CHAMPAGNE SALON 2012

CHAMPAGNE SALON 2012 EXCLUSIVE TO CORNEY & BARROW IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

“Un seul cépage: le chardonnay; un seul cru: Le Mesnil-sur-Oger; un seul millésime – issu des grandes années uniquement.

Suivant une exigence inébranlable, Aimé Salon, personnalité singulière, sut inventer le champagne de ses désirs: un blanc de blancs sans précédent.

Salon 2012 tient toutes ses promesses avec un sourire énigmatique.”

“A single grape variety: chardonnay; a single cru: Le Mesnil-sur-Oger; made only in exceptional years. The idiosyncratic and exacting Aimé Salon invented the champagne of his desires: a blanc de blancs without precedent. Salon 2012 honours his pledge with an enigmatic smile.”

DIDIER DEPOND, PRÉSIDENT, CHAMPAGNE SALON

THE STORY OF SALON The story of Salon’s creator, Eugène-Aimé Salon, reads like a picaresque novel, a tale of rags-to-riches – or in this case: furs.

The child of a cart-maker from Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, the young Aimé Salon left for Paris, finding work for a fur merchant, where he rose from messenger boy to managing director, making the company and himself a sizeable fortune in the process. Work hard, play hard?

Aimé Salon mixed the two assiduously. Very much the bon vivant as well as shrewd businessman, enthralled by Paris and its glittering social circuit, he even had his own table at Maxim’s, the hottest address of the time, where he would meet clients and lovers alike. He was also passionate about champagne and apparently consumed a great deal of it in the company of his glamorous friends. And this is where the improbable story of Cuvée ‘S’ began.

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Some say that Aimé Salon decided to create this champagne for his own amusement, or for a bet, or to impress his contemporaries - who could possibly have the cash, the connections or the insider’s skill to produce a champagne with their name on it? Others believe the story of the eccentric and aesthete, determined to create the perfect champagne; either way, it is clear that this became something of an obsessive project. Aimé Salon returned home to Le Mesnil-sur-Oger to consult with his brother-in-law Marcel Guillaume, a cellar master. It was he who explained to Aimé Salon the special nature of Le Mesnil’s soils, the exceptional acid profile of its grapes, and their potential to yield wines of great power, purity, and longevity. At this point perhaps, had anyone other than Aimé been driving the project, Cuvée ‘S’ might never have happened. For this was the land of the chardonnay grape, very much second fiddle to pinot noir back then; nobody had ever made a champagne exclusively from chardonnay, any more than they would consider making a wine from a single vintage or vineyard! Fortunately, for us, Aimé Salon lived by his own rules.

And so the quest began, with chardonnay the new muse.

Marcel’s little black book of vineyards and vignerons was plundered and Aimé Salon set to work on an exacting plan. Just imagine the incongruity of it: the Parisian entrepreneur down from town, gliding past horse and cart in his gleaming Hispano Suiza J12, treading the vineyards in his shiny city shoes, in pursuit of the finest plots, the

most favourable gradient, the purest chalk. He developed an exacting google-worthy algorithm to rate each harvest, based essentially on fruit ripeness, character, acid profile and balance. Had the grapes attained the Salon standard?

One year in three, more or less; Salon was unflinching in rejecting a harvest he judged to be less than perfect.

In the cellar, yet more criteria: only the purest juice would be used from the first pressings, the rest cast aside. Next: the lengthy prise de mousse and maturation - which can surely only have been trial and error at the beginning: try a bottle, wait a bit, try again, wait a bit longer, eventually reach conclusion that said wine requires a minimum of ten years horizontal in a dark room in the intimate company of its spent yeast lees. This was one of Aimé’s great achievements: he understood that chardonnay’s firm, taut structure could indeed attain greatness and finesse, but that only time would confer charm, curve and allure.

In creating Salon, he was to transform the perception of chardonnay itself in the world of champagne.

