Age: 40 Year Old
Alcohol ABV: 50%
Bottle Size: 70cl
Description: Bodega Series
Distillery: Talisker
Region: Islands
Vintage: -
Year Bottled: 2018
The Talisker Bodega Series will launch at the end of June with a 40-year-old single malt finished in amontillado casks sourced from one of Jerez’s oldest Sherry producers, Delgado Zuleta.
The 1978 vintage – the oldest yet released by the distillery into global markets, and ‘one of Talisker’s most valuable expressions to date’ – has been matured in refill American oak barrels before being finished in the ‘special and unusual’ 40-year-old amontillado Sherry casks.
Donald Colville, global brand ambassador for Talisker, said the Delgado Zuleta expression, and the Bodega Series as a whole, embodied ‘the wildness of Skye with the warmth of Spain’.
Nose: Mild and rich, with light nose prickle. The sweet fruitiness of sultanas and pears in syrup, then orange peel, framed in oiled sandalwood, with a salty suggestion of seaweed or sea air in the middle, on a base of faintly smoky raw sugar.
Palate: Most appealing. At natural strength, the texture is very fine; oil-smooth and lightly coating. The taste starts sweetly fruity – white grapes, more sultanas – then becomes sea-salty and savoury, before finishing hot and peppery. As the sweet waves of flavour roll out across the palate, they break over a hint of that Talisker trademark, hot chilli spice, and some scented smoke.
Finish: Long and warming, with a late, great tongue-tingling nuttiness in the embers as the fire slips down, and a last smoky trace of snuffed candle.