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We love our single malts, from relatively affordable 12- and 14-year expressions you wouldn’t feel too bad adding to a cocktail, to sipping from more experimental, limited-release bottles. Glenfiddich has done it all, especially for a family-run distillery that’s well over 100 years old — but they’re not resting on their laurels.
If you’re looking for something truly show-stopping to add to your Scotch arsenal, the distillery’s Grand Series shows what greatness can come of a legacy distiller not afraid to play around with branching paths in the maturation process. It’s the creme de la creme of the single malt category, a line of whiskies aged up to 26 years in some unique, and occasionally out-there, cask picks (think rare ex-Awamori casks, or casks soaked with a custom blend of Golden rum). But by far their most luxurious-tasting is their latest release, Grand Château, a 31-year-old single malt that’s actually the first whiskey from the distillery to be finished in Bordeaux red wine casks.
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While the expression is matured in American oak casks for 22 years, that deep, fruit-forward flavor essential to the final product was achieved through an impressively long nine-year cask finish in Bordeaux barrels.But Brian Kinsman, Glenfiddich’s Malt Master, argues that you could almost drop the “Bordeaux” part from the influence on the final liquid. “It’s all about the oak here,” he told Rolling Stone. “The barrels have been well constructed inside, perfectly toasted, and the wine that was in there before is a highly-prized wine. Everything about what it does to the whiskey is all about the care and attention that’s gone into making those casks.”
While other distillers might have shied away from such a long secondary maturation with such a, well, prized liquid, Kinsman adds they’re happy to experiment with a 20-odd year old whiskey, as long as it’s in a cask that ticks off all their boxes. “I mean, intuitively, you should feel more pressure working with an older spirit versus a younger one, yeah? But I don’t [laughs]. We did some testing, and it slightly dominated as an 11-year-old because it was such a big, bold flavor. So we thought, let’s then do it at 29 and see what happens.”
Bold, that it is. While that notably long maturation makes it deviate from the fruit-forward, green apple and pear notes of the typical Glenfiddich palate, it’s still an incredibly layered sip. While other Grand Series releases, use more traditional wine and Cognac casks,Grand Château combination of barrels is particularly impactful. The nose is a warm, enveloping vanilla that’s almost nutty. There’s a punch of tannins right off the bat, but it’s not overwhelming, taken over by rich flavors of caramelized berries, warming spices, pepper, and just that hint of toasted oak. For an aged single malt, it’s got great character — and it should, when it’s priced at $2,100 a bottle.
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So who is this expression for, exactly? Well, Kinsman argues that it’s a “pretty big whiskey” on the tongue, and you have to be prepared for a certain depth of flavor that may be a bit too overwhelming for novice Scotch tasters. “You’re going to have to have the palate for it. It’s like Bordeaux wine that’s been decanted for four hours — such a huge mouthfeel, and not everybody would like that. If you’ve never drank wine before, you’d be thinking, ‘well, that’s too much’. In the same way that the first car you drive should not be a Ferrari, I think Grand Château is the same.”
Not everyone can justify the bottle’s $2,100 price tag either, but for the discerning whiskey connoisseur hoping to collect the entire Grand Series, or those who just want to add one standout single malt Scotch with an incredibly distinctive cask finish to their bar cart, we think Grand Château is worth the splurge.
