May 6, 2015

Little duos, today Isle of Jura

And one of these totally useless sessions, as I believe none of these bottlings remains easily available. But this is WF, and to tell you the truth, I’ve always been a huge fan of The Bottlers. Sadly, they don’t seem to bottle much whisky these days, but in the past, they had issued gems and gems. In fact, they even used to rule WF’s ‘top bottlers’ list, which list I’ve stopped maintaining since there are so many very stupid lists on the web these days. I’m looking at you, Facebook…

Isle of Jura 13 yo 1988/2002 (46%, Signatory Vintage, Un-Chillfiltered Collection, cask #1645, 378 bottles)

These bottlings weren’t always great, but they had soul. And they were very fairly priced. Colour: white wine. Nose: this happens with Jura, sometimes you’ve got the feeling that you’re nosing a blend of apple juice and linseed oil. You may add Play-Dho, new leatherette, and putty. And maybe damp clay and chalk. Mouth: indeed, it’s got a wee plastic-y side, plus oils (sunflower), dairy cream, some very dry artisan cider, and, well, leather. Finish: relatively long, a bit herbal bitter, leathery… Comments: a rather hard one. It captured the distillate’s essence, but I guess a few drops of sherry may have made it more, say approachable. For the records. SGP:351 - 70 points.

Isle of Jura 18 yo 1989/2007 (52.7%, The Bottlers, cask #1107)

Please fasten your seatbelts. Colour: pale gold. Nose: so unmistakably Jura! Baby milk, carbon paper, new 1980s car (when they were full of plastic, remember?), copper, horse dung, manure, farmyard… Sure it’s a bit ‘love-it-or-hate-it’, but it’s extremely ‘true’. With water: some seawater, freshly squeezed apples, powdered milk, sunflower oil, engine oil… It’s Jura, quoi. Mouth (neat): p.e.r.f.e.c.t. Acrid, lemony, sharp… This is pure grapefruit juice matured in stone flagons. Love this. With water: greatly carbony, gravelly, oily, citrusy… Finish: long, acrid, drying, kind of smoky, mineral, ashy… Yeah! Comments: a bottling that perfectly captured Jura’s style. Now, it’s no consensual style – at all – but The Bottlers deserve kisses and hugs for having bottled this very idiosyncratic beauty. This, is terroir in whisky. Can we have new bottlings, Zubair Mohamed? Please!!! SGP:462 - 90 points.

We’ve got plenty of other Juras to taste, but that’ll happen another day.

Check the index of all Jura I've tasted so far

	April 2015
	Favourite recent bottling: Karuizawa 35 yo 1978/2014 (63%, OB, No.1 Drinks, bourbon, cask #8383) - WF 92 Favourite older bottling: Glenlochy 25 yo 1969/1995 (62.2%, OB, Rare Malts, 20cl) - WF 92 Favourite bang for your buck bottling: Lagavulin 16 yo (43%, OB, +/- 2014) - WF 90

Favourite malternative:
Indonesia 10 yo 2004/2015 (43%, Compagnie des Indes, cask #581, 259 bottles) - WF 87