First Taste: Billecart-Salmon’s 2012 releases

Even though 2012 has become one of Champagne’s most celebrated recent vintages, ‘the beginning of the season was horrible,’ says Billecart-Salmon’s president Mathieu Roland-Billecart, ‘frost, hail, mildew, sunburn – we had the lot.’

Yet Roland-Billecart says there was a glimmer of hope: ‘we pulled out a great vintage because, as we say here, “août fait le moût”, or in other words, “August makes the must”.’

The weather in August made good on the early summer chaos, producing small yields of grapes that were unusually concentrated in sugars, aromas and acidity.

Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores for Billecart-Salmon’s new 2012 releases

Roland-Billecart draws a frank comparison with the 2023 harvest: while the modest 8,000kg per hectare of grapes that 2012 yielded were of exceptional quality, 2023 will not have such fortune – at Billecart-Salmon, 60% of the potential crop was not vinified due to disease pressure and uneven ripening in September. ‘The Chardonnay is beautiful,’ says Roland-Billecart, ‘but it’s not a year for Pinot Noir vinified as white.’

There are bright notes, though: Billecart-Salmon’s prestige cuvée Louis Salmon Blanc de Blancs was made in 2023 thanks to the superior Chardonnay, as was the Elisabeth Salmon Rosé.

The 2012 releases

The fruit for Louis Salmon hails from the grand cru villages of the Côte des Blancs (with a focus on Le Mesnil-sur-Oger), while Elisabeth Salmon is a classic rosé d’assemblage, using 8% red wine from Mareuil-sur-Aÿ to tint a blend split between Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Both have seen almost 10 years of ageing on lees in the cellars before release.

Magnums of the 2012s have been released alongside standard 75cl bottles, a first for the house, which usually releases its magnums some time after. Magnums of sparkling wine often have more defined reductive (smoky, flinty) aromas and notable uplifts in freshness compared to 75cl bottles thanks to lower relative oxygen ingress. Yet these magnums are different as they were bottled, fermented and aged under cork, rather than the traditional crown cap. This, according to Roland-Billecart, helps to open them up sooner: ‘If we had used crown caps, the magnums would have been so different to the bottles…and we would not have been able to release them at the same time,’ he says.

Part of 2012’s magic is a rare double act – delicious upon release, yet built for the long term. After the juicy, ripe and generous 2009s, these are 2012s that feel more classically framed and restrained than some, treading a delicate line between concentration and immediacy, with an ageworthy structure that is the hallmark of one of Champagne’s most remarkable recent vintages.

Billecart-Salmon’s 2012 releases tasted and rated:

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