Wine Ratings

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A style on its own, redolent of olive, cacao, sweet spice, truffle. Unique. Smooth velvety texture, showing gradually fine grain and a finish with lots of complexity: cedar wood, curry, pepper, dry berries. A jewel. Drinking Window 2019 - 2058Decanter | 97 DEC2008 was a challenging vintage in Ribera del Duero, a vintage marked by a severe frost on September 24th. The vineyards of Vega Sicilia were saved by some anti-frost burners that really made the difference. Even though, there are only some 70,000 bottles of 2008 Único, a wine that will be released around March 2016 after the 2007, and before they sell 2005 and 2006. It’s a fresher, more mineral version of Vega, and very much Vega in character. It has a certain aroma that I cannot define that I also found in the 2011 Valbuena. The palate is surprisingly polished; the wine is quite accessible from now on, with fine tannins and a subtle thread of acidity going through the core. This is a lighter version of Único, but one style I like very much; it’s a wine that should drink well throughout its life. A triumph for the vintage conditions.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 96 RPOpaque ruby. Powerful, expansive aromas of cherry liqueur, cassis, pipe tobacco, incense and pungent flowers show outstanding clarity and pick up a smoky mineral quality with air. Stains the palate with concentrated dark berry, bitter cherry and rose pastille flavors that are complicated by notes of mocha, cola and Indian spices. Distinctly generous in style but there’s outstanding energy here as well. The gently tannic, dark-fruit-dominated finish emphatically echoes the spice and floral notes and lingers with striking persistence. Production for this bottling was cut by over half in this challenging vintage and the result shows what can happen when severe selection is applied in the vineyard and cellar. Speaking of tough years, the 2002 version of this iconic wine, from a vintage that has been ignored at best and vilified at worst, is drinking beautifully right now. In fact, it appears to have just entered its drinking window: its fruit is still a bit on the youthful side while its tannins have begun to recede. Like this 2008, it’s a textbook example of what great vineyards, diligent farming and serious winemaking can accomplish under difficult circumstances.Vinous Media | 96 VMSavory flavors of tobacco, mineral, smoke and spice frame a core of cherry and pomegranate in this red. Harmonious and graceful, supported by well-integrated tannins and fresh acidity. Has deceptive depth and complexity. Drink now through 2028. 9,800 cases made.Wine Spectator | 94 WS

The 2008 Barolo Riserva Bussia - Cascina Dardi is shaping up to be a real jewel. Exquisite balsamic-inflected aromatics meld into a core of dark fruit. Slender and nuanced, as most wines are in this vintage, the 2008 Riserva is all about grace and finesse. The first signs of aromatic complexity are just beginning to appear, making the 2008 an excellent choice for drinking now and over the next 10-15 years. The 2008 spent five and half years in cask and is just being released now.Vinous Media | 95+ VM

