Billecart Salmon Champagne Tasting with Special Guest Pierre Chichportiche

The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.

Samuel Johnson

Although we have a good selection of all the major champagne labels and one of my favorite statements to make about Champagne today is that "there is no BAD Champagne", there are a lot of great small producers’ wines now available in the U.S.  One of the first smaller producers that we began touting in the store was Billecart-Salmon.  I remember when Wine Watch was one of the only places in South Florida that you could find this brand!

Billecart Salmon Champagne Tasting

with Special Guest Pierre Chichportiche

Friday, October 23^rd

7:30 PM

NV Billecart Salmon Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Champagne Magnum
2013 Billlecart Salmon Blanc de Blanc Cuvee Louis Salmon Brut Champagne
NV Billecart Salmon Rose Brut Champagne
2013 Billecart Salmon Cuvee Elisabeth Salmon Rose Brut Champagne
NV Billecart Salmon Le Reserve Brut Champagne, France
2012 Billecart Salmon Cuvee Nicolas Francois Billecart Brut Champagn
2015 Billecart Salmon Cuvee Nicolas Francois Billecart Brut Champagne
NV Billecart-Salmon Brut Sous Bois Champagne
2008 Billecart Salmon Clos Saint-Hilaire Brut Champagne

Menu

Shoestring potatoes with lemon gremolata

Caramelized Onion Dip with Italian Sturgeon Caviar with House Made Potato Crisps

Sea Scallop Carpaccio with Candied citrus segments and Lavender Aioli

Chicken Kiev with Champagne Béarnaise Sauce

Strawberry shorcake

The fee for this tasting which includes dinner and gratuity is $395 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com.  Please let us know when you make your reservations if you have any food allergies or dietary restrictions and chefs Toni and Dani will be happy to accommodate you.

A bit about Champagne Billecart Salmon:

Billecart-Salmon is presently one of France's top Champagne houses - a fact that one would never learn from reading books (where it gets bare mention except in Serena Sutcliffe's new book, Champagne) or from inquiring with wine merchants - many of whom have still not yet heard of it.  This Champagne house is one of the great undiscovered properties in France; and this, my friend, is your little secret!...a least for the present.  Billecart-Salmon has found a following in the United States among serious wine connoisseurs, and its Champagnes have been lavishly praised in the pages of respected wine publications such as The Underground Wine Journal and The Wine Advocate.  The editor of the latter, Robert Parker, in his book Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide says:  "One cannot say too many good things about this small house that produces wonderfully light, elegant yet flavorful champagnes.  In every one of my tastings, Billecart has shown exceptionally well."  We might add that this Champagne is a selection of the inimitable Robert Chadderdon of New York, a broker and importer.  Chadderdon's fastidious reputation and obsession for quality is so renowned that a consumer may regard any wine labeled a "Robert Chadderdon Selection" as being accompanied by an ironclad guarantee of authenticity and quality.

Although the Billecarts resided in Champagne from the 16th century, it was not until 1818 that Nicolas-François of that family entered the Champagne business.  The Salmon part of the name came from Francis' wife, the former Elizabeth Salmon.  Within several years the firm gained an excellent reputation, and growth was very rapid.  However, financial ineptness in the 1830's led to a decline in the business which the succeeding generations of the family were not able to correct.  Charles Roland-Billecart assumed control of the firm in 1917 at what could not have been a worse time.  The business was near financial ruin, World War I was being conducted in their very vineyards, and shortly after the war the world market for Champagne literally collapsed as the new Soviet Republic banned it as "bourgeois" and the nations of Western Europe were mired in the aftermath of the most devastating conflict mankind had ever known.  Nevertheless, Charles steadily increased the fortunes of the firm and made a crucial and, no doubt, emotionally painful decision in 1926 to sell the family vineyards in order to achieve further growth and put Billecart-Salmon on a solid financial footing.  In retrospect it turned out to be a wise decision, and today Billecart-Salmon enjoys the success it once knew in its earliest days.

The fact that Billecart-Salmon is able to produce exceptional Champagne while relying on the favor of independent growers (the firm owns only a few vines of Pinot Noir at Mareuil-sur-Aÿ) is a tribute to the firm's commitment to quality and the obvious winemaking skills practiced there.  So hardfast is the resolve of Billecart-Salmon to produce only the best that they cut their production in half from 1978 to 1982.  The harvests of 1978, 1980, and 1982 were lean years; and Billecart-Salmon did not want to gamble on purchasing grapes from new suppliers with whom they were unfamiliar, so production was cut back from 600,000 bottles to 300,000 bottles.  Production in 1986 was back up to 450,000 bottles with nearly half exported and the United States at the top of that list.  The firm buys cuvées from as many as twenty-five different growths and performs the complex task of blending to achieve a delicate, fragrant house style that is loaded with flavor.  The high percentage of black grapes in their cuvées belies the extraordinary lightness and delicacy for which Billecart-Salmon is noted.  We have sometimes mistaken their wines for those of Taittinger - a firm which employs a heavy percentage of white grapes in their cuvées.  Because there is a great deal of Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier in Billecart blends, the wines have a great depth of flavor and are also capable of longevity.  Besides the non-vintage Brut, Billecart-Salmon is noted for its exquisite vintage-dated Blanc de Blancs (it is made from 100% Chardonnay and vineyards rated 99 to 100%).  Billecart Salmon's tour de force, however, is the extraordinary non-vintage Rosé.  We believe that this salmon-colored beauty is one of France's two or three best Rosé Champagnes.   Rosé represents ten percent of Billecart's total production - an unusually high percentage for a Champagne house (although we believe that increasingly higher percentages are the future trend).  Billecart-Salmon describes their special pink Champagne as the  "blanc de blancs of rosés" - a perfect description of the Billecart style.