Monday, August 27, 2018

[Scotch Review] Bruichladdich 2006 Micro-Provenance Series Single Cask for Kensington Wine Market



Hello whisky lovers it's been a while since I haven't updated this blog so I felt bad and decided to be a bit more serious in updating it. So as a treat for you all I'll be sharing some tasting notes for a brand new Bruichladdich single cask that just found its way into Canada!

I've had a few Bruichladdichs and while some in their core range could be seen as semi-letdowns not a single one was bad or even mediocre. So today I'm very excited to try something a little different from this distillery in the form of a single fortified wine cask aged Bruichladdich distilled in 2006 and bottled in 2018 for a solid 11 years of good aging.

The other thing interesting about this whisky is the type of wine used, a fortified wine called rivesaltes. Rivesaltes is a sweet style of fortified wine from the Rivesaltes AOC in the wine region of Lanquedoc-Roussillon and is made from a variety of grapes such as muscat, grenache blanc, grenache noir, grenache gris, malvoisie and macabeu. It can be a red or white variety but this time it seems to be a red variety for this single cask.

This rivesaltes barrique aged bottling of Bruichladdich was selected exclusively for Kensington Wine Market in Calgary, Alberta, Canada from cask number 3307 in warehouse 12. Its produced with chalice barley coming from the Dunlossit Estate on Islay, which has been used previously in an Islay Barley bottling that is also this same year of vintage. It’s bottle number 250 of 270 total bottles and is proofed at a hefty 64.3% ABV. So let's see how this whisky performs at such a young age with such an interesting wine barrel maturation.

  • Color: Amber

  • Nose: Molasses, cherries, lemon, white pepper, raisins, some mild sulphur notes, vanilla cream, pastry flour, mandarin oranges, wood tannins, minerality and some earthy notes in the background

  • Taste: Cherries, raspberries, chocolate croissant, vanilla cream, almond butter, custard, honey, fresh sweet lemons, tobacco leaf, light leather, more earthiness as the flavor develops

  • Finish: Medium to long with red fruits, minerality, vanilla candy, almond pastries and wood tannins


My god this is a beast of a dram even at 11 years old. One other person I know who tried this before me said he thinks this one needs some time with a bit of air, and while I’d agree especially with the sometimes overpowering earthiness this one is still a really well composed young whisky. It's got a great dessert palate with some extra earthy and savory complexity that really makes this one a nice bold sipper. The nose could be a bit more interesting and the palate isn't super complex to an extent but those are very small gripes that I can easily overlook because of how well crafted the whisky is for the age and how beautifully enjoyable the finish is. Well done to the team at Kensington Wine Market for bringing this one in, you've made a big fan out of me!

87 pts

 

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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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