Sadly, The Wine Specialist on 20th St NW here in Washington DC is leaving their current location on July 30, 2022. They told me they'd be returning in 2023, but probably not at the current location - a shame, they were one of the friendlier spots down in the Dupont/Farragut Square neighborhoods to find decent sherry, port, cordials, and sometimes single malt scotch. I particularly miss the older gentleman behind the register who listened to loud jazz all day. Kindred spirit.
With much of their inventory on a big discount, they were mostly cleaned out when I happened across them on a random walk today. But I did manage to pick up a couple bottles, including this 2004 single cask independent bottling of Glen Scotia from Gordon & MacPhail.
My bottle is drawn from cask 97, distilled February 4, 1992, bottled on December 7, 2004, and matured those twelve years in a refill sherry hogshead. It's bottled at a wonderful 62.3% ABV, no coloring, no filtering - there is a TON of wood particles floating around in this one.
Glen Scotia is a distillery in the Campbeltown region of Scotland, owned by the Loch Lomond Group, and is noted for an unusual, sweet, funky spirit. I've never had it sherried before, so I'm quite excited. Of course, the cork broke off immediately upon attempting to open it (and I was being so careful!) ... but I strained the pour. Let's dive in just like the cork did:
Nose: Very very interesting nose - unripe strawberries, wine-washed cheese, dry white wine (this absolutely had to be a Fino hogshead), fresh pastry dough/yeast, lemon zest, sea salt, and ... more cheese.
With a splash of water: it becomes more oceanic and very slightly less cheesy. More sharp salt and wine and less fruit. It adds some tangy citrus. I like it better neat.
After a few days with the cork totally strained out with cheesecloth, and all the liquid decanted into a spare bottle: Nicer, more balanced, more even. Maybe the cork really was to blame here. Now I get ripe, grilled banana, thick caramel, soft peat, malt sugars, lemon pie, salty cheese (much more subtle now), brown bread toast, unripe strawberry remains but is less prominent, strong oceanic minerality, and ... surprisingly, many fewer white wine notes remain. Hmmm. Still a yeasty Fino influence here, but less. Maybe it's the oxidation.
Mouthfeel: Medium, sharp.
Palate: Wow! Effervescent in the extreme - has a bubbly quality. Once the initial alcohol hit evaporates, I get: bubble gum, extremely dry oak tannins (perhaps too dry)/dry white wine, salt, yeast/dough, blue cheese, hot peppers, macerated berries, and black pepper. Quite dry on the tongue indeed. This was definitely a Fino sherry cask or something equally yeasty and dry.
With a splash of water: The wood dryness is tamed a very little bit with water, and I get more of the rest: salt, wine, bubble gum, pepper, spices, yeast.
After decanting/straining: palate remains bitter, skates the razor-thin border of being over-oaked. I honestly can't tell if this was corked, or just too long in a rough cask, or what.
I actually was so bewildered by the bitterness here that I went and looked up other reviews from Reddit and other blogs. Here is what I found in four successive reviews:
- "Sandalwood"
- "Nice woody notes. It grows a tad dry, dusty, and noticeably flatter towards the finish"
- "Gritty wood char"
- "Lots of oak."
I strongly agree with the second half of the second quote. But maybe it's me, and I'm just sensitive to this level of oak. There is always a chance that this is just dry-ass sherry yeast and a very very active oak cask combining to produce a startingly dry effect on the tongue. Maybe the tons and tons of wood barrel char floating in this whisky should have been a warning to me.
Finish: Too dry and woody for my taste, as noted above. Salt and pepper and then ten tons of oak... with hints of smashed berries. To me, the finish takes over the dram in an unpleasant way. I'm not sure what to blame. It's honestly not as bad as the infamous Five Lions Craigellachie bottle - which tasted downright poisonous - but it ain't great either.
Verdict: This is quite dry - in fact, too much so, for me. I enjoy 50-75% of this and then it slides down a steep oak cliff. The wood tannins are too bitter and at times overwhelm the natural berry/cheese funkiness of the spirit. Sometimes, the wood is subsumed by the other flavors, especially the berries, sea salt, and cheese, and it's acceptable. But mostly too bitter.
I sincerely wondered for a while if this bottle was corked. Corking is when the container is compromised (usually a cork, but can happen with screwtops) and allows a specific strain of airborne bacteria/fungi to access the phenols in the spirit. The bacteria (et al) can't survive in the high alcohol environment, but the chemical byproducts they briefly create sure can - and this leads to a "dead" scent and flavor of wet cardboard/wet basement.
I've only had a couple bottles in my time that were absolutely, 100% "corked" - where I got a strong, dead, flat flavor of musty wet cardboard - but that isn't what I'm getting here, exactly, so I sort of doubt it's that.
*EDIT, TWO WEEKS LATER* The finish has only intensified on this, and I would sadly push it into the "undrinkable" category along with the infamous Five Lions Craigellachie. Ach, what a shame.
As it stands, you still get a sense of a strong, funky spirit spending a dozen years in a VERY dry (bone dry) white wine cask (it had to be an unusually active Fino sherry cask). The "bubbly" quality on the tongue is quite nice indeed, almost refreshing even at 62.3% alcohol.
The oceanic salt, yeast/dough, cheese, and berry notes are all classic Glen Scotia hallmarks, and are all featured here. But it's all washed away by a thick bitterness that overshadows the remainder. Too bad! The finish here lowers the overall impression for me, especially after having a recent bottle of heavily peated Glen Scotia that features all the same notes but with a lovely rich backdrop of peat, iodine, and coastal smoke instead of intense, drying, bitter oak.
A final note: check out all the barrel char (or very possibly disintegrated cork) in this bottle:
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