Champagne Billecart-Salmon, Extra Brut, 2008, gift box

Elegant and bright Extra Brut Champagne from the House Bilkar-Salmon surprise you with clean and noble elegance of taste, made ​​in classic style unmatched. This cuvée is created by the traditional method, the secrets of which more than one year are transferred to each of the generations of the family Bilkar-Salmon. Champagne is made from a blend of varieties Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay without sugar.
"Champagne color of pale gold, with a piercing aroma of lemon, green apple and honeysuckle, strong minerality. The net is full of the taste of juicy fruit tones, hints of citrus peel", - "International Wine Cellar".

Bilkar family lived in Mareuil-sur-Ay from the XVI century. When Nicolas Francois Bilkar married Elizabeth Salmon in the early 1800s, ancient vineyards of both families were united. This has led to the decision to leave Nicolas his law practice and Activities winemaking at the family estate. In 1818 he founded the Champagne house Bilkar-Salmon, which today is the oldest continuously operating family home in Champagne. Currently, he manages the seventh generation - brothers Francois and Antoine Roland Bilkar. Basements are under the control of the famous "chef de cave" François Domi.

Home Bilkar-Salmon belong to a total of 15 hectares of vineyards. Eleven of them are in the Vallée de la Marne - 4 hectares of Grand Cru in Au and Premiers Crus in Mareuil-sur-Ay, 7 hectares in the village of Damery. In Côte de Blancs family owns 4 hectares of vineyards Grand Cru Class villages Chouilly, Avize and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. In addition, the house rents another 50 hectares of vineyards in Champagne and buys fruit from other farms. As for the harvest, one of the distinctive aspects of the home-Bilkar Salmon is the belief that early harvest allows you to create a more elegant and subtle champagne, and as a preservative should not serve alcohol, and strong natural acidity. Another distinctive feature of the House Bilkar-Salmon is their practice of double wort cooling process for the removal of sediment, they began to use in 1952. This technology includes the primary cooling grape juice for 12 hours. The juice is then moved to clean the tanks for the second - colder - purifying, where it is cooled 48 hours at 2 ° C. After this long slow fermentation is initiated with the addition of dry yeast for 5 weeks to preserve as much fine fruit flavors. Of particular benefit from this process gets Pinot Meunier, which Bilkar-Salmon considers a vital component in the champagne world-class, while many manufacturers shy away from Pinot Meunier, because it is easy to destroy the delicate flavors in the fermentation process. Further conducted malolactic fermentation, except for some years, when according to the characteristics of the vintage, it is not used.

Champagne Houses Bilkar-Salmon can be considered a benchmark in its class. Besides tasting delicious characteristics, they have another important feature - the ability to long-term storage. In 1999 Cuvee "Nicolas-Francois Billecart" vintage 1959 won the contest "Millennium Champagne" (Champagne of the Millennium), ahead of the 150 best champagnes XX century!