Everyone loves a good hologram

On Wednesday, December 7th, chef de cave Richard Geoffroy made a global declaration of the 2003 vintage for the house of Dom Pérignon. As hokey and embellished as the event promised to be (Geoffroy was to appear live via hologram in major cities worldwide), the geek factor was high, and I was almost as eager for the thrill of the spectacle as I was for a taste of the wine. (Come on, we’ve all gone to movies just to ogle the special effects…)

Winemaker Richard Geoffroy

It’s a bold move to declare the 2003 vintage. We all remember the canicule – the scorching heat of the season — and some might recall the troublesome frosts in April that made the chardonnay crop scarce. Geoffroy, it appears, was up for a challenge.

He explained that he hadn’t decided to bottle 2003 as a vintage at the time of picking or even from December to February, when the first fermentation was long completed and the base wine was settling into the early childhood stage of its élevage—but he sensed from day one, well before harvest, that “it was on.”

Live feed from Tokyo, Hong Kong, London and Paris

So there he was, beamed down from Paris into a glass pyramid in an obscure space on the west side of Manhattan—an image not unlike that of Princess Leia in her infamous call for help to Obi-Wan—to make the official declaration. As we raised our glasses, a live feed of the global celebration and questions from industry folks in Tokyo, London, Hong Kong and Paris poured in. A fellow taster mused that spirits seemed ultra high at the Tokyo event (it was almost midnight for them) compared to our early morning Champagne toast.

The wine itself is fresh, with the sweet exotic fruit of the vintage prevailing. The dosage is one of the lowest in DP history, second only to Oenothèque 1976—another challenging year. Geoffroy believes it will withstand the test of time, and I will be interested to see if he’s right.