Ratings & Tasting Notes:

98 points — Vinous (Antonio Galloni, December 2022)
Galloni calls the 2004 a totally different beast — the product of a very long, cool growing season with heavy summer rains in places, then ideal conditions through to harvest. After the torrid 2003 the vines set a huge crop, and 2004 remains the most abundant vintage in Champagne’s history, yet the best wines have always impressed with their laser-like cut and focus. Tasted from magnum, the 2004 shows all the linear energy and crystalline precision of the year with the extra magic that comes from longer ageing in the big bottle. He notes it has long been one of his favourite Dom Pérignons.

96+ points — John Gilman (May 2018)
Gilman describes another great classic in the making, and one of those vintages that will truly deserve thirty years of bottle age to blossom fully. A refined, still youthful bouquet of green apple, menthol, salty minerality, white flowers and a touch of iodine, with the first hints of the crème pâtissière to come. On the palate it is pure, full and racy, with a lovely core, excellent complexity, refined mousse and superb focus and grip across a long, energetic finish. Still a puppy in his view, expected to open properly at twenty years and hit its stride at thirty and beyond.

96 points — James Suckling (March 2012)
A return to regular form after the wild 2003 — business as usual in terms of the composed and complex swagger that is a hallmark of the house. Good deep autolysis, with toasty, yeasty characters wrapping around a wealth of grapefruit and pithy lemon citrus, the Chardonnay ringing clear at around half the blend. The palate has assertive, driving power and deep-seated phenolic presence, with a chord of acidity steering it through a long, fresh and gently nutty finish.

96 points — Wine & Spirits (December 2013)
Complex and layered, with scents of corn silk, white mushrooms and pale red fruit — a study in contrasts, at once grand and austere, honeyed and dry. Not one thing but all things Champagne, high in freshness and ethereal in its mineral refinement. Delicious on its own or with fresh shellfish.

Cult Wines International Notes:

Dom Pérignon takes its name from the Benedictine monk who became cellar master at the Abbey of Hautvillers in 1668 and spent more than forty years refining the methods that underpin Champagne production. The house has made only vintage wine since its first release from the 1921 harvest, declaring a vintage solely in years it judges worthy, and the blend sits close to an even split of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The Luminous Collection presents the same wine in a bottle fitted with an electroluminescent label that illuminates at the touch of a switch — a limited presentation created for display and celebration, and increasingly collected in its own right.

2004 followed the torrid 2003 with a long, cool growing season and a large, healthy crop, and remains the most abundant vintage in Champagne’s history. The best wines of the year are marked by cut and focus rather than weight, and this is among them — widely regarded as the return of classic Dom Pérignon after the anomalies of the preceding vintages. The wine shows green apple, grapefruit, pithy lemon, pear, peach, white flowers and pale red fruit over toasted almond, powdered cocoa, brioche, menthol, iodine, corn silk and salty minerality. The palate is pure, racy and finely mousse-textured, with driving power reined in by a taut chord of acidity, closing long, fresh and gently nutty. At twenty-two years of age it is entering the window reviewers anticipated, with decades still ahead.

Bottle Size:

1.5L Magnum

Storage History:

Always stored on its side in a climate-controlled cellar.

Condition:

Please note: The bottle shown is the exact bottle being sold.

The Luminous Collection bottle carries an electroluminescent label powered by a small battery underneath the bottle. A discreet switch at the base of the bottle brings the Dom Pérignon shield to life, lighting the bottle from the label with a soft, even glow. The effect was designed for low-lit rooms, and the bottle is as much an object as a wine.

Luminous editions are produced in limited quantities and only for selected vintages, and the great majority are released in standard 750ml format. Magnums appear far less frequently, which makes this bottle scarce twice over — once as a Luminous release and again as the large format of one.

Outstanding condition. Batteries are also brand new.