Tomatin 44 Years Old Warehouse 6 Collection Cask:30041 45.8% 1971

Professional reviews

Serge Valentin (91)

There’s something very smart written in the leaflet, ‘With patience comes reward’. It’s not a cheap bottle but that’s only the price of a full week in a five-star resort in Moldova and they did put a lot of effort into the presentation. Actually, spending some time in Moldova is something I’ve always wanted to do. Colour: deep gold. Nose: we’re visiting a high-class bodega in Jerez. It’s not that it noses just like sherry, it noses like a, eh, a bodega, with some old oak, many wines resting, and perhaps a little saltpetre. And there are raisins, cigarette tobacco, quite a lot of milk chocolate, praline, dried figs, and a rather precious spicy combination, not easy to describe. A little wine sauce, perhaps. Beef Bourguignon or something. It’s all extremely complex. Whiffs of hessian (hessian around the bungs, of course). Mouth: it does start with quite some cinnamon and a feeling of cedar wood, but after all, this is +/-45 years old whisky, so the oak did have to feel a bit. What’s perfect is that the wine sauce is back, and it came with prunes, black chocolate, cassis, black cherries, and this lovely wine-y sourness. Burgundy indeed, this is almost some Chambertin. Did you know that Napoléon used to ask all his troops to present arms whenever they were passing near the Chambertin? Whether he was with them or not? Mad man… Finish: medium, and even more ‘Chambertin’. Fermenting raisins, marc... Leafier aftertaste - that’s the stems. Comments: excellent pinot-noiry old wine. Great wines and great whiskies, same battle!