For the Burgundy lovers: yes, young Rhone Whites can be too forward/fruity when young but Luyton's style is very restrained and this wine has the aromatics, power and elegance of Grand Cru Burgundy at a fraction of the price. And the oak is integrated so you can drink it now. You should try this.I've tasted 4 great top of the top White Hermitage this trip. 2014 Chave, 2016 Sorrel "Les Roucoules," 2014 Habrard "Les Roucoules and the 2015 Luyton Hermitage Blanc. They all obviously differ in price and I'm pretty shocked to say this, the Luyton was by far the one I want to drink now and over the next 5 years. Not even close.
I'm offering the 2015 Michelle Luyton Hermitage Blanc for $44.99 on a 3 pack. I had it yesterday and it was just absurd how great it was. Just an insane bottle of wine. This is the best white Hermitage value I will ever sell. Michelle's style is incredibly elegant and in normal vintages so given the extra turbo boost of 2015 this wine had it all come together to create a wine of haunting complexity, depth, richness and ageability. Her prices are amazing. For $45 this is just nuts wine. She did raise her prices and I lowered my margins to keep continuity. First let's start off with the nose. Sick with a capital S. Yes, I know I started the sentence with sick, but if I didn't it's still Sick, with a capital S. I think I scared Michelle with my enthusiasm for that wine. Aromas are so well defined and elegant. Yeah, elegant aromas. So refined. The palate is long and complex and has one of those 8 dimensional textures. It takes over your mouth like the black oil Alien from the X-Files. It gets to every nook and cranny of your palate and floods it with glycerin. Yet due to the conditions of the vintage (hot days, cool nights) you have insane freshness and great acidity to buffer and frame all that glycerin. The palate is so pure it is almost like a mountain spring water of Hermitage. There is a the most discreet and brilliant application of oak that adds so much. Michelle is brilliant when it comes to oak. Never ever too much, never too little, just right. So juicy. I mean super juicy. Flavors of grilled nuts and marzipan are dominant on the palate with brilliant minerality. So fresh, so pure. There is terroir footprint like no other. Wet earth. It's like raining in the glass. This is drinking so well right now but will age easy 10-15 years. Such purity.
Michelle is much more famous in France now than when we begun working with her. She sells out almost instantly. I only have the last few cases of this wine so this will be allocated. I'll sell no other white Hermitage from 2015 that will be a better value than this.
Today, I also have 4-packs of the 2015 Michele Luyton St. Joseph Rouge for $28.99 a bottle. The wine is sensational. They only have .2 ha of St. Joseph and it is done in their house style which emphasizes complexity and elegance over power and extraction. In 2015 there is a lot more stuffing along with the requisite Luyton complexity and elegance. There is terrific clean, pure and precise black and raspberry fruit, excellent framing acidity and long and spicy complex and earthy finish. The aromas are in like 4-D with massive earthy and fruit and lovely floral aromas. Ever changing but always remaining classical and clean. There is a depth and vividness to the fruit I just have not encountered before in Michel's wines. The freshness and purity are just ridiculous for a wine from St. Joseph that is under $28 a bottle. It has distinction and character and is in a radically different style than the ones from Alexandrins, Cote Epine, Darnaud, Gripa and Gonon. If I sell 5 St. Josephs, they all will be very very different. Jeb Dunnuck gave it 89-92 pts and his review is below.
"The only red from the estate I was able to taste was the 2015 Saint Joseph. This inky-colored barrel sample has Côte Rôtie-like elegance as well as classy notes of raspberries, flowers, graphite and a hint of minerality. Medium-bodied, silky and polished on the palate, it's impeccably balanced and should keep for a decade." 89-92 points Jeb Dunnuck, The Wine Advocate
Michel Luyton and Lionel Babic are both so enthusiastic and passionate about their winery which they only started in 2006 or so, whilst before that all the grapes were sent to the Cave Tain l'Hermitage. Michelle's father, 25 years ago, planted a small parcel with some Syrah vines in St. Joseph but always sold to the Cave Tain l'Hermitage. He did this so he could eventually afford to buy vineyards in Hermitage. Michelle loves working outside so her time in the vineyards is a natural fit. As her father aged, she worked in the vineyards and continued to sell the grapes to the Cave Tain l'Hermitage and hired Lionel Babic to help her out. Lionel, though, secretly learned how to make wine at a neighbor. When Michelle found out she left him a vineyard in St. Joseph. Lionel made a brilliant wine and Michelle decided after tasting that wine she would no longer sell her grapes to the Co-op and vinify all of them herself. She had that a-ha moment which I am sure all of you have had with wine.
When it comes to the cultivation of the vines, she takes a hands off approach and will spray as little as possible. She has maximum respect for nature and is humbled by it. She definitely has a flower child, respect nature approach to her work and it really comes out in the wines. They are alive. She has a winemaker now, named Chistophe, who guides her every step of the way. Christophe is all about respecting the balance of nature and it is again reflected in the wines which are supernally balanced. They glide across your palate. Another iron fist in a velvet glove wine.
While the Luytons have been planting grapes for over 25 years, this is only their 6th year bottling wines under their name; they are still building a name for themselves and hence the wines are just incredibly cheap even for Fass Selections!
2015 Luyton Hermitge Blanc - $47.99 ($134.97 3-pack)
(VERY LIMITED)
2015 Luyton St. Joseph - $30.99 ($115.96 4-pack) (LIMITED)
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