H. Billiot Fils Brut Reserve Champagne N.V.

H. Billiot Fils Brut Reserve Champagne *1.5 Liters - Magnum has big bold flavors, lots of richness with great red berry intensity that lasts till the finish.  100% Grand Cru, particularly satisfying Pinot Noir here. Fresh, bracing red-grape Champagnes with long, swollen mid-palate flavors. Just 5 hectares in size, so availabilities are scarce!  Considering Billiot uses virtually no dosage (claiming his wines are ripe enough to do without) they do not taste significantly dry. In fact many of you seem to guess them fairly high in sweetness. Billiot does not filter his wines, and they never undergo malolactic fermentation. That makes them very frisky and reductive when they’re first disgorged, and occasionally a Billiot bottle will show a slightly metallic aroma for the first few minutes. That’s rare and nil if you hold the wines six months after disgorgement. Billiot seems to want liveliness most of all, as he can presume upon lavish and deep fruit flavors. If you know the wines of Egly-Ouriet (Billiot’s friend and neighbor) they couldn’t be more different. Egly pulls you down into its mealy-ripe depths; Billiot lifts you up on a billowing fountain of fruit. His wines have marvelous stamina and brightness. They’re hedonistic but not sloppy. Too firm and impeccable to be sloppy!