Extracted from a thread just posted: Dinner with a dear friend who returned to Santa Barbara for a short visit with 2012 Delamotte and 1983 Chateau Beychevelle
2012 DELAMOTTE les MESNIL sur OGER BLANC de BLANC BRUT- blind; 60% of the fruit sources for this comes from les Mesnil-sur-Oger, Ovize and Oger with 20% equal parts from each and the remainder of the fruit comes from Cramant, Chouilly and Oiry; following its youthful yellow color came aromas of citrus and tropical fruit which on the palate translated into lemon, grapefruit, guava, mango and passion fruit; it had an oily feel good texture which lengthened the finish and left a delightful coat on the back end of the palate to perpetuate the experience; lovely champagne.
My first guess was this was Billecart-Salmon Cuvee Nicholas-Francois and possibly 2012, but I struggled to really hone in on it and knew there was something very distinguishing in the taste profile that should be helpful in identifying it with the tropical fruit notes being so prevalent.
Initially, the house did not make Salon out of the 2012 harvest and I bought a lot of this release as a result and have had many bottles, all of which have been typically full of honeyed lemon, yellow apple, yellow peach and apricot; so, I did not recognize this bottle at all.
Although I’ve previously included some info about the house and its marque tete de cuvee, Salon, I’m re-inserting it here once again as an FYI:
“Francois Delamotte founded his house in 1760 and the trade name Delamotte Père & Fils was adopted in 1786. For the next 100+ years, the house went though multiple changes. Eventually, both neighboring houses were co-owned by Laurent-Perrier in 1988 when Bernard de Nonancourt was to merge the family interests by taking over Champagne Delamotte, integrating it into the Laurent-Perrier group. Just a few months later, he was able to realize a long-held dream – an emotional milestone that merits a chapter of its own! – in acquiring at long last the tiny Champagne Salon, Delamotte’s neighbour in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger.
This is how the destinies of Champagne Delamotte and Champagne Salon came to be entwined. Today, these two exceptional producers operate as sister houses, sharing offices and facilities in the very same historic town house in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, bought by the de Nonancourt family so many years before…”
“Salon is the most elusive of Champagne’s grand marques. Only made in what the house deems the very best years, Salon has been bottled just 38 times since 1905, its first vintage. Yet. Even when it is released, production is tiny. Consider that there are just 60,000 bottles (5,000 cases) of the 2002 for the entire world, a virtually insignificant amount by Champagne standards, while production numbers for other tête de cuvées range from a few times greater, as in the case with Taittinger’s Comtes to Champagne (also considered a small production Champagne), to about 100 times greater for Dom Perignon.”
“Salon is located in Le Mesnil-sur-Oger, in the heart of the Côtes des Blancs. The core of Salon emerges from a small vineyard that sits right behind the house. Salon is done entirely in steel, with no malolactic fermentation, one of the reasons the wines need extended time in bottle prior to release, and in most cases, several years on the cork before they start drinking well. In vintages in which Salon is not made, the fruit goes into Delamotte, Salon’s sister estate and neighbor. The Delamotte style is less severe, as malolactic fermentation is employed to give the wines softer contours and more immediate breadth.”
Cheers,
Blake