Moving on with our Springbank appreciation week. Today is the open day at Springbank distillery and I’m very jealous of my three friends who visits the distillery today (on their way to Feis) and in their honor let’s review a trio (one for each friend) of official Springbank finishes.
The first one is the Gaja Barolo wood finish that spent four years in refill bourbon barrels, followed by another five further years in Gaja Barolo wine casks.
Springbank 9 Year old Gaja Barolo wood finish (54.7%, 11,000 bottles, £57.95/€69,95)
Nose: The wine impact is very strong here. Sweet and rich and definitely not drying. Wine and fruity, I wonder if the refill bourbon casks were 1st fill for max flavors as it does feels like that. After letting it breath in the glass, there’s less wine impact and more Bourbon impact and after adding some water there were still some grapes notes in it. Continue reading
Nose: apples,pears, coconut, vanilla custard, spiciness, white pepper at first that it calms down and we get creamy and malty notes. Zesty, some dried fruits in background and sherry spices. 
Nose: A very relaxed nose as the maturation age is noticeable here. The nose harbors some herbal edge, old sweet grain, banana, sweet honey, sweet kumquat, coconut and dare I say there’s even some wax note here. 
Whisky Gospel 