The finest sparkling rose of the year

2007 Billecart-Salmon Everything about this wine is mesmerising, says Matthew Jukes.

Matthew Jukes
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published
in Features

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2007 Billecart-Salmon, Cuve Elisabeth Salmon Brut Ros, Champagne, France£140.00, Berry Bros & Rudd tel. 0800 2802440 & www.bbr.com.

I am thrilled to announce that the new vintage of Elisabeth Salmon Ros has, just this second, arrived in the country.

With ten years spent on its lees in the Billecart cellars in Mareuil-sur-A, this wine matures with metronomic grace and after an unruffled decade of levage it looks nothing short of ravishing today. Everything about this release is mesmerising.

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The colour is incredibly pale and it glows, coral-hued, in the glass. The bubbles are so fine and prickly it is amazing. I went back to this bottle an hour after I opened it and the mousse was as persistent and lively as it was when I popped the cork.

The nose is calm, controlled and measured, offering up demure, wild strawberry and rose notes which charm the senses.

The palate continues these themes with a lightness of touch but length of flavour that is completely baffling. Is this the finest sparkling ros of the year? Yes there is nothing like 2007 Elisabeth Salmon and we have had to wait until the 29 December to find her!

I have no doubt that other stockists will pop up in the New Year, but for the most glorious sparkling wine for your New Year's celebrations make your way to Berry Bros & Rudd, 63 Pall Mall, London.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (MatthewJukes.com).

Matthew Jukes
Matthew Jukes

Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.  

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’.  He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner. 

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy.  His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.

 

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