1905 marked Aimé Salon’s first vintage, produced in tiny quantities to share with friends and family, who eventually persuaded him to expand it into a commercial venture. So in 1911, Aimé Salon bought his first vineyard – the single hectare plot now known as Le jardin de Salon – from which Salon is still made, along with some 20 other exceptional vineyard parcels dotted across Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. The 1911 vintage was launched in 1921, at Maxim’s of course, where it was poured as the House champagne. It was here, in the heady atmosphere of 1920s and 30s Paris, that the wine’s reputation was made, and it continued to be sold here exclusively until the 1950s.

A single terroir, a single vintage, a single grape, and time – Salon is the legacy of a very singular man indeed.

Thanks in no small part to Didier Depond, the similarly dynamic and charismatic Président of Champagne Salon and its sister house Champagne Delamotte since 1997, the exacting methods developed by Aimé Salon continue to be upheld to this day. Salon Cuvée ‘S’ is made from only the most exceptional vintages, in small quantities, and released after an average of a decade’s ageing.

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2012 VINTAGE NOTES Salon - the original blanc de blancs champagne, the pioneer and icon of a style for all time. An exercise in precision, Salon is as uncompromising as it is enthralling.

We are delighted to be offering Salon 2012, the 43rd Salon ever to be released since Aimé Salon founded his eponymous champagne house in the early 1900s. It is also the first Salon since the terrifically low-yielding 2008 was produced in magnums only (just 8000 of them!), and the first release in bottle (75cl) since the 2007 vintage. As rare as it is refined, Salon 2012 was made in ‘somewhat small quantities’, as Didier Depond told me solemnly, a statement I found faintly comedic given Salon’s production is minuscule even in socalled ‘generous’ vintages.

The foundation of all the world’s finest wines originates in special terroirs, but their ultimate quality and stylistic expression depend on the nature of the growing season and how it is managed by the growers, and then subsequently in the chai. The 2012 vintage in Champagne is now held to be one of the greatest in the last few decades, compared by critics and champagne houses to ‘legendary’ years like 2002, 1996, 1990, even 1959. Its wines were hewn in climatic conditions that were equally legendary, with all the Sturm und Drang of an epic drama. This was a year that pitted the tiny but heroic vigneron against a formidable and fearsome Mother Nature straight from the Old Testament, with a series of sadistic trials in store. Who would emerge victorious?

Great drama often begins undramatically, and winter 20112012 was mild-mannered; no hint of menace or mutiny. The champenois, battle-worn and wise to apparent lulls in action, like all vine-growers in marginal climates, remained on alert.

But few could have anticipated the harshness of the chill that engulfed them in February, as the mercury plunged to zero and kept on falling, first to minus 5°C, then - 10°, - 20°. Vines are hardy but these temperatures are dangerous territory.

Panicked vignerons dashed into the vineyards to assess for damage. Luckily, for the great part - but sadly not all – most buds were in sufficient dormancy not to perish.

After the sharp shock, stillness. March came in like a lamb, cajoling the vines into bud. But just as the tender shoots began to emerge, Mother Nature barrelled in again, this time with torrential rains, a world away from benign April showers. By contrast, as nights fell, the clouds dissipated, leaving skies perfectly - perilously! - clear. Growers held

their breath, praying for a reprieve. But on 17th April, their fears were realised, as temperatures plummeted to -5°C in the night and the half-light. Frost: wreaking devastation on fledgling buds, decimating future crops, treading on dreams.

As if this were not galling enough, the deluge continued, for the rest of April, May and June, the wettest since 1961. And it was miserably cold.

On 19th June, against this backdrop of woeful weather, flowering began, sort of. But unsurprisingly, the process was uneven, and the fruit failed to set properly aka coulure and millerandage: ‘Nature’s pruning’: such a soft-sounding term, belying brutal reality.

But wait, there’s more to come! Such a potent cocktail of circumstances leaves the vine vulnerable. Enter stage right the Mildew family! Mr Downy and Mrs Powdery Mildew – a gruesome twosome rarely seen out à deux – came out to play in earnest. As the fungus thrived, the growers strived, battling desperately to stem the onslaught, exhausted as the rains continued and temperatures rose, fuelling the problem.

Next up, hailstorms, their rapid rattle shredding leaves and berries. Was this the final barrage? In mid-July, as if all boxes had been ticked, the rains stopped abruptly.

