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‘Decadent’ Salon 2004 released
Champagne house Salon has released its 2004 wine, only the 39th vintage ever made by the producer.
Salon’s president, Didier Depond. Photo credit: Colin Hampden-White
The wine is available exclusively through the house’s UK distributor, Corney & Barrow, which described the 2004 as bearing “all Salon’s hallmarks: the purity and precision, the poise and perfume”.
The merchant’s associate director, Rebecca Palmer, commented that the wine seemed unusually “pleased to be in the glass” given its usual tendency to be “tightly wrapped” and “tantalisingly impenetrable” when young.
The 2004 by contrast appeared “immediately decadent” as well as “taut and crystalline”. She continued: “The wine is clean as a blade with a tonic, saline edge; its mousse creamy yet somehow simultaneously weightless, all-enveloping and almost implausibly fine. In the glass, with air and time, the wine shows a hint of its future potential: smooth, toned chardonnay curve, layering delicate pear fruit, soft brioche, fresh yeast.
“All purity and tension, grace and poise, this is a serene and classic Salon, more approachable now than many vintages, and with a lengthy future ahead.”
On the other hand, the amount available is a third smaller than the last vintage release of the 2002.
This was because the house carried out a rare green harvest in June to thin out what it considered to be too abundant a crop.
Salon’s president, Didier Depond, explained: “By mid-June, fine weather at flowering, together with zero incidence of spring frost, made for an extremely impressive fruit set. In fact, the crop load looked so abundant that the Salon team took the rare decision to carry out a vendange vert (green harvest) to thin the crop, in the interests of fruit concentration and balance.”
A “dismal” and “rainy” August almost looked like it would upset an otherwise promising harvest but the delayed ripening process was spared thanks to a return to good weather in September which helped “the development of delicate aromatics and fruit structure”.
The wine is available for £1,450 per six bottles.