Glenrothes 1995

This very lovely bottle of Glenrothes 1995 (15 or 16 years old depending on you choose to interpret the label) was a gift from Danielle of Exposure (thanks, Danielle). I wasn't able to make the Cocktail World event where she was pouring the new Glenrothes expressions (it was on Mother's Day for heaven's sake). Very kindly she sent me this bottle and the Suntory samples for review.  In the context of my tastings of the Select Reserve, 1998, and 1985 expressions last week, the 1995 has emerged as something of a tie breaker for me.   While the Select Reserve had aspects of the august and elegant presentation that typifies the Glenrothes flavor profile as well as some terrific youthful fruit basket notes, it was marred by a young rough aspect and some off flavors.  The 1985 was glorious with dried fruits and old books.  The 1998 had some lovely aspects of both but had an acidity and some admittedly extremely subtle sulfur notes that affected my enjoyment.  I'm not normally particularly sensitive to sulfur notes, but in this case the combination with the acidity took the 1998 from apricot/citrus into balsamic which didn't ruin the show but took things down a notch for me.  The 1979 expression I drank in the 90s was quite good, but not an overwhelming success like the 1985 is.  Thus, if the 1995 was a lovely dram I would actively seek out I would come away with the impression that Glenrothes was a brand to pursue.  If it was a disappointment then the glory of the 1985 might appear as more of a fluke and I might be tempted to look elsewhere in the future. 

As it turns out, I had an extremely hard time with this review, perhaps as a result of the pressure latent in this context.  I ended up drinking about 1/3rd of the bottle over the course of the entire week (yes, I know, whisky blogging is a brutal business).  My impressions seemed to veer wildly.  In some tasting sessions the 1995 the flavor profile bothered me.  In others it delighted me. 

Is Glenrothes Vintage 1995 a 16 year old or a 15 year old?  I don't know.  The big green square says "Distilled in 1995 Bottled in 2011" which sounds like 16 years.  The handwritten dates say "checked" October 26, 1995 and "approved" September 6, 2010 which sounds like just under 15 years.  It's not clear from the label.  Doesn't particularly matter to me - but it's an interesting question for a bar tender or brand ambassador.

Glenrothes 1995 43% abv

Color: very light amber with abundant gold tones.  With a splash of water it becomes rich old gold.

Nose: vanilla, apricot, malted milk, touch of iodine, goji berries. There's also a distinctive sweet-sour acidic note that runs like a common thread through all of the vintage Glenrothes expressions. In the 1998 it had a balsamic aspect. Here and in the 1985 it turns up like dried apricots (more convincingly in the '85. In the '95 this note is little bit like wine.)  A bit of water smooths and sweetens the nose a bit, emphasizing honey and grain.

Entry is off-dry, yet with clear flavors of honeyed grain with a nice creaminess: a filigree of barleycorn, honeycomb, and apricot Danish pastry. There's some nice woody heat at mid-palate, with a waft of vanilla perfume, some red fruits, and old citrus glow. At the turn to the finish there is a relative decline in flavor density that almost escapes notice. The finish is medium-long with plenty of oak influence sandalwood spice and drying tannins. The slightly lean aspect of the middle comes off as elegant restraint, with a burst of spices balancing the sweet lacy opening and the robust wooded finish. I get the feeling that the creaminess would be enhanced and the mid-palate improved if they skipped the chill-filtering (like Glen Garioch). But this is a quibble, the flavor signature is quite enjoyable and remarkably similar to the 1979 16 year old version I enjoyed a decade and a half ago.

Adding several drops of water to another dram and allowing half an hour for full air and time for integration works a beguiling transformation. Sprightly flavor notes of Speyside fruit basket appear on the entry.  The apricot note takes on a lovely light lemon flavor  on the palate. Sweetness and creaminess is enhanced along with floral vanilla and caramel notes, producing a citrus and butterscotch effect. There are still red fruits in the mid-palate, and plenty of oak on the finish, coming off as a slightly bitter note after the sweeter opening before devolving into a lightly fruity and post-tannin squeaky afterglow. The bit of water fills in the flavor presentation, paradoxically making the whole thing a bit richer and fuller. This has become my preferred way of taking Glenrothes 1995.  Indeed, I'd go so far as saying that Glenrothes 1995 is a convincing delight when taken this way.


