BenRiach Sauternes Finish 16 Year

Nose : grapes. Caramel. Water acts as a softener. Apple taste hidden. Very slightly smoked

This scotch puzzles me a little bit. I smell a lot of fresh saplings, snapped in half, along with some Riesling, and gravel. To describe it in the best light, it's a vineyard after a fitful spring rain. But it's a hard scent to pull out of the glass, and at times manifests as a watery, faintly sweet echo of its best self. Then there's a wonderful harmony of flavors of ripe orchard fruit, tannic wood, and toasted malt. It's not overly sweet, which is an achievement in a wine-finished whisky. If anything, it hews a little bit too far on the side of bitterness, and it finishes like a dry white wine. Unlike the spectacular BenRiach 18 Albariza, I'm pretty sure this expression is not peated at all. Given how well BenRiach's distillate takes to some moderate peating, I suspect it would have been to this expression's benefit to up the smoke level a little. At or around a pricey $100 a bottle, I wouldn't classify this as a must-have scotch.

I haven't tried a lot of sauterne finished whiskies. This the glendronach 12 and the Arran sauterne. I'd have to compare all three together to confirm but I'd say this would be my least favorite of the three. Didn't have much mouth feel or viscosity the others did