2002 billecart-salmon, nicolas francois

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Why We're Buying

Cuvée Nicolas-Francois Billecart serves as a timeless tribute to the Champagne house's founder. In 1999, the 1959 vintage beat 150 other Champagnes to earn the title of the Champagne of the Millennium.

Critics Scores

Decanter

Always the finest wine of the house, now rightly promoted as their prestige cuvée. A luminous gold colour with green tints indicates how youthful this still is. It is hard to do justice to its very high quality - latent power and density without heaviness, and supreme finesse. Brillant with wood-roasted turbot. One of the greatest wines of a great year.

Wine & Spirits

Billecart’s rigorous selection of pinot noir and chardonnay (60/40) for this prestige cuvée, in tandem with the remarkably powerful 2002 vintage, make this a youthful 14-year-old wine, still bright and floral, with an underlying density and concentration that predicts years of development ahead. It’s complex, voluptuous and savory, with depths of oyster-shell minerality and the brioche scent of clean, fine lees.

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

The 2002 Brut Cuvée Nicolas François was disgorged in January 2015 with four grams per liter dosage, and it's showing superbly, wafting from the glass with a complex bouquet that mingles confit citrus, peach and dried papaya with nuances of iodine, brioche and honeycomb. On the palate, it's full-bodied, broad and vinous, with a rich and layered core that's underpinned by serious structure and tension, concluding with a long and precise finish. This is one of the finest wines Billecart has released in the last decade, and it is well worth seeking out.

Wine Spectator

There's a buoyant, almost ethereal quality to this elegant Champagne, offering a rich range of blackberry pâte de fruit, crystallized honey, grilled nut and oyster shell flavors, set on a fine, chalky mousse. Long and mouthwatering, with a clean, citrus-infused finish. Drink now through 2027.

James Suckling

Very impressive depth and detail here. The freshness is staggering. Citrus and grilled-hazelnut aromas lead to a palate that has a very concentrated, slightly creamy and taut feel. Super long and dense with lemon curd, white peaches and a toasty build to the finish. Superb! Drink or hold.

Wine Enthusiast

With its ripe fruits, rich texture and layers of toast, this is a great wine. It shows the quality of the great 2002 vintage brilliantly. It's complex and concentrated with an array of mature fruit flavors that combine to a structured whole. It will improve with age, so drink this great Champagne through 2025 and perhaps longer.