Talisker 30 Years Old 2007 Release 50.7% NV

Professional reviews

Serge Valentin (92)

Last year’s edition was truly excellent, very fresh and very clean (91), here’s the brand new edition. Colour: straw.

Nose: very different from the G&M, certainly peatier, purer, even cleaner, more ‘riesling’. Fab sharpness considering its age. It’s also much waxier, more on purely fresh seaweed, coal smoke, apple peelings, fresh walnuts, almond milk... Also hints of shoe polish, wet stones, lemon zest. Gets more mineral with time and smokier as well. I remember having written than the 2006 version remembered me of Didier Dagueneau’s ultra-sharp Pouillys. Well, this is the Silex! I love this, no need to say.

Mouth: starts a little fruitier but mostly on lemons, oranges and citrons together with these waxy and slightly resinous notes again. The expected pepper is well here, as well as green tea, small bitter apples... Gets grassier and a little drier, with also notes of fresh hazelnuts, hints of olive oil... And then frankly medicinal, with quite some camphor, salt, peaty smokiness... Full bodied, almost pungent (well, not quite), getting very, very salty after a moment. It grows bigger and bigger, as if you just wakened a giant.

Finish: very long, very salty, not too peppery, with bunches of crystallised citrus fruits just like at the attack. Well, I think I like this one even better than the 2006 version, which was maybe just a tad shier than the 2007