Hello everyone,
I’ve done some searching around the internet but haven’t come up with any solid answers and was hoping someone could shed some light on this topic for me. I recently purchased two bottles of Dom Perignon Luminous Vintage 2004 from an online retailer. When the bottles arrived I noticed the labels only read “Dom Perignon Vintage” with no date. Have there ever been luminous bottles produced with no date on the front label? I inspected the back labels and one seems to have been tampered with; although it could be damage from handling. I am not an expert on the subject but these few possible issues began to raise questions about their authenticity. I am including some photos of the bottles. I would appreciate any help in determining the authenticity of these bottles so I can decide to put them in the cellar or pursue a refund.
Thanks for your time,
Austin
Just a humble opinion, I think your bottles are fine. At $200-$240 a bottle retail, not really much incentive for a forger to fake this wine. Some wines use this no vintage label technique, where the year/vintage is a separate sticker/label from the main label. This enables them to use the same exact label for multiple vintages. Although your bottle does look slightly strange as the word “vintage” is there but no year. This is probably the most suspicious factor I see here.
As for the back label, its specialized per country (sort of) as it shows the US importers name on it. The tampered look might just be a labeling error where the label was not properly glued and some glue escaped the sides. I am also sure the “box” for this is again specialized, another reason to not forge it. You can also call the importer and ask them about the label issue (why there is no year).
The mechanism to light the label and the label itself looks quite complicated (well not really) but its not something you can easily make or forge. You can if you are willing to invest a lot of $$$$ mass producing the custom punt battery case/power and glowing label. Logic dictates that it is not just worth the trouble for a forger. Usually forged wines run in the 4-figures and up. Lastly if I were to forge Dom P. it would be the regular Dom P. as it is way easier to re-produce, easier to “hide” among the real bottles as there are so many of them, and also economies of scale is needed when forging items that are not that expensive (relatively compared to forged DRC).
Just my 2 cents.
(although I could be wrong)
Thank you very much for the reply and insight. I have also sent an email directly to DP awaiting a response.