Is the Most Famous Rosé Champagne Actually Worth the Hype? | Billecart-Salmon

Alright, I'm in Épernay. We are going to Belcourt-Samon. We're going to taste some amazingly well-done, thoughtful, curated wines. Belcourt-Samon is very well known for their cold fermentation, their thoughtful production, and such amazing complexity. In glass.

So this is where we usually start the tours with an explanation about the history of the house and the explanation about the vineyard. So at Villa Salmon, we work only into the mountain district.

Okay.

We don't have any vineyard in the old.

Okay.

Or in Vienna or in any other region. Let's say about 30 miles average from here. We work only with the 3 main variety grapes. The Chardonnay is coming from the Côte des Blancs, the Pinot Noir from here around the house, what we can call the Grande Vallée de la Marne and the Montagne de Reims. And the Meunier from the Vallée de la Marne. Vallée de la Marne, Côte des Blancs, Montagne de Reims. So the Côte des Blancs, there is almost no soils. Pinot Noir here, more clay, limestone. Vallée de la Marne, sand. That's the important part in the Marne Valley is the sand, as the Meunier is more sensitive to mildew and black mildew. So it needs a site with a better drainage. We control 500 acres, we buy grapes on 250.

Okay.

We buy only grapes, no grape juices, no still wines. So we have for 250 acres, we have more than 400 partners. Okay, so that's a lot. And in total we have more than 1,000 plots.

Wow.

Okay, between what we own and what we buy. We vinify, we harvest, we press, and we vinify everything separately by qualities. By village, variety, grapes, and plots. So at the end, we also have more than 1,000 still wines to work with. Like this, we can be much, much more precise on the blendings, and we have a much better tracking and recording plot by plot over the years. One third of the vineyard is certified organic. The rest is at least fair and sustainable and high environmental value since 2017. We keep extending the organic area year after year, and what is already certified organic now starts to go through the biodynamic certification process.

Fabulous, that's amazing!

We produce between 2 and 2.5 million bottles a year now, so Pierre Salmon is a small to medium-sized champagne house.

But very recognizable.

We talk about the champagne houses, not the growers.

Exactly, for sure. Bon appétit! I'm in Belcourt Salmon and we're looking through this really amazing book all about champagne. There's so many great historical moments. With champagne in here. Billcott is a house that is so well known for being part of the Appartenay, and they're making fabulous, fabulous wines. And here's some wine. These are the wines on deck for right now. And check out this beautiful space. Hi! Fabulous.

I think we are going to do it this way.

Okay. Brut sur bois, done in oak, and rosé 2012. Okay. Uh, ah, other way around. Was it first?

The one on your left. We have 3 high-end champagnes, vintage champagnes named after the founders. So Louis Salmon is the Blanc de Blancs, and Louis Salmon was Elisabeth's brother and the first winemaker for the house.

Oh wow, that's fabulous.

Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru, so only grapes from the Côte des Blancs. For 2012, Chouilly-Cramant and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. We have 25% of the wines vinified in oak here. It aged for 10 years. Still a pretty bright color for a 12-year-old champagne. Light, pale lemon yellow.

The generosity, but then the level of acidity coming through, quite nice and bright and really kind of lifts it up so beautifully.

This is the work between the wines vinified in oak and the ones vinified in stainless steel. At Richard Salmon, the oak barrels are here to bring a softer softer texture but without losing the brightness of the fruit.

So mainly neutral?

We use old barrels, they are 20 years old.

Okay, so all neutral barrel. Ah, fabulous. Honestly, this is really lovely.

Cheers!

Cheers! It's so nice on the nose too, it's just so refreshing with those white flowers and almost crisp seaweed, which is nowhere near here but always smells like it is.

Yeah, honeysuckle.

And honeysuckle and everything.

Citrus, but in a pretty ripe way. Little exotic touch on pineapple, but at the same time, really high freshness on the palate. And even on the nose, something like aniseed, fennel.

Yeah, I love this wine. It's so great. Every time it comes into the marketplace in Ontario, I always lose out on getting some. We'll end up having to drink our heart's content here, and then I'll tell people to order it for me. That might be easier. Do you want to try?

It's a pretty easy, enjoyable champagne, but for Already a proper gastronomic one, great to pair with anything cooked in butter or in a cream sauce, fatty cheeses, double cream, triple cream cheese.

It's so fun because I know that I'm drinking from 2012, but it's so refreshing, it feels like a much younger wine overall.

Yes, I'm pretty sure you taste that blind, you don't say it's 2012.

It feels like a baby.

Yeah, all the Champagnes have a very nice aging potential. This is because we do a cold fermentation instead of a traditional one.

Okay.

So a traditional fermentation in Champagne is in Celsius or Fahrenheit?

I'm not American, Celsius. I don't understand Fahrenheit either.

So 18 to 20 Celsius. At Billecart-Salomon, we do the alcoholic fermentations between 12 and 13.

