🍾 Salon Le Mesnil Blanc de Blancs

Salon Le Mesnil Blanc de Blancs is the vintage Champagne line of the house Salon in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger (Marne): each release carries the harvest year on its label. Each year has its own page on this site: 2015, 2013, 2012, 2008, 2007, 2006, 1999, 1997, 1996, 1995, 1988, 1985, 1983, 1982, 1973, 1971, 1964, 1961, 1959, 1956, 1949, 1947, 1943, 1937, 1928, 1914, 1911, 1909, 1905.

According to the house, Salon is a Blanc de Blancs from a one-hectare plot called the Salon garden and nineteen other small plots in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger; the wines age about ten years in the cellars, and only 37 vintages were produced in the 20th century.

According to the house, Salon is the Champagne of a single terroir (the Côte des Blancs), a single cru (Le Mesnil-sur-Oger), a single grape (Chardonnay) and a single year; Eugène-Aimé Salon made the first vintage in 1905.

The boundaries of the Champagne area were set by a law of 6 May 1919: parts of the Marne, Aube, Aisne, Haute-Marne and Seine-et-Marne departments. The designation’s specification allows seven grape varieties, dominated by Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier; grapes are picked as whole bunches, that is by hand, and the yield is limited to 10,400 kg per hectare.

According to the Comité Champagne, Champagne is served chilled to 8–10 °C, and bottles are kept in the dark at a steady 10–15 °C, without vibration. An opened bottle is best closed with a sparkling-wine stopper and kept cold.

Under the rules of the Champagne designation, vintage Champagne is aged for at least 36 months before sale; the bubbles come only from a second fermentation in the bottle.

Why it matters to you. The year on the label is the harvest year, so different years of the same line are different wines. The WHO reminds: there is no safe level of alcohol.