Is Dom Pérignon Really Worth it?! ($300 vs. $66 Champagne!)

Hi, this is Andrew, the wine wizard Wisniewski, winemaker of Orfila Vineyards. I am holding $300 in my hand. No, it's not jewelry. No, it's not Bitcoin. Although I don't know if you could hold Bitcoin. I have a one single bottle of champagne. We're getting into it today of whether a $300 bottle of wine is worth it. Are you paying for the brand and their marketing? They're beautiful packaging. I mean, this box is sexy, you know, like you open this, let's talk through it. Eventually taste through it. See if you are balling out of control or if you need affordable options that will give you a better bang for your buck. So we're also going to be comparing it to Moet and Chandon's Imperial Brut, which is $66 but first let's learn a little bit more about Dom. So what we have here is Dom Perignon. This is 2015 vintage, which is the current vintage. Let me remind you guys, it is the year 2026 so this baby's been brewing for a long time. Dom Perignon is known as the father of champagne. Oddly enough he wasn't the inventor of champagne. He's known as the father of champagne and really pushing the qualitative standards and methods in producing champagne. Dom is its own brand. Although it is shared, the parent company is Moet and Chandon, but this is their luxury love child. So this is like in the ranks with the upper echelon of champagne houses along with Cristal, Krug, Salon. This is one of the top dogs and we're going to break down why. So Dom Perignon was established in 1935. One of the things that is particular to this house, the champagne house is they only do vintage bottlings. So other brands will offer a multi vintage or non vintage offering. That is combination of multiple vintages and with Dom Perignon, they only do vintage bottlings. So people are always asking why is champagne so expensive? And it really comes down to the process. So from the beginning when you're harvesting the grapes, you're harvesting them earlier. So you're picking them 19 to 21 bricks and when you're pressing them, you're being as gentle as possible. They only want the heart of the cut. They don't want the heads or the tails. They don't want the beginning of the press cycle. They don't want the end of the press cycle. They want the heart of that press cycle and that always less yield per ton. So on average, anywhere from 80 to a hundred gallons per ton is common in sparkling wine. With normal still wine, you're talking 165 to 175 gallons per ton. So that automatically makes it more expensive. This is a current vintage of champagne for Dom Perignon 2015. We are in the year 2026. Okay. It's 11 year gap. So this wine was aged for a minimum of seven years on its side on the leaves and then finished about eight years into it and then probably sat and kind of came together for another couple of years before being released. So you're looking at, you know, 10 years in the making for this bottle of wine, which is why most champagnes come with a little bit higher price tag. So let's talk quality to price point. Let's talk the process. We have Moet and Chandon. They're Brut Imperial. This is their kind of flagship champagne. Price point is $66 versus the $300 for the Dom. So the main factors is time. So this wine has only spent 24 months in terage. So on its side aging on the yeast leaves, whereas Dom spent seven years minimum. So what that translates to is a finer mousse, the bubbles more complex kind of characteristics with further aging. So this wine is also a non vintage wine versus Dom is always a vintage driven wine. So this comes from a multitude of different vintages to create a homogenous house style versus this is singular vintage driven expression in 2015 was a warmer vintage in champagne. So the sky is probably going to be pretty, pretty rich and ripe for Dom. Let's compare a $300 bottle of Bob's Dom P versus a $66 bottle of Moet and Chandon's Brut Imperial. Is $300 justified? We're going to find out. So let's do the honors and crack this bad boy open. All right. So we're going to check out the Dom P, give our initial assessment before doing a little side by side comparison. Really subtle aromatic profile, not in a bad way, just in like very tightly woven. It's like ginger, chamomile. Have you had this wine before? I have. Yeah, I've had this one. All right. Which one are we trying? This is the Brut Imperial. The nose is a little bit more, it's got a little bit more aromatic lift, like maybe a little bit brighter fruit element. The acid is a little bit more noticeable. It's bright, fresh, vibrant. It's complex, but not overly complex. There's not a lot of secondary characteristics here. Not a lot of kind of yeasty, brioche kind of tertiary characteristics is very kind of fruit centric, which some people like. So to each his own. Okay. So let's taste the Dom P side by side. Aromatically, so much more expressive, so much more