Antoine Roland-Billecart ― Ripe for success

“We take time at Billecart-Salmon,” says Antoine Roland-Billecart, deputy general manager and sixth-generation co-owner of the champagne house Billecart-Salmon. “The big difference about being family-owned and family-run is that we aren’t like a typical company, so if a decision has to be made in three, four or five years, that’s OK. Billecart-Salmon is over 200 years old, so we’re obviously not in a hurry to change things.”

This serene way of doing business might not suit more fast-paced industries, but the world of fine champagne tends to move somewhat slowly. “In champagne, you have to think at least 10, 15, sometimes 20 years ahead,” says Antoine. “For example, in terms of vintage, we are now launching our Cuvée Nicolas François 2012. Those bottles have stayed in the cellar for almost 15 years. That’s an investment.” Indeed, Antoine talks about the house’s cellars as a kind of vast savings account. Today there are several million bottles beneath the estate, stored across roughly four kilometres of cellars. “That is our bank,” he says, “12 metres down there with all those bottles.”

It was in those very same cellars that Antoine learnt to ride a bike as a child. He grew up among the vines and remembers being taken by his father, Jean Roland-Billecart, into the press houses and the winery to watch the vignerons at work. At eight or nine, Antoine would be asked to help out with small parts of the winemaking process, a kind of “kid training”, as he puts it. “And I’m still a trainee,” he says, smiling. “I’m still an intern.”

This initiation into the world of champagne has been a constant in Antoine’s family for seven generations. The maison was founded in 1818 by Nicolas François Billecart and Elisabeth Salmon in Mareuil-sur-Aÿ, in the administrative commune Aÿ-Champagne. In the middle of the 20th century, Antoine’s father, Jean, took over the house and transformed it, focusing on new vinification techniques, which led to the fresh and fruity taste that is today synonymous with the Billecart-Salmon name. In 1993, Jean’s eldest son, Antoine’s brother François, took over the house and made the decision to reposition the brand, taking it out of supermarkets and focusing on independent wine merchants and fine-dining restaurants. Today, the company is led by Mathieu Roland-Billecart, Antoine’s cousin, who represents the seventh generation of the family.

Antoine’s own career journey at the house began (at least contractually) in 1985, when he was 25. Although he began as a trainee, his facility with languages soon made him the natural fit for travelling abroad, meeting buyers and growing the company’s exports. “Everything had to be done,” he says. “We had to develop the European market. We were doing nothing in Asia. And then we opened Australia in 1993, and Australia is now one of our main export markets.” When he looks back at this time of his life, it’s something of a blur. “I didn’t have a permanent address,” he says. Today, Antoine is deputy general manager of the house, but he retains his focus on exports, still travelling a great deal and maintaining relationships with buyers worldwide.

Although the champagne world moves relatively slowly, the industry has seen some major changes over the course of Antoine's career. In the 1990s, for instance, Italy's prosecco production went from virtually nothing to being "like water," as Antoine puts it. "Wine production outside of champagne increased, which brought a lot of competition," he says. "That's why it's important for champagne to concentrate on its quality and its particularity, and to develop and show its unique soil, climate, and region." More recently, the other big shift he has noticed is the "new generation of vignerons" who are creating small-batch champagnes with more eclectic styles. "I wouldn't say it has brought competition, but it has brought a lot of diversity to the champagne market globally," Antoine says, who sees this as a good thing. Across his career, he has learned that the champagne world is in a state of "permanent evolution".

And the changes aren't about to slow down either. South America is increasingly producing sparkling wines, he says. "And in the future, we will also have to consider sparkling wine being produced in China," he adds. Climate change is on his and the family's radar, too. Some neighboring champagne houses have, he notes, planted vines in southern England as an insurance policy in case climate change continues to turn Kent into a "Champagne-like region" across the Channel. Antoine is a bit more sanguine, however. "The vines will somehow adapt to the weather conditions because plants are intelligent," he says. "We'll have to help the process, by doing, for instance, late pruning to avoid the frost, but the vines will adapt." And the most important thing for him is that the truly unique Champagne earth beneath the vines won't be affected. "The soil isn't changing," he says. "We have chalk here, and the chalk will remain. It's been there for about 3 million years."

He has the same confidence in the solidity and longevity of Billecart-Salmon as a family company. His cousin Mathieu became CEO less than six years ago, so he still hopefully has many more years at the helm. (Antoine’s father Jean is still fighting fit at 101 and, according to Antoine, the secret to his long life is a glass of Billecart-Salmon champagne each and every day.) Looking further into the future, Antoine is convinced that there will always be a pool of strong leaders within the family, given how large the family is (his father was one of six, so he has “many, many cousins,” he says). “We have quite a high potential sourcing capacity in the family, because there are almost 50 of us shareholders,” he says. However, he’s quick to note that nobody gets a position in the company purely because of their surname. “Just because you’re a family member, doesn’t mean you automatically get into the company,” he says. “We’re looking for experience, knowledge and efficiency.”

Although he believes in the house’s independence, the idea of an acquisition at some point isn’t a total non-starter. “If a big group said, ‘we are interested in getting Billecart,’ maybe we would consider that offer, depending on the amount, of course,” he says. “But that would be a family decision.” And the family structure might rule out anything of the kind. “It’s a financial family holding, so it’s like Fort Knox,” he says. “You cannot get in and you almost cannot get out.”

Nonetheless, the current mission and the strategy for the house are both clear in his mind. “The priority is to keep Billecart in the family, because we have that brand from our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, who made the effort to build the brand,” he says. “They came through the French Revolution, the First World War and the Second World War. It wasn’t easy. So, our mission, as far as we have a mission in this world, is to pass it on to the next generation in the best possible condition.”