New: The Dalmore Port Wood Reserve
The traditional Scottish whisky distillery The Dalmore presents a new expressive bottling, refined in Tawny port pipes
To create a more complex character, some of The Dalmore whiskies benefit from an extra dose of creativity. Selected bottlings are refined in extraordinary casks, which present wood from world-renowned bodegas and exclusive wineries. Each cask has its own unique characteristics and flavours. With the new single malt The Dalmore Port Wood Reserve, port pipes from the famous W&J Grahams winery in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, are now being used for the first time in Dalmore’s in-house range of the Principle Collection. For more than 20 years, master blender Richard Paterson has been buying casks from Grahams for the refinement of its expressions and has relied on the Tawny Ports of the famous winery in the well-known Douro Valley in northern Portugal.
Ex-Bourbon barrels and port pipes
The Dalmore Port Wood Reserve begins its journey in the finest ex-Bourbon barrels of American white oak. The matured whisky is then split equally with half remaining in the American white oak and the remainder transferred to Tawny port pipes from W&J Graham for further ageing. After a finish of 12-18 months, the contents of all casks are married to harmonise the flavours before being bottled with an unusually high alcohol content of 46.5% abv. According to Paterson, the result is a "deeply individual, noble bottling that presents versatile exotic flavours - a true revelation".
Official Tasting Notes
Nose: sweet red berries, Seville oranges, plums, toffee pudding.
Taste: nectarines, creamy caramel, roasted chestnuts, Java coffee.
Finish: rich plums, raisins, Sanguinello blood oranges, macerated cherries.
The Dalmore Port Wood Reserve is now available from retailers, specialist dealers and selected premium department stores in Germany and Austria.
Dalmore Vintage with port wood finish
This is not the first time that The Dalmore has used Grahams’ casks to refine their single malts. In mid-2017, a trio of releases appeared, all of which were finished in these Portuguese tawny port pipes.
Dalmore 15 year old Vintage 2001: first matured in former bourbon barrels and transferred to Tawny port pipes for the last two years.
Dalmore 18 year old vintage 1998: after maturing in ex-Bourbon barrels, the whisky was finished in old, specially selected port pipes, in which port wine had previously been allowed to mature for 20 years.
Dalmore 20 year old vintage 1996: also matured in former bourbon barrels and refined in rare, up to 30 year old Colheita port pipes.
Image: BORCO-MARKEN-IMPORT
