Maison Billecart-Salmon

Situated in the Champagne heartland of Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, near Epernay, Billecart-Salmon has been under family ownership and management since its founding in 1818. It is a family-run winery with a majority share owned by the Billecart family and a minority holding is held by the Frey group, itself a family-owned business – they are owners of Château La Lagune in Bordeaux, Paul Jaboulet Ainé in the Rhône, and Château Corton C in Burgundy.

The Billecart family still lives on site and there remains a strong sense of long-visioned family continuity at play. Today there’s the seventh generation Mathieu Roland-Billecart overseeing everyday business as CEO, working closely with Antoine and François.

Champagne of the Millennium

On 12 June 1999, a jury of international experts came together to judge which champagne would be awarded the grand title of “Champagne of the Millennium” following a blind tasting.

Among the 150 champagnes in competition were the two Billecart-Salmon vintages, the Nicolas François Brut 1959 and the Nicolas François Brut 1961. When the results were announced, these two vintages took both first and second place

In his book The Great Tasting, Richard Juhlin wrote of the winner: “The perfect champagne, 1959 Billecart-Salmon, had everything one would expect of a luxury champagne, but in a seldom seen concentration and simultaneously with harmonious balance. A totally perfect champagne in its category, with a smoky, honey-smooth extremely long taste of walnut, orange blossom and chocolate. All who ever get to drink this fabulous wine just have to love the pleasure it grants. When you study the end results it is striking to see how obvious the victory was.”

It was awarded a final mark of 98.5 out of 100.

You can read more about Billecart-Salmon here & about Vintage Billecart-Salmon here.