September 11, 2015

Time Warp tasting, today Tullibardine

Let’s do some very young vs. very old bottling sessions again, those can be fun. Today it’s going to be the rather whacky Tullibardine… We don’t taste enough Tullibardine on WF!

Tullibardine 'Sovereign' (43%, OB, +/-2015)

Tullibardine’s entry-level NAS, priced at a slightly incomprehensible 50€ a bottle. We tried an early bottling two years ago, and found it pretty okayish (WF 78). Colour: white wine. Nose: squeeze grass, add chalk, add a spoonful of yoghurt, and add a smidgen of backing vanilla. Stir well, filter, you’re on. But in facts, it tends to improve with some breathing, with more rounded vanilla and even a little malted barley. Mouth: sweet, malty, grassy, chalky. It’s rather characterful, only mildly feinty/yeasty, and once again the malted barley starts to dance only after a few seconds, making the whole rounder. But a wee dirtiness remains there, pretty ‘old-style Tullibardine’. Finish: long, bitterish, grassy. Fresh walnuts. Comments: I won’t change my score, but this is, indeed, much more to my liking than earlier young Tullibardines that used to be, ach, erm… I don’t know… Remember baby vomit? SGP:341 - 78 points.

So, the older one…

Tullibardine 1965/2008 ‘Single Cask Edition’ (48.3%, OB, hogshead, cask #939, 164 bottles)

I had tried an official sister cask (#949) back in 2007 and that one had been very unlikely in my book. But it was sherry cask, according to my notes… Colour: amber. Nose: certainly smells of sherry, especially raisins. Sherry hogshead? It would just say H/head on the label. It’s a very fine nose, but it’s bizarrely raw and young, I mean rather more like 15 years than 42 or 43. Maybe I’m dreaming but it’s also got a feeling of Mortlach, with some wood smoke and chocolate, as well as, again, many raisins of various colours. Some toasted oak as well. Re-racked or finished? Mouth: it’s rather big, just as raw, very oaky and tannic, and as drying as some strong black tea. Peppered black tea. In the background, touches of Swiss cheese and grapefruit juice. The tannicity never stops growing, making it even more drying. Finish: quite long, very drying. Some concoction! There’s even a medicinal side, which must come from the oak. Jägermeister. Comments: I also tried it with water, and that rather worked, it made it a little smoother and rounder, with more raisins. I was rather ready to go with 75 points, but water really saved it. It does need water. SGP:471 – 80 points.

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