Glenglassaugh 2009 10 year Cask #2213

Nose: Red wine, berries, dark cherries, apricot, peach. Intense red fruit aromas with bright, zesty undertones, almost like vanilla cola! A distant hint of almonds or lychees is also present. Palate: A sweet, fruity arrival with such intense red fruit notes it's almost like an extract of red gummy bears. Numerous berries emerge in the development: cranberry, strawberry (so sweet it seems artificial), raspberry, and morello cherry. While this profile could easily be overly sweet, thankfully there's a robust, leathery malt and an earthy quality like horehound or chicory root (slightly coffee-like) beneath the abundance of sweet berry flavors. The texture is rich and sensuous (yes, sensuous, that's what I noted!). Finish: Medium to long. The focus remains on red fruits, and this sweet-wine saturated character persists until the last hints of the aftertaste. A highly intriguing single malt. It boasts one of the most intensely flavored sweet red wine finishes I've encountered. Although it might sound like an exaggeration of a wine finish, it surprisingly avoids becoming mundane. It is, in fact, delicious, but certainly not subtle or reserved. This whisky is like a bold, unrestrained courtesan. Approach her with both caution and delight. Distilled in December 2009 and bottled in December 2019, this whisky aged for 10 years in a single ex-aleatico wine cask. Aleatico is a red grape variety related to muscat, often used for rich dessert wines, sometimes fortified. It's comparable to PX sherry, perhaps a blend of PX and a robust red rioja. This also marks one of the first 10-year age statement Glenglassaugh releases. Hopefully, it signals future expressions and that Glenglassaugh will avoid the detrimental practice of chill-filtration that Brown Forman imposes on GlenDronach. I thoroughly enjoyed this. It was one of three bottlings exclusive to the Sydney Whisky Show, and this year's selection clearly favored sweetness and fruit-forward, wine-influenced whiskies. Similar to the BenRiach I reviewed previously, I was tempted to purchase a bottle but ultimately refrained. This might have been an error, as it was priced at $145 at the show, and remaining bottles are now $195. If this sounds appealing, acquire it while you can. Tasted from bottle 386 of 411 at the Sydney Whisky Show, May 15, 2021 (my tasting #8). "Good": 83/100 (3.5 stars)