The Champagne edit - Krug, Billecart-Salmon, and Bruno Paillard

If you ask the floor staff at most American wine shops about Champagne, you will get a list of grower-producer recommendations followed by a slightly defensive shrug about the big houses. The big houses are out of fashion. Grower Champagne has been the right answer for a decade.

We carry grower Champagne. We pour it at tastings, we sell it to collectors, and we love it. But the three Champagne houses we keep on the floor year round, the ones we will always recommend without caveat, are houses. Krug, Billecart-Salmon, and Bruno Paillard.

Here is why.

Krug

Krug is not a wine you race through. The Grande Cuvée is a multivintage blend assembled with a kind of patience that very few houses still practice. The result is a Champagne with body and texture and a long, sane finish.

We pour it at a small number of occasions every year. It is not the bottle you bring to a tailgate. It is the bottle you bring to a dinner that matters. Drink it cool, not cold, and give it the half hour it deserves.

Billecart-Salmon

The Brut Rosé is the one to know. Family-owned since 1818, made in a style that is restrained without being austere, and capable of pairing with almost anything you would put on a summer table. Fine bead, raspberry on the nose, the kind of structure that holds up to food without overwhelming it.

It is, for our money, the Champagne to give as a host gift. People who know what they have unwrapped will smile, and people who do not will write to ask what it was the next morning.

Bruno Paillard

The Premiere Cuvée is the bottle we recommend most often to customers who want something they have not yet met. Grower-style precision in a maison frame. Disgorgement dated on the back label, which is a small thing and a serious thing at once.

The mineral pull is a little firmer than Billecart, the finish is a little drier, and the price is approachable in a way that surprises people every time we tell them what it is.

You can spend an entire evening with these three bottles and learn more about Champagne than a textbook will teach you.

That is true, and we have done it. The next time we host a Bollicine evening we will put all three in the same flight and you can take your own notes.

In the shop

We keep all three on the floor year round. The Krug is held in modest quantity, the Billecart sells through quickly, and the Bruno Paillard is the one to ask about for a quiet weeknight surprise.

If you would like a Champagne case put together for a holiday or a milestone, write to us. We will ask a few questions and we will build it.

The next Champagne tasting is the Bollicine Summer evening in July. Five wines, three houses, and a few sparkling outliers from beyond the region.