December 17, 2015

All over the world, four by four,
today France vs. Spain

Don’t worry, we’ll be fair, we won’t only select the best of France, we’ll chose them at random…

Bastille ‘1789’ (40%, OB, France, single malt, +/-2015)

French whisky that’s totally unknown in France, that’s probably not good news. And Bastille, come on, why not a whisky named Baguette or Béret? Or Mademoiselle? Tried the Bastille blend (this is malt) in 2012 and found it pretty miserable (WF 35). Colour: gold. Nose: ah, this ain’t repulsive. Very young yet smooth, with oak spices, bread, gingerbread, a little cinnamon and cumin, some vanilla and honey… Nothing revolutionary ;-) but this isn’t un-nice at all. Quelle heureuse surprise! Mouth: c’est okay. Ça démarre bien, avec pas mal d’épices sur une tarte tartin et une bonne tranche de cake à l’orange, mais trois fois hélas, un boisé un peu vulgaire (planche) rend le tout un peu désagréabale après quelques secondes. Ça manque de corps pour un single malt. Finish: oops, excuse me. Nothing earth-shattering anyway. Dry oak and a little vanilla. Drying aftertaste. Comments: how would I call this? Loyal but dispensable? As I’ve written before, we’ve tasted much worse. SGP:431 - 68 points.

And now just the opposite, I wager…

Kornog 'Sant Ivy 2015' (59.6%, OB, France, Brittany)

No comments needed. I’m sure the owners won’t like it if I state that this is the French Ardbeg, but there, this is my website and I write what I want ;-) … Colour: pale gold. Nose: it’s simple and it’s perfect, which makes this simplicity very desirable. Are you following me? Citrons, a medium peat, whiffs of sea air, and a touch of humus and moss. What’s striking, I find, is the elegance, this is the opposite of a wham-bam-see-my-peat whisky. In that sense, agreed, it’s not very Ardbeg. With water: the fruity sweets come to the front, the peat gets more discreet. Love the sunflower oil. Mouth (neat): wow, perfect balance between a mildly marshmallowy American oak and a coastal peat, very well chiselled. Usually, this kind of fruitiness (Haribo stuff) can make peaters dull when balance is not reached, but when it is, that can work like in… wait, Caol Ila? With water: keyword balance. A little apple juice – or would that be Breton cider? Finish: medium, clean, very elegant. Once again, no wham-bam peat, rather some kind of earthy grapefruits. Comments: let’s drop stupid comparisons, this is Kornog. SGP:546 - 87 points.

Over to Spain…

Navazos Palazzi Malt (52.5%, PM Spirits, Spain, 300 bottles, 2014)

Single malt from DYC (who used to own Lochside) matured in a Palo Cortado cask by the crazy people at Equipos Navazos, who already bottle the best sherries down there. Colour: amber. Nose: cornflakes and sweet walnut liqueur, with a bready/spicy background. In fact the sherry’s doing the job here, but it seems that it’s a great sherry, shooting tobacco and walnut aromas plus earth and flints. All very nice so far. The spirit brings, well, the degrees. With water: not that many developments. Perhaps more bitterish herbal tea? Leaves and stems? Mouth: yess. That this would be segmenting spirit, as the say in the cutlery industry, is certain, but I’m totally into these salty and mustardy walnuts blended with tobacco and earthy tea. Totally. Once again, the distillate is probably anecdotal, but I’m no DYC expert. With water: beats any brandy de Jerez in my book, and that’s the most noticeable aspect here. As if our friends down there had been doing it wrong since circa the year 1500. Perfect salty walnuts and sweet mustard. Finish: quite long, leafy, tobacco-ish, and mildly salty. Was the cask stored in Sanlùcar? Comments: after all, why should it surprise us that Equipos Navazos have had access to some stunning (and genuine, hear, hear) sherry casks? For once, a totally cask-driven whisky was an (almost) ace. SGP:362 - 88 points.

Navazos Palazzi Grain (53.5%, PM Spirits, Spain, 300 bottles, 2014)

This is the grain variant. A little scary, but after all, in a great sherry cask, you could as well pour slivovitz, applejack, or Brora. Ha-ha. Colour: deep gold. Nose: hold on, after all, the spirit did have some importance. This one clearly shows to which extent malt is superior to grain, because on the nose, and despite similar and very wonderful notes of walnuts and tobacco (and mustard and all that), there is a kind of vacuity in the middle. In a way, that’s the same difference as between solid gold and gold-plated. So a great nose, but a frustrating one. With water: a little less so. What a cask! Can we buy a bottle of the Palo Cortado? Mouth (neat): no, frankly, this is extremely good. Cask strength cappuccino made out of high-end dairy cream and the best blue mountain coffee. There is this lack of structure and body that’s inherent to grain whiskies, but the cask was so good that we will let bygones be bygones with regard to those matters. With water: oh, coffee and salt and walnuts and almonds and cashews! Finish: only medium – the grain, the grain – but surprisingly clean and tidy. Leaves your palate surprisingly fresh. Comments: mindboggling. I’ll leave it at that. SGP:452 - 88 points.

Boo-hoo-hoo, the Spaniards won that one. But to be honest, those Navazos were anything but representative of the overall quality of Spanish whisky. There!

(with many gracias to Steve aka Sku. Very often, people ask me what makes me keep going. Well, the fact that a Californian friend would have mailed me Spanish whiskies is a reason large enough.)

All over the world, four by four, today France vs. Spain

All over the world, four by four,
today France vs. Spain