going on with it. You get some smoky underlying, um, mineral notes. There's like, there's that toasty brioche, savory unami. I think that I'm in love. Is this what love feels like? You really like it. It's way more complex, way more depth, way more elegance, finesse. I wanted to hate it because it's just has so much hype and clout. That cheaper option was, was in contention and it just isn't at all. Dom just, it's a beast. It's a beautiful beast. You know, I'm going to Kizzy, do you want to try some Dom? So this is like one of the legendary champagnes. And we're just like looking for a reaction and see like what you think. It's, it's a $300 bottle of champagne. I love champagne. It's a little sweeter than I anticipated. Really? Yeah. It's a little sweeter and not, not as dry. I feel like champagne is usually dry and it's a little less carbonated than I would have thought, which I kind of prefer. I like it a lot. Would you pay $300 for it? Probably. Housekeeping, you want pillows or do you want some Dom? Hurry on. So this is 2015. So this is their current release 10 years in the making. This is like the creme de la creme of this brand. That's good. It's really sweet. Sour? Sweet and sour. Would you spend $300 for that Sour Patch Kid? No. Okay. Okay. Next. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sour grapes. Sour grapes. Would you spend $300? No. I would spend that. So good. Yeah, it was good. Okay. I don't get it. You don't get it. It's, it's okay. It tastes like the same as the other stuff. See, that's the thing is, this is the good conversation to have because for some, some people, it's like there's little details in wines that will make something seem and feel and warrant a higher price point. So the fact that this bottle has been 10 years in the making is like part of it and it gets better or it develops characteristics with, with that age that only you can't speed that process up. So it like happens in these cool dark caves for 10 years, you know? So it's kind of like a little seasoned pizza, like a wood fire. Exactly. What do you think? Why noob? She's almost finished. I do think it's a little warm though. It is. We've been filming around. I know it's a little warm. And I think that's distorting the taste. Ooh. Wow. I do think so. We're going to do that in the next video. Stay tuned. It's like the sweeter wine is usually cheaper and I like this kind of like it's not technically sweet, but perceptually just because it aged so long and like all of those characteristics like that were extracted from the, the yeast, like give you this perception of sweetness. It's really just a richness or it's just like a, a density, a depth. It's not bad. I wish it was more bubbly though. It's a little flat. Are you saying this isn't good enough for you bro? Final conclusion really is you get what you pay for. This is one of those moments where you like, you have to smell it. You have to taste it. You have to experience it to come to that realization. And some of those things in life is like, you know, you really do get what you pay for. In the wine industry, like making champagne is just known as a labor of love because the amount of time, energy, effort that you're putting into it, takes a really long time to end up with the final product. And I just want to say cheers to the people at Dom. That's, that's a banger. I was expecting to be underwhelmed. There's so much hype with Dom, with Cristal, with Ace of Spades, like all of those. There's so much hype that's built up around them and there's so much really cool collaborations and so much like marketing that goes into it. Like you kind of see it everywhere. It is like the, it's the Mercedes of, uh, it's probably not the Mercedes. It's probably like the Ferrari of comparison of, of champagne. It's just something that I appreciate. I don't know if everybody will see the same value when they taste them side by side. Your average Joe isn't buying $300 or spending $300 on a bottle of bugs. It's typically, Oh, this was a gift, a wedding gift or like something, you know, for when your baby is born or something. There is a story behind the bottle that was gifted to you or that you bought unless you're a collector or you're really into wine or you appreciate the finer things in life, which I do. So do I believe that the value is there? I do. I do. This is a rare occasion where I would drop $300 for a bottle of champagne. To me personally, inspiring to taste and to know the lineage of the champagne, house and the labor of love intention that went into it. So I feel grateful to be able to taste it and feel the feels knowing what went into it. I hope that you guys enjoyed the journey. If you guys have a special moment in life or if you've got the money to throw down on a $300 bottle of bubs, I recommend it. Dom P. They're doing the thing. Hope you guys enjoyed the video. Subscribe and we'll catch you on the B sides.