[Review] Glenmorangie Core Series

For today’s entry blog I decided that it’d be good to show off a distillery that a lot of new whisky drinkers end up going for to begin their journeys.
Glenmorangie is a distillery based out of Rossshire, Scotland who are owned by liquor supergiant Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, or LVMH, who are best known for owning the world famous Hennessy cognac company and Moet and Chandon champagnes. Glenmorangie Distillery itself also owns the very popular Ardbeg scotch distillery, who you should definitely check out as a fantastic entry level Islay single malt starting with their delicious Ardbeg 10 Year Old if you find yourself okay with drinking heavier peated single malts like Laphroaig Quarter Cask and Lagavulin 16 Year Old.

Glenmorangie began producing alcohol in the early 18th century when a brewery was built in on the Morangie Farm and for almost 100 years sold their malty delights to nearby villagers in Rosshire using only local water from the nearby Talorgie Spring. In 1843, William Matheson, a former manager of the distillery, bought the brewery and converted it into a full-fledged whisky distillery. He added 2 gin pot stills while renaming the building to its current name, Glenmorangie. After prohibition and World War II, Glenmorangie Distillery was greeted with such immense popularity in the UK and abroad in North America that they were pushed to maximum capacity and the new owners, a firm from Leith called MacDonald and Muir who happened to be one of the distillery's biggest customers before the purchase, had to add two more stills to meet the newfound demand. Glenmorangie currently has 12 stills in their distillery and produces 6 million liters of scotch whisky every year and are easily the best-selling scotchmakers within the entirety of Scotland and one of the biggest whisky producers in the world. They were purchased by LVMH for almost 300 million British pounds in 2004 and the distillers products were soon re-branded to attract more buyers in the luxury spirits market which was when Glenmorangie started their new “core line” of scotches.

Now the reason why I’m going through the core range of Glenmorangie today is not really just for popularity or for the rich history the distillery holds but for the wine finishes that are noticeable as the core range goes on. Each selection after the 10 year old is essentially a whisky that took a cask of 10 year old and finished it for 2 years in casks that previously held different selections of fortified wine, wines that were either fortified with a neutral high proof brandy or were grown under conditions to make them more dessert like with a higher percentage of alcohol. This review will basically show how the basic Glenmorangie 10 year old spirit changes after the addition of another cask to change the range of flavors in the spirit and what effect each generally has on an unpeated single malt previously aged in standard ex-bourbon barrels. Although they’re not necessarily the best uses of wine finishes they are certainly a good exemplar for the new whisky drinker to get an idea of what he’ll be getting from different wine finished whisky. Later on I hope to show off some other different types of finishes like beer barrel, red wine barrel or rye barrel finishes but for now let's start with the usual ones.

But before we get to the wine finished barrel's let's start with the simple ol'...

Glenmorangie "The Original" 10 Year Old

This is the basic expression from Glenmorangie. Its matured all 10 years in first and second fill ex-bourbon casks including what they dub “famous slow-grown and air-dried ‘designer casks’ from Missouri.” Now a numbered fill cask is a title that refers to a cask that has been used a certain number of times to mature batches of whisky. A first fill cask has only ever had bourbon in it before the whisky goes in. Once that batch of whisky is taken out and bottled, the next batch going into the cask would be referred to as being matured in a second fill ex-bourbon cask. The number of the fill would go on for as many times the barrel is used to mature whisky before it is taken out of commission and any number usually after 3 is sometimes referred to as a refill cask, although refill can also be used for a cask that is a 2nd fill or onward. This bottle is chill filtered at 40% ABV and contains coloring.

• Color: Straw gold
• Nose: Potent citrus, lemon peel, orange rind, banana, pineapple, light lime notes, sweet notes from the bourbon barrels
• Palate: Light toffee, watery, weak baking spice, bananas again, dried fruits
• Finish: Medium with allspice and dried apricot

So with the standard 10 year old there definitely is a lot to be asking for. Despite the pleasant nose the whisky is definitely too unrefined to be worth a recommendation much less buying a dram at a bar unless it is the better 100 Imperial Proof (around 58% ABV) which is definitely worth trying and buying at a good price.

65 pts

So now that we’ve established a benchmark lets look into how our first wine finish affects this flawed young single malt.

