2012 Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé Cuvée Elisabeth Salmon

The blend of the 2012 Champagne Elisabeth Salmon is includes 55% Chardonnay along with 10% red wine, the majority of which was raised in stainless steel, with a 3% splash raised in oak. It pours a deeper salmon orange tinge and is a more assertive wine in the glass, with notes of spice, smoky wet stones, peach, almond, and fruitcake. Medium to full-bodied and assertive, it holds its mousse together more clearly and has more transparency, with a pomegranate texture, and is long on the palate. This structured wine will benefit from another year or two in bottle before drinking over the following 15 or more years. Disgorged January 2023, 3.8 dosage; total in the final wine is 4 grams per liter.

Disgorged in January 2023 with dosage of 3.8 grams per liter, Billecart’s 2012 Rosé Elisabeth Salmon is a dramatic, extroverted wine, soaring from the glass with a bouquet of raspberry, cherry and pink grapefruit mingled with spices and red blossoms. These aromatics usher in a medium- to full-bodied, rich and fleshy palate that is animated by succulent yet vibrant acidity and a sweet-toned core of fruit. The wine concludes with an enveloping, perfumed finish that lingers with considerable persistence. It currently exhibits less depth than the Louis Salmon of the same vintage, leading me to place greater confidence in the latter.

Made from 55% Chardonnay (Chouilly, Avize, Mesnil-sur-Oger, Cramant) and 45% Pinot Noir (Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, Verzenay) and featuring only 2.9% oak, this wine spent 115 months on its lees and was bottled with a 3.8g/L dosage. 8.3% red wine from Mareuil was used, which is a little more than they use in the NV. The thinking here is it needs just a touch more depth of colour and intensity to keep its colour as it ages. We tasted in bottle and magnum with the same comparison of crown-sealed v cork-sealed and, again, the comparison was equally enjoyable. The bottles were superbly clean, amazingly delicate, and resonant, with crystal-clean fraise de bois notes dominating. Not surprisingly, with a Chardonnay-dominant recipe, the finish brings acres of chalk to scour the taste buds with glorious minerality and tension. Both the bottle and magnum have this superb engine on display, and the main difference at this early moment in the magnum’s life is that it appears, although the difference is not as stark as it is in Louis, to have more power pushed forwards on the palate. Both formats are superbly calm and controlled, and a vault of power in the core will send this wine down the line for a good couple of decades. Do I have a preference? Yes, with Elisabeth, I feel the bottle format will be the most alluring for the short to medium term and with Louis, I cannot resist the magnums! I scored both wines equally because they are beauties, and I cannot pick between them so that the choice will come down to your menu or your guests’ preferences.