One of the bubbly rosés that we first fell in love with many years ago is actually from one of the bigger family-owned Champagne houses based in Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, Billecart-Salmon. Their prestige vintage cuvées (Nicolas François & Elisabeth Salmon) are superb once they have seen some cellar age but equally impressive was their non-vintage brut rosé.
We must have drunk cases of them with friends in the days when it was a mere $89++ per bottle in some of the more classic French restaurants in Singapore, complete with white linen, proper wine service, and most importantly, thin tulip glasses that allowed the wild berries & cream aromas of the rosé to blossom fully. However, with the meteoric rise of the growers Champagnes in the last decade or more, we have diverted our attention elsewhere and kept our lips moist with every Brut Zéro or Brut Nature we could find, especially those made by Anselme Selosse and his various disciples. We did have a few sips of this rosé here and there in recent years but for some reason, the flavour profile we encountered wasn't quite what we remembered it to be. Did our preference change, or was it climate change that prompted the same vines to behave differently?
Fortunately for us, we are true believers that good Champagnes can be age-worthy, even if they were non-vintage stuff. This bottle of Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé belonged to a couple of cases we bought in 2010, and we must have depleted them a lot faster than we should as we were horrified to find that it was our VERY LAST bottle in the cellar. A pity really, as it shone like a diamond last night with some beetroot, walnut, yogurt, and feta cheese pizza!
Anyway, the wine showed a bright coppery-salmon-vermillion colour with intoxicating aromas of Seville orange zest infused cream, toasted nuts, dried red berries, and red apples. Fine bubbles and mousse that tickled and teased with lots of mandarin peel and juicy, zingy pink citrus flavours. As fresh as a daisy. You won't even noticed that it just woke up from a ten years long deep slumber.
