Champagne Billecart-Salmon, Rosé, Brut
Critics reviews
Based on the 2018 vintage, Billecart’s new NV Brut Rosé incorporates 40% reserve wines and some 6% still red wine. Bursting with scents of sweet red berries, peonies, stone fruits, white cherries, freshly baked bread and spices, it’s medium to full-bodied, pillowy and charming, with a seamless and enveloping core of fruit and a lively, fine-boned profile.
Drink 2022 - 2030
William Kelley, Wine Advocate (August 2022)
Attractive salmon colour with aromas of dried strawberries and lemons and hints of flowers. Full-bodied with tight tension from the fine phenolics that run through the palate. Hints of white pepper, peaches, and sliced green strawberries with some candied lemons. Always an excellent bottle. 40% chardonnay, 30% pinot noir and 30% pinot meunier.
Drink now
James Suckling, JamesSuckling.com (August 2022)
Based on the 2016 harvest, this is floral and citrussy, showing a lithe, graceful balance. It’s a blend of 40% Chardonnay, 30% Pinot Noir and 30% Meunier, with about 40% of reserve wine, and red wine accounts for 7% of the blend.
A tangerine-like acidity enlivens its delicate, subtly expansive flavours of raspberry and strawberry, and while it feels ripe and full in flavour on the palate, it never loses its sense of refinement and poise, finishing with detailed length and depth.
Drink 2021 - 2026
Peter Liem, Decanter.com (May 2021)
The NV Champagne Brut Rose is an attractive pale salmon hue with a fresh perfume of wild strawberry, ripe peach, white and red flowers, a hint of tropical fruit, and grapefruit. The palate is rounded, with fruit up front and through the mid-palate, and it has a silky and fresh lift. This wine has terrific ease and drinkability, which delivers balance and finesse.
Drink 2022 - 2037
Jeb Dunnuck, JebDunnuck.com (May 2023)
About this WINE
Champagne Billecart-Salmon
Billecart-Salmon is one of the few remaining Champagne houses to be owned by the original family and was established in 1818 by Nicolas-François Billecart.
Most of Billecart-Salmon's fruit comes from a small vineyard holding, though this is supplemented with grapes bought in from the Marne Valley and the Montagne de Reims. Meticulous production techniques, from the use of their own cultured yeast to its long, slow, cool fermentation, ensure that the family has 100% control of production.
Billecart-Salmon is renowned for the quality of its delicate rosé, while the Brut Réserve (a blend of three vintages) is a beautifully harmonious and balanced wine. All have the ability to age very well.
Rose Champagne
Rosé wines are produced by leaving the juice of red grapes to macerate on their skins for a brief time to extract pigments (natural colourings). However, Rosé Champagne is notable in that it is produced by the addition of a small percentage of red wine – usually Pinot Noir from the village of Bouzy – during blending.
Recommended Producers : Billecart Salmon (Elizabeth Salmon Rose), Ruinart
Champagne Blend
Which grapes are included in the blend, and their proportion, is one of the key factors determining the style of most Champagnes. Three grapes are used - Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier.
26% of vineyards in Champagne are planted with Chardonnay and it performs best on the Côtes des Blancs and on the chalk slopes south of Epernay. It is relatively simple to grow, although it buds early and thus is susceptible to spring frosts. It produces lighter, fresher wines than those from Burgundy and gives finesse, fruit and elegance to the final blend. It is the sole grape in Blancs de Blancs, which are some of the richest long-lived Champagnes produced.
Pinot Noir accounts for nearly 40% of the plantings in Champagne and lies at the heart of most blends - it gives Champagne its body, structure, strength and grip. It is planted across Champagne and particularly so in the southern Aube district.
The final component is Pinot Meunier and this constitutes nearly 35% of the plantings. Its durability and resistance to spring frosts make the Marne Valley, a notorious frost pocket, its natural home. It ripens well in poor years and produces a soft, fruity style of wine that is ideal for blending with the more assertive flavours of Pinot Noir. Producers allege that Pinot Meunier lacks ageing potential, but this does not deter Krug from including around 15% of it in their final blends.
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Description
Based on the 2018 vintage, Billecart’s new NV Brut Rosé incorporates 40% reserve wines and some 6% still red wine. Bursting with scents of sweet red berries, peonies, stone fruits, white cherries, freshly baked bread and spices, it’s medium to full-bodied, pillowy and charming, with a seamless and enveloping core of fruit and a lively, fine-boned profile.
Drink 2022 - 2030
William Kelley, Wine Advocate (August 2022)
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