Okay, so you have longer fermentation then?

Yes, 12 being the lowest temperature to start an alcoholic fermentation. They are much more gentle, progressive, and longer, and so it helps as to keep more purity of the variety grapes, more freshness, especially in terms of aging potential.

Yeah.

And more fineness and elegance in flavors and aromas.

Beautiful.

When a traditional wine is 15 days max, a cold wine like this is minimum 15 days, can take up to 6 weeks, you know.

Yeah.

So much, much longer.

Much longer.

And this is what really makes Billecart-Salomon special, as it was the first house to do that. And it's still the only one to do cold fermentation, to do it for all the production. No one else.

Nobody else.

And it's like this since 1958. Wow.

I really like how this one, you can see on the label, it looks like wood.

No, it is wood.

It is wood.

It's cherry wood.

Oh my God, it's actually cherry wood. It really does sell that it is all done in oak. We tried. I think you did a good job.

As a non-vintage The base year is quite important. There is 70% of the wines from the base year, which is 16 or 17, yeah, 16. So here, 70% of 16, and the reserve wines are coming from a Perpetual Reserve.

Okay.

Started in 2006.

Okay, everything is done by year for your reserves, or is there like almost solera style?

In that case, it's a solera style.

Solera style.

Yes.

Okay.

But in stainless steel.

So basically what that means is they have a large vat filled with amazing wine that goes back to 2006. It's a solera, so that means that basically you have in Porto and Madeira where you have large amounts of past wine in oak. This is in stainless steel, so it keeps its freshness, but all that vintage wine in there could be from 2006 up into present vintage, whichever was harvested. So 2023 would be the last vintage that would be in there, correct? Yes and no?

Yes and no. At least for the one we are drinking this afternoon, yes. The youngest one is 16, 15, sorry, 15.

15, so not previous, not up to the last vintage. Ah.

And the 70% of the base wines from '16, not from the Soleil Monté.

But if a wine was made this year for the Sous-Bois?

Yes, for the Sous-Bois we made this year, yes.

Yeah, and previous vintages, okay. Fabulous. My bad.

22 makes you old.

Oh yeah, no worries. But this wine only contains up to 2016. There we go, that's our base vintage. It's just so cool.

Yes, I'm so glad. 6 years after release for a non-vintage, it's quite long.

I really like the level of shoulders-down oxidation, softness of fruit character. It's really like orchard on the last day that you can pick the apples. Like, it feels very ripe in a way, which is really quite nice. And there's this almost earthen hiking kind of character to it from the oak usage.

The oak is definitely not taking over the fruit. No. It brings a nice touch of softness and spiciness, but just a little, especially because it's neutral barrels.

It's almost like the oak has kind of become alive again. It's like when you walk through a forest and you kind of just smell the generalness of trees and whatever happens, but it's really quite light. It's not like an oak-aged Chardonnay that you would call it okay Chardonnay. What did you think of this one? So most recent vintage 2012, picking 2016, by the time it gets out of tank is what, April again of the following year? Fermentation?

For the vintage champagnes, a bit later than that, like June, May, June, July.

Then it stays in tank until July and then it's bottled the year after.

So this was bottled in 2013.

Okay.

And it was disgorged a year before the release.

Okay.

23, so 10 years.

10 years in total. Yeah, yeah, this one's the easiest math.

Yes, well, we at Billecart-Salmon, we make sure we don't release the vintage champagnes less than a year after the disgorgement to make sure that the dosage is well included, well incorporated by the wine. So it's minimum 1 year, sometimes it's longer. And for the non-vintage, it's minimum 6 months. We keep the non-vintage minimum 3 years and up to 8 years. For the vintage ones, it's minimum 10 years and up to whatever it needs to get ready.

Because some— you have some library wines that probably have never been disgorged?

No, actually we don't keep the library wines on lees, but disgorged.

Oh wow, that's so cool!

That's something a bit different.

That is a bit different. Cold fermentation, pieces of wood, no disgorgement in library wines. Yeah. But that's cool, at least it stops aging so you can actually taste how the vintage is aging. Yeah, like a still wine would end up being anyway. So that's pretty cool. So beautiful, this one.

What is the blend for this?

50%—

55% Chardonnay, 45% Pinot Noir, 10% red wine, 3% in oak.

3% in oak. That's the sky. I love that it's like apple skin with those almost like white strawberry notes.

Oh yeah, when it opens up, you will see even black fruits, like black currant, blackberries, black cherries.

And almost like that currant leaf too, that you get, like kind of like a little bit vegetal, which is really nice.

Yes, you have also the acidity of gooseberry or red currant, black currant. It's a good way to talk about it.

Yeah, and the texture on the palate is so nicely done. A little bit more structure than the Classic 2012 in Blanc de Blancs.

The red wine, huh?

I know. I'm always a Pinot Noir fan though. That's the thing. ¡Gracias!