Don Perignon?

DoM Perignon, with an m at the end. A vintage product, designated according to the year of its grape harvest, Dom Perignon is the flagship product of the vinting firm Champagne Moët et Chandon. It is named for a 17th Century French Benedictine monk, son of a minor and forgotten clerk, born Pierre, but, as customary upon the taking of holy orders, known to history from the date of his tonsure (at the Abbey of Saint-Vannes at Verdun) at the age of 19, as "Dom" Perignon . He seems to have had a natural talent for wine making. Before he was 30, he was the cellar master at the Abbey of Hautvillers, and his work on the art of blending grapes from different vinyards to achieve a distinctive, and essentially reliably repeatable, taste, body, and character in fine wines was without equal; he essentially is responsible for the process. He also most likely is the individual responsible for the use of cork, specifically Spanish cork, to stopper wine bottles. While he did not invent sparkling wine, known to predate his birth by at least a century, or even the Champagne Process, he certainly elevated it to an artform, and excelled in the practice, bringing fame to the point of legend to himself and considerable financial benefit to his abbey. Today, some 80 years after entering the premium champagne market, Moët et Chandon's Dom Perignon is still popularly considered to be of dependably superlative quality. Many currently available vintages sell in the neighborhood of $100 per bottle and upwards. Most recently, '90 was a very good year, as were '92 and '93, examples from those vintages fetching 3 to 4 times that price if they can be found. For those willing to pay the price, they will be found. Lesser vintages generally retail somewhere between $30-75 a bottle.

I can't stand the stuff. To my thinking, a huge part of its price is its reputation. But that's neither here nor there. I'm mostly a beer and whiskey fan.

I've never tried it and now that I read your responses, I probably won't bother. I make my own wine from kits and I like them very much.

OOh, I'd love to do that!

For my buck, a good vintage Bollinger tastes better than Dom, and is generally cheaper.

I'm loving Banrock Station red at the moment. Yum!

I have not tried it, but have had Moet's lesser expensive champagnes - White Star and Brut. My favorite champagne by far is White Star even compared to other champagne and sparkling wine makers. I like many different wines and wine makers except for white zinfandel. It is way too sweet for me, although a good red zinfandel is fabulous. I am far from a wine expert, but I did take some wine courses. The major knowledge that I walked away from these classes is if you spend a lot of money on wine, you are almost guaranteed to get a great wine. However, you can buy inexpensive wine that is excellent also, you just are taking a crap shoot unless you already have gotten a recommendation from it or tried it yourself. The biggest thing I learned was that basically like beauty, the taste of wine is in the beholder. In other words, each person has different tastes so that even a very expensive bottle like Dom Perignon could be crap to you if you don't like it. So buy whatever you like and don't worry about feeling like a dumb brat - if you don't like, you don't. I don't like any of those sweet desert wines no matter how expensive they are.

You are right though that you can develop a taste for certain types of wine. I found this happened to me with red wines. I rarely had drunk much red wine until I dated one man who only drank red wine. After a while I began loving red wine. I now prefer in most cases over white.