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Salon
The Winery
Champagne Salon
"Great love affairs start with Champagne and end with tisane."
- Honoré de Balzac
Highly lauded as one of the worlds greatest Champagne houses, Salon has limited production and is the first Champagne house to produce a “blanc de blanc”. Founder Eugéne Aimé Salon felt that the Chardonnay could stand alone without Pinot Noir, and in 1921, the purely Grand Cru Chardonnay Cuvée first saw the open market.
The fruit is harvested from Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, in the Cotes de Blancs, with vines anywhere between ages of 25 and 40 years old. In the cellar, you will not find a barrel, nor will you find any malolactic fermentation being applied. To ensure optimal quality, the bottles are held for up to a decade before being released and some is held back for longer time sur-lees. Salon fairs especially well in the secondary market, and is a worthy investment. Referred to fondly as a Montrachet with bubbles, Salon has a long history of elegance and excellence.
Tasting Notes
- WSM96
- As it turns 15, this wine still has youthful notes of chamomile and meadow flowers. Its flavor intensity, a force of nature pitting those vibrant, sunny floral notes against a resonant limestone earth tone, is something that could only have been achieved through all those years in bottle. While the mousse is persistent and as fine as a mist, the flavors are vinous, suggesting you serve this wine as you would a Corton-Charlemagne: with something equally luscious and rich, like seared scallops over truffled mashed potatoes.
- WA95
- The Salon 1999 Brut Le Mesnil – disgorged already in 2011 and dosed with a pretty typical six grams of residual sugar – displays faintly fusil and quarry dust notes as well as hickory nut, almond, walnut and toasted wheat piquancy on the nose. Polished and subtly creamy in texture yet brightly juicy with apple and lemon, this displays an uncanny sense of lift and refinement, perfectly complementing the honeysuckle and heliotrope perfume that waft inner-mouth. You could lose yourself in the ineffability of this wine’s floral diversity and in its resonantly nut and grain low tones. Hints of apple pip lend subtle additional piquancy on a long and at once soothing as well as stimulating finish, with suggestions of oyster liquor becoming prominent as the bottle stands open for a few minutes, and serving to milk the salivary glands for all that they are worth. Follow this for at least a decade.
Other wines you may like
Krug Brut 1988
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Wines due to arrive June 2024.
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