🍾 Salon

Salon is a Champagne house in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, in the Côte des Blancs. According to the house, its first vintage was 1905: Aimé Salon, taken with the village’s terroir, created a blanc de blancs at first for his own pleasure and began sharing it only in the 1920s.

The house makes a single wine, built on the principle of “one”: one village (Le Mesnil-sur-Oger), one grape (Chardonnay) and one year, released only in great vintages. According to the house, the grapes come from a one-hectare plot, the “Jardin Salon”, and nineteen other small plots in the village, and the wines spend on average ten years in the cellar. In the 20th century it produced 37 vintages. Salon is run together with its sister house Delamotte within the Laurent-Perrier group.

Champagne is a wine with a protected designation of origin (PDO). The bubbles come only from a second fermentation in the bottle, the wine is aged for at least 15 months before sale (36 for vintage), and all production takes place only within the delimited area. Salon is a brand; Champagne is the name of a place.

Why it matters to you. A vintage year and blanc de blancs on the label are terms set by the rules: all grapes from that year, and only white grapes. The WHO reminds: there is no safe level of alcohol.