2009 Billecart Salmon Clos Saint Hilaire

The 2009 Champagne Le Clos Saint Hillaire pours a copper/straw color with depth and offers notes of red fruit, bitter almond, toasted nuttiness, toasty black cherry, Dr. Pepper, orange, grapefruit, brothy umami, mushrooms, and tobacco. Full-bodied, it's savory and mouthwatering, with a chalky, pithy texture that is chiseled and ripe, with a spicy mousse. A rich vintage but very well balanced, it has outstanding length and persistence on the palate with good focus that keeps it dialed in. A contemplative and cigar-type wine with a long sensation, drink it over the coming 20 years. One hundred percent barrel-fermented, they only bottle when the result of the vin clair is good; they choose to bottle or not to bottle the wine based on selection and the prise de mousse. Disgorged in January 2024 with 2 grams per liter dosage. They are holding back their 2008, which they plan to release, but this vintage will come first. The Billecart-Salmon wines in this report were tasted with Cellar Master Florent Nys at the estate in Maureuil-sur-Aÿ. Alongside Mathieu Roland-Billecart, who assumed the position of CEO at this estate in 2019 and represents the seventh generation in his family, they are making notable and steady-handed improvements that are starting to shine. A full conversion to organic viticulture has been completed in the monopole vineyard of Clos Saint-Hillaire, with an emphasis on taking things even further in terms of biodiversity and experimentation with biodynamics. They have also taken steps toward further transparency regarding dosage, but recognizing that dosage is only part of the story, they have been including the total residual sugar of the wine in addition to what was added after disgorgement. They source from approximately 300 hectares of vines, a third of which they own, and those 100 hectares have also been certified organic as of 2024. French and Stockinger barrels with medium toast are purchased new and seasoned in-house for three to five years before use. About 80% of production is fermented and aged in stainless steel tanks. Only the finest plots are fermented in barrels at cold temperatures before being transferred to stainless steel tanks for aging, a process that typically takes no more than six months. For this year’s release of Le Rendez-Vous, the estate has offered two expressions of 100% Meunier with No. 7 and No. 8. Both wines highlight the same vintage of 2018 but the expression of two different terroirs. No. 7 comes from Venteuil on the right bank of Vallée de la Marne, soils rich in clay and the rest chalk, with south exposition there. The No. 8 is from the left bank of the Valle de la Marne in Leuvrigny, where the soil is chalk with an east exposure, meaning it is fresher by comparison. Disgorged the same day, the two wines were aged for 63 months on the lees. In the cellar, they blocked malolactic fermentation in No. 7 due to its already rich character after alcoholic fermentation, but allowed it in No. 8, as it was fresher and more vertical in character.