The two-hundred-year story of Billecart-Salmon is a surprising one. Among the 24 Grand Marques Champagne houses, it is one of the smallest, producing fewer than two million bottles a year—or, as Mathieu Roland-Billecart, its seventh-generation head, points out, “We are making less than 1% for the 1% of the world’s population.” Yet the house has an international reach. While most non-wine enthusiasts might recognize its distinctive label—with the twisting logo suggesting initials and the upward sweep of bubbles—they likely don’t know of its sterling heritage as one of the few still family-owned top-end Champagne houses, or of its fabled walled vineyard, Clos Saint-Hilaire.
The serious wine world took notice in 1999, when a three-day blind tasting in Stockholm of 150 of the greatest Champagnes named Billecart-Salmon’s 1959 vintage the “Champagne of the Millennium.” Its 1961 vintage came in second.
This spring, I visited the property in the French village of Mareuil-sur-Aÿ in the Marne Valley to see the stately headquarters. The maison’s magnificent garden, featuring topiary and a towering 150-year-old chestnut tree, is listed in the French government registry of historic gardens.
Speaking with Roland-Billecart, I soon realized I had arrived late to the party. “You don’t turn 200 every year,” he told me, referring to the 2018 bicentennial blowout. “We threw a magical party for 1,000 people, held in the village, the gardens, the cellars, and the Clos Saint-Hilaire. Wine professionals flew in and mingled with hundreds of our grape growers.” The house also unveiled 24 enormous new oak casks for its barrel cellar.
Billecart-Salmon is best known for its rosés. “We’ve been making rosé since 1840, when rosé Champagne wasn’t even a category,” Roland-Billecart says. “My great-uncle changed our style to a blended rosé in the 1950s.” The best chefs and sommeliers in France took note and began championing Billecart’s exceptional rosé. By the 1990s, it was ubiquitous on top restaurants’ lists.
What distinguishes the rosé—a blend of mainly chardonnay with pinot noir and pinot meunier—is the addition of a small percentage of high-quality pinot noir from 60- to 80-year-old vines grown on the property. It is unusual for a Champagne house to produce its own red wine for a rosé blend. Le Rosé cuvée is a multi-vintage blend, bright, pure, and fruit-driven.
What sets Billecart’s Champagnes apart is the innovative method by which all the base wines undergo cold settling at 46 degrees, followed by a very cold fermentation that lasts up to a month—far longer than at any other house. This process heightens the aromas and brings freshness and purity to the Champagne.
“We’ve become the house of rosé savoir faire,” Roland-Billecart continues. “Cuvée Elisabeth Salmon has a massive following.” A blend of 47% chardonnay and 53% pinot noir, it is an extra brut and is recognized as one of the Champagne region’s top three vintage rosés.
Adjacent to the winery is the enchanting two-and-a-half-acre walled vineyard, Clos Saint-Hilaire, whose walls are high enough that horses cannot jump over them. It’s a biodiverse haven with sheep, beehives, and plowing horses. “We think of biodiversity as both vegetal and animal,” Roland-Billecart explains. “It’s a holistic approach that helps us respond to changing weather patterns.” The pinot noir vines, planted in 1964, have been farmed organically and biodynamically for 15 years.
Mathieu Roland-Billecart, seventh-generation head of the family-owned Champagne house.
Cuvée Elisabeth Rosé 2013.
Billecart-Salmon Le Rosé.
The winery’s historic garden with topiary.
The barrel cellar with its 24 enormous oak casks.
The Founders Room, (named for Elisabeth Salmon and Nicolas François Billecart) in the new visitors’ center.
“We decided to make the Clos Saint-Hilaire a regenerative biodiversity research project and started a foundation,” Roland-Billecart tells me. “We know that 40% of tree species are under threat, so we planted 25 different tree species there to determine which to plant in the forest between Reims and Epernay.”
Only 3,000 bottles of Clos Saint-Hilaire are produced and aged for extended periods. The next release is the 2008 vintage, set to launch in October. Critic Antonio Galloni scored the 2008 vintage at 100 points. The price is about $600 per bottle.
Intensive work goes into crafting these precious Champagnes. A committee of eight—including family members, the winemaker, the previous winemaker, and viticulturalists—tastes more than 200 base wines to select those that will make up the non-vintage blends. The committee meets daily in January and February. They then tackle the vintage blends, tasting wines from February through May. “It’s the system we’ve had since that 1959 vintage, and it produced greatness, so we don’t change it,” Roland-Billecart states proudly.
The committee was a three-generation affair until the death last year of Roland-Billecart’s great-uncle Jean, at 102. Jean’s wife, Bernadette, lives near the Clos and still drives at 101. The foundation may need to study whether Champagne contributes to such remarkable longevity.
I had originally planned the trip to write about the house’s new visitors’ center, designed by the American-born, Paris-based designer Elliott Barnes. Symbolic elements were incorporated throughout, including the “Winepaper,” which combines hemp, linen, and dried grape skins from Clos Saint-Hilaire, and wooden floors patterned to resemble the patchwork of vineyards. Barnes created elegant mid-century-style reception rooms, including the Founders Room (named for Elisabeth Salmon and Nicolas François Billecart) and the Louis Room, named for Elisabeth’s brother, the first oenologist.
Alas, my article’s focus shifted when I discovered that visiting Billecart-Salmon is as difficult as getting into an Ivy League university. One must apply, request a visit, and obtain a recommendation from someone connected to the house. “At the moment, there are about 20 requests for the one person we let in. Unlike some houses, frankly, we do not run an amusement park,” says Roland-Billecart, emphasizing that visitors receive an authentic, exclusive, top-luxury experience.
If you are among the lucky few to visit, you will enter the magical Clos Saint-Hilaire and the 17th-century chalk cellars, with over a mile of tunnels housing millions of bottles. Then you’ll enjoy a tasting of one non-vintage and two vintage cuvées.
My tour was fortunate enough to taste the Elisabeth Salmon Millésimé 2013. Jérôme, our guide, led us through it, pointing out its radiant pink hue and seductive aromas of kumquat, black currant, black cherry, and blood orange, with hints of gray pepper and ground almond, and a creamy finish. “Serve it with red tuna, quail, or pigeon,” he pronounced.
