Dom Pérignon

Dom Pérignon can refer to:

Dom Pérignon (monk)

Dom Pierre Pérignon, O.S.B., (December 1638 – 14 September 1715) was a French Benedictine monk who made important contributions to the production and quality of champagne wine in an era when the region's wines were predominantly still red. Popular myths frequently, but erroneously, credit him with the invention of sparkling champagne, which didn't become the dominant style of Champagne until the mid-19th century.

The famous champagne Dom Pérignon, the prestige cuvée of Moët & Chandon, is named for him. The remains of the monastery where he spent his adult life is now the property of that winery.

Biography

Pérignon was born to a clerk of the local marshal in the town of Sainte-Menehould in the ancient Province of Champagne in the Kingdom of France. He was born in December 1638 and was baptized on 5 January 1639. He was the youngest of his parents' seven children, as his mother died the following summer. His father's family owned several vineyards in the region.

As a child Pérignon became a member of the boys' choir school operated by the Benedictine Abbey of Moiremont, studying there until 1651, when he went to study at the Jesuit college in Châlons-sur-Marne. When he was 17 he entered the Benedictine Order near the town of Verdun at the Abbey of Saint-Vanne, the leading monastery of the Congregation of St. Vanne. The congregation was a reform movement of monastic life, and he followed a regimen of prayer, study and manual labor, as prescribed in the Rule of St. Benedict. In 1668 he was transferred to the Abbaye Saint-Pierre d’Hautvillers, where he served as cellarer for the rest of his life. Under his stewardship, the abbey flourished and doubled the size of its vineyard holdings, while he worked to improve their product with the help of Dom Thierry Ruinart, a noted scholar of the abbey.

Dom Pérignon (wine)

Dom Pérignon (/ˌdɒmpɛrɪˈnjɒn/; French pronunciation: ​[dɔ̃peʁiɲɔ̃]) is a brand of vintage Champagne produced by the Champagne house Moët & Chandon and serves as that house's prestige champagne. It is named after Dom Pérignon, a Benedictine monk who was an important quality pioneer for Champagne wine but who, contrary to popular myths, did not discover the champagne method for making sparkling wines.

History

Dom Pérignon (1638–1715) was a monk and cellar master at the Benedictine abbey in Hautvillers. He pioneered a number of winemaking techniques around 1670—being the first to blend grapes in such a way as to improve the quality of wines, balance one element with another in order to make a better whole, and deal with a number of their imperfections; perfecting the art of producing clear white wines from black grapes by clever manipulation of the presses; enhancing the tendency of Champagne wines to retain their natural sugar in order to naturally induce secondary fermentation in the Spring; being a master at deciding when to bottle these wines in order to capture the bubble. He also introduced corks (instead of wood), which were fastened to bottles with hemp string soaked in oil in order to keep the wines fresh and sparkling, and used thicker glass in order to strengthen the bottles (which were prone to explode at that time). The development of sparkling wines as the main style of production in Champagne occurred progressively in the 19th century, more than a century after Dom Pérignon's death.