The short answer
Which is the best Dom Perignon vintage depends on what you weigh: the critic average, the number of reviews behind it, the drinking window and the price. By critic average, 2008 holds 98.0 across 6 published reviews, and 2018 holds 98.0 from 1 published review. Read each figure with its review count, because a single score is an opinion rather than a consensus, and that is the part most rankings leave out. The 1961 holds 98.3 across 3 published reviews, the 1952 holds 97.0 from 1 published review, the 1975 holds 97.0 from 4 published reviews and the 2012 holds 97.0 from 5 published reviews. A score alone will not tell you what to buy. Review count, drinking window and what the bottle actually costs decide that, and those three pull in different directions on almost every year discussed below.
Which is the best Dom Perignon vintage
The answer starts with confidence as much as with the score. The 2008 holds a critic average of 98.0 across 6 published reviews. The 2018 holds 98.0 from 1 published review. A single score is an opinion rather than a consensus, so an average resting on several reviews is a stronger claim than one resting on a single note.
The 1961 holds 98.3 from 3 published reviews. The 1952 holds 97.0 from 1 published review, the 1975 holds 97.0 from 4 published reviews, and the 2012 holds 97.0 from 5 published reviews. The 1996 holds 96.3, with 821 drinker ratings behind a community score of 94.7. Where a professional average rests on one or two notes, the drinker score is often the more reliable signal simply because there is more of it.
The full ranking, and what the numbers hide
Among other well-known years, the 1964 holds 96.3, the 1971 96.3 and the 1985 96.5. The 1978 holds 90.0, the 1992 91.0 and the 1993 91.5. Each figure comes from the same dated extract, so the years can be compared directly.
Survivorship shapes any list like this: the years that get reviewed at all are the ones people still open. Where a declared year carries no professional average in our record, the absence is not a verdict on the wine.
Score is not the same as what to buy
A drinking window changes the answer more than a decimal place does. The 1964 holds 96.3 with a recorded window of 2017 to 2020, and the 1966 holds 96.0 with a window of 2017 to 2020. The 2006 holds 95.5 with a window of 2016 to 2056. If you are buying to drink rather than to collect, a year whose window is still open is a more useful bottle than a higher-scoring year whose window has closed.
Price pulls the other way again. The 1969 holds 96.3 and last traded at £482 a bottle in November 2021. Score per pound is worth working out for any pair of years before buying, using figures from the same date.
How to read a ranking like this one
Check the review count before the score. Every figure here carries one, which is unusual for a vintage ranking and is the single most useful thing on the page. A 98 from one taster and a 98 from six are different claims about the same wine, and treating them as equal is how a list becomes decoration.
Then check when the number was recorded. Mature Champagne moves, and a score from a bottle opened in 2003 describes a wine that has had two more decades in glass since. Where we hold a drinking window, it is a better guide to whether a bottle is worth opening now than any score in the table.
Common questions
What is the best Dom Perignon vintage?
It depends on whether you weigh the critic average, the number of reviews behind it, the drinking window or the price. The 2008 holds a critic average of 98.0 across 6 published reviews, and the 2018 holds 98.0 from 1 published review.
Which Dom Perignon vintage is best value?
Value means score against price, so work it out for the years you are considering using figures from the same date.
How many Dom Perignon vintages have been declared?
Our vintage guide covers 43 declared years, from the first declaration of 1921 to 2018. Where a declared year carries no professional average in our record, that reflects how rarely it is reviewed rather than any judgement on the wine.
Is a higher scoring vintage always the better bottle?
No. Drinking window and price move the answer more than a decimal place. The 1964 holds 96.3 with a window of 2017 to 2020, and the 2006 holds 95.5 with a window of 2016 to 2056.
Sources
- The Finest Bubble on the Dom Perignon declared vintages, checked 2026-08-29
- Glass of Bubbly guide to Dom Perignon vintage price values, checked 2026-08-29
By WineExperts. First published , last updated . Figures from our tracked merchant prices and recorded sales; text prepared with AI assistance and checked against the sources listed above.