A Champagne Salute to Independence with Billecart-Salmon

A Champagne Salute to Independence with Billecart-Salmon

The summer of 2026 provided a fortuitous bit of serendipity, the highly regarded Champagne house of Billecart-Salmon combined two events into one grand celebration: the company's 200th harvest in 2018 with the 250th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence in 2026. Despite these dates being eight years apart, because the Billecart Vintage 2018 needed eight years to mature before release, the wine was offered to the world as a special salute to the United States' anniversary. During a visit to Miami to announce the release, the seventh generation director of the family owned Billecart-Salmon, Mathieu Roland-Billecart, joined me to talk about his family, his legacy and, of course, his wines. First, some background. The Billecart-Salmon family's cellar was founded in the Grand Cru village of Mareuil-sur-Aÿ in 1818 when Nicolas François Billecart married Elisabeth Salmon, joining the vineyards and the savoir-faire of two esteemed families into a single, dynamic company, or "house," as it is called in Champagne. Today, two centuries and seven generations later, Billecart-Salmon is one of the most important family-owned houses in the region. Many of the best known producers in Champagne – Moët-Hennessy, Veuve Clicquot, Mumm and Perrier-Jouët– carry the names of their founding families but most of these houses, the "Grande Marques" or "Great Brands," are owned by corporations. I spoke with Mathieu about the importance of family on a warm afternoon seated. We talked about the wines Billecart-Salmon produces, especially their emblematic non-vintage rosé wine and the vintage-dated blanc de blancs, about the legacy of family and the many changes in Champagne over the years. I can tell you, there is no more personable or enthusiastic ambassador of Champagne than Mathieu Roland Billecart. Of course, we began by talking about the just-released cuvée or blend from vintage 2018 that celebrates two anniversaries in one bottle. I invite you to join us in this conversation, and then learn more about Champagne Billecart-Salmon at their beautifully crafted website: at www.champagne-billecart.fr/en/

Philippe Rolet, A Winemaker Straddling the Andes

My guest this episode is Philippe Rolet, a winemaker who began his career in Chablis but who for more than 30 years has been one of the most influential winemakers in South America. His is General Manager of Los Vascos in Chile and Bodegas CARO in Mendoza's Uco Valley. The story began in the mid-1980s, when French company Domaines de Baron de Rothschild Lafite (better known simply as DBR) decided to make wine in Chile. DBR partnered with a local winery called Los Vascos and in 1988 became the principal shareholder of the group that also includes minority partner Viña Santa Rita, on its own one of Chile’s largest producers. Today, the partnership produces half a million cases of wine, nearly all of which is exported. The group is notable for pioneering green certifications and is today is more than 50-percent organic, with many of the vineyards transitioning to biodynamic agriculture. Philippe Rolet works closely with Saskia Rothschild, the current director of the parent company DBR; he credits her with much of the company’s recent innovation. In the late 1990s, DBR crossed the Andes to create another partnership in Argentina. In Mendoza's Uco Valley, Bodegas CARO brought DBR together with the Nicolas Catena Family, and Philippe Rolet is general manager there as well. In our wide-ranging converesation, Philippe explores wine and place. We talk about Los Vascos' flagship blend Le Dix introduced in 1996; It is based on Cabernet Sauvignon with about 10 percent Carmenère, but also includes as much as eight percent Syrah each year. As you will hear the winery produces many other blends including a stunning rosé made from Rhône varieties. Philippe also talks about the property's newest project called "Cañeten," a wine produced in a cooler part of Colchagua, closer to the coast than Le Dix. Philippe Rolet is here, glass in hand, and you can also find him at the Los Vascos website, https://www.lafite.com/domaines/los-vascos/read/ And, you can learn more about Bodegas CARO here: https://www.palmbay.com/wines/bodegas-caro/caro-3/

