Glengoyne Aged 30 Years 2019 Edition

Style: Sherried and Malty

Rating: ☆☆- [Highly Recommended]

Nose:

Luscious sherry marches in with copper plates supporting its weight. Raisin chocolate and Pu-er tea lacing around a narrow but solid spearmint backbone. All nice and clean. Digging deeper we have some sherry-tinted papaya and coconut jelly, taking the merest amount of rosemary and anise seed. Plums, Umeshu and light acrylic touch opens up a resounding malt which sits at the bottom. A delicate but excellent opening.

Palate:

Beautiful mix of chocolate blocks, cherries, figs and roasted almonds with malt cleverly deployed and embedded in it. Oloroso nuts set in and giving a satisfying level of spiciness and texture on level two. Cadburys, cinnamon, tree bark, vanilla pods, cardamoms and shaved dark chocolate laying on top of a fruitier, slightly tropical fruits driven core while a rather pure malt echoing beautifully down towards the end.

Finish:

The reminiscence notes from each stage - the sherry, dry spices, tropical fruits and malt combines together and form a delicious and dimensional finish.

Thoughts:

Recently I have a new found appreciation on official bottlings (well the better ones at least) and try to identify the intention and efforts behind each creation, then I start to notice the elegant simplicity of this Glengoyne 30. Yes, on the surface it feels like a normal 30 years old sherried dram. However, if you look closely, there is a clean and precise structure that shows you the progression of this expression without offering too many distractions, while also juggling the balance between the sherry component, distillate and time. Maybe this is done in the “old-school” way, and somehow it reminds me a lot of the older Macallans, indicates this probably all starts from the DNA of the spirit. Near-flawless technically and a very well thought expression. Love it.

[46.8% | Original Bottling | 2019 Bottled | Vatting | 5200 Bottles | Matured in Sherry Casks | **-]

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