S.M.W.S Tasting Night

Tuesday night and another tasting for Glasgow's Whisky Club Tasting Panel. Five brave souls travelled throught the rain to meet at the Bon Accord bar to go through 5 new bottles from our friends in Edinburgh. Here are the results.

Malt 1,
SMWS 129.19 (Loch Lomond-16 year-old), 50.1% volume, £50, one of 79 bottles
The nose quite intriguing starts with a touch of salt, then fruit into cinnamon. At times the fruit is very pick’n’mix confectionary. To taste it is like being hit with a piece of rough peat. First sip -Full rush of peat quickly developing into a sweet finish. Second sip – rough, charcoal, dry and unmemorable.

70/100

Malt 2.
SMWS 93.33 (Glen Scotia-16 year-old), 64.3% volume, £49, one of 177 bottles
Fruit driven nose, blueberries and cherry chewits jump straight out at you. A touch of lime and lavender at the edges and you have a very well put together experience. The palate was not the best for me but if you like liquorice to dominate with the edges of prunes and Root beer then this malt is for you. With water the liquorice does die down and the prunes turn slightly too raspberry jus. A great malt but not for my personal tastes.

80/100

Malt 3.
SMWS 1.141 (Glenfarclas ## year-old) 48.1% volume.
A boy band malt! Synthetic, clean, trying to hard to impress, and as always one member who wants to be the rebel. A fake fruit nose that is very like apples mixed with polish cleaner gives way to a slightly oaky, tangerine and concentrated orange juice palate. With water the there is more fruit, a hint of chocolate and some spicy white heather. I like it but I’m not sure why?

85/100

Malt 4.SMWS 37.40 (Cragganmore ##year-old) 56% volume
A classic grassy Speysider! Floral, rose water, fresh green fruit – strawberries and sugar on a summer day (while watching Wimbledon on the TV). With out water there is a strange mid-palate sour moment where the rollercoaster ride stalls but with the addition of a touch of water this turns into mouth watering fruit. Almost perfect.

95/100

Malt 5.
SMWS 27.72 (Springbank-12 year-old), 57.3% volume, £51, one of 292 bottles
A darker richer monster than the previous drams. At first it’s a fruit cake mixed with to much sherry then it’s a ginger cake that could do with some sherry. Great complexity. The palate is at first peppery then smoky, touch peaty, then just when it’s about to finish it turns sweet. I had a great time trying to work out the distillery and I had to go for Talisker (peaty, smoky, peppery) but it was Springbank! Another brilliant dram and a great one to finish on.

95/100

If you would like to more about SMWS please visit there site.

http://www.smws.co.uk/

Henschke Wine Tasting

Another fantastic tasting at Inverarity 121 – why they keep inviting me I’ll never know. This week Peter was presenting the Henscke Wine range and I could think of no better way of spending a Saturday afternoon.I have to admit that my palate is designed to love wines from the New World – big, powerful fruit bombs filled with concentration and berry juice. First up was the Riesling (£12.99), a fresh fruity, slightly sweet but with a limey-citrus crispness tipple 85/100. Following on was the Tilly’s Vineyard 2004 (£9.99), a Semillon, Sauvignon and Chardonnay mix. Again a lot of fruit but not to much complexity 85/100 and then to finish the whites Louis Semillon 2003(£11.99), quite powerful for a Semillon but just the right wine to finish on, it has brilliant toasty notes (which is down to the 26% French oak aging). A year on your wine rack and you will get the ‘runny honey on toast’ notes that real good Semillon is capable of 90/100.

As is Inverarity 121’s key idea it is the Henschke family who own and run the winery for more details please visit.

http://www.henschke.com.au/

On to the reds and there was no messing about. To dive straight into the Johann’s Garden GSM (Grenach/Shiraz/Mouvedre - £18.99) is like running through a dense bramble patch eating all the brambles, and a few leaves, as you go. A green herby, almost spearmint notes follow. Give this wine a year or two and you will have a true Australian great 92/100. Then is the Shiraz/Cabernet 2002 (£18.99) a true battle of Shiraz’s blackberries and the Cabernet’s eucalyptus – the berries win by the way 92/100.

To finish Peter really threw his best at us the straight Cabernet (okay 91% Cabernet and 9% Merlot - £39.50). I swear that I thought that this was a Pinot on the nose – inky, oily, burnt raisins and dark forest fruits. I may have been wrong about the grape but the wine was magnificent 95/100.

6 wines, one Saturday afternoon – brilliant tasting!

Chivas Tasting

If you are lucky enough to visit the Distilleries that are under the Chivas Brothers protective arms you will have the chance to purchase some Cask Strength releases from some of there top Distilieries.

On Friday we were able to put together a tasting of four of these bottles – Strathisla(pictured), Longmorn, Glenlivet and Glenallachie. I have to admit that after a night at Linn House last year that I have been a huge fan of what Chivas Brothers release. For a company of it’s size it is very refreshing to see them push the product forward.

