• 6 – 750ml Champagne Salon Cuvée S (1 each: 1982, 1983, 1990, 1995, 1996 & 1997)

Salon is a Champagne of “excepts.” Most Champagne Houses create multi-vintage blends in order to perpetuate a house style; except for Salon, which produces a single Champagne from only its finest vintages. Almost all Champagnes are produced from a blend of three grapes: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier – except for Salon, which utilizes only the Chardonnay grape to create “Cuvée S,” its Blanc de Blancs. Champagne is almost never a single village wine – once again, except for Salon, which is made with grapes exclusively from Le Mesnil-sur-Oger in the heart of the Champagne region.

In the case of Salon, all of these “excepts” add up to one exceptional wine. Tiny, rare and tasted by a mere handful of people, Salon remains something of a mystery in the Champagne world. One of the most elusive wines in Champagne, Salon has only declared 39 vintages since its inception in 1921 – a mere average of four per decade. The singular vision of Champagne Salon has been specially disgorged and labeled for the 10th Anniversary of the Naples Winter Wine Festival.

Unlike most Champagne houses, Salon does not use malolactic fermentation. While requiring that its wines age in order to fully reveal their expressive flavors, it keeps Cuvée S remarkably refreshing and youthful, years after other Champagnes are past their prime. It is not uncommon for Salon to age more than two to three decades, maintaining a great freshness on the nose, with bouquets of fresh cut grass, yet acquiring a complex and intriguing dimension that can only develop over time.

This extraordinary collection, selected straight from Salon’s cellars, spans 25 years, and features the most significant vintages from that time period. While the bottles from the 1990s – including the magical 1996 – are still evolving, the older vintages are reaching the peak of their maturity and are magic in a glass. The 1990 shows the heights that Champagne can achieve with maturity. Wine Spectator recently awarded it an astounding score of 97, calling it “brilliant stuff” for its “kaleidoscope of biscuit, fig and walnut that goes on and on.”

These are remarkable wines – the encapsulation of a unique vision of what Champagne can be.

Donor: Jean-Baptiste Cristini of House of Champagne Salon