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Golden plate outside house Salon ©Serge Chapuis.jpg

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.

Tasting Salon and Delamotte at tasting room Leif Carlsson.jpg

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.

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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.

Map Le Mesnil ©Leif Carlsson.jpg
Salon galeries © Leif Carlsson .jpg
Portrait Eugène Aimé Salon.jpg
LC_22_113855.Photo (c) Leif Carlsson.jpg

He enjoyed remarkable success and an extremely pleasant life. Passionate about the culinary arts (he employed two chefs at his country house in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger), he had very fixed ideas about dishes, how they should be prepared, and about the wines that should be served with them.

Since the 1928 vintage, one that earned Salon the unanimous recognition of connoisseurs, Eugène-Aimé’s uncompromising standards prevail. The wine is made in exceptional vintages only, volumes are limited, and winemaking processes remain unchanged.

A native of Champagne, Eugène-Aimé Salon was also a European, and in the Thirties was politically involved in the movement for a peaceful, modern Europe, alongside Louise Weiss (his name appears in the « Premiers Européens » yearbook for 1931). Eugène-Aimé Salon was a prominent figure in Parisian life in the Roaring Twenties and had many friends, notably in political and parliamentary circles, where he was unafraid to express his highly progressive ideas.

In his lifetime and still today, long after his death in 1943, the image of Eugène-Aimé Salon remains that of a pioneer and visionary, a man of ideas, free and creative. His champagne is the legacy of this ongoing quest for beauty, a symbol of generosity and of the enduring human desire to share with others our most sublime creation.

Eugène-Aimé Salon was born on 7th October 1867 in Pocancy, a village at the foot of the Côte des Blancs in Champagne.

 

Having little interest in the family farm and even less in the career of primary school teacher also on the cards, Eugène-Aimé Salon opted to try his luck in commerce, moving to Paris. Young and enthusiastic, he managed to secure a position with the furrier Chapal in Montreuil. Initially a boy Friday, he worked hard and stepped up, assuming more and more responsibility, taking charge of the company’s development strategy, leading to its expansion and great success. As the new century dawned, he was one of the key figures of Paris’ glittering society circuit.

 

Energetic, intelligent, running constantly on business between Paris and New York – there was no sale in New York, London or Paris in which he was not involved – he loved life and lived it to the full, adored pleasure and the finer things, and, it goes without saying given his champenois origins, the best champagne.

 

He also had a dream. He dreamt of a champagne of incomparable finesse, a unique wine for him alone; a champagne that would stand apart.

Salon client book at the House ©Leif Carlsson.jpg

THE FRENCH KNOW-HOW ....

 

From generation to generation, preserving the ancestral know-how and uncompromising French craftsmanship, each sip of the golden cuvee comes from the hard work of the Artisan Vignerons who are passionate about the vines, and respectful of the soil, the climate, the exposure of the land ... where the Terroir expresses itself in the unpredictable and many a times, harsh environment of the Champagne Region.

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