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Saturday, May 19, 2012

Glenfiddich 15 Solera - a rich seductive slice of classic well aged fruit basket

Old gold with a hint of amber

I have a complex relationship with Glenfiddich, but I recently had several experiences that helped me understand and appreciate the beauty and iconic nature of Glenfiddich's floral fruity Speyside flavor profile.  The first was at Whisky Live NY 2012 when Glenfiddich brand ambassador David Allardice poured me a dram of the 15 Solera and very congenially explained the flavor profile to me (and let me take a 50ml sample used in this review).  The second, more convincing, happened when I was trying to figure out what the "yellow" whisky was in the Dramming Scotch blind tasting.  I detected an aroma that I described as "green pear, green apple, banana, green melon, butter, mineral, honey, honeysuckle".  I tasted a number of options including: Ben Nevis 1974/2000 56.4%,  Glen Elgin 1975/2011 46.8% and a Dailuaine 39 1971/2010 46.6%.  Those are some pretty special and august drams.

I decided:  "This (the yellow sample - which ended up being a 1966 Loch Lomond) is most likely a 35 year old Glen Elgin at 45%.  But, wait, the Glen Elgin 1975 in my glass is a bit more honeyed, and a bit less mineral. Mineral - that sounds like Glenfiddich. Vs. Glenfiddich 15 Solera 40%: similar green pear, green apple, honey and honeysuckle and mineral, but more mellow and less phenolic and dynamic. Tasting the Yellow one, the Glenfiddich 15 Solera, the Glen Elgin 1975/2011 Malts of Scotland "Angel's Choice", and the Dailuaine 1971/2010 Perfect Dram head to head is a dizzying experience. They are all so close. Green pear, honeydew melon, butter, honeysuckle and some mineral in each and every one."

The Glenfiddich 15 Solera wasn't quite the equal of the Loch Lomond 1966 or the Glen Elgin 1975 - but it was strikingly close.  Suddenly I understood that this floral fruit basket flavor profile is a classic old style Highland and Speyside flavor profile of mature august whiskies.  Solera 15 has a mature and august aspect.  I wonder how much of this emerges from the Solera method - where a marrying cask is perpetually kept at least half full and new whiskies are added from a series of aging casks.  That means that some portion of the cask is very old whisky - some tiny bit going back to the very first whiskies that were ever put in there.  You might not want to spring for a 35-40 year old Highland classic for everyday sipping, but you certainly might for Glenfiddich Solera 15, which runs from the $40s to the $50s ($55.99 at Shopper's Vineyard, $39.99 at K&L).  If you love this particular classic flavor profile, Glenfiddich 15 Solera is the most cost effective way to get it.

Glenfiddich 15 Solera 40%abv

Color: old gold with a hint of light amber

Nose: green pear, honeysuckle or cherry blossom, honeydew melon, chalk mineral, Jucyfruit gum. A wonderfully rich characteristically Spey aroma profile.

Entry is rich and sweet after extended air with honeyed fruits and green melon, green pear, sweet butter and a profuse floral filigree. Meadow grass with wildflowers. Mid-palate expansion brings spirit and a light breezy malt and a jazzy medley of juicyfruit flavors. The mouth feel is light and a bit thin - I suspect chill filtering.  The turn to the finish is marked by a lovely lean and drying sensation and marked by the hand off from the sweet malt fruity and floral to the mineral and wood end of the spectrum.  Finish is medium long with gentle mineral notes, light oak tannins and a hint of oak.  You're left with a clean slightly sweet malty fruity glow, as if you had just finished chewing juicyfruit gum.

This is leaps and bounds ahead of the Glenfiddich 12 expression for a pretty modest additional outlay of funds.  Glenfiddich 15 Solera gets within shouting distance of very high end single malt for a bargain price.

****

7 comments:

  1. Interesting - this is really not the experience I had with Glenfiddich 15, even though we both enjoyed it. I remember it being spicy and woody in a good way, and I never mentioned fruit once in my review except some background sherry influence. Don't get me wrong, I trust your palate. Not sure if the whisky has changed (I could have gotten an old miniature) or if I was just too inexperienced at that point to get the Speyside/fruit profile. This does make me a little hesitant, because the way I remember it is better (more up my alley, that is) than what you describe ;-)

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    1. I get the sherry influence, now that you mention it - maybe the cherry in the "cherry blossom". Spicy I didn't get. "Fruity" is a metaphor. It's a bunch of esters that I perceive as melon, pear, and flowers.

      Maybe its perception, maybe it's the batch.

      One thing I've learned, there is variations in batches. My Glenfiddich 12 experiences showed me a fairly wide divergence between the 5 year old miniature and the 2011 bottle. This pour of 15 Solera I had today was from a bottle that was being poured at Whisky Live in NY in April.

      Funny, I wasn't so wild about this fruity floral flavor profile until the blind tasting. Now I've come to appreciate it more. It's more about nosing. The nose on the Solera 15 is just wonderful, particularly after half an hour of air. The entry is glorious too. That's the driving thing. It's delicate, floral, and lacy. It's the opposite of richness or darkness or peatiness (all of which I enjoy too).

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  2. I have complicated feelings about GF's 15 Solera. In my own review, I found it to be fairly sherry-driven with some nice and interesting flavors, but ultimately a bit tepid. The Distillery Edition shows what Glenfiddich's whisky can be when they bottle it at a decent proof and I have a feeling that the underlying whisky in the 15 Solera could be just as good. But that character has been drowned, so it was hard for me to dig much out of it.

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  3. I agree. Its sins are sins of omission, not commission. A lack of intensity is main issue and less dilution would help a lot. Never-the-less, what there is is quite nice, in my opinion - but only after extensive air. Say 30 minutes.

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