Port Charlotte
2002
Franco Di Lillo Private Reserve

Nose

Instantly in there at the deep end, heavy sherry notes, it’s farmy, hints of old damp dunnage and leathery, dark and dried fruits, lots of peat smoke, rubber, blue cheese and a distinct, rich white chocolate. Some wood spice, mixed herbs, cigar wrapper, black pepper, salt, minerally with hints of lime citrus.

The nose is INCREDIBLE.

Palate

A fat old style sherry palate, dark spiced chocolate, lemon zing with a slight burnt rubber note. The leathery peat attack arrives just after picking out the dominant notes, it’s sublime. Lots of strewed fruits, dried fruits, vanilla, spiced oak – its complex!

Finish

Long, intense – are we sure this is only 5 years-old and 46% abv? More peat, dark chocolate, citrus, seaweed and rock salt, spiced wood and more dried fruits. There’s an ever so slight drying end but with the abundance of flavours, your mouth just keeps salivating, overtaking the dryness.

Overall

Well, this is something special. For the age and abv, this is one of the most amazing Port Charlotte bottlings out there. Its old dunnage notes are similar to some older sherried Port Ellen, it’s in the realms of greatness here, if only we had a shot at cask strength then it could have been. Nonetheless, this is a unicorn whisky.

On release there was 402 bottles, 3 friends each had 134 and a different label. You can check the different labels as we have each in our collection.