light, sweet spices, stone fruit and fine citrus fruit. This really delivers. Drink now or hold.

The 2008 Dom Pérignon is the first time the estate has released a wine out of order (the 2009 was released before the 2008) but the estate loved the wine so much they felt it warranted additional aging. This is a rich, powerful wine that still shows incredible purity and elegance, with a stacked, concentrated feel on the palate. It’s rare to find such a mix of ripe, pure, concentrated fruit paired with this level of purity, focus, and precision. This is a legendary Dom that surpasses all the great vintages of Dom I have experience with, including the 1990, 1996, and 2002.

I had not crossed paths with a bottle of the 2008 vintage of Dom Pérignon since my visit with Richard Geoffroy last spring at the Abbé de Hautvillers and was very happy to see a bottle pop up at a recent Right Bank Bordeaux tasting to get us out of the blocks in proper style. This is one of the very best young vintages of Dom Pérignon that I have had the pleasure to taste and this is a legend in the making. While the wine is properly tight on the palate today, as most top vintages of this cuvée are for the first couple of decades out from the vintage, there is a sense of creaminess in the mid-palate that augurs very, very well for its future development. The youthful bouquet offers up scents of lemon, quince, a touch of menthol, beautifully complex, salty minerality, lime peel, incipient smokiness and a bit of bread dough in the upper register. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and nascently complex, with a superb core, excellent focus and grip, refined mousse and a very long, energetic and promising finish. Give this at least another six or seven years in the cellar to properly blossom. (Drink between 2025-2075)

There's power to this graceful Champagne, with the vivid acidity swathed in a fine, creamy mousse and flavors of toasted brioche, kumquat, pastry cream, candied ginger and poached plum that dance across the palate. An underpinning of smoky mineral gains momentum on the lasting finish. Drink now through 2033. — AN