1997 salon, le mesnil-sur-oger grand cru
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Why We're Buying
Many Champagne houses add pinot noir or pinot meunier to round of the flavor of their cuvée. Champagne Salon begs to differ. It produces Le Mesnil-sur-Oger entirely from chardonnay, with 2021 representing the 100th anniversary of the cuvées debut. During that time, the estate has only released 37 vintages, never producing more than 60,000 bottles in a single year. Few estates have higher standards than Salon. As a result, few estates command higher prices. This legendary Champagne stands out as the gold standard for bubbly, with critics comparing it to a white Burgundy with bubbles. The 2012 Salon vintage almost didn’t exist. In 2014, Salon's president Didier Depond had reportedly said there were no great vintages since 2008. Time has a way of changing people’s minds, though. The evolution of the 2012 vintage was undeniable, yielding a sweeping and structured Champagne with a tightly knit core of stone fruit, acids, oyster shells, brioche, and creamy mousse. Critics have uniformly praised 2012 Salon since its release. The Wine Advocate’s William Kelley called it “after the 2008, the finest Salon produced this millennium.” Meanwhile, wine critic James Suckling gave the vintage a 98-point rating, praising it as “layered and refined with wonderful complexity.”
Critics Scores
Wine Enthusiast
The fabled Salon's latest release is much riper and softer than the great steely 1996 vintage. This suggests it is likely to be ready to drink soon. In the meantime, the acidity is supremely fresh, with grapefruit edges and green apple flavors. And then there is minerality and a tight, structured aftertaste as a reminder that this great Champagne is always going to be more than its fruit.
Burghound.com
An elegant and very fresh but distinctly yeasty nose of stupendous breadth leads to incredibly intense, pure, detailed and vibrant flavors that possess superb depth and simply knockout length. This is a powerful Salon and even though it doesn’t have the solid acid spine of the very best vintages, this compensates by its approachability and terrific mouth feel.
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
From a recently released bottle disgorged in 2018, the 1997 Blanc de Blancs Le Mesnil Brut is showing very well indeed, offering up aromas of citrus oil, crushed chalk, white flowers, warm bread and iodine that are appreciably more youthful than the more mature dried fruit tones that readers will find in bottles of the original disgorgement. On the palate, the wine is medium to full-bodied, tensile and incisive, with superb concentration, chalky structure and a long, searingly mineral finish. The 2018 disgorgement saw 3.5 grams per liter dosage, somewhat less than the original release. While the 1996 has the edge, I doubt that, 20 years ago, anyone could have imagined how close the 1997 and 1996 would be as they approach maturity.
Burghound
An elegant and very fresh but distinctly yeasty nose of stupendous breadth leads to incredibly intense, pure, detailed and vibrant flavors that possess superb depth and simply knockout length. This is a powerful Salon and even though it doesn’t have the solid acid spine of the very best vintages, this compensates by its approachability and terrific mouth feel.