We love Champagne! And we know you do too, our loyal Dhall & Nash fellow fine wine imbibers.

But then sometimes you absolutely need to impress, even if the one to impress is yourself. Time to reach for the stars and pull out a bottle of Vintage Champagne that is fully draped in the prestige, tradition, and elegance of one of the most accomplished boutique houses in Champagne: Billecart-Salmon. They are the masters of vintage champagne – the ultimate luxury libation – the supernova of sparkling wines!

Clearly, the mystique of Billecart-Salmon’s vintage champagnes has reached far and wide – this is blue-chip buying after all. Vineyards, vintages, and producer are all best-in-class here. This is champagne like no other – favoured by wine collectors, investors, wine geeks and of course, the rich and famous.

And fortunately, as part of the upcoming Dhall & Nash Distinction Series Events, we would like to acquaint your palates with mesmerising, show-stopping masterpieces of vintage Billecart-Salmon Champagne.

This is a rare chance to treat yourself like a superstar and book a pair of highly coveted seats at our Distinction Series tastings. A circle-the-calendar event for every fine wine lover.

During the 17th century, Pierre Billecart, an esteemed winemaker, and ancestor of Nicolas François Billecart, was summoned by King Louis XIII who authorised him to create his own coat of arms. Thus, when the Champagne House of Billecart-Salmon was born in 1818 from marriage of Nicolas-François Billecart and Elisabeth Salmon, his descendants proudly reinstated them.

Situated in the village of Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, near Epernay, Champagne Billecart-Salmon is still a family-run organisation with seventh generation Mathieu Roland-Billecart overseeing business. Alongside the family members are a dedicated team of people who hold the House values dear to them such as Chef de Cave François Domi who retired in 2016 after 30 years with Billecart and handed over to his deputy Florent Nys who started with the business in 2005. The vineyards are overseen by Denis Blée, and all of the team are members of the eight strong “tasting committee” along with 6th generation François Roland-Billecart and Antoine Roland-Billecart and fifth generation Jean Roland-Billecart. By 2020 production had expanded with grapes now coming from 300 hectares and 40 crus mostly within 20 kms of the winery.

Always conscious to improve the quality of their champagne, in the fifties the House established the technique of chilling the must combined with the use of stainless-steel tanks for a longer fermentation at a lower temperature. Over time, the wines conserve their freshness, and the aromas intensify, allowing Billecart-Salmon champagnes to deliver all they promise.

Billecart-Salmon is discreetly but significantly continuing to evolve. Since 2010, a new cellar has housed some 400 barrels for vinification and élevage, and since 2018, another cellar is home to oak foudres retaining some 80,000 litres of reserve wine. Meanwhile, Billecart’s wines are spending longer and longer sur lees, and fruit sourcing is changing—with more grand cru fruit replacing premier cru fruit—while volumes remain the same. Based on the trials underway in their emblematic Clos Saint-Hilaire, the next frontier will be the vineyards.

The House style is intensely bright and fruity with an increasingly oxidative tone brought about by the recent re-introduction of oak. The Billecart-Salmon portfolio is vast, but they are best known for their prestige cuvées, Cuvée Nicolas-François, Cuvée Elisabeth Salmon Rosé, and Cuvée Louis Salmon.

The jewel of the estate, however, is the single-vineyard champagne Clos Saint Hilaire: a monstrously powerful cuvée (luckily D&N still has some of the 2005 and 2006 in extremely limited quantities.)

In 1999, Cuvée Nicolas-François 1959 was awarded ‘Champagne of the Millennium’ by the world’s number one champagne expert, Richard Juhlin, and a committee of critics at a 3 day blind tasting involving 150 vintages from the most illustrious champagne producers. The 1961 vintage, for its part, came second! Outshining Dom Perignon, Ruinart and Krug. WOW!

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.

Obviously for the true aficionado, vintage means everything when it comes to champagne. The personality of the different vintages is one of the champagne taster’s greatest joys. Some are most fond of the powerful alcoholic vintages with excess heat such as 1947, 1959, 1976, 1989, 1990, 2003 and 2015, while others prefer vintages that gave cooler, tart, elegant and fine-tuned champagnes, such as: 1919, 1952, 1966, 1969, 1971, 1979, 1981, 1985, 1988, 1996 and 2008. Regardless of which years are preferred, the different vintages reveal a rich variety that makes wine tasting even more fascinating.

Perhaps no other wine region on earth is as vintage driven as Champagne. Because of its location in north-eastern France this region really pushes the envelope for grape growing – it’s marginal here. Many of the harvests in any given decade are not suitable for the production of top-quality, single-vintage Champagne.

Most of the Champagne produced is non-vintage, meaning that the wine is a blend of grapes grown during many different vintages. Single-vintage Champagne is usually only produced three or four times per decade and makes up less than 5% of total Champagne production. The rarity of these top vintages makes the great years even more special, with exceptional and rare vintages commanding high prices at auction. With climate change, Champagne has seen a string of roller-coaster vintages during the past decade.

Nevertheless, a Champagne’s vintage remains one of the most important factors for collectors and lovers of fine aged Champagne. These Billecart-Salmon vintage cuvées demonstrate best that champagne is a wine that can be kept for many years without losing any of its dynamism and brilliance, at the same time developing aromas, exotic flavours and spellbinding complexity that set it apart from other top sparkling wines and still wines alike.

You may ask that in a world happy enough with prosecco and pét-nat, are these vintage champagnes truly worth it?

Absolutely! Even if our modern day lives are full of distractions and disappointments, a surprisingly small number of deluxe Champagne Houses, such as Billecart-Salmon, still consistently represent the highest-quality fizz you can find. These are hauntingly powerful masterworks. In other words, an astoundingly sublime wine experience. What you’re paying for are the very best grapes from grands crus and premiers cru vineyards in the very best years; with extra years of aging in the Champagne’s cold, chalky cellars (which gives the wines more complex flavours and aromas); the undoubted rarity factor; and, of course, Prestige with a capital P!