Tasting Notes
At first this one is toasty and warm. All buttery cereals, roasted nuts, soft, dark fruits and lemon peel. There follows greengages, ripe peaches, butterscotch, rancio, dried thyme and bay leaves. We are standing in an earthen-floored cooperage. Water unearths dark chocolate shavings, orange zest, wild strawberries and further dunnagey notes of damp sack cloth. The palate comes in waves: at first spice; then wild flowers; grape must; camphor; raisins and sultanas; more rancio. There are notes of stewed apples, maple syrup, aged rhum agricole and soft brown sugar. With water there is an unctuous and dense fruit quality about the whole thing. Molasses, various oils, fruit syrups and wood resins. Majestic!