Bruichladdich 16 First Growth Cuvee B: Pauiliac (Chateau Latour)

Thanks to /u/throwboats for pouring me this sample.

Bruichladdich has a lot of releases. And there’s a lot of casks that have been independently bottled. Then you have the fact they are on Islay, so you have Feis Ile releases, and let’s not forget they have single cask offerings at Scotch Mecca as well.

As such, I’ve reviewed quite a few Bruichladdich whiskies. I’m not the top reviewer of Bruichladdich at the moment. I’m attempting to catch up to the leader, however, given how crazy my life has been, that’s not really going to happen. So now I’m trying to just catch up.

What was suppose to start off the group is Bruichladdich 16 First Growth Cuvee B Paulliac. For those who missed it, Bruichladdich originally had a limited edition series each finished in a different wine cask from First Growth French vineyards. This followed the idea behind Bruichladdich being taken over, going through the mess of a warehouse and finishing their whisky in high-end casks that once held nice wine.

This particular one comes from Pauiliac Casks from Chateau Latour. Chateau Latour is one of the oldest Bordeaux wine producing properties in the Pauillac and well known for unique and really nice wine.

So we have some unique and interesting red wines to help out Bruichladdich with a finish. So let’s see how it tastes, shall we?

Price: N/A

Region: Islay

Bottled: October 2008

Stated Age: 16 years old

Cask Type: Château Latour – Pauillac wine cask finish

Number of bottles: 12,000

Abv: 46%

Colour: 10YR 6/8

Nose: Orange, cereal/honey, char

Nice orange. Mostly orange. If I’m being frank, this is mostly orange. Not like ripping an orange apart, you damn animal. But it’s a lot of oranges. Quite light.

Time gives cereal/honey and char. And a bunch of oranges.

Taste: Apple, grassy, caramel, char, ginger

Alright, more going on now. Apple, grassy, caramel. Some more of the char from the nose, bringing it in. Some spice.

I’m looking for some of this unique red wine cask, or really any red wine cask element. I knew nothing of the specifics on this whisky before drinking it, so it came off as quite light again and with very little wine influence.

Finish: Caramel, floral, anise, herbal, grapefruit

Sweet, herbal, spice, and tartness. The finish feels the most balanced of the bunch. It’s like someone’s first try at a dessert: It needs a bit of tweaking to get there. Maybe drop the grapefruit.

You know, because they can do that. Like Wizards.

Conclusion: Frankly a longer time in the cask would have done wonders. I get it: They needed to take whatever they could and get it out there. Some of it wasn’t going to be winners.

Here we have a simple drinking whisky. The finish seemed to be the main thing going on. The nose is so light, and the taste is similar to an entry level dram out there.

So should you buy this? I don’t really know. Maybe if you’re trying to collect all 6 of them. Maybe if you really like the wine and want to see the effect. But frankly, I think since then Bruichladdich has released whisky that is better.

74/100

Scotch review #1008, Islay review #265, Whisky Network review #1581