Arran loves to finish their malts in various casks. I'm not sure if the public are getting a bit tired of all this yet but if they keep making it, we'll keep drinking it I suppose. Amarone is the big balls out Italian red - made particially by let the grapes shrivel after picking to remove water and thus concentrate the flavours. It' s a great wine - classic Itailian full bodied and generally not cheap. I've no idea how long they've let this rest in the cask but it's certainly leached out all the colour and there's a fair bit of sediment kicking around in the bottle too.
It's a bit of a two headed beast. Quite wire-like, thin and direct to start. On the nose a touch of astringency along with the sweet red wine from the cask. A bit stalky too. There's some malt in there as well, let's not forget. It's all zippy on the tongue; a bit of a ying-yang. Bounces around with interesting sweet-spice combo moves. It gets more intriguing as it develops and there's certainly a lot going on. And a little lick of salt right at the end just to add to the mix. Comparable to the Caol Ila Hermitage I had a while back in that it throws you a curve-ball, letting you decide what to do with it. Perhaps, due to the lightness of the base malt to begin with, it manages to pull off the wine cask finish more successfully than most by virtue of being slightly more integrated than others I've tried. An interesting experiment, it's a lot of fun, doesn't take itself too seriously and certainly worth an investigation and twenty minutes of your time. I've got a feeling that I'll probably be coming back to it a couple of times - I quite enjoyed the ride.
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