Champagne's finest and rarest Blanc de Blancs, Salon is the legacy of Eugène-Aimé Salon who devoted his life to creating the perfect pure-Chardonnay champagne setting up the Maison in 1911. Salon is always made from Chardonnay grapes grown in a one hectare plot at the back of the Maison, "The Salon Garden" and 19 other plots on the deep chalk soils of Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. The apparent simplicity of this formula belies the challenges inherent in creating a wine of Salon’s complexity.

Weather: The 1999 season was one of the warmest in the 20th century and wasn't without complications along the way. A fine early spring was followed by a period of stormy weather and hails. In the early summer months of June and July there were some spells of rain, but impressive heat in the weeks leading up to the harvest produced wines with a high alcohol content and low acidity, resulting in a complex and lively vintage.

Salon is typically released at 10-12 years following the harvest. On release Salon is “fruit forward” and expressive, often “closing down” for anything from 3 to 10 years. It is after this time Salon really shines, the racy mineral freshness seem lessened and the fruit develops more than primary fruit character into an exquisite champagne with freshness, complexity & an abundance of dried fruits, especially orange, lemon and dried grass. There is no established “late disgorgement” program at Salon, a small numbers of bottles are often released at later dates like this parcel disgorged in the autumn of 2021. Confusingly the “late disgorged” bottles are labelled as normal so you would need to use our invoice and rotation codes in your bond to keep track of these. With longer lees ageing the late release Salon’s have a more “fresh profile” than the original release and will be more textural on the palate.

Technical Information:
Vineyards: 100% Grand Cru | Le Mesnil-sur-Oger
Grape Varieties: 100% Chardonnay
Disgorgement in 2010 | Lees Ageing: 10 Years
Disgorgement in Autumn 2021 | Lees Ageing: 21 Years
Dosage: 7 g/l
Drink: Now to 2040+

Tasting Note: Pale yellow, with a lively nose of citrus and grapefruits. The beady texture on the mid-palate combines with brioche, white fleshy fruits like pear and lemon to create a rounded flavour that develops right through until the finish. A stunning reflection of the 1999 vintage, Salon have managed to capture the opulence of this interesting harvest.

Champagne Salon Brand Overview & Buy Champagnes Same Day Delivery

Salon is one of the most intriguing and mysterious names in Champagne. It is also a most unusual wine: there is only one cuvée, it is produced only in exceptional years (there were only 37 releases in the entirety of the 20th century), it is made only from Chardonnay and it is sourced only from vineyards of the famous Grand Cru, Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. It is a rare and luxurious champagne, and new releases are always keenly anticipated with an average of only 60,000 bottles produced each vintage.

Early in the 20th century, Eugène-Aimé Salon, a wealthy businessman working in the fur trade in Paris, returned to his family’s roots in Champagne. His vision was to make a champagne like no other and purely from Chardonnay grapes grown in Le Mesnil. Arguably, this was the first ever ‘Blanc de Blancs’ champagne. Imagining a wine purely for his own pleasure, it began life as a hobby and he only made tiny quantities to consume with friends and family. After testing the waters with the 1905 vintage, Salon went full steam ahead in 1911, when Eugène bought a one-hectare vineyard in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger and officially created the Champagne house. He built a large mansion to throw lavish parties, but in fact the house was barely used, as Eugène’s focus remained firmly on his profitable fur business and his political career in Paris.
For his ‘hobby’ Eugène had been advised by his brother-in-law, a local winemaker, that the grapes from Le Mesnil were very high in acidity which resulted in powerful, very linear wines with great ageability. The grapes in Le Mesnil were Chardonnay, which at the time were considered less important than Pinot Noir in the production of Champagne. The common belief was that Chardonnay alone did not have enough body and structure to make well-balanced and high-quality champagnes. But, believing the wines could open up and impress if given enough time to develop, Eugène decided to let them age for a minimum of 10 years. His 1911 ‘Grand Vin Nature du Mesnil’ thus became the very first Blanc de Blancs champagne.

The house was headed by Eugène Aimé Salon until his death in 1943, when it passed to his sister Annie and nephew Marcel-Guillaume, who cared little for the wine business. They struggled along for the next 20 years and left the Chef de Cave to do his own thing. In 1963, the family sold the company to Dubonet-Cinzano, who showed little interest in developing the Champagne brand.

Things changed for the better in 1988, when Laurent-Perrier purchased Salon. Today, Salon exports 95% of its production. It was not imported into the United States until 1983. Remarking on the high price tag, the New York Times wrote: “Salon is likely to remain mostly invisible to the public; its appeal would seem to lie with those who fancy stratosphere-level wines.”

Didier Depond was appointed President of Salon in 1997 and remains director today.