I only tried growing Charentais once, and gave up after field mice hollowed each and every melon out from underneath and left me empty shells to harvest :(

And they don't do this with ordinary cantaloupes??

You have to put each melon on a brick. But I understand that for a market grower it is not doable.

I trapped 2 mice/voles in one cantaloupe plant...that stopped the eating on the young green ones.

I grow mine on black plastic, haven't had that particular pest problem.

Did they burst before ripening? I had good luck with both them and Escorial this summer, both are quite delicious. Savor has a bit more interest to the flavor, but Escorial is very close. I managed to have little to no bursting by picking at the first hint of yellow in an evening inspection- they turn and split overnight if you ignore that for a single day! Last year was a bust for my melons due to heavy, persistant rains while the melons were ripening- the flavor was so watered down they tasted terrible and unsweet. Not every year is a good melon year.

Savor did burst unripe, yes. So did a few of my Galia type melons, which went bright yellow before netting up. We got a flooding rain that really did a number on my garden. Definitely not a good melon year after that, but Escorial held up better than Savor.

I lost one good melon before the bursting started when I decided it might not be turned enough or fragrant. Next morning, it was neatly taken from the vine by, I suspect, the giant raccoon.