Août fait le moût (‘August makes the must’), as the saying goes.

And August dutifully turned the dial, to immense collective relief. But the swell of warmth and brilliant sunshine, initially welcome, soon became brutish. In this year of extremes, was this yet another test? As vines began to overheat and wilt, berries scorching, screeching for rain, a few light showers fell, drawing a soft veil over the torrid heat.

September arrived with great serenity. Warm, luminous days and cool nights coaxed the grapes slowly, gently to ripeness. In these picture-perfect conditions, the harvest in Le Mesnil finally started on 17th September. Confounding all expectations, after a gruelling season in which the vines and their custodians had been subject to every imaginable scourge, the chardonnays emerged pristine, a victory forged by unrelenting work in the vineyards. This small but epic vintage belongs to the vignerons.

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TASTING NOTE Salon 2012 is the result of an exceptional terroir, a growing season of unparalleled challenges, and the herculean efforts of growers and technicians alike. While yields were slashed by frost and hail, cold and rain at all the wrong times, the grapes that did stay the course were richer, more concentrated, bringing another dimension of depth and textural richness. And while the August heat and luminous late summer brought the grapes to ripeness, cool nights preserved vital acids.

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Salon is in its absolute element in 2012, as if revelling in the duality of intensity and restraint, its extreme lines held in exquisite, almost painful, tension. Charged with energy, the wine’s features are delineated and intensified: the inimitable fragrance at once innocent and decadent; the tiny bubbles thrilling the tongue; the fine-boned structure and distinctive crystalline texture, laser acids shining their fine beam through layers of latent richness, contained for now in youth; as we would expect from Salon.

The ultimate insider’s champagne, the original blanc de blancs, Salon stands alone. In this extraordinary vintage of extremes, Salon reaffirms its supremacy of style and substance, defining its own version of legendary with customary poise and panache.

Dosage: 5g/l Disgorged in March 2021 Corney & Barrow score 19+ £1,450/case of 3 bottles, in bond UK Stock will be available for delivery from Spring/Summer 2022.

Tasting Guide Our tasting notes provide full details but, at your request, we have also introduced a clear and simple marking system. We hope these guidelines assist you in your selection. For the benefit of simplicity, wines are scored out of 20. We will often use a range of scores (e.g. 16.5 to 17) to indicate the potential to achieve a higher mark. When a ‘+’ is shown it adds further to that potential. Wines from lesser vintages will, inevitably, show a lower overall score.

Wines are judged, in a very broad sense, against their peers. Why? Well, you cannot easily compare a Ford with an Aston Martin, other than they are both cars and have wheels. It is not that different with wine. A score is a summary only. The devil is in the detail, so please focus on the tasting notes and, as always, speak to our sales team.

DRINKING DATES We are often asked our opinion on specific drinking dates for Salon and pleased to provide recommendations as follows: Vintage

Drink date

1982

Drinking now to 2030

1983

Drinking now to 2020 At absolute peak now (magnums will drink to 2030+)

1985

Drinking now to 2030 (magnum to 2040)

1988

Drinking now to 2030 (magnum to 2040)

1990

Drinking now to 2040 (magnum to 2040)

1995

Drinking now to 2050 (magnum to 2060)

1996

Drinking now to 2050+ (magnum to 2060+)

1997

Drinking now to 2040 (magnum to 2050)

1999

Drinking now to 2050+ (magnum to 2060+)

2002

Drinking now to 2060+ (magnum to 2070+)

2004

Drinking now to 2050+ (magnum to 2060+)

2006

Drinking now to 2050+ (magnum to 2060+)

2007

Drinking now to 2050+ (magnum to 2060+)

2008

Drinking now to 2080+ (in magnum only)

2012

Drinking now to 2070+

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CONTACT US Our Locations LONDON 1 Thomas More Street London E1W 1YZ T +44 (0)20 7265 2400 sales@corneyandbarrow.com

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AYR 8 Academy Street, Ayr Ayrshire, Scotland KA7 1HT T +44 (0)1292 267 000 ayr@corneyandbarrow.com

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