A DTIG Offer - Fass Old Guard. Billon's Consistently Amazing Cote Rotie and Condrieu - So Fairly Priced, You Can Drink It Whenever You Want

 2018 Christophe Billon Côte-Rotie "Les Elotins"
 - Huge Expressive Nose - an Olfactory Assault
 - Black Olive, Blackberry, Blueberry
 - Amazing Clarity
 - So Floral
 - Stunning Aromatic Depth
 - Palate: Pure Wild Blueberries and Blackberries
 - Decadent Fruit
 - Elegant, Ethereal
 - Insane Freshness
 - Awash in Minerality

2018 Maryline & Christophe Billon Condrieu "Les Matisses"
 - $42.99 for Really Well Made Condrieu!
 - Fleshy, Floral, Ripe and Fresh Condrieu
 - Purity, Precision, Intriguing Minerality
 - Great Acidity, Purity and Stunning Balance
 - Nice Mineral Background
 - Controlled Richness
 - Palate is Deep, Ripe
 - Fresh, Poised and Complex

 - You Know You Will Want to Pop a Bottle of Condrieu at Least Once Every Few Months

DTIG - The Fass Old Guard

Much as I like to think of us as the young upstarts, challegning the inefficient 3 tier wine industry, we're now 10 years old. And we've sold a good number of producers. And some have stuck around for the whole ride. And they've stuck around for a reason. They make consistently great wines at great prices. They haven't gone out of their way to build fancy tasting rooms or market themselves. They just make great wines year in, year out. And they charge fair prices so the wines sell.  They're The Fass Old Guard.  You know who I'm talking about. JJ Girard. Sebastien Dampt (even though he's still pretty young). The winemakers that you can trust to always deliver for you.

So What is DTIG?

So you know when you are drinking wines with your friends and you need a new bottle?  So you go to
your cellar and grab an old favorite. And you pop it, and pour it and you take the first sip. And you just sing, "Damn, that is good!!!"  That's a DTIG wine.  

Billon

We have been working with Billon wines since the beginning. He's a founding member of the old guard.  We started with the 2010 Cote Rotie "Les Elotins" (how many of you still have some left?) and now will offer the 2018 Cote Rotie "Les Elotins" today. What a journey it has been. Christophe and Maryline drove all the way from Cote Rotie to my hotel in Tain l'Hermitage to tatse with me in 2012. He was so kind and humble and his wines blew me away. The Elotins has remained our most consistent and affordable bottle of Cote Rotie. My favorites are the 14/10 and 16 although the 15/17 and today's 18 are a close second. The wine needs about 5 years to start showing really well but it truly transforms into something that makes the price even more silly as it ages. For $49.99 it's one of the best and most consistent values in our portfolio and Christophe Billon is a mensch. His daughter works for the Greeks and he does a collab cuvee also with the Greeks. So he's Rhone Royalty.  I found him before I met the Greeks which was just a happy coincidence. 

The Wines

The first wine is the single best value in Côtie-Rôtie today. I'm thrilled to sell the 2018 Christophe Billon Côte-Rotie "Les Elotins" for as little as $49.99 a bottle on a 4-Pack. 

The 2018 Elotins has a huge expressive nose that is full of big berry fruit. Such a sick nose. Black olive, blackberry, blueberry with just amazing clarity. Floral. Just a wacko nose that is singing. Smoke and minerals. OMG it is so inviting. Some tree bark and just an olfactory assault. Incredible minerality. After an hour, you get blueberry and blackberries with lovely floral top notes. So refined, nuanced and complex. Has a $75 nose. Stunning depth to the aromas. Stunning fruit purity.

The palate is so juicy and so, so refined. Incredible purity and depth with such class and refinement. Opulent but also has energy to burn for days. Such well integrated wood with such deep fruit. Pure wild blueberries and blackberries.  Just pumps and saturates your palate with all this fruit. Layers upon layers and layers. Refined and super velvety tannins that moderate between velvet and silk depending on how much air. They start silky but get velvety. Sweet fruit that is so alluring but not too sweet as it's awash in minerality. Incredibly silky tannins that spread out on the exceptionally long finish. It is so, so elegant as great Côte Rotie has to be elegant. The delineation of the finish and mid palate is something to behold. After air it gets so good. Decadent fruit and a mid palate one can get lost in with such superb freshness and awesome granite finish. Superb concentration and structure. Elegant and yet so dense plus ethereal. Really captures what great Côte Rotie is about. Clean. Velvety and sweet tannins. Awesome. Really showing well today. Man, Billon is so so skilled. So complex already and so so pure. Wonderful focus and such amazing linearity. Insane freshness keeps the fruit and minerality pumping on the long finish. The sheer amount of material will blow people away and ensure I think a nice long drinking window. Also will be accessible in its youth like the 15 was. Almost the sultry side of Syrah here.

This wine is just incredible and ideally will be at primetime drinking in 3-5 years. It's likely much better now than when I tasted in late January 2019. Will be bottled in a few weeks.

Next up is the 2018 Maryline & Christophe Billon Condrieu "Les Matisses" for as little as $42.99 on a 4-pack. You will not find a better value Condrieu anywhere in the United States. This vintage of this wine is remarkable. This is a true "Lyle wine" in that I have an crazy belief in the greatness of this wine and will back it up with even more crazy metaphor. Something about Viognier on steep hills of granite I truly love when done by an artist such as Christophe Billon who knows how to keep the wood under control. The wine has personality for days. It's Condrieu, this ain't Mosel Trocken Riesling.  It's fleshy, floral, rich, ripe and fresh Condrieu. It can't help itself. It's ostentatious because that's what it is, but get beyond that and it has freshness, purity, precision, intriguing minerality and a ton of dry extract. It's an amazing wine. Floral like only Condrieu can be. Well integrated oak. Nice mineral background. Great acidity, purity and stunning balance. Persistent and long. Awesome. Great finesse. So complex. Big and floral nose. So fat, yet poised. Lovely and deep. Palate is deep, ripe, yet, fresh poised and complex with an array of tropical fruits. Endless persistence. 

 2018 Christophe Billon Côte-Rotie "Les Elotins" - $51.99 ($199.96 4-Pack) (VERY LIMITED)

2018 Christophe Billon Condrieu "Les Matisses" - $44.99 ($171.96 4-Pack) (VERY LIMITED)