****

Self portrait in reflection from bottle shot at right

Creamy, sweet with beehive and grain flavors, with a mid-palate that tends towards and elegantly lean and dry profile and plenty of oak on the finish; this constellation of flavor elements is quite consistent across the line, making for a clear family resemblance. The vinous acid note shows as quince in the Select, Balsalmic vinegar in the 1998, apricot Danish in the 1995 and dried apricots in the 1985. The honeyed barley, fruits, elegant off-dry presentation, lean middle, and rich oak in the finish are all across the line. Water ups the vanilla and sweet. In a number of conversations I have found this Glenrothes flavor profile has a polarizing effect. Some folks don't like; others like it a great deal. I'm used to polarization like this in powerful flavor profiles, like peat monsters and sherry bombs, but not in fairly lightly sherried fruity Speyside dram. Yet it is so. For example Tim Read of Scotch And Ice Cream reported on Twitter that he hadn't found a Glenrothes expression he really loved, even after a fairly extensive exploration of the line. Gal Granov of Whisky Israel, by contrast, liked this expression a good deal, and the 1985 as well.  I suspect its the peculiar arrangement of the flavor signature with the acids that can read as sourness or as lovely fruits depending on how they are aligning.  In the end I'm coming down on the side of Gal here.  Glenrothes is nice stuff - particularly when it's mature and when it has aired for a good long period in the glass.  It takes aging very well in the wood and the older expressions have a noble quality.

Three expressions of Glenrothes ascend the ladder of age, wood, and august presence.

On a visit to my local liquor emporium (the magnificent jumble known as Park Avenue Liquors) I spied this lovely sample pack from Glenrothes, sporting 100ml mini bottles - a more generous portion than the 50ml miniature or 3cl sample bottles reviewers often use as samples.  They are the No Age Statement "Select Reserve", the vintage 1998 and the vintage 1985.  Priced in the mid $30s it wasn't a hard decision.

Glenrothes was founded in the Speyside town of Rothes in 1878 as part of the big late 19th century boom in distillery building. It didn't launch as a modern single malt brand until the early 1990s (most of it going into blends such as Cutty Sark and Famous Grouse). I have a bottle of Vintage 1979, bottled in 1994 (16 years) that @GlenrothesCarol (Carolina, the Glenrothes brand ambassador for Spain) told me was the first year. The labels for these "vintage year" offerings have what looks like a hand written label with signatures for "checked by" (and a date around the time of distillation) and one for "approved by" (and a date around the time of bottling - but sometimes well before). Johannes Van Den Heuvel has some fun with these labels in the distillery profile over at Malt Madness. Van Den Heuvel points out

"The labels of the OB's from the 1990's and early 2000's have printed signatures for the 'checked' and 'approved' dates on the label. This gives the impression that these are small batches, but in fact all the 'vintage' releases are massive 'vattings' of many different casks. And the dates themselves don't always make a lot of sense either. My 1987/2000 vintage was checked by one J. L. Stevens on 23/5/'87. That makes sense; I assume that was on (or around) the distillation date. But the fact that it was approved by someone who's name I can't read (R. H. Fenwick?) on 3-9-98 while the whisky was bottled in 2000 makes no sense at all...."

http://www.maltmadness.com/whisky/glenrothes.html

 

Funny, I recall being put out by that with my 1979 bottle that was checked on 3/8/79 and approved on 17*9*94, but bottled in "1995 Aged 16 years". This implies that the contents were checked on the order of a year before bottling because the 16 anniversary of distillation happened on August 3, 1995.  I was also a bit put out by the fact that the label appears handwritten but was clearly printed.  This appeared like trickery - although by now I've seen it so often (such as on most of my favorite bourbons, for example) that I no longer hold it against anyone.  Frankly I didn't really hold it against the 1979-1994 example, as the whisky in the bottle was rather good:  fairly dry, nicely wooded, with lovely dried fruits and a bit of leather.  Rather august - but somehow didn't tickle my monkey bone enough to buy another.  FYI, while we're on the subject the two vintage examples in this review are so labeled as well:  the 1985 vintage is checked 21/7/85 and approved 31/5/05 and "bottled 2005".  The 1998 vintage is checked 17/12/98 and approved 11/02/09 but "bottled 2010". 

Glenrothes Select Reserve 40% abv

Color: full gold

Nose: initially a bit harsh with some raw spirity, grainy onion notes, but after some air honey, quince, floral vanilla slight metallic note like nickel - but isn't bad and fades with time. After 15 minutes of air perfumey fruit basket aromas of green melon and pear show up lightly. It's a nice nose for the most part.

