Blair Athol 1976 Samaroli 35th Anniversary Cask: 7310 45% 1976

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Serge Valentin (85)

Ah, I had thought this wasn’t ex-sherry, because of the pale colour. My bad. I like Sig. Samaroli’s comments on the label, ‘Refined inside the bottle since this date’ (refers to the year of bottling). Mr. Samaroli, just like me, believes in bottle ageing! Colour: straw. Nose: very different, more austere, more mineral, with some camphor and some green apples, plus a rather lovely honeyness. Beeswax, pollen… Whiffs of ‘a new cigar box’. I remember I had tried this baby around when it was bottled, and indeed it may have improved after ten years of ageing in glass. BTW, the glass is very dark, so pretty much UV-proof in my opinion. Mouth: fun stuff, with a lot of limestone and a lot of lemon, plus a medicinal side that I wasn’t expecting from Blair Athol. Even iodine, also, well, I’d call it a little ‘bandage-y’. Finish: medium, rather on lemon zests, and more limestone. A little paraffin as well. Bitter walnuts in the aftertaste, perhaps from the sherry. Comments: an ode to bottle ageing. Twenty more years and it’ll reach 90 points in my book (stay tuned).