Dom Pérignon Has a Few Corrections.
Dom Pérignon Has a Few Corrections.
Dom Pérignon Has a Few Corrections.
He spent forty-seven years making better wine. Three centuries later, the world remembers a rather different story.
He spent forty-seven years making better wine. Three centuries later, the world remembers a rather different story.
History has had its say. We thought Dom Pérignon deserved a turn.
His replies are imagined. The facts behind them are not.
The real Dom Pérignon seems to have been rather more interested in grapes than glory.
At the Abbey of Hautvillers, where he became cellarer in 1668, he spent decades working out how to make better wine. He was particular about where the grapes came from, how they were grown and which ones belonged together. His pupil Frère Pierre even remembered him tasting samples first thing in the morning, before breakfast. Some people start the day with coffee. Pérignon apparently preferred research.
His careful selection and combination of grapes from different vineyards helped improve the abbey's wines. It was skilled, patient work, if not quite the dramatic invention that later generations preferred.
The bubbles entered his biography more than a century after his death. In 1821, another monk, Dom Grossard, credited him with discovering sparkling Champagne. The claim acquired a life of its own. So did the famous line about tasting stars, for which no contemporary evidence has been found.
By 1936, a prestige Champagne bearing his name had reached the market, made from the 1921 vintage.
Wine is never just wine. Sometimes a lifetime of careful work becomes famous for something its author never claimed to have done.
History has had its say. We thought Dom Pérignon deserved a turn.
His replies are imagined. The facts behind them are not.
The real Dom Pérignon seems to have been rather more interested in grapes than glory.
At the Abbey of Hautvillers, where he became cellarer in 1668, he spent decades working out how to make better wine. He was particular about where the grapes came from, how they were grown and which ones belonged together. His pupil Frère Pierre even remembered him tasting samples first thing in the morning, before breakfast. Some people start the day with coffee. Pérignon apparently preferred research.
His careful selection and combination of grapes from different vineyards helped improve the abbey's wines. It was skilled, patient work, if not quite the dramatic invention that later generations preferred.
The bubbles entered his biography more than a century after his death. In 1821, another monk, Dom Grossard, credited him with discovering sparkling Champagne. The claim acquired a life of its own. So did the famous line about tasting stars, for which no contemporary evidence has been found.
By 1936, a prestige Champagne bearing his name had reached the market, made from the 1921 vintage.
Wine is never just wine. Sometimes a lifetime of careful work becomes famous for something its author never claimed to have done.
