Aberfeldy has been releasing an 18 12 months previous expression every year for 3 years now, each one completed in a distinct kind of crimson wine cask. That’s a slavish devotion to a specific — but barely completely different — kind of ending, and outcomes have been decidedly combined. After two years in France, this 12 months Aberfeldy takes the present to Italy, ending its single malt in “Tuscan crimson wine casks” — which are literally from Bolgheri.
Let’s give this 12 months’s restricted expression a whirl, we could?
There’s fairly a nostril right here: Richly spicy, the aromatics are loaded with raisin and undercut gently with notes of toasted cereal grains and cream of wheat. Calmly woody and smoldering with only a trace of char, it’s inviting and appropriately wintry. The palate kicks off with a rush of fruit — plum and spiced cherry — then folds in additional baking spice, evoking gingerbread and a few fruitcake-adjacent dried fruits. However issues take a shift from there briefly order, providing an unsteady mix of unbaked bread and gooey wine tannins. These linger properly into the end — which is kind of lengthy — the place notes of inexperienced pepper and coconut husk give the whisky a distinctly savory, umami high quality earlier than fading out with a grind of black pepper.
It’s extra attention-grabbing and general higher than final 12 months’s bottling, however I for one am prepared to maneuver previous the crimson wine world after three years of those releases. Guess we’ll see about that.
86 proof.
B+ / $150 / aberfeldy.com
Aberfeldy 18 Years Outdated Completed in Tuscan Purple Wine Casks (2022)
$150
About Submit Writer