First up was the Strathisla-15yo (Distilled 1991, bottled 2006, 55.4%) – Rich all spice on the nose, dry, then a rush of heather honey. The palate comes forward as powerful coffee that’s been brewed to long. The addition of water adds a vanilla undertone and bananas to the nose and a whiff of smoke to the palate. 90/100

Glenlivet-16 year-old (Distilled 1991, bottled 2008, 59.8%) – A vast impovment on the 12 year-old and the 15 year-old French Oak, I’m thinking that the higher ABV just gives the flavours a little push in the right direction. Again the nose had that sweet style heather honey notes but it was mixed with floral garden notes. The palate continued on with these flavours. Water brought out an extra note of liquorice. 88/100

Longmorn-17 year-old (Distilled 1991, bottled 2008, 49.4%) – This is the bottle that cause the disagreements on the night. To my nose and palate it was a rich, textured dram that was put together with armchair drinkers in mind. The flavours were well integrated and the finish was lingering BUT I just could not pull any individual notes out of the whisky. My vote was that this was a brilliant dram – I don’t need to challenged by everything I drink. 92/100

And to finish our Speyside tasting…..Glenallachie-18 year-old (Distilled 1990, bottled 2008) - One of my favourite drams. Yes it has been in a sherry cask for to long but I just adore all those rich, nutty flavours. Cask Vs Distillery and the cask comes out the winner by a first round knock out. 95/100

Now, as those who know me will know, I am a huge supporter of Bruichladdich Distillery and just to finsih off the evening I brought out a Bruichladdich Valinch "Blandola" that I picked up over Christmas. You really need to see the label to see the sheer brilliance behind the name

http://www.laddieblog.com/laddieblog/Blog/Entries/2008/11/4_Blandola_Valinch.html

Stunning whisky from my top distillery 95/100

Glen Breton - one bottle, one distillery a whole lot of controversy!

On Friday night Ralfy (www.whiskystuff.blogspot.com) presented the group with a blind sample to taste and discuss. I have to admit that nose was outstanding constantly changing, always developing – fizzy sweets, citrus, old leather, lemon sherbet. The palate, however, did not live up to the ‘hype’ of the nose – a bit too spirity, too young to be an enjoyable drinking. At a guess I said it maybe one of the malts from the Loch Lomond Distillery but I was wrong.

When the malt was revealed it was none other than Glen Breaton-10 year-old Canadian Whisky. Yes the small distillery that has fought off the wraith of the SWA twice only to find that it is again back in the courts. As a malt I was not overly impressed, and at the price (£40, thewhiskyexchange) I would not be buying a bottle BUT as a stand against the short sightness of the SWA I recommend that we all buy a bottle.

For further reading on the SWA may I recommend that you visit http://www.maltmaniacs.org/ and read the comments by Johannes van den Heuvel.

Aged Grenache

It takes patience and passion to age a wine, to ignore its calling and let it mature.

On Friday we opened an aged bottle of D’Arenberg ‘The Derelict Vineyard’ Grenache 2003 (£11.99 when purchased 2 years ago - £13.99 now, Oddbins). It did not take long to decant and let lose a furry of flavours. The best description was that this wine was a very fruity alcoholic sherry that has been made with amontillado sherry. The warmth of the alcohol just stays on the palate and conjures up fantastic memories of Christmas and fruity puddings.

I have always been a huge fan of the D’Arenberg wines and I highly recommend them for ageing – I still have some old vintage of Feral Fox Pinot Noir, and Dead Arm Shiraz waiting to be released.

Jack Frame Exhibition at Inverarity 121

As a guest at the opening of the Jack Frame Exhibition I was able to view some wonderful pieces of some very fine art and take part in a small but very interesting Burgundy tasting.

Our host for the evening Smiley Pete took us through 4 different wine, 2 whites and 2 reds. The whites were very the complete opposite of the traditional way of viewing Burgundy – the Chablis Louis Michel-2004 (£25 – in a magnum) was soft, fresh, citrus fruity approachability defined. While the Macon-Villages Joseph Drouhin- 2007 (£8.99) was a dry, steely, complex wine that didn’t just break the mould of Macon-Village wines but destroyed it.Onto the reds and it was Hautes-Cotes-de-Nuits verses Hautes-Cotes-de-Beaune. I have to admit that I have never been overly fond of red Burgundy – when it tastes great it tastes slightly like dirty vegetables, not my scene. The first wine was Bourgogne Hautes-Cotes-de-Nuits Chartron et Trebuchet-1999 (£14.99) was an enjoyable drink, aged perfectly well and even I have to admit that the dirty vegetable flavours were very appealing. It was paired next to the Bourgogne Hautes-Cotes-de-Beaune VV 2006 Nicolas Potel (£11.99), a young wine from old vines. They were both very similar in style but the Hautes-Cotes-de-Nuits just had the edge.

If you are in Bath Street I highly recommend that you stop in at Inverarity 121 to view Jack’s fantastic work – oil and paint on glass. They will be displayed until the end of the month.