Billecart-Salmon Le Blancs de Blancs Grand Cru Extra Brut NV

Billecart-Salmon Le Blancs de Blancs Grand Cru Extra Brut NV
$175, 12% alcohol, cork, Champagne/France.

There's a gravity to this wine — a weight that presses down and leaves a mark. Saline, lightly autolytic, bone dry, with rocks, lemon rind, pastry and rye bread running through it. Honey flickers on the nose; on the palate, a flash of caramel, so cold it feels brittle, almost stony. This is a genuinely excellent sparkling wine. It carries breadth and heft, but more than that, it carries a kind of authority — it doesn't ask to be liked so much as respected. 95 points – Campbell Mattinson.

• Billecart-Salmon's Le Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Extra Brut NV is a 100% Chardonnay Champagne sourced from Grands Crus de villages de la Côte des Blancs : Avize, Chouilly, Cramant, Mesnil-sur-Oger.

• It's a non-vintage blend of two different years, aged on lees for (four to) five years in the house's cellars.

• Vinification is done entirely in stainless steel, consistent with the house's typically low-dosage, precision style.

• Details are scant on the percentage of reserve wine used, but it typically ranges between 20% and 50% (which is a significant margin for adjustment).