The secret to 200-year-old Champagne house Billecart-Salmon’s longevity
I of the oldest bottles of Billecart-Salmon Champagne that sixth-generation family owner Antoine Roland-Billecart has ever tasted is a bottle of the 1926 vintage, which he notes is more than than merely potable.
For the 200-year-former Champagne business firm, agreeability of its vintage Champagnes is a hallmark, enabled past a unique fermentation practice implemented in 1958 that no other Champagne firm employs.
All of Billecart-Salmon's base wines go through cold settling at 8ºC (and a very cold fermentation just under 13ºC that takes about 30 days). By drastically decision-making the temperature of the must (freshly pressed grape juice containing skin, seeds and stems) during fermentation, the fruit freshness and acidity of the grapes are retained. "This helps to build a structured blend and for sure vintages, you lot can easily age the Champagne for more than twenty years," Roland-Billecart told CNA Luxury.
There are less than a scattering of family unit-endemic Champagne houses that are more 200 years onetime – Roland-Billecart claims that staying independent has been the biggest achievement in the Champagne house's two-century history.
Of this longevity, he explained, "We are in the business considering it is a family legacy, and we want to be able to transfer [the Champagne house] to the side by side and following generation." Already, the seventh-generation have taken up the mantel: Mathieu Roland-Billecart has just replaced Antoine's brother Francois as the CEO; and Nicolas Roland-Billecart, Francois'due south son, is the company's brand ambassador and sales manager in Italy and the UK.
Merely like how the ageing power of Billecart-Salmon's Champagnes stem from the long fourth dimension invested in the wine's fermentation process, Roland-Billecart shares that the house's longevity starts from investing in and increasing the quality of the vines, the fruits, and of form, the wines.
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To ensure the quality of grapes and wine, the Champagne house uses the yield from 40 Grand Cru villages that add upward to around 300ha of vines grown in various terroirs. "It is harder to get good fruit from Grand Cru because everybody wants to purchase their grapes; and so now it is a bit of a race and challenge to endeavour to fix skillful producers and growers in Grand Cru," Roland-Billecart admitted.
Just fifty-fifty equally the Champagne firm looks for more vineyards to work with, their total product has been capped at two.5 million bottles a twelvemonth, what Billecart-Salmon deems as the optimum level to produce at for a mid-sized Champagne company.
One of the Champagne house'due south biggest claims to fame happened in 1999, when a three-day tasting event that comprised a console of eminent Champagne government set nearly to place the Champagne of the Millennium. Out of 150 of the finest 20th century Champagnes, which included cuvees from other esteemed houses like Dom Perignon, Krug, Taittinger, Pol Roger and Louis Roederer, Billecart-Salmon'due south Cuvee Nicolas-Francois 1959 won.
Created to accolade the Champagne house'southward founder, this cuvee has been a blend of 60 per cent Pinot Noir and forty per cent Chardonnay since its inception. The 2006 vintage has just been released and comprises Grand Cru fruit sourced from the classified Cote des Blancs (Chardonnay) and Montagne de Reims (Pinot Noir).
The majority of the wine was fermented in stainless steel, with just five per cent beingness vinified in oak barrels. The wine and then spent eleven years on its lees, resulting in a ripe and rich, all the same elegant Champagne with the typical finesse and structure of the Billecart-Salmon house style. Although already drinking well, this cuvee will flourish throughout the next decade.
Billecart-Salmon Champagnes are available from Angra Vino & Spirit
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