Michael Schuster reviews 2015 Salon Le Mesnil.
This is only the 45th expression of Salon in its 120-year existence. So few because its founder, Aimé Salon, with his goal of making something utterly exceptional, wanted to produce this pure Côte des Blancs Chardonnay, pure Le Mesnil-sur-Oger origin, single-vintage Champagne only in “great” years. And given Champagne’s relatively “marginal” climate for winemaking, this was just over three times a decade across its first 95 years (in effect, the 20th century), with 37 releases from 1905 to 2000. But since 2000, there will already have been nine releases in the first 15 years of the 21st century: 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2012, 2013, 2015… “Will have been” because 2014 is still in the wings, probably for release in 2027. That’s almost a doubling of Salon’s 20th-century “declaration” rate. 2012, 2013 (with 2014 to come), and 2015 will be only the second quartet of successive vintages in its history, the first being 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949. Climate change is already having its 21st-century say.
2015 Salon Le Mesnil: The viticultural year
After a well-watered autumn and then a mild, wet spring, mid-May to mid-August 2015 was hot, dry, and sunny. A summer of record sunlight, heat, and notable drought was tempered in the end by rain from mid-August and then fine blue-skied but cool weather from the first week of September, the harvest starting on the 8th. Fruit bathed in sunshine, dryness, and considerable warmth made for impeccably ripe grapes, if with a fresh rather than the vigorous acidity so often the hallmark of Salon—lower, for example, than its immediate predecessors in 2014, 2013, and 2012.
Tasting
Tasted at Corney & Barrow, Salon’s UK agents, London; July 2, 2025
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2015 Salon Le Mesnil
(Aged on its lees for nine years; disgorged February 2025; dosage 6g/l)
Tight and closed to smell but with an impression of crispness, citrus vitality, and a clear, light mineral/limestone undertone, plus a hint already of early, subtle nutty autolysis. This is both full and ample, with fresh acidity behind. Not a vital acidity, but sufficiently supportive as the wine sits and carries across the palate. Here initially is a rich and fleshy equilibrium, clearly from a hot (equals very ripe) year, yet with no sense of slackness, and marked by Salon’s characteristic length of flavor and fragrance in the mouth and on the finish. Also, as usual, it is given great supportive energy by the beautifully sustained bubbles, so Chardonnay– and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger-fine in bead. Particular tastes are a citrus, white peach, and mineral commingling, its elements of fruit, fragrance, mousse, and acidity effortlessly combined to make that stellar Salon harmony. There is an overall cushiony impression, with a surprising sense of underlying tautness, for all its easy, open, hot-and-dry vintage style.
This is already a gloriously flattering and user-friendly wine, with none of the edge and austerity that so often used to say, “Wait for me to mellow” in Salon’s vintages of yore. But that does not mean it lacks compass, dimension—far from it. For accompanying the warm-year seductive style there is a sufficiency of defining spine, and that very particular and individual expression of Champagne class: constantly caressing, superfine bubbles, that source of vitality and dynamism propelling the fruit and fragrance, a ceaselessly supportive, energizing riff. Followed by a mesmerizing aftertaste of palate- and throat-coating fruit and mineral-imbued scent. Features that beg—and perhaps too rarely get—the same span of contemplation one devotes to exceptional claret, Burgundy, Madeira…
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The 2015 Salon speaks clearly of the facts of its viticultural year in an epoch of global warming, and of its particular Champagne terroir. It articulates the singular sonorities of a notably warm, dry vintage, as well as the inherent controlling constants of its Le Mesnil-sur-Oger genes.
Somewhat as you could with the 2002 Salon at around the same stage, you will be able to derive great sensual enjoyment from this right now—alongside the intellectual pleasure of asking yourself quite how an apparently simple effervescent liquid can yield such extraordinary gratification. But should you have the opportunity, the good luck, it will delight, in different ways, for decades.
In 2025 and in a (literally) very different climate, Salon’s terroir, its vineyards, and its winemaking team continue to express its aristocracy of origin, and all the imagination and ambition of its creator 120 ago. It remains a remarkable and remarkably rewarding act of creation. 2025–50+. | 96.5
