Knappogue Castle 1997 Ex-Libris Wind of Spices 24 yo

 

 

 

54,4°

Distillery Officially Unknown - Ireland

Sherry Cask 

Independent Bottling 

By La Maison du Whisky

Limired Edition 

Single Cask 

Bottled in 2022

Unchillfiltered, Uncoloured, Cask Strength

Totally Unpeated 

I'm still not sure about the provenance of this one, but some well-informed people have told me it's Bushmills, and that would make sense. Irish Distillers, which has been part of Pernod Ricard since 1988, sold Bushmills to Diageo in 2005. As a result, they can no longer use the Bushmills name, but they certainly have some old Bushmills casks hidden away in their warehouses. So they need to find another name to market these casks. And that's exactly what happened in 2021, when Irish Distillers bought the Knappogue Castle brand. That same year, five old vintages, 25 years and older, were launched by La Maison du Whisky, under the Knappogue Castle name. And the following year, there were three, including this one, aged for 24 years in a single Sherry cask. There was nothing after that, perhaps because they only had those eight casks. 526 bottles were put on sale. 

 

 

 

Let's Taste It : 

The sherry comes to the fore, red fruits with runny pulp, cherries, blueberries, gooseberries, with pastry notes, pie crust, cake cream. Pan-fried beetroot, roasted figs, spices, thyme, rosemary. Dark chocolate and coffee. Behind, you can detect a few cereals, but it's very light. On the palate, damsons and other red plums, old wood, chocolate and coffee become more prominent, but combined with blackberry jam and blood oranges, the spices are somewhat forgotten in all this. The finish is long, rich and explosive, with coffee now omnipresent, cocoa grounds, nutmeg, pepper, cloves, dates, prunes, brown tobacco.

 

In Short, 

Of course, you have to like Sherry, but it's still an excellent product, wonderfully well made. You can recognise Ireland with its cereal intensity, but above all it's Sherry. You can still find a few bottles on certain websites, but the price is very high, so not everyone has rushed out to buy it. If you can afford it, you won't regret your purchase.

Score : 90

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                           To Be Listened While Sipping :

 

                                           Rod Stewart - I Don't Want To Talk About It