Dom Pérignon’s Révélations in Bilbao
Dom Pérignon unveiled its Vintage 2018 at the Guggenheim Museum with tastings, wine-making culture, poetry and a performance art piece by Tilda Swinton and Olivier Saillard
At the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Dom Pérignon reached for the stars with Révélations, its annual gathering dedicated to the Maison’s creative process, vision, and latest expressions. The evening marked the unveiling of Vintage 2018, the first vintage shaped under the guidance of Vincent Chaperon, Dom Pérignon’s Chef de Cave.
Chaperon, who hosted alongside Jacques Giraco, General Manager of Dom Pérignon, was proud to present his creation. “Dom Pérignon Vintage 2018 reveals a more accomplished matter, broader, deeper and more tactile,” he explained, “a wine that unfolds through the place and the space it occupies within the mouth.” Thriving on a warm season and early harvest, he was able to curate the creation of an ambitious vintage, rich in minerality, sucrosity and salinity.
Bringing together a short selection of media, creators and artists and friends of the House—which included Solange Knowles, Alexa Chung, Tom Blyth, François Arnaud, Benedetta Porcaroli, Ayumi Kusumi, Milena Smit, Barbara Lennie and Princess Cleopatra Fürstin zu Oettingen-Spielberg—Dom Pérignon welcomed guests to the event. The program included tasting, wine-making culture, poetry, performance art and reflection.
Earlier in the day, at Carreras Mugica art gallery, Chaperon and French artist Claudine Drai had a creative talk on the theme of “place” and the deep consciousness of the treasures of Dom Pérignon’s vineyard and its 300 years-long legacy. As guests tasted the Pré-Assemblages 2025, the hosts shared their considerations on how the essence of that place influences the act of creation of champagne, in the true spirit of harmony, which is one of Dom Pérignon’s key values and is seen as a source of emotion.
The climax of the artistic side of the event was at Guggenheim Bilbao, right before a gala dinner hosted by Dom Pérignon in collaboration with Eneko Atxa, 3-Michelin-star chef of restaurant Azurmendi, and Josean Alija, Michelin-star chef of Nerua. In the museum’s architecturally spectacular Atrium, Academy Award winner and legendary actress Tilda Swinton performed exclusively for the guests of the event, a preview of a special show that was later made accessible to the general public in the following two days, courtesy of Dom Pérignon.
“House of Gestures” was a captivating, evocative half-hour silent performance co-created by Swinton and Olivier Saillard, curator, performer, and fashion historian. “With performance, we like to create a free zone where something honest and original can occur and become a shared experience in real time,” said Swinton. “A great champagne has much in common with this idea. Both are rooted in space and authentic presence, not representation or interpretation.”
A small white stage, two racks of clothes in ivory tones and a sturdy yet malleable cotton fabric, Saillard’s presence as costume designer, and two other actors posing as assistants: these were the elements Swinton needed to create a breathtaking sequence of poses. In constant transformation, her character wore and changed clothes, shifting from necessity to self-expression. Across the fetishes of centuries of female identity, she moved from repression to liberation, then to oppression by conformism and imposed social values, before arriving at vanity and finally aspiration. “House of Gestures” explored the relationship between body, space, and creation, with the concept of “place” becoming the female body itself.
The show had a strong bond with Dom Pérignon’s ongoing dialogue with creators and its belief that creation is a never-ending journey. That connection became especially clear in Chaperon’s reaction to Swinton’s performance. “The performance really touched me, it moved me,” he said. “At the end, Tilda was looking up. And I think, in my interpretation, she was looking for the stars. And I know because I visited her at home, in Scotland, two months ago. She has an unbelievable house, which was built in the 7th century. I spent two hours with her, visiting her garden, etc. And when I left, she sent me a picture of the sky at night above her house. She expressed a sense of place, of belonging. It is perfectly linked with Dom Pérignon’s campaign and my approach to creativity in my work. She understood very early that with Dom Pérignon, it was a question of never stopping reaching for the stars.”
“The legend has it that our founder Dom Pierre Pérignon said, ‘I’m drinking the stars.’ So the stars represent desire, the ultimate desire. You want to drink it, fill yourself with it,” Chaperon said. “And, like Tilda’s performance, this concept is really linked to our Vintage 2018, my vintage, my creative approach: it’s deeply connected to my personal feeling and internal dynamic. I’m a dreamer. Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince is one of my favorite books—so poetic and so well explaining the dream of life. So that’s what I’m trying to do, really profoundly, with Dom Pérignon: to stretch, to strive for something further.”
What lingered after the evening was the sense that Dom Pérignon had once again turned creation into anticipation. Vintage 2018 now enters the conversation as more than a release: it becomes the next chapter in a narrative shaped by place, presence, and the constant reaching upward.
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