2008 Salon le Mesnil

Disgorged in January 2019 with six grams per liter dosage, Salon's 2008 Brut Blanc de Blancs Le Mesnil is a striking wine, unwinding in the glass with scents of citrus oil, fresh bread, crisp green apple, white flowers, smoke and oyster shell. Full-bodied, layered and incisive, it's deep and concentrated, with a tightly coiled core of fruit that's underpinned by a racy spine of acidity. Seamless and unerringly precise, it concludes with a long and penetratingly mineral finish. Immense though its potential for aging is, its intensity and balance make it pleasurable as well as persuasive, even today. Given the eye-watering price of this magnum-only release, I was determined to hold the wine to the highest possible standards, but it surpasses even the prodigious 1996 and surely ranks as the finest Salon since at least the 1970s. In short, this is a Blanc de Blancs that admits no argument.

Magnum. Disgorged (‘Edition’) January 2019. Just 8,000 magnums and no bottles produced. (Usually 60,000 bottles!) Didier Depond tasted the grapes with Chef de Cave Michel Fauconnet. Both of them decided that only magnums should be made because the concentration is so great. Like 1982. Dosage 6.2 g/l. Didier Depond calls 2008 ‘the dream vintage’. Picked from 17 September. Big bubbles. Strong hedgerow aromas. Very ‘cool’ impression. Very intense and persistent. Complex and lacy. Filigree texture. Really quite open for a magnum - particularly for Salon. Wonderful length. Certainly a magical wine, likely to feed a frenzy among (well-heeled) investors. (JR)