The story of Champagne Salon begins with Eugène-Aimé Salon, born at the foot of the Côte des Blancs in 1867, who left the family farm in Champagne to move to Paris in search of a business career and a more glamorous existence than the rural Champenois life promised at the time. Choosing the life of a businessman, he began working for the furrier Chapal in Montreuil, and happily immersed himself in the exciting social life Paris had to offer.
His lofty ambitions soon earned him more responsibilities and led him to where he wanted to be. Responsible for the company's expansion and strategy, he traveled to the most dynamic markets, such as London and New York, to develop the business. As a sophisticated bon vivant with a taste for the finer things in life, Eugène-Aimé Salon quickly made a name for himself in high society in Paris and New York, where he made many influential friends.
However, Eugène-Aimé Salon never forgot where he came from and always retained his passion for Champagne, enthusiastically introducing and initiating his friends to the world of noble bubbles. He loved to serve Champagne with the finest gourmet cuisine, another of his many interests, but his discerning taste was never fully satisfied by blends of different grape varieties. Instead, he dreamed of creating his own cuvée, an unblended wine with greater precision, elegance and finesse, which did not yet exist.
The Taste of Mesnil-sur-Oger
With a healthy dose of vision and the support of his brother-in-law - luckily, an experienced cellar master in Champagne - Eugène-Aimé Salon finally set about creating what he had always imagined. Keen to produce wines with great ageing potential, he chose the Mesnil-sur-Oger terroir for its remarkable balance of sugar and acidity, and bought a one-hectare plot just above the village church, as well as 19 other small plots in the village.
The Premier Blanc des Blancs
Against all current viticultural practices in the region, Eugène-Aimé Salon courageously created his own interpretation of an entirely unblended Champagne: composed solely of Chardonnay, grown on a single terroir and within the boundaries of a single cru, and bearing the expression of a single vintage.
Little did he know that what he called Blanc de Blancs would one day become the most sought-after category of champagne, or that his champagne would one day feature in virtually every prestigious wine collection in the world.
The first vintage of Eugène-Aimé Salon's "Cuvée S", intended for his personal consumption, was harvested in 1905. When, a few years later, his effervescent treasures emerged from the cellars and filled the glasses of his influential friends, he received enthusiastic comments.
They encouraged him to turn his sparkling innovation into a business, but it wasn't until a few more years later, and the end of a raging First World War, that Eugène-Aimé Salon officially founded Champagne Salon in 1920.
Rapidly growing demand for his champagne soon enabled him to buy the house adjoining the one-hectare plot next to the church, where Champagne Salon is still located today.
Despite his presence in the most sought-after venues of the Roaring Twenties - Cuvée S. even became the house champagne of the legendary Maxim's restaurant in Paris at the time - Eugène-Aimé Salon never considered acquiring additional land to expand his production.
Actively involved in politics and the struggle for a modern Europe for many years, he ran two different businesses in Paris alongside his thriving champagne house and therefore chose to maintain a strictly limited and exclusive production.
Champagne Salon - the continuation of a success story
After Eugène-Aimé Salon's death in 1943, Champagne Salon remained in the hands of one of his grand-nephews for many years. In 1988, the Laurent Perrier group bought Champagne Salon and united it with its sister house, Champagne Delamotte, also located in the Côte des Blancs.
Today, both champagne houses are run by Didier Depond, alongside Michel Fauconnet, cellar master and production director of the Laurent-Perrier group.
No more than 37 vintages of Cuvée S. have been bottled since Eugène-Aimé Salon founded Champagne Salon, and almost every one of these vintages can still be found in the oenotheque section of the Champagne Salon cellars at Mesnil-sur-Oger.
The house's most emblematic vintage, 1928, earned Eugène-Aimé Salon great recognition from connoisseurs and is still a benchmark for all new vintages to come. To this day, the only cuvée to bear the name Champagne Salon continues to be made from a single grape variety, grown in a single vineyard and bottled only in the most exceptional vintages.
A collector's dream: Cuvée S.
Cuvée S. is always aged for a minimum of 10 years, because the dense, upright Chardonnay from Mesnil-sur-Oger needs patience and time to integrate its powerful intensity, balance its vivacious tension and develop its impressive finesse, depth and length.
Before a vintage is ready to see the world, it undergoes a time-consuming and labor-intensive manual riddling process, a tradition that only a few champagne houses today apply to their most precious cuvées.
At Champagne Salon, however, Jérémy Rondelle continues to apply these manual gestures to the entire production process with great attention to detail, perpetuating the spirit and uncompromising standards of Eugène-Aimé Salon.
