Oban 14 Year Old

First vapor: Soapy cardamom and potpourri.

Nose: Any peat shows itself lightly, like chalk. After a few minutes, it opens into the main aroma: vanilla with the pulps of pear and green grape. Only slightly saline. This is reminiscent of chardonnay or some of the Glenfiddich malts, and overbreathing makes it seem like honeydew.

Palate: Green grape, chardonnay with gingery honeydew. Then a transition to salty lemon cream with pine.

Finish: The salty lemon vanilla gets progressively drier, to chalky oak with liquorice and pale sage.

A surprisingly elegant expression, containing an enjoyable complexity of accenting flavors. Somehow I really expected some substantial peat here, maybe by reputation. Instead, this is a refined yet somewhat rich malt, evoking white wine with honeydew and those interesting pine and savory spices.

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