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.James Suckling | 98 JSThe 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.Jeb Dunnuck | 98 JDThe 2008 Dom Pérignon is a huge, powerful Champagne and also clearly one of the wines of the vintage. This is one of the most reticent bottles I have tasted. So much so that I am thinking about holding off opening any more bottles! The 2008 has always offered a striking interplay of fruit and structure. Today, the richness of the fruit is especially evident. Readers who own the 2008 should be thrilled, but patience is a must. (Originally published in May 2021)Antonio Galloni | 98 AGDom Perignon 2008 will leave memories in the minds of wine lovers. A powerful, toasted style, the bouquet expresses aromas of almonds, candied lemon and a slight smoky touch that gives it an additional richness. The palate is powerful with a vinous character and an almost fleshy texture. Of course, time in the cellar will allow it to express itself fully, but it’s still possible to enjoy this now.Decanter | 97 DEC(Dom Pérignon Brut Millésime (Épernay)) I had not tasted a bottle of the 2008 vintage of Dom Pérignon since my interview with Richard Geoffroy at the abbey in Hautvillers just a few months before Monsieur Geoffroy retired. I was very happy to see it generously added by John Chapman to our lineup for the second Vega Sicilia vertical that I reported on in the previous issue, as it is a wine of the same superb quality as all those great old Únicos. As I noted in my feature on Dom Pérignon, the 2008 is an absolutely classic vintage for this wine, which means it is structured, structured, structured, and at twelve years of age, still an absolute infant! The primary bouquet offers up a promising blend of apple, lime peel, menthol, superb minerality, a touch of young DP botanicals and tons of upper register smokiness. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and rock solid at the core, with brisk acids, refined mousse, bruising backend mineral drive and a very long, very pure and seamlessly balanced finish. I scored this a touch lower than the bottle in Hautvillers, but I suspect that this is just the result of context and the wine has not lost any of its luster- it has only hidden its essence even further behind its electric girdle of acidity. This is years away from its apogee, but has utterly brilliant potential. (Drink between 2030-2075).John Gilman | 96+ JGThere’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.Wine Spectator | 96 WSThe 2008 Dom Pérignon continues to show very well, offering up a pretty bouquet of Anjou pear, fresh peach, citrus oil, fresh pastry, smoke and iodine. On the palate, it’s full-bodied, lively and incisive, with an elegantly textural attack and a creamy core of fruit that’s underpinned by a bright but nicely integrated spine of acidity. The finish is long, saline and well-defined. As I wrote earlier this year, this is the finest Dom Pérignon since 1996, Richard Geoffroy’s push for additional ripeness working well with the late-maturing, high-acid vintage. While it can be appreciated young, the 2008 will really start to blossom with five or six years of bottle age.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 95+ RP

The 2008 Dom Pérignon P2 is another sublime Champagne from Dom Pérignon. Long lees-aging on the cork softened the edges that the original 2008 release showed as a young Champagne. The two 2008s (original release and P2) paint two very different but equally compelling potraits of the vintage. The P2 possesses notable textural density and a level of mid-palate intensity that the 2008 does not offer. The P2 is not necessarily better than the original release, but it is quite contrasting in style. It may be that in a very high-quality vintage, extended time in bottle does not add as much as it does in slightly lesser years.Vinous Media | 98 VMA statuesque Champagne, with creamy viscosity to the mousse as it wraps around a frame of chiseled acidity. Crème de cassis, grilled macadamia nut, warm fig, tangerine peel, pastry cream and candied ginger notes are a rich and finely detailed weave of flavors that glides across the palate. A beauty, echoing fruit, spice and pastry elements, with an underlying streak of salinity on the long, long finish. Drink now through 2048.Wine Spectator | 98 WSThe extra seven years of ageing on lees under cork versus the original Dom Pérignon 2008 release has wrapped up all the year’s innate tension and brightness in an unabashedly decadent, enveloping richnnes of toasted nuts, fresh dough and gentle oyster cream, although the precision and integrity of the vintage is absolutely present, too. There are beautiful aromas of pure red strawberry and bergamot with some darker mocha notes emerging, both Chardonnay linearity and a surprisingly fragrant Pinot finding a perfect equilibrium. The palate carries the buzzing acidity of 2008 on a time-softened, ultra-silky mousse, with new details of umami savour tucked in subtly to the overall impression of glacial freshness. Perhaps unsurprisingly given the reputation of the original release, this is among the most memorable and energetic of the Plénitude releases made since the programme of late releases took the name in 2014.Decanter Magazine | 98 DECA wine I’m inclined to call “long-range,” the 2008 Dom Pérignon Plénitude 2—an equal blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, disgorged in March 2024 with a dosage of five grams per liter—has fulfilled its considerable promise. Born of a cool, slow-ripening season that endowed the wine with its incisive acid spine and raciness, perfected through the selection of origins that contribute the texture and plenitude only real maturity can impart, it wafts from the glass with aromas of orange, nashi pear, honeysuckle and toasted hazelnut, mingling with brioche and a touch of smoky reduction. On the palate, it is full-bodied, multifaceted and vividly bright, with a layered, concentrated core of fruit, its ripe yet racy acids and pinpoint mousse carrying it to a long, searingly chalky finish.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 97+ RP