Tasting Notes
ABV
43%
Region
Speyside
Bottling
Distillery
Cask type
Canadian Icewine Cask Finish (8.000 btl.)
Nose
Beautiful presence of the sweet ice wine flavours on the nose. Very fruity and vinous with apricots, yellow ripe pears, apples and light, sweet grapes. Vanilla pudding with sweet malty notes and a hint of Turkish delight, followed by tender herbal lemonade, oak spice and a whiff of cinnamon in the background. An enticing and extremely pleasant aroma - a real nose flatterer!
Palate
Less vinous and fruity as the nose suggests. Sweet vanilla, toffee and pears are present, accompanied by herbal notes, apple peel and grape skin. This is followed by a pleasantly warming mix of oak spice, subtle cinnamon and white pepper. Tastes much stronger than the 43% abv suggest. With the second sip, the vinous flavours also come through noticeably as the whisky becomes spicier overall.
Finish
The finish is medium long, creamy sweet with vanilla and some more wine flavours. Becomes dry on the tail with spiced oak, tannins and a hint of black pepper.
With Water
Fresher and even more fruit on the nose when a few drops of water are added. The spiciness in the back is almost completely tamed. Still sweet and slightly fruity on the palate but less warming spices overall. The finish is quite short with dry notes of oak, tannins and grape peel.
Comments
A truly successful experiment! The Canadian ice wine harmonizes perfectly with the distillery character of the whisky. While the wine aromas are very present - but not too dominant - on the nose, the palate is rather restrained, with more sweetness and oak spices taking precedence. The finish shows good length with a pleasant wood dryness. A great dram with a gorgeous nose. The long wait for the Winter Storm was more than worth it. I'm definitely gonna get a bottle of this.
I thank Campari Deutschland GmbH for the sample and Helmut Knöpfle for the photograph!