Description
Nose
The nose opens with orange essence, sea salt, clove spice, warm pureed ginger with some brown sugar too. We’re also finding a bit of nuttiness, toasted hazelnut, cough syrup and choux pastry. There’s good alcohol integration, it’s got a bit of warmth coming through but nothing too punchy. Time and air brings out sultanas and a little bit of soap.
Palate
The palate opens with lots of orange essence, candied ginger, walnut cake, raisins and some cherry cola. There’s a menthol note riding through the palate but this dissipates towards the finish leaving mostly cherry and cinnamon. The mouthfeel is good, maybe slightly thinner than we’d like but there’s a punch of flavour that comes through keeping us interested. Time and air accentuates the cola notes, raspberry jam, and more of the cinnamon.
Nose (with water)
The reduced nose feels a bit more integrated, lots of coffee cake, cinnamon, brown sugar, and menthol cherry aromas coming through. It feels warmer, richer, and overall better quality to us. There’s still a little bit of soapiness that we also found on the unreduced nose which seems to be sticking around.
Palate (with water)
The reduced palate has a more citric, acidic quality, fizzy peach sweeties, moving into toffee, salted caramel chocolate buttons and cinnamon chewing gum. Again, the reduced version feels like it has better integration between cask and spirit, although perhaps a tad spicier.
Conclusion
A well done sherry finish, the Manzanilla is giving an interesting coastal quality to the nose, and all of those stereotypical sherry flavours to the palate. It feels like a modern sherry finish which is no bad thing, although perhaps a bit disjointed with the spirit. We still enjoyed it though, and would happily drink a dram.
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