While I cannot claim to have had a terribly high number of bottles of the unfiltered LBVs, as I am able to source and try more and more, I like them head and shoulders above anything filtered.
That being said, here are my top three:
Warre (unfiltered)
Noval (unfiltered)
and now I'm going to throw a knuckleball out: Taylor (filtered)
Why Taylor? Despite being filtered, despite being a touch acidic or at times a touchy spirit-y, these do not seem to detract overall from what is year-after-year a solid LBV. I know what to expect when I open a bottle of Taylor's LBV. I will admit it is not one of my top three "
Best of the LBV" category... but it is one of the top three LBVs I buy... consistency has a lot to do with this.
And Roy may hate me for adding a 4th, but having recently tried 3 bottles of 2x different years, I have to say Smith-Woodhouse comes a VERY close runner up to the Noval in terms of unfiltered LBVs. VERY close... as my Dad would say: "by a whisker" only!
Sorry Roy!
Todd