Pearson's Notes

Salon is one of the great names in Champagne for a very good reason. It is made only in great vintages (the decade of the eighties only produced '82,'83,'85 and '88) and only from grapes from one site, the grand cru of Mesnil. This village grows the most sought after Chardonnay in Champagne. The 1999 Brut Blanc de Blancs is impenetrable. This is a massive, full-bodied Salon that totally saturates the palate with fruit. Neither as austere or pointed as the 1996, nor as open as the 1997, instead the 1999 comes across as big, rich and powerful. There is little in the way of flavor or aromatic development, and it may be some time before any real complexity develops in bottle. Today it looks like the wine’s best days are well off into the future The production hovers around 8,000 six-bottle cases, so the wine is always hard to come by but very worth seeking out!  Anticipated maturity: 2019-2039.