Grape: Chardonnay
Region: Champagne, France
Ageing Potential: 10-20 years
Perfect with: Rock Oysters
Size: 750mL

Why You’ll Love It? 

Salon remains one of Champagne’s most mystical and elusive wines. What makes Salon unique is that it only produces one wine, a vintage wine, made exclusively from the village of Le Mesnil-sur Oger. Since it only makes vintage wines, it’s only produced in the very best vintages. Since 1905, the house has declared just 42 vintages, that’s on average around 3-4 vintages every decade. Currently they are ageing the 2008 vintage and will not be making any vintages in 2009, 2010, 2011 or 2012. The original founder, Eugene-Aime Salon originally made the wine solely for his private consumption. It was until 1921 did the first bottle reach the retail market and quickly gained an exclusive following.

The natural focus and drive of Mesnil is accentuated by the blocked-malo style. As a result, Salon requires extended time on its lees, which also makes it one of the last prestige champagnes to be released. They make on average around 60,000 bottles per vintage.

The 2002 vintage was declared as one of Salon’s best vintages in the last decade. Aged for 11 years on lees before it was disgorged, with 6g/L of dosage. Only 62,000 bottles were produced of the 2002 vintage which is about 10% of total Cristal production. Known for being austere champagnes made for bottle ageing, the 2002 is just starting to show well. It can easily be aged for another 10-20 years without a problem.