SALON CUVEE ‘S’ LE MESNIL BLANC DE BLANCS 1999

Salon Cuvee ‘S’
Le Mesnil Blanc de Blancs Brut
1999

A very pale yellow with barely green hints and a lively nose but still discreet, 1999 Salon, with its clear immediate taste, has that juvenile grace that captures the palate, itself straight, firm and textured. A quite natural sophistication that is a gift and persists just like the creamy bubbles. Brioche, white bread, white blossom, white fruit and bitter almond flavours are still developing. The middle palate and aftertaste are crystalline and it has a lingering finish with hints of citrus. Ten years is all it has taken the 1999 Salon to reach dazzling maturity. Decades will follow.

VARIETIES: Chardonnay 100%
REGION: France / Champagne / Côte des Blancs / Champagne Grand Cru ‘Le Mesnil-sur-Oger’
AGEING: Cellared in the bottle for an average of 10 years
GUARDING POTENTIAL: Enjoy now or will cellar well up to 30 years
SERVE: Savour it, drink it barely cold, between 13° and 15°. Sensual pleasure assured
FITS TO: Exquisite, delicate, gracious and subtle dishes. Warm Oysters and Aquitaine Caviar, a lightly cooked Sea Bass with a Truffle Risotto or Calf’s Sweetbreads with Morel Mushrooms. An excellent Parma or Iberico Ham, the centre of a Parmesan cheese, aged for 36 months. Or simply by itself, with Grilled Almonds
CRITICS SCORES: 96/W&S, 95/WE, 95/RP, 95/V, 94/WS, 18/JR
VIVINO: Average 4.7 ★★★★✰

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1999 | Vintage | Champagne Salon
Salon 1999 Champagne
Natural sophistication
37th and last vintage of the 20th century, Salon 1999 Champagne has stirring perfection, the future power of an adolescent. Devilish beauty

A legendary wine – one that sparkles.

Salon is a unique champagne. Defined by its singularity since the very beginning, this exceptional wine is the champagne of a single terroir: the Côte des Blancs; a single cru: Le Mesnil-sur-Oger; a single grape variety: Chardonnay; a single year: that of a great vintage; and of one man: Eugène-Aimé Salon.

The first vintage of Champagne Salon was 1905. It was the creation of Eugène-Aimé Salon, a unique character with unwavering ambition. In love with champagne and captivated by the terroir of Le Mesnil, Eugène-Aimé Salon created a champagne after his own heart: an unparalleled Blanc de Blancs. Initially he created this for his personal pleasure only – it was not until the 1920s that he was to share his creation with the rest of the world.

Champagne Salon comes from a single hectare plot called « the Salon garden » and nineteen other small plots in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger selected by Eugène-Aimé Salon at the beginning of the 20th century. The wines are aged in our cellars for an average of ten years, after which they finally start to reveal their complexity and finesse. The fact that Salon still conserves bottles in its cellars from nearly every vintage is testament to its legacy and honours it. Just 37 vintages were produced in the 20th century, a unique phenomenon in the world of wine.

Today, Champagne Salon is run alongside Champagne Delamotte by Didier Depond, President, and Michel Fauconnet, Cellar Master and Production Manager of the Laurent-Perrier group.

The vintage
The most abundant grape harvest in the history of Champagne! One of the warmest years of the century! But, on the heels of a fairly mild winter and a warm early spring came a series of hailstorms. The weather settled and the Chardonnay grape flowers bloomed on 11 June – magnificent. Rain in early July and a surprise month of August: a cold spell and an eclipse of the moon on the 11th. The harvest promised to be splendid, started well but ended with rain. Production, which was already significant, increased further. However, some winegrowers were able to reduce the weight of the vines at the right time: as a result, the wines gained in alcohol content (an average of 10%) with a low level of acidity of 6.3% due to the heat of the summer and rain during picking. Powerful, profound, lively and complex wines.

Terroir
Soil and vintage: adolescent turmoil. What is this conflict, this duel creating confusion in 1999 Salon? Will soil or the vintage reign victorious over the other? On one hand, the chalky “minerality” and vivacity specific to the soil of Mesnil-sur-Oger. On the other, the depth and sensual roundness that reflect the character of the vintage, without the over-ripeness sometimes found. It is from the tension between these forces that the 1999 Salon takes its personality – this delicate balance between proud adolescence, created from the potential of decades, given by its immense “minerality”, and its youthful ardour, extensive but under control. Fine character and devilish charm.