My week of reviews of Glen Scotia’s recent releases for the Campbeltown Malts Festival comes to an end with this 10 yo bottled for the 2021 iteration of the festival. On Monday I’d reviewed the 11 yo bottled for this year’s festival, and on Wednesday I’d reviewed the 8 yo bottled for last year’s festival. Both were peated whiskies but while the former had received a white port finish, the latter had been finished in PX casks. I thought both were pretty good, though neither got me very excited. The 2021 release did not feature peated spirit (as far as I know) and was finished in red wine casks from Bordeaux. Will this be the rare red wine cask that gets me going? I have to say my recent encounters with red wine-bothered single malts have not been dire. Both the Mortlach in Diageo’s 2023 Special Release I reviewed earlier this month and the single Super Tuscan cask Edradour I reviewed in November were enjoyable enough (if nothing very special). Let’s see where this one falls.

Glen Scotia 10, Campbeltown Malts Festival 2021 (52.8%; Bordeaux red wine finish; from a bottle split)

Nose: An earthy entry with some dried orange peel coming up from below. The citrus expands with each sniff, going from orange to lemon. None of the feared eau de cologne notes yet. After a minute there’s more red fruit: cherries, berries and some salted plums (are salted plums a thing?). With more time the red fruit yields to apricot. With water there’s more apricot and some honey to go with it; the leafy note shows up here too now.

Palate: Comes in sweet and sour all at once. Tastes like some sort of artificial fruit-flavoured drink. Approachable at full strength; texture is a bit thin. The artificial fruit recedes with each sip but some floral talcum powder emerges in its place. More citrus as it sits. With more time the talcum powder becomes overbearing. Let’s see if water fixes it. It does to a large extent in that the the talcum powder gets pushed back; but it also becomes overbearingly sweet now.

Finish: Long. The sweet notes get thinner here, if that makes sense; and a leafy note emerges at the end. As on the palate with water.

Comments: I really liked the nose from the beginning to end. Alas, neat, the palate was a bit of a disaster. The addition of water fixed some of that but not enough to rescue it from being a winesky there. A whisky to nose and then add to a vatting instead of sipping?

Rating: 82 points.

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