BILLECART-SALMON
A Story We’ve Shared for Generations
A Love Story That Started It All
In 1818, in the small village of Mareuil-sur-Ay, Nicolas François Billecart married Elisabeth Salmon. That marriage became the start of something lasting. Nicolas brought a steady business mind, and Elisabeth’s brother Louis, a skilled winemaker, provided the craft and vision. Together, they founded Maison Billecart-Salmon with a simple idea: create Champagne defined by balance, freshness, and elegance.
From the beginning, their wines stood apart. While others chased richness and power, Billecart focused on purity and refinement. The goal was not to impress loudly but to create something quietly unforgettable. More than 200 years later, that philosophy still shapes the house.
VIDEO FROM HART & CRU WITH BILLECART-SALMON, filmed August 2025
A Grand Marque That Remains a Family
Billecart-Salmon is one of Champagne’s great “Grand Marques,” yet it has never given up its independence. While many peers became part of global corporations, the Billecart family has stayed at the helm for over two centuries.
Today, the seventh generation leads the house under CEO Mathieu Roland-Billecart. When Mathieu returned in 2019, his purpose was clear: protect the values that have guided Billecart-Salmon for six generations and prepare the house for the future. Independence gives them freedom to make decisions based on quality, not volume or trends, and we admire that deeply at Hart & Cru.
These are wines made with intention. You can feel it when you open a bottle. You are tasting more than Champagne; you are tasting the work of a family that has quietly perfected its craft for generations.
The Art of Time
Mathieu often says, “Time is the one thing we cannot buy, but it is the most precious ingredient we have.” That belief drives every decision at Billecart-Salmon. Where many Champagne houses release wines as quickly as possible, Billecart chooses patience.
The Brut Réserve, the foundation of the house, spends close to four years in the cellar before release, far beyond the minimum requirement. That patience creates layers of texture and quiet complexity. The Blanc de Blancs, made from Grand Cru Chardonnay, is pure and focused, showing the chalky elegance of the Côte des Blancs in every sip. The NV Rosé, pale in color and beautifully perfumed, is considered by many to be the benchmark for its style.
And then there are the prestige cuvées. Cuvée Nicolas François honors the founder and consistently ranks among the most celebrated Champagnes in the world. Cuvée Elisabeth Salmon, named for the matriarch of the family, blends grace with quiet depth. Clos Saint-Hilaire, perhaps the crown jewel, comes from a single, one-hectare walled vineyard planted in 1964. Produced only in exceptional years, it rests for more than a decade before release. These wines are rare, collected, and cherished by those who know them.
A House Style We Love
One of the many reasons we are drawn to Billecart-Salmon is the clarity of their style. The wines are bright, clean, and precise, with a sense of energy that makes them endlessly drinkable. In recent years, the family has refined that style even further by lowering dosage levels across much of the range.
The Brut Réserve now sits at around 3 g/L, officially classified as Extra Brut, and includes more than 50 percent reserve wines blended from as many as 15 vintages. It also spends nearly 50 months on the lees, resulting in a texture and complexity rarely seen at this level. These choices make the wines feel more transparent, letting each vineyard’s character show more clearly in the glass.
We notice the difference every time we taste them. The Brut Réserve is sharper, the Blanc de Blancs feels more focused, and the NV Rosé carries a brightness and lift that keeps us coming back to it again and again.
Farming, Vineyards, and Grower Partnerships
Billecart-Salmon’s story begins in the vineyard. The estate directly manages about 100 hectares of vines but also works closely with growers who farm more than 300 hectares across Champagne’s most prized sites. Many of these partnerships go back generations, rooted in trust and a shared commitment to excellence.
In recent years, the family has doubled down on sustainability and thoughtful farming. They’ve acquired new parcels, introduced organic and biodiverse practices, and invested deeply in soil health. Every decision in the vineyard supports their goal of creating wines with balance and integrity.
The results are easy to taste. Brightness, precision, and consistency start here, in the vines and soils they have cared for so carefully.
Investing in the Future
Respecting tradition does not mean standing still. Over the past several years, Billecart-Salmon has invested heavily in its winemaking facilities. They have built modern fermentation spaces that allow for more precise temperature control, ensuring slow, careful fermentations that preserve delicate aromas and freshness. Oak barrels are used sparingly to add texture while letting the purity of the fruit shine.
The house has also created a reserve wine library of more than 50 distinct cuvées, giving their blending team extraordinary flexibility when crafting each wine. Malolactic fermentation is carefully managed or avoided entirely to preserve natural brightness. These quiet, thoughtful decisions are part of what makes the house style so unmistakable.
A Shared Story with Hart & Cru
Billecart-Salmon has been part of Hart & Cru’s journey for years, and our relationship with the family and their team runs deep. These wines have been on our table during so many milestones—Sunday School tastings, private dinners, and wine events where we’ve shared bottles alongside the Billecart team.
We’ve poured Brut Réserve on quiet evenings, shared NV Rosé during celebrations, and opened Clos Saint-Hilaire for moments that called for something unforgettable. These bottles hold stories, and over time, those stories have become part of ours.
This is why we keep these wines close and why we continue to share them with our community. For us, Billecart-Salmon represents craftsmanship, family, and patience. These are wines worth discovering, cherishing, and opening with people you love.