Sweet entry with cereal and malt sweetness. Pancakes with treacle. There are some sweet heathery floral grassy meadow notes up front too. The mid-palate falls a bit flat. There's a thinness in the mouth feel and flavor - a "grainey" quality, like a nice blend like Chivas, that I'm not used to with single malts.

At the turn to the finish there is a slight bitter note that feels of a piece with the midpalate thinness. There's spirit heat but not a lot of wood influence. All in all a nice pleasant young feeling malt with some hints and glimpses of really nice aromas and flavors. Sadly the good ones don't dominate. It's borderline between two and three stars.

**

Glenrothes Select v.s. JWBL

A word on value: Select Reserve is $36.99 at Shopper's Vineyard (as opposed to $52.99 for the 1998 Vintage expression). Johnny Walker Black Label is $33.99 there at the moment which suggest an immediate comparison. Head to head, JWBL has the slightly richer more neutral nose. There is less raw, grainy notes in the nose with JWBL. JWBL also has the sweeter and richer entry and more wood notes on the back end, with that slight kiss of peat. Furthermore JBWL drinks smoother and cooler, with less spirit heat at the same 40% abv. As a whole, I find JWBL a richer and better balanced dram for the money than Glenrothes Select Reserve. That being said, Glenrothes has clearer, more direct flavor signature. It has, as becomes clear while drinking this set of three, a Glenrothes flavor signature. This is clearly the intention. That being said, the financial gulf between this introductory expression and the first vintage expression isn't as wide as the difference in drinking enjoyment, in my opinion.

Glenrothes Select in glass

Glenrothes 1998 - 43% abv

bottled 2010 (12 years old)

Color: full gold with light amber tints

Nose: Olorosso sherry, estery green apple / green melon fruits, flints and matchsticks. Some acid, like a sweet dark balsamic vinegar and distant sandalwood

Entry: off dry with a lithe elegant feel. Rich dry sherry, prunes, some broth notes, muscular dark malt, then some smoky notes, rich old oak with walnut tannins on the finish.  The afterglow features some of the prunes and some sandalwood from the nose's finish.

There is sweetness here, jammy fruits - and the flavor signature of a lightly sherried malt (along with some of the sulfur notes).  It comes off as older and more mature than 12.  This particular expression has an acidity that I didn't love and I didn't recall from others I have tried.  I have a vintage 1995 on deck for the next review and I'm going to look at this issue in greater detail.  Watch my blog for a follow-up shortly on this topic.  As it stands, this is borderline 4 stars - which means I give it 3.  I can easily recommend it, but personally don't really love it.

***
($53 at Shopper's Vineyard)

Glenrothes 1998 in glass

Glenrothes 1985 43% abv

bottled 2005 (19 years old)

Color: light amber with rich old gold glints

Nose: Rich and august with musk, buckwheat, dried apricots, dried figs, and plenty of sandalwood perfumed oak. Further nosing shows a walnut nuttiness, some tanned leather, and old books. After 30 minutes or so dark sherry vinous aromas add to the mix. Lovely whisky showing its age aromas.

Entry is lean of body, off dry, and rich with spicy fig jam, preserved citrus, dry Parma ham, musky spices like mace, a hint of rancio, and plenty of old book leather.  The mouth feel is creamy.  Tannins at the end give a cleansing oak and walnut skins finish. Reminds me of the old flagon bottles of NAS Balvenie from the late 1980s (the one with the coat of arms and flags on a gold foil label): heavily wooded and tannic on top of rich fruits turned dry from age with leather and old books. Lovely stuff - richly flavored.

After about an hour it finally opens up. Honeyed, figs, rancio, leather. Old fino. It's become quite glorious. I imagine that if you had a full bottle and drank it over months then oxidation would take it to this state after less of a wait. It's worth pointing out that despite extra time in barrels with sherry this one doesn't have either the acidity or the sulfur noted in the 1998 expression.  This 1985 version is a really special treat: a walk into your Grandfather's library for a special dram.

*****
(a bit over $100 on line)

Through these three expressions there is a common thread: an elegant off-dry and august presence with a lightly sherried nature and excellent wood presence.  Glenrothes is a nice example of an old traditional style of Scotch whisky.