The Angels Sing - Yves de Launay of Château l'Angelus

Bordeaux is France’s largest fine wine producing region and produces one of the most collectible categories of wine in the world. Located in Southwest France and only a short distance from the Atlantic Coast, Bordeaux has a classic maritime climate with rainfall coming anytime during the year. It is the unpredictability of the weather, and the impact of that weather on ripening grapes, that has traditionally given Bordeaux so much variation in quality from harvest to harvest. With modern viticultural techniques and improved winery technology, it is rare for a vintage these days to be an outright disaster. Some harvests are better than others, some favor one subregion over another, but Bordeaux consistently produces enjoyable wine. Whether consumers can afford it is another issue – pricing in the region can have significant ups and downs and every year producers scramble to sell what they make at a price the market can afford. This rollercoaster of pricing and quality has led Bordeaux to fall in and out of favor with wine lovers. That said, for many consumers, Bordeaux represents one of the world’s great red wines that, because of the climate variability, has traditionally been a blend of up to five red grape varieties – mainly Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc with small amounts of two hard-to-ripen grapes, Petite Verdot and Malbec. Several rivers in Bordeaux define the region’s geography and explain its popularity. For centuries, Bordeaux wines had a much easier time getting to market than many French wines because Bordeaux is a port city on a large river. Since the 1200s, Bordeaux wines have been famous not only for quality but also because of their availability. Many consumers think of Bordeaux as quintessential Cabernet Sauvignon and it has a dominant presence on the Left Bank of the Gironde River, but more than half the grapes in the region are Merlot. Merlot and Cabernet Franc form the basis of most wines in the area on the Right Bank of the Dordogne River, and that is the area sending us this episode’s postcard, specifically Saint Emilion, a large region anchored by its namesake, one of France’s most beautifully preserved towns from the Medieval era. Saint Emilion where much of the soil has a significant clay content is perfect for Merlot and Cabernet Franc. For us consumers and Bordeaux lovers, Saint Emilion has special advantages. Merlot is more approachable than Cabernet Sauvignon when it is young, the wines mature faster and most of the wines of Saint Emilion are significantly less expensive than the top wines of the Left Bank. This week's conveersation features French-born Yves de Launay, the Exectutive Vice President, US, of Saint Emilion Château l'Angelus. Yves has spent his entire career marketing luxury products and especially wine. Her's an ideal person to gives us a snapshot of Bordeaux, and Saint Emilion, in particular. In this conversation we talk about Bordeaux's pricing ups and downs, what consistutes quality in Bordeaux wine and the long and illustrious history of Château l'Angelus, one of the top properties in Saint Emilion. What makes Angelus so special? Tune in to find out! And to find out even more about Château l'Angelus, you can check out the property's excellent website: https://www.angelus.com

Julien Fayard's Winemaking Tension

Winemaker Julien Fayard trained in the South of France and Bordeaux before relocating to Northern California in the early 2000s when he worked as an intern at Quintessa. After working with acclaimed viticulturalist and winemaker Philippe Melka, he moved to the US fulltime in 2006, working as Melka's director of winemaking for eight years before setting out on his own. He consulted for many high-end properties including Lail, Gemstone and Dalla Valle Vineyards, and today he is a highly regarded and innovative powerhouse in Napa Valley. In his conversation with podcast host Lyn Farmer, Fayard contrasts winemaking in Napa and Bordeaux and what his training in France allowed him to bring to his winemaking in California. "The process of making wine begins in the vineyard," he says, and he talks about some of surprises climate change is bringing to wine. We also talk about Fayard's shift from being a high profile consultant to others to his latest efforts making wine for his own brands. A frequent comment in Fayard's remarks is the importance of "tension," an elusive quality he explains as essential to great wine and that he hopes is a recognizable quality in the wines he makes. We wrap up with an exploration of what the future may bring for California wine – and Julien Fayard turns out to be a wine optimist! This episode's postcard - a love letter from Napa penned by winemaker Julien Fayard. You can learn more about Julien Fayard's wines on his website: https://www.fayardwines.com

Isidoro Vajra Celebrates the Beauty of Barolo

Barolo is the most storied spot for wine lovers in the Northwest Italian province of Piemonte. Here, where Isidoro Vajra’s ancestors had been growing grapes since the 1880s, the family built a winery in the early 1970s rooted in tradition but also in innovation. Vajra was the first organically certified winery in the region, they have pioneered the renaissance or, as Isidoro says in Italian, the Renascimento, of wine styles from the 17th century (including a sparkling Nebbiolo!) and the resurgence of interest in the local grape Freisa, which was all but forgotten before the Vajra family brought it back to life in 1980. Piemonte is a region that is home to many grapes – Cortese, Arneis and Moscato among white grapes and Dolcetto, Freisia and Barbera among the reds. Indisputably, the king of the red grapes in Piemonte is Nebbiolo, a thin-skinned variety that gives wines often pale in color but robust in fruit, acid and tannin. This is the source of one of Italy’s greatest and most famous wines made exclusively from the Nebbiolo grape in the small village of Barolo. You may also know of the Nebbiolo-based wine from nearby Barbaresco – these are certainly the two most famous villages for Nebbiolo but the grape is grown throughout the province. The villages and small towns of the region – Gavi, Alba and Asti, Barolo and Barbaresco among them – are famous for wine but also for truffles and mushrooms and exceptional cuisine. Piemonte gets its name from the words pied, meaning foot, and monte, meaning mountain. It is in the foothills of the Alps with amazing vistas, a cool climate and many different exposures for vineyards. Most of all, it is a region of stunning beauty, especially in the prime Nebbiolo sub-region called the Langhe where the Vajra family lives and works. In this conversation with host Lyn Farmer, Isidoro Vajra shares his and his family's passion for the area, their close rapport with nature, their respect for the land and their willingness to let their vines tell them what kind of wines to make. Isidoro is a not only passionate, he is compassionate and a wonderful guide to and storyteller about this magical place, the Langhe of Piemonte.. G.D. Vajra is one of Piemonte's most important wineries, and their website is very well done – I recommend it highly - you'll find it at www.gdvajra.it The website has explanations of all the wines we discuss in our conversation including not only the classic Barolos, but the unusual Nebbiolo Claré, the Barbera Freisa blend, the stunning Riesling Petraciné and others as well.