It’s been called the “world’s best champagne” over and over. It was the world’s first blanc de blancs. Its winemaking style is legendary. Its last vintage was in 2006. It is over 100 years old, but has just 40 vintages to its name. Suffice to say, Salon champagne is scarce.

Tiny, ultra-prestigious and ultra-discreet, you would be forgiven if you had never heard of it. No flashy ad campaigns or celebrity creative directors here; only producing millesimes, if there is even one minor factor to upset the purity of the vintage (a too hot summer, a too cold winter), then there will be no vintage that year. Made from just 1-hectare of single vineyard grapes, when (and if) a vintage is released, the maximum will be 60,000 bottles.

Salon was sold to Laurent Perrier in 1986 and joined with its sister house (also a Laurent Perrier holding) Delamotte in 1998. Delamotte is slightly more accessible, producing around 800,000 bottles annually (but still well below other Champagne families such as Moet & Chandon who weigh in at a massive 40 million).

In order to satisfy an impatient market, however, what the House of Salon has been known to do is re-release a vintage, such as the 1997, first released in 2008 and again in 2017. This caused much excitement amid the champagne enthusiasts, particularly as the wine had only improved with an additional ten years on the shelf: the seductive, silky texture and long, mouth-watering finish was present and offset by a warm maturity that hadn’t been noticeable before.

With 295 million bottles of Champagne being released annually, (4.3 million exported to Hong Kong and Taiwan), Salon understands that competition is fierce. Still, it does not seem too worried about this; topping the Liv-ex Champagne 50 as the best performing brand over the past decade, with an average increase of 163%, it wears it “world’s best champagne” crown with pride.