Roja Classic French Single Malt | 46% ABV

Keeping a promise

A little over a year ago, I found myself in Paris. My mind wasn’t really on whisky. 

Mrs McAtear, whilst frequently asking if we can go see the Eiffel Tower, was dancing around in the City of Light, window shopping at some of the most luxurious brands in the world (on some occasions, literally restricted to window shopping, because the queue to get inside the shop was too long) and popping into Galeries Lafayette for souvenirs. All the while I was happily tagging along, enjoying my coffees and the occasional crepes on the streets, after all, a visit to Paris was an item on her bucket list, and I’m just glad that we are here and that she seems to be having the time of her life. 

But there was a reason why whisky wasn’t really on my mind.

Right before Paris, we ‘d been in the UK. Barnet to be specific, to visit my sister-in-law and her family. A year previously they’d relocated to the UK and were still working hard to settle in. During such a challenging time in their lives, having family from eight time zones away to visit was heartwarming to them. It was heartwarming for us too, seeing them in their new environments, especially seeing how their little one has grown so much after only twelve months. We cherished every moment in those short handful of days. Since Barnet isn’t really known for their whisky scene, at least not that I’m aware of, not much whisky popped into my head in those few days. 

But that wasn’t the real reason either, it was more to do with what happened before we visited.

The main reason that we visited the UK is because my brother has just finished his PhD and we went to attend his graduation. Not about to put a thirteen hour flight to waste, we decided to head up to Scotland for a family trip. We’d been a few years before and thoroughly enjoyed it, while last time we drove from Inverness all the way to Skye, and headed back down to Edinburgh, this time we decided to take a five day local tour to Orkney. 

What a trip. By giving up the car and hopping on a tour bus, we traded the flexibility of a road trip for the relaxed experience of a guided tour. The tour started in Edinburgh, passed by Inverness, and headed up to the northern island of Orkney. For a city boy like myself, it’s amazing to be on the road for hours, staring into fields of green rather than twisting and turning between skyscrapers on congested highways. It amazed me for the first time a few years ago, and it amazed me once more. 

Eyes might light up at the mention of Orkney, and understandably so. The climate there is very different from mainland Scotland. With the lack of tall trees and a relatively flat landscape, it leads to very windy conditions, and by very windy, I mean very very windy. 

Our accommodation at Kirkwall, the largest settlement in Orkney, was located at what would be a thirty minute walk from the cluster of restaurants according to Google maps, but with the extreme winds blowing in every direction, we weren’t so much walking, instead, bunched up together, with our hats and scarves covering whatever skin was exposed to the abuse from the wind. What would have been a thirty minute walk would probably take at least an hour, thankfully a taxi drove by and we duly hopped in. I think there were a total of four taxis in Kirkwall and we counted ourselves very lucky to have stumbled upon one of them, otherwise that walk would have been quite an ordeal to say the least. We called a taxi on our way back and were reunited with the same driver.

While Barnet didn’t have a whisky scene that I know of, I can’t say the same about Kirkwall. After all, they are the home to two distilleries, and quite honestly, whisky was on my mind during this part of the trip. To know that I am so close to Highland Park, with no plans to at least stop by and have a look, irks me. But as with the previous legs of this journey (or later, with the confusion arising from the convoluted way I’ve decided to tell this story, I apologise), I was always going to stick to my family and the group, after all the point of this trip is for the family to spend time with each other, me being the only person who’s really into whisky shouldn’t cause a distraction to the rest of the group, so as unbelievable as it sounds, I have made it all the way from the Far East up to the little Orkney Islands without paying a visit to the legendary Highland Park distillery, unbelievable. 

But there’s a bigger reason behind that. 

At this point, my dear reader, you have laboured through 800 words of blabbering and three single line paragraphs that started with the word “but”, tracing my steps from Paris back through Barnet, Edinburgh and Orkney, where each step of the way I said I wasn’t thinking about whisky. Let me reassure you, we have arrived, we have reached the bottom of it. Why has whisky taken such a back seat in my priorities?

Because before all of the above, I spent four days in Campbeltown. By myself. Leaving the poor Mrs. McAtear at home.

That’s right. I spent four days in Campbeltown by myself, four days to drink, eat, breathe and live whisky. I took the tour at Glengyle distillery - a “private” tour because I was the only one on it. I did a warehouse tasting at Cadenheads, where I tasted five delicious samples of different whiskies. I went on a tour plus warehouse tasting at Glen Scotia, where among the five amazing whiskies tasted, a 32 year old ex-bourbon sample was one of the highlights of the Campbeltown stay. But the main event was the Barley to Bottle tour at Springbank, where I was taken on an extensive tour of the Springbank distillery, and blended my own bespoke bottle of Springbank single malt whisky. 

During the tour at Springbank, we stopped at one of the warehouses and were treated to a 32 year old Springbank from the cask, and one of our pals (yes, after a few drams of whisky we all become best pals) said “so this is what heaven is like”, I nodded in agreement, but in my head I thought to myself, it’s not just here at this warehouse, the whole time in Campbeltown felt like paradise.

So, because I’ve had my four days in paradise, having left Mrs. McAtear behind, while frequently sending pictures and messages reinforcing how amazing a time I was having, she decided that enough was enough, “I don’t want to hear anything about whisky for the rest of the trip”. So that was that, no more mention of whisky, even when I'm a stone’s throw away from Highland Park.

And back to Paris. With whisky out of sight and out of mind, we spent a relaxing afternoon just wandering the streets, stopping at wherever we pleased. And a storefront caught our attention, a posh looking whisky shop. I wasn’t about to say anything, but Mrs. McAtear looked at me and asked if I wanted to go inside? Well of course I would, we are looking at the famous La Maison du Whisky, I would have headed straight here if I was left to my own devices!

And in we stepped. I wouldn’t say I was in awe, after all it wasn’t the first time that I’ve visited a big whisky shop, but what caught my eye, naturally, was all the French whiskies that were available, none of which I’d seen before. So I spoke to one of the staff and asked for an introduction to French whisky, and he asked “Why don’t we taste some?” Yes please.

Since Mrs McAtear was surprisingly also showing interest, I’d like to see what she preferred, and possibly get a bottle that we could enjoy together, so I let her take the wheel on this one, and we landed on this bottle of Vilanova, matured in ex red wine casks.

The staff told us that Vilanova whisky is produced by the Distillerie Castan, while the distillery was only built in the 2000s, the Castan family has distilling experience stretching back to the 1940s, when they would take a mobile still to distil fruit spirits for private clients, so while the current form of the distillery may be new, the knowhow goes back a few generations. 

With my wife previously declaring that she will only drink Glendronach 21 and Glenlivet 25, let’s see what has done something to satisfy the very finicky palate of Mrs. McAtear.

Review

Vilanova Single Malt, Roja Classic, Distillerie Castan, un-chill filtered, 46% ABV
€65 paid (£55) from La Maison Du Whisky, Paris.

Being a Scotch drinker, I am no stranger to wine cask maturation, and to say my experience is mixed is a bit of an understatement, most of my experiences have been disappointing, especially red wine cask maturation. The casks seem so powerful and makes the process