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PREMIUM

First Taste: Billecart-Salmon Nicolas François 2008

Tom Hewson tastes and rates the new vintage of Billecart-Salmon's prestige cuvée, Nicolas François, and finds that good things will come to those who wait.

‘We are Champagne because of our terroir, yes…but also because of our patience’, explained Mathieu Roland-Billecart at the launch of the new 2008 vintage of Billecart-Salmon’s prestige cuvée, Nicolas François. ‘I worry for the reputation of the region when people forget that.’

The family-owned Champagne house has been pushing back against a tide of younger and younger releases in Champagne by guaranteeing at least three years of ageing for its non-vintage brut, and only now releasing, 15 years on, what is perhaps the very last of the headline 2008 Champagnes.


Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for four vintages of Cuvée Nicolas François



Four vintages of Cuvée Nicolas François:


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