Billecart-Salmon Brut Réserve NV

Ask a sommelier what they drink when they are off the clock and buying their own Champagne. Most of them say Billecart. Not Krug. Not Dom. Billecart-Salmon Brut Réserve. At $50-60 it is half the price of the prestige cuvées and it does something none of them do — it gets out of the way. This is not a Champagne that announces itself. No toasty brioche, no heavy dosage, no butterscotch. Just citrus, chalk, a fine bead of bubbles that is almost invisible, and a mineral finish that tastes like the limestone it grew in. Elegant is the word everyone uses. They use it because it is the right word. Keep two in the cellar at all times. One for when something good happens. One for when you decide something good is going to happen.