Scotch Whisky Review: GlenAllachie 2012 Vintage Cuvee Wine Cask Finish

This is one for intersectional lovers of whisky & red, european wine.

GlenAllachie 2012 Vintage Cuvee Wine Cask Finish / 48% / £60

Tasted neat

The GlenAllachie 2012 Vintage Cuvee Wine Cask Finish just barely missed being 10 years old, having been distilled in 2012, aged in ex-bourbon American oak, and then finished for 20 months in four types of premium European red wine (Languedoc, Recioto Della Valpolicella and two undisclosed Premier Cru Classés) casks before being bottled in 2022.

GlenAllachie’s press release explains the background of the term “cuvee”:

A French term, ‘Cuvée’ is used in the wine sector to reference a blend that typically comprises more than one variety of grape. The Speyside-based distillery has applied the description to whisky “by combining single malt matured in wine casks from multiple wineries.”

Although the breathless press-release implies this is a serious innovation, whisky makers have been combining various vattings of mixed wine cask finishes for quite some, examples of which come to mind are Laphroaig’s Port & Wine and Gold Spot.

• Color: russet (1.3)
• Nose: hot, winey, malty; apricot, baked ham, honeysuckle, and black pepper
• Taste: oily but somewhat thin; spice, tobacco, more pepper, butter, a little tannin, unripe pear, passionfruit
• Finish: a long war of the grapes, some sweetness, stone-fruit, and butyric acid

The premise of this whisky is reasonable, and the execution is fine, although there’s nothing I specifically love about it, at the same time, there’s nothing I hate, and the price is more than reasonable.

If you like red wine finishes more than I do, this will probably go up a point!

Rating: 5/10