Moet & Chandon 2013 Vintage Dom Perignon Brut Champagne

Perfumed with apple, green mangoes, perfume and honeysuckle. Medium-bodied with a creamy and integrated texture and a subtle finish. Bitters. Botanicals. Intense. Drink or hold.

Vivid acidity and a chalky underpinning make a crystalline frame for finely detailed notes of ripe melon, mandarin orange, toasted brioche and candied ginger in this harmonious Champagne, which is expressive and expansive on the palate, but with a sense of finesse and restraint. Long and creamy on the mineral-laced finish. Drink now through 2037.

Yet another scintillating wine from Dom Perignon. A youthful but complex bouquet: flowery notes of acacia honey emerge from a base of yellow plum. On the palate, the attack is dry and intense; succulent yellow fruit drenched in walnut oil builds on the mid palate. Superb balance! Long, zesty acidity returns to the finish refreshing the palate. Already very approachable with its generous fruit and sapid mouthfeel.

Silky, narrowly sculpted and serene, Dom Pérignon 2013 is a less hedonistic release than the 2012 (and less intensely energetic than the 2008), but showcases a beautiful mid-place between tension and expressiveness already. Orange-coloured fruit – apricots, mango and orange – play along with snappy lemon syrup and delicate red fruits, the palate teased into considerable detail and length with some trademark Dom Pérignon smokiness. There is immediate pleasure here, although cellaring will let some of the inner complexity unfurl, revealing this to the among the finest Dom Pérignon releases of recent times. 51% Pinot Noir, 49% Chardonnay.

Disgorged in October last year, the 2013 Dom Pérignon is a lovely wine, defined by the long, cool growing season. Offering up aromas of crisp stone fruit, tangerine oil, buttered toast, pear, almonds and clear honey, it's medium to full-bodied, ample and seamless, with bright acids and a pillowy, enveloping profile, concluding with a long, saline finish. Vincent Chaperon recalls that shatter at fruit set moderated yields and that a drying east wind in the weeks before harvest helped to maintain the good sanitation necessary to wait to pick at full maturity.