Dom Perignon Dinner (2002,1996,2000 Rose,1971)

Moet & Hennessy/Dom Perignon and Watsons Wines teamed up with the forever-established but newly 1 Michelin star-minted Cantonese Man Wah restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental to put on a gorgeous and thoughtfully-composed dinner to highlight how well a top Champagne such as Dom Perignon can be paired with Cantonese food (including a twist or two on traditional dishes).

Moet & Hennesey/Dom Perignon and Watsons were incredibly generous with the wines, of which even the 1971 Oenoteque was on free flow.

Foie Gras moulded into a perfectly convincing Chicken's Foot, Marinated Fresh Abalone, Roast Pork Belly & Stewed Fish Maw with Abalone Sauce

• 2002 Dom Pérignon Champagne 92 Points

  France, Champagne

  Very light silver-green colour almost like a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Muted mousse but persistent pinprick bubbles in the initial flute glass but much more wine-like when served in a wine glass over the dinner. Nose really benefited from the wine glass......very immediate citrus, high lifted notes, an element of gunflint and lazer precision. Palate is an immediate impression of complete harmony and balance....really poised as the pinot noir and chardonnay countebalance each other......lovely fresh peeled hazelnuts picked straight from the bush and freshly toasted white bread without any crust.....then good brioche cuts in and there is a really nice toasty oak at the finish. Although young, there is quite a lot of resonance inside the head on the finale. This was nice when drank as a fairly cold aperitif in a flute but it became really gorgeous when drank in a wine glass and paired with foie gras (shaped into a chicken's foot), lightly marinated fresh abalone and a small cube of roast pork belly. This has all the makings of a classic....if you can keep your hands off it for long enough.

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These two dishes worked excellently with the wines, enhancing them but not overwhelming them.

• 1996 Moët & Chandon Champagne Cuvée Dom Pérignon 94 Points

  France, Champagne

  More golden in colour than the 2002 that preceded it but is still young-looking. Nose is...WOW....very light but rich acacia honey, scents of honeysuckle, hints of acetone, high notes of a violin, lots of fresh-toasted brown bread.....and lovely brioche at the back end...complex, rich but surprisingly understated. Palate is....oooh...rich, rich brioche but still with a very balancing sharp acidic cut. Very bracing.... a touch of ozone....and Epsom Salts. Surprisingly young and vibrant, although quite heady. A definite notch up from the 2002, but not as scintillating as the 1996 Oenotheque we drank alongside it.

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• 1996 Dom Pérignon Champagne Oenothèque 95 Points

  France, Champagne

  Deep green-gold, bright, sharp colour. Little mousse as it was served in a wine glass. Nose is a notch up from the 1996 Dom Perignon drank in parallel with it......amazing purity (I underlined this word in my notes) and precision, like a really sharply-focussed photo of a rockface.....intense hand-crushed lightly roasted whole lemons with almost no tones of yeast or brioche. Weightless, like the nose of a young Montrachet. Palate has the same marked effervescence of Alka Seltzer as the standard Dom Perignon 1996.....mouthwateringly fresh and vibrant.....absolutely stunning....such lightness but sabre-sharp tension....saline...incredibly salivative....lemons, lemons, lemons....gorgeous......heady and very resonant on the finale. This has decades ahead of it but it already has me totally captivated. Gosh.... I don't think champagne gets much better than this...erm, until we were served the Dom Perignon Oenotheque 1971.

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The dry saltiness of the Yunnan ham in particular accentuated the Rose character of the champagne.

• 2000 Dom Pérignon Champagne Rosé 90 Points

  France, Champagne

  Served in wine glasses from magnum to accompany the Mandarin's beautiful Cantonese dish of crispy chicken livers and Yunnan ham. Very deep rose water in colour. Nose is sensuous, sexy, oaky and with lots of fresh warm toast. Palate echoed the Dom Perignon theme of the evening.....sharp, delineated, precise, pure......with not overly red fruit, showing a dynamic tension between white and red grapes. This showed really well tonight (better than over a similar Chef's Table Cantonese dinner at the Grand Hyatt a month ago)...and I don't usually care for Rose champagne but this had an un-typicity that I really enjoyed.

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This was fried rice of the highest order but it was totally overshadowed by stunning intensity and allure of the wine.......mind you, a gold ingot would also have been forgotten had it been on the plate.

• 1971 Moët & Chandon Champagne Cuvée Dom Pérignon Oenothèque 97 Points

  France, Champagne

  Served in wine glasses and paired with the Mandarin's super rich Cantonese fried rice with roast duck, matsutake mushroom and oyster sauce (except that the wine was so captivating that I hardly ate the food). Lightly honeyed gold colour. Nose is OMG....lovely almonds in three variations of toasted, fresh and something in between.... hints of oxidization/age but I mean "hints"...there is a beautiful mahogany grandparents' furniture finish to the nose that suggests age...but balanced by a contradictory brightness and freshness. Palate is intriguing and silence-inducing......some incense, very sharp light patchouli oil, a very pronounced and definitive sharpness....that precision shared by all the Dom Perignons drank tonight is also there again... but with amazing linearity....profound depths.....profound...but so light, understated and elegant.....aloof but accessible.......endless endurance in the glass.....this may be too understated for some people but it has me in reveries and took me to a very special place that only a handful of wines have ever taken me. Absolutely stunning........

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This was a really memorable evening....one of my real highlights of 2011.....and a great "thank you" is owed to Vincent Pages and Rosemary Yu of Moet & Hennessy and Amanda Yu of Watsons Wines and their respective colleagues for making it happen, together with the always impeccably professional and welcoming staff at the Man Wah restaurant....really excellent.