Benromach keeps pumping out young wine finishes expressions and today we’ll review their latest such release, the Benromach Hermitage 2007.

It’s the forth Benromach Hermitage release. The previous one was released in 2015 and is a 2005 vintage whisky. This time around it’s the 2007 vintage that was bottled earlier in 2016 (9 years old give or take a few months). It has been initially matured in bourbon casks for 6 years, before being finished in casks which previously held wine from the Hermitage Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée for 31 months.

Interesting enough, the finish time here, 31 months, is much longer than the finish time used for the previous release which was finished for mere 18 months. Mind you, 13 months can make a lot of difference when it comes to active wine casks.

Benromach Hermitage 2007 (45%, £39.36/€54.99)

Nose: Sweet and with pungy edge which I can attribute to smoke, rich, full and creamy, sweet red wine, red fruit, nuttiness, fudge. After a long time getting soursweet red berries. It’s not a complex nose and the wine impact is very strong here.

Palate: Spicy, sweet and soursweet red fruits (ala old sherry impact) which is quite impressive for a 9 yo, oak wood bitterness, tannins, drier than the nose hints at, strong nuttiness, sweetness replaced by sourness towards the end.

Finish: Medium length, bitter wood spices, sour red berries, nuttiness nutmeg and semi dry.

Thoughts: The wine is strong with this one. In short, the extra time it spent in the wine casks made a huge impact making it more winey and sweeter and we can definitely say this expression isn’t spirit driven. If you like sweet wine finishes, it’s an excellent buy but I think it was a bit too much and maybe keeping it for 18 months would be the better thing to do with this expression.

(Official sample provided by Benromach Distillery)