Origin: Highlands (Scotland)
Type: Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Gradation: 46%ABV
Ageing casks: Miscellaneous
Chillfiltered: No
Additional Coloring: Yes
Owner: Moet Hennessy
Average price: € 150.00
Official website: www.glenmorangie.com
Vote: 93/100
Distilleries know how to keep a secret.
For most whiskies, we have certain information: the years of ageing, the type of barrels used, if they have been chillfiltered, if artificial colour has been added, if cask strength (their gradation), and if they come from single or multiple barrels.
Sometimes this information is declared. At other times, it’s deductible: an experienced sense of smell and palate, while not being able to establish exactly the length of ageing, can tell you whether a whisky is young or mature, and can hypothesize the use of one barrel rather than another, because each carries its specific scents (which must then be related to the distillate).
However, there are whiskies of which little or nothing is known: because the bottling goes back a long time, when the info was scarcer (and probably those who drank were less interested in having them), or because their production is from a “secret recipe” that the distilleries have no intention of revealing.
Whether it’s often a marketing strategy, it doesn’t matter: we like to continue romantically to think that in whisky, after all, there is also a bit of magic.
Glenmorangie Signet is one of them.
In the official core range since 2004, it’s a NAS that includes – to what extent it isn’t known – whiskies matured in different types of barrels for periods up to 35, 40 years. The only reliable data are the use of American oak virgin barrels from the Ozark Mountains, Missouri, and assembled ad hoc, and the presence of “chocolate malt”, that is, malted barley exposed to high temperature and toasted (like with coffee).
Some reviewers hypothesize a refinement in ex-Sherry barrels, but we don’t have certainties about it.
Bottled at 46% ABV without chillfiltration, the Glenmorangie Signet is offered in a truly refined packaging, at a remarkable price.
Tasting notes
The color is amber.
On the nose, on a background of wildflowers, you get a lively impression of vanilla, with a puff of icing sugar, a note of custard and a strong citrusy hint tending to sweet tones (mandarin?). Over time, the citrus scent decreases in intensity and a layer of soft marzipan emerges.
On the palate, the silky, velvety body always puts vanilla in the foreground. The citrus scent is specified (blood orange), with a bite of meringue to crown it all.
The medium finish tastes like vanilla and citrus still.
A seductive whisky, of a somewhat retrò elegance, which makes us think of a pleasant and unexpected meeting, an intimate dinner, and then to a look more eloquent than words, a vague memory more than a certainty, a silent enchantment consumed by time.
Reviews of Glenmorangie whisky
Other perspectives:
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