Description
96 points John Gilman
The 1985 Dom Pérignon is still several years away from its peak of drinkability, and while it is certainly quite approachable at this stage in its evolution, this wine will continue to improve with further bottle age. The bouquet is deep, complex and still a tad adolescent, as it offers up scents of tart apples, pink grapefruit, gentle herbal tones, a touch of limepeel, stony minerality and a smoky topnote. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, complex and still quite young, with a rock solid core of fruit, bright acids, fine focus and balance, tiny bubbles and superb length and grip on the racy finish. While some tasters around the table thought this wine was drinking beautifully, for my palate it remains still a bit bound up in its minerally adolescence and will offer up significantly more opulence and toasty charm with another five to ten years of bottle age. It should prove to be an absolutely classic vintage of Dom Pérignon.
96 Wine Advocate
Drunk from a pristinely preserved original disgorgement, the 1985 Dom Pérignon is inviting and exuberant, bursting with aromas of apples, pears, buttered toast, orange oil, tarte tatin and smoke. On the palate, it's medium to full-bodied, ample and pillowy, with a generous core of fruit, ripe but racy acids and a refined mousse.