Glenmorangie "The Lasanta" 12 Year Old Sherry Finish

 

So now we move onto the first of the wine finished expressions by Glenmorangie. The Lasanta is a 46% non chill filtered single malt that is initially matured for 10 years in ex-bourbon casks before being finished for 2 years in Oloroso and Pedro Ximenez, or PX, sherry casks. Sherry is a type of fortified wine from Jerez, Spain that is made from white wine grapes such as Palomino, which is used to make Fino sherry. So essentially they’re taking the 10 year old and further maturing it in two types of sherry casks. Now for the sherry types used Oloroso is a drier sherry that imparts more nutty notes while PX imparts sweeter fruity notes so in this whisky we’ll see how the use of these sherry casks affect the 10 year.

• Colour: Dark amber
• Nose: Warm spicy flavors. Cinnamon, nutmeg, raisins, toffee, orange. Not overly engaging.
• Taste: Immediately sherry notes , spiced orange and butterscotch which stays through to the finish along with the taste of spicy walnuts, hazelnuts and sweet notes from the bourbon oak. Not very bitter but its definitely strong on the tongue.
• Finish: Medium with sweet bourbon wood and spice.

Now immediately there is a much more prominent baking spice and treenut influence added to the malt that pushes the spirit up a bit. It’s not anything amazing but its a definite improvement from the lackluster Original.

74 pts

Lets see the next wine finish in store, which will be ruby port!

Glenmorangie "The Quinta Ruban" 12 Year Old Port Finish

So now we come to what is personally my favorite of Glenmorangie’s core range, which is the base 10 year old taken and further matured for two years in ruby port pipes. Now when I say a pipe I don’t mean an actual pipe used for smoking tobacco, a port pipe is just an expression for a barrel of port usually around 550L in capacity. Port wine itself is a fortified wine that comes from Douro in Portugal made from local fermented grapes and high strength neutral grape brandy. Ruby port is a type of port wine that is considered easy to make and cheap and does not age like a Tawny port does. This single malt is bottled at 46% like the Lasanta and is non chill filtered.

• Colour: Light Gold
• Nose: Seawater, sand, tropical fruit, oranges, pineapple, mango, sweet wine, white pepper
• Taste: Very intense on the mouth, oranges, seawater, oak, toffee pudding, nutmeg, very smooth and solid for 46%
• Finish: Medium-long with toffee and allspice

So from this we can see a more seaside influences effect the sherry along with more desert like notes like toffee pudding that change the palate of the whisky to be something completely new and interesting and personally the dimensions of sweet and salty it gives are fantastic.

78 pts

And now for our last wine finish we go to something a little different...

Glenmorangie "Nectar D'Or" 12 Year Old Sauternes Finish

So for our final wine finish Glenmorangie we have the Nectar D’Or which finished the 10 year old for 2 years in a type of desert wine called sauternes. Now sauternes is a desert wine from the Sauternes sub-region in the famous Bordeaux wine region of France and is made from the grapes of Sauvingon Blanc, Semillion and Muscadelle that have been affected by a fungus called botrytis cinerea or “noble rot.” This causes the grapes to be partially raisined which makes the flavor more concentrated and has led to the creation of sauternes which has become a popular desert wine among many wine connoisseurs. With sauternes you usually get more sweeter and tropical notes which should go well with this kind of single malt, so lets check the notes.

• Colour: White like a dry Sauvignon Blanc
• Nose: Sweet white wine grapes, lemon curd, vanilla, bourbon oak, lime, honeydew,
• Taste: Very crisp and smooth, intense on tongue, lemon and honey, orange juice, fresh nuts, potent ginger and allspice
• Finish: Medium with lemon and ginger

Its definitely a desert whisky just like its wine finish, it accelerates the tropical flavors seen on the nose of the Glenmorangie Original and heightens it to include stronger citrus and honey characters. Its a lovely treat of a single malt although while I prefer the Quinta Ruban it definitely is a major seller for the Glenmorangie core range.

78 pts

So after all that we can see now how the Glenmorangie lineup really shows what wine finishes can do to whisky, and imagine is the base whisky was something better than the Original. However you have to be careful when it comes to wine finishes as overuse of a certain cask could lead to the elements of the wine overshadowing the spirit so always make sure to read up on what your looking to buy or try it to see if the elements shine together and you know that what your getting is a beautiful sympathy of a single malt rather than a dysfunctional high school polka band.

Thanks for reading once again and I hope you enjoyed this little journey into wine finishes using Glenmorangie’s core range. My next blog will be a more formal whisky review so see you next time!

Current Review Scoring System:

0-49: Horrible

50-59: Bad

60-69: Mediocre to Average

70-74: Average to Good

75-79: Good to Great

80-84: Great to Excellent

85-89: Excellent

90-94: Superb

95+: Masterpiece

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