Dom Perignon

Dom Pérignon - The Famous Monk

WORDS KEN GARGETT

Mention the name, ‘Dom Pérignon’, and almost everyone, even those with no interest in Champagne, will have heard of it. Many will think of it as the name of perhaps the most famous Champagne of all, even if they have never seen or tried a bottle. Others might, erroneously, recognise him as the man which legend suggests ‘invented’ Champagne. This is not so – in fact, he tried hard to rid his wines of bubbles. Some believe he was blind – it is thought by some that he did lose sight in his later years, although other authorities are convinced that this was a myth which grew up around his habit of tasting his wines masked (the wines, not the monk, a practice often referred to as blind tasting). Even his famous quote, “Come quickly, I am drinking stars”, seems more likely to have been lifted from an advertisement made in the late 1800’s and incorrectly attributed to him.

The truth is, as so often happens, stranger than fiction.

Pierre Pérignon was a Benedictine monk who spent most of his working career at the Abbey of Hautvillers, not far from Epernay. He was crucial in the development of the sparkling wine of the region of Champagne, but he did not ‘invent’ it. No one man did. He was, however, a brilliant winemaker, of such standing that the wines he made, much in demand, were not known by the name of the region but under his own name, ‘vins de Pérignon’. He was the rockstar winemaker of his day – no one else came close.

Born in 1638, near the ChampagneLorraine border, Pierre Pérignon was the son of a judge’s clerk, and the youngest of seven children. His family did own vineyards in that region and it is likely he gained some experience here. Young Pierre entered the Benedictine Abbey at Verdun, taking his vows when he was twenty. Nine years later, he was ordained, and the following year, 1668, he transferred to the Abbey at Hautvillers, where he was appointed as the treasurer and cellar master. At the time, he was one of only about a dozen monks at the Abbey. Dom Pérignon remained there for almost half a century, until his death in 1715. Originally constructed around 650 A.D., this Abbey had been most recently rebuilt after the Religious Wars in France – it was destroyed several times in its history. The monks planted over ten hectares of vines on the Abbey’s land (over time, Dom Pérignon increased this to 25 hectares, some of which are still in use today), and they were also the beneficiary of tithes, in the form of grapes harvested from nearby vineyards. Some of these were from vineyards, which had earned a reputation for high quality. Naturally, a cellar master was needed.

Pierre Pérignon was highly respected by his colleagues, who were impressed by his hard work and his devotion to the task, both in the vineyards and in the cellars. The Abbey’s vineyards were home to an array of different varieties. Pérignon, who during his lifetime was only ever referred to as ‘Dom Pierre’ or Dom Procurer’, believed that Pinot Noir gave the highest quality wines and he was keen to restrict the wines of the Abbey to that one grape. He believed it was less ‘volatile’ – less likely than white varieties to start bubbling in the Spring. Despite popular belief, Dom Pérignon saw bubbles as a fault. The issue, of course, was that the cold winters would put a halt to fermentation but then as Spring warmed up, the fermentation would complete – and hence, bubbles would be produced. This could be a problem where the wine was already in the bottle – explosions were very common. Dom Pérignon worked hard to prevent this.

In the vineyards, he was an advocate of lower yields leading to quality – very much a man ahead of his time. Picking grapes was restricted to the cooler mornings and he was insistent that the grapes be handled very carefully once harvested, to avoid splitting. Dom Pérignon rejected damaged grapes (he even went so far as to use donkeys instead of horses as he believed that they were less excitable and so less likely to damage the grapes during transport to the press houses). He was also an advocate of pressing the grapes as quickly as possible

“Come quickly, I am tasting the stars!” – Dom Perignon French Benedictine Monk, (1638 - 1715) when he first tasted his newly created Champagne.

as he was keen to avoid the colour that might come from skin contact. He was aware of the different levels of quality that came from the first pressing in comparison with later efforts. For Dom Pérignon, the aim was to produce white wine from red grapes, though he also excelled at good red wines from Pinot Noir. It is debatable as to whether or not he was the first to produce a clean, limpid white wine – almost certainly not – but there seems no question that he was the first to do it from black grapes.

Dom Pérignon is also attributed with inventing the traditional Champagne press, still in use today. He pushed for the use of the stronger English glass in the manufacture of bottles (at the time, the French used oak casks for the storage and transportation, and also as a vessel from which to serve their wines).

He is also considered to have reintroduced the use of cork as a stopper. Corks had been used in Roman times but, when the Romans left France around the 6th century, they disappeared from use. Prior to Dom Pérignon reintroducing them, small wooden plugs which were wrapped in hemp, the hemp having been soaked in oil, were the stoppers du jour. Just how Dom Pérignon came to be using corks is not known. There are suggestions he spent time in a Spanish monastery and saw them being used there (other legends have him spending time in a monastery in Limoux where he supposedly discovered how to make sparkling wine). Another suggestion has travelling Spanish monks stopping at Hautvillers. These monks were drinking from water bottles stoppered with corks. Dom Pérignon allegedly saw this and arranged for cork to be imported for him to use for his wines. We do know that corks were not in common usage in France at the time but that they were used by Dom Pérignon, some old bottles with corks having been dug up at the Abbey in the 1970s, during renovations.

Perhaps above all, Dom Pérignon was known as a consummate blender, bringing together various vineyards to achieve the best possible result. Records from the day suggest that, while he was not the first to blend vineyards and grape varieties, he was the first who took various components and consistently produced a wine which exceeded the quality of any of the individual elements. There are suggestions that it was Dom Pérignon who would blend his components every year to create a wine which was consistently the same as he offered the previous year. This was, of course, a development which has underpinned the entire Champagne industry for a couple of centuries. There was one difference, however. These days, winemakers blend the various still wine components which have been made as discrete entities. In Dom Pérignon’s day, he blended the grapes from the different vineyards before they were pressed and fermented.

Such was the respect for Dom Pérignon that, after his death, he was buried in that section of the Abbey traditionally reserved for the Abbott of the day himself. Today, he is honoured in the famous wine, almost always one of the very best of each vintage, which is named after him – ‘Dom Pérignon’ – the first prestige cuvee. If the CIVC ever decide to create a ‘Champagne Hall of Fame’, there is no doubt that the first inductee would be the famous Benedictine monk. ❧