There are a plethora of places to see in Porto − the city center is a UNESCO World Heritage site − but one absolute must for wine aficionados is to spend a couple of hours across the river Douro in Vila Nova de Gaia visiting a Port house and tasting the wines. Follow me on such a journey . . . saude!
Japanese whisky distillery Mars Shinshu is still working to establish its house style. “Searching for its soul,” distillery manager Koki Takehira calls it, and he is off to a wonderful start. At this stage, the whiskies appear to be from the elegant and complex end of the spectrum, and there is a gentle sweetness, more so than found in most Japanese whiskies. Ken Gargett takes us through the history of Mars Shinshu and shares tasting notes of a few of the whiskies.
Michter’s aim is to make small-batch or single-barrel products so the distillery has restricted itself to a maximum of 20 barrels for any of its small-batch products. And, as Ken Gargett reports, the Kentucky-based company is making superb bourbon.
Anyone seriously interested will have some fun poking around all the results of the Best Wine of the World competition. Here Ken Gargett explains a bit about different methods of judging wine (surprise, he thinks the Aussie way is best), talks some anecdotal background, and reveals a gaggle of winners.
Fine watches and fine whisky, for many the two go together like single malt birds of a feather. Urwerk founders Felix Baumgartner and Martin Frei have been known to enjoy a smooth amber tipple or two, and as discerning gentlemen with discerning taste in haute horlogerie it’s perhaps not surprising that Baumgartner and Frei also have discerning taste when it comes to whisky: single malt by The Macallan.
It seems only appropriate that such a fascinating champagne Grower as Ulysse Collin has an even more fascinating backstory. David heading toward toppling a sparkling Goliath. For well over 200 years, since 1812, the Collin family had worked vineyards in the region and for a century of that time also worked as coopers. The family vineyards were first lost, then recovered, and now the firm goes from strength to strength, slowly but surely building the crown as king of the Grower movement.
The idea of Last Drop is to source rare and first-class spirits, usually with considerable age. Some of these products – and in the company’s decade of operations, there have only been 13 releases – are extremely limited and seriously expensive. But is it worth it? Ken Gargett reverently sips a dram and shares the results with us here.
Ken Gargett remembers it as though it was yesterday: the aroma from this small glass was the most alluring, enticing, extraordinary thing he had ever smelled in his life. Indeed, the nose of a great Muscat is for him one of the three great aromas one can find in the world of wine (the other two being a first-class, mature champagne and a great Burgundy). In this story, he introduces us to the beautifully fragrant world of Australia’s Rutherglen Muscats.
A blend of rare single malts – the youngest of which was filled in December 1967 – The Glenlivet Winchester Collection Vintage 1967 is non-chill filtered at cask strength. It offers drinkers a rich and fruity nose with notes of apricot jam, sweet ripe peaches, and a touch of toasted almonds. And it costs $25,000 per bottle. Y-Jean Mun-Delsalle explains why.
Whether ‘Stalin’s Wine Cellar’ is a journey about chasing fakes, or if these bottles hidden away in the former Soviet Union are genuine, the story makes for a rollicking saga. And if the bottles are genuine, who really did own them and what on earth might they be worth? The tale takes us on twist after twist and has been described as “Raiders of the Lost Ark for wine lovers.” Ken Gargett couldn’t put the book down.