Stories of Drinking Dom Pérignon
My next book
Over 240 short stories to tell the
Stories of Drinking Dom Pérignon.
A real unfiltered raw view into the world of hunting and drinking worlds rarest and finest bubbles. I’ve drank Dom Pérignon 598 times for the book Drinking Dom Pérignon 1921 to 2013, these are the stories behind those bottles. Read five examples from below. (scroll down).
If you love wine and stories, this book is for you
The book comes in two versions
The A4 size comes with over 300 polaroids thought the journey of drinking.
The A5 size is for the purist of readers, only text.
Please complete your purchase at the drinkingdomperignon.com site.
Read examples from the book below
2006
Progress 35/41
The ‘06 was released back in 2015 during the time I was adventuring with Dom Pérignon more often than ever before. Occasionally, I felt out of place just like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. I was still in the last moments of my twenties, trying to figure out who and what I was. Today, as I write this, well I’ve found myself and the ‘06 vintage has been a part in my personal growth and the paths that have chosen me on my way to adulthood. It was, and still is, a young vintage so there’s not so much to say about the wine itself, time is needed. For me, Champagne is not simply a list of adjectives describing a taste. It is not even a moment. To put it simply, it's an obsession that attracts other passionate people. It gives a sense of belonging and, believe it or not, a sense of self-esteem. Very clearly not something one buys once in a while to celebrate something. Dompe, I have so many cute nicknames for my beloved Dom Pérignon, it has always been a part of the biggest life-changing moments of mine and will continue to be so, vintage after vintage. The ’06 however is special, it is a part of the beginning.
A surreal life and a perfect vintage - December 2015
Back in 2015, I always "volunteered" to help my friend when she was taking part in a fashion show for charity since it was fun to see behind the scenes at those big shows. Interesting people with funny things always happening; I once tied a tie for a 50+-year-old member of Parliament since he had no idea how to knot the tie himself. He was wearing a suit and tie for the catwalk. Inspired by the catwalks of charity my friend got the idea to arrange a fashion show with her customers as the models as they would all be in their made-to-measure suits thus there would not be a hassle when fitting the models. A few months later, exactly on the 3rd of December 2015 the first fashion show was held at the then-prestigious Hotel Kämp, the place where Finnish culture was more or less created a hundred years earlier by Jean Sibelius (Finnish composer), Eino Leino (Finnish national poet) and Akseli Gallen-Kallela (one of our great painters) and their friends as they lived life to the fullest. All in all, a proper place. There were some 70 people in the audience I would say. I was the youngest by two decades or more. The other “young ones” were approaching their 50s. We had a rehearsal led by a professional male model and a judge of the Finnish Next Top Model.
Even the rehearsal did not help, a lot of the gentlemen turned to liquid courage in the form of whiskey or something else, strong. Me, I had some ’06 Dompe, of course, since Kämp had it by the glass at the time, I had it by the bottle. I was a bit excited, it was over 15 years since I was last in front of a crowd, only this time fully clothed. When I was 17 years old, I entered the Mr. Finland competition and made it all the way to the semi-finals. Hard to believe it turned out that there were ten more handsome men than me in Finland. Go figure. After that, I did many of the competitions around Finland since apparently I was a bit different, doing backflips and other such fun, entertaining stuff. Well, for me it was a way to party with the pretty and cool ones. I quickly realised that looks and youth would fade so I transferred my ambitions back to geeky cool things such as programming, collectables and Champagne. Oh, and those catwalks my friend did were a huge success and are now a regular yearly thing, where her customers actually ask to be on them.
My thing is always moonwalking the catwalk, this time in my Brioni made-to-measure suit, just like everyone else [1 & 1]. The attention-whore within me gets fed. After the show was done my friend told me to go get some drinks for the models and my choice was, naturally, the ’06 DomP. She recalls that we had about ten bottles of DP that evening. Apparently, the other models became thirsty for the fine bubbles too.
Moonwalking the catwalk - December 2015
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It all started on the 17th of December 2015 when I met a life-changing person through a common friend completely by accident, so to speak, an entirely random happening. This person and I ended up at Kämp and drank a bottle of DomP ’06 [2]. From there we ended up at the little Xmas (this is a thing in Finland) party held by Paparazzi, the #1 Model Agency in Finland where I danced with the owner although, unfortunately, there are not that many photos of that evening but there is one in which the then heavy me is with some of the models and the founder of the agency [3]. It was a fun evening. We became good friends and ended up establishing a social club for the broken-hearted where we set about mending our broken hearts with good food, Champagne, long talks and dancing. Those times were ups and downs for me. My Finnish girlfriend dumped me in France (where we lived back then) and I was still heartbroken after over a year. The year 2015 was a good and an utterly shit year for me. I had a great start and then by the end of it, it became apparent that my business partner had cheated tens of thousands of euros from me and fled the country, which left me in some deep shit, broke and heartbroken. My escape, my salvation, has always been writing, ever since I even knew how to write. I wrote my first book of poetry back in 2007 when I was 22 years old. I kept writing occasionally, just for myself but from time to time I also showed my written words to others. Consequently, with all the shit raining down on me, I once again sought salvation through writing. A year later, that friend and I shared that Dompe ’06 [2], she encouraged me to start writing again, to create a book as it was something I loved and she thought it would be good for me. That was it, I decided to start writing, again. Now nearly a decade and seven books later; I am writing this book. So in a way, the spark for my writing career came from Dom Pérignon ’06 and today Dom Pérignon is my muse. How freaking amazing is that? For me, DP ’06 is the distinction between success and failure, a poetic masterpiece in a bottle. Every time I drink those beautiful bubbles, I can feel all that I felt back then in 2015. I can taste the development of the wine as a reflection of my own development. Drinking it is a trip down memory lane to where it all started, to my life today, the good life. It was all baptised in holy water, the Dom Pérignon Millésime 2006.
Going back to that Xmas party at Paparazzi, those kinds of parties are amazing. You have beauty and sexiness meaning everyone wants an invite. Then, that beauty is surrounded by interesting people, for a moment I felt like I was not in Finland. The party was ending and one of the attendees told everyone he had a small bus outside to take us all to his bar ‘The Riff’ for an afterparty. He is the drummer of a goth metal band called The 69 Eyes [4]. A band I listened to in my youth. Some of the songs are still on my playlists; Wasting the Dawn, Blue, Feel Berlin, Dance d'amour and Never. We continued the party at his club until dawn. A few months later me and Jussi69 were on the same catwalk, at yet another fashion show [5]. Then, in 2020 my third poetic masterpiece in English 'the arrangement’ came out and on the cover a professional model Sophie M. from Paparazzi [6 picture of the book]. That book was the one that gave me the self-esteem to contemplate writing this one. Largely, thanks to Ian, my editor who keeps believing in me, improving and polishing my writing. Today, I write natively in English using my own voice, and my own style. I am an independent writer. What if we had drunk something other than ’06 Dompe, would all this have ever happened? That is, of course, a stupid question, why would I have drunk something other than Dom Pérignon Millésime 2006.
Finding the joy to write again - December 2015
It is an hour and a half to midnight on a June Thursday evening in 2021, meaning it is not dark at all, the sun has not yet set and when it does, it rises immediately. The bright Finnish summer nights are no joke. We are sitting at my friend's shop on Bulevardi, a street in the heart of Helsinki. Coming from an absolutely perfect dinner made by Jyrki Sukula to celebrate his 40 years as a chef, it was composed of the dishes he created throughout his career served with stories told by him at our table, he even invited us to visit his vinery in Alba (Italy) to try out his new restaurant idea, that he proposed to call Thursday. Throughout the evening, conversation flowed as we talked about life and, of course, Champagne. One of the guests mentioned he had never tasted Dom Pérignon Rosé just as I was preaching as to how godly it is and how well the ’06 Rosé was drinking that day.
I had bought a bottle together with one of my other friends who organised the dinner and it was stored at her office just a few hundred metres from the restaurant. Immediately, we came up with an idea; what if we fixed this grave injustice and opened that beautiful Rosé? We left the restaurant. The weather was perfect outside, not too hot, not too cold. We walked a few hundred metres to Bulevardi Street, heads turning as we walked, we were all dressed perfectly; my friend has been flawless down to the smallest little detail for decades, a doctor by profession. The ones who know, know that he is the best dressed man in Finland. That evening he was wearing a linen Brioni suit. I was wearing my baby-blue Kiton three piece suit, made of a blend of cashmere, silk and linen, a thing of beauty, a thing I adore and have loved since 2015. This is how it should be when opening a bottle of DomPe Rosé, everything should be up to the level of the bubbly you are about to open. I pour all of us half a glass since the bottle is a bit too cold but will warm up nicely after 15 minutes on the table. For a perfect drinking experience, only ⅓ of the bottle should be enjoyed in the first hour from opening the bottle. Giving the wine time to open up to perfection, allowing it to reveal its true character. It would be inhumane to wait without drinking, therefore you can enjoy ⅓ of the bottle within the first hour. We talk of aesthetics and how we share a passion for beauty in life, not just in one thing but our whole lives down to the smallest details, in everything that the truly refined can control. For me, beauty is a form of symmetry and balance that pleases my eye, the same as the ’06 Rosé is a perfect balance in taste. To truly understand and therefore value balance, one must have endured some extreme turbulence. We three are all born in different decades but a bit the same, experts in our fields but we are focused on doing and our validation comes from knowledge gained through experience instead of a diploma or awards. Besides the obvious, a doctor is of course a doctor by education. We have all arrived here walking, drinking different paths, mainly, learning from experience, guided by our creativity and passion.
The ’06 Rosé also led to the formation of a little wine club, where we drank great wines. My friend mentioned he had no one to guide the exploration of the good life of wines. Hence, we naturally volunteered and just a few weeks later we were drinking a DP P2 02. In December 2022, looking back 17 months; we have had some insanely awesome Bourgogne and Champagne from the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.
I ask my friend if he minds if I take a picture to immortalise the moment we are sharing [15]. I am just saddened that today I don't have my real camera with me and I have to humble myself to take a photo with my goddamn phone, like a teenager. I tell him that the pic will be in this book. He says he wants to buy the book, I asked if he wanted the number 077/385 he replied, yes. Since, well, he was born in that year, 1977. It is yours I confirm and we continue drinking the ’06 Rosé. Later we dropped one of the 7’s away and he now has the 007/385. In May 2023, we had a vertical of Dompe Rosé the like of which had never been seen before; 6 decades including the first one ever made, Dom Pérignon 1959 Rosé. How strange it is, and a little hard to believe, that it all began by dressing well and sharing a bottle of ‘06 Rosé.
A perfect rosé moment, a founder’s moment - June 2021
He worked just 50 metres from where I lived at the time so it was fated that our paths would cross at some point. In June 2021, a year or so after we had first met. I was having some dinner, as usual, and we ended up talking about my Dom Pérignon book and Dompe Rosé in particular. He said he had never tasted Dom Pérignon Rosé. We had connected through our deep profound love of drinking and understanding of Champagne and wine. I was shocked and horrified, how was this possible? The ambassador for DP Rosé within me awoke immediately, coming to the conclusion that upon my return I would bring a bottle of Dompe Rosé and we would share it, drink it. Then he will know, without a doubt, he will know. I had been away for over a month. Then back in Belgrade, it is a Tuesday afternoon. I walk down the steps to Langouste, every goddamn step, I feel them, each hurts n burns since I just finished my training and my trainer again tried to kill me with his kindness, as personal trainers so often do. I sit down at the chef's table and ask for a puna mala and see Chef coming from the open kitchen to greet me. He is smiling like he had had Dompe Rosé the night before. I can't believe I never had Dompe Rosé before he says. We continued to talk about the ’06 Rosé throughout the evening recalling the night before, how we were drinking it at the Kalemegdan fortress in Belgrade, enjoying the night view of the river and eating tartar, foie gras and pâté. I also immortalised this picnic moment, this time with my camera and it remains the only photo I've taken with a flash since there was not enough natural light.. [16].
My dear friend, a fellow pirate, a French chef who worked for four years at the 3 Michelin star Arpège owned and operated by Alain Passard. Rising through the ranks all the way to Sous Chef, after which he created his own place, a bistro in Paris and cooked a star himself at the age of 27. He kept his star for several years. At that point, he felt that the time was ripe for a challenge, so he moved to Belgrade to bring the Michelin guide and culture to Serbia.
"I have never tasted DomPe Rosé" - July 2021
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To my surprise, not that many people have ever had Dom Pérignon Rosé. Honestly, it used to be somewhat costly before but today, in the mid-2020s, a bottle is double the price of five years ago. Often one is able to get several other interesting bottles for the price of one Dompe Rosé. Also, keep in mind the Charles Heidsieck Index (see page xx). In general, people tend to have a weird relationship with Rosé Champagne. Everyone assumes it is some girly drink (because of the colour), not a serious wine or even Champagne. In my opinion, the blame partly lies in the fact that, in the past, rosé did not get the attention it deserved from the winemakers. In today’s world, much has changed since the 2000s and the early 2010s, people are discovering it and growing to love it and producers are realising the potential of the Rosé.
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Dom Pérignon was one of the earliest adopters when it came to unleashing the potential of Rosé. Over 50 years ago (in 1971) they launched the first vintage of Dom Pérignon Rosé, the 1959, becoming the first to present a Prestige Cuvée Rosé. Personally, I can’t speak of drinking Dompe Rosé in the 1990’s since I was a child back then. But the vintages of the 2000s were released way too early, the wines were not yet ready to be enjoyed upon release. Today, everything is perfect. A new vintage, for example, our beloved ’06 Rosé and the following ’08 and ‘09 (page 224 and 234) are immediately life-changing experiences, as they should be. The more different Champagnes and great wines you have tasted and drank before, the deeper your understanding will be. There is nothing like Dompe Rosé in the world.
I cannot over-emphasise the importance of a proper glass when drinking a wine such as this. It may seem like a slight irrelevance but if you spoil yourself and your loved ones with a Rosé Dompe, make sure to invest in proper glassware too. In Autumn 2024 Riedel Veritas Rosé Champagne glass is the one, if anyone has another opinion they are simply wrong. Although there are several great choices when it comes to glassware, why settle for anything less than the best? Additionally, remember the serving temperature (page 6).
The ’06 is already the 25th Rosé vintage and the 10th I've tasted (when first drinking it in 2019). But back to today's world. Chef arrived at the same conclusion as I had a few years before. Dom Pérignon Rosé, is where it all ends, there is nothing after that. It is, simply, as close to perfection as a young wine can reach.
The following Wednesday I arrived for dinner at Langouste and the first words from Chef were, I can't get that Rosé out of my mind. There you have it, Dom Pérignon Rosé is fundamentally life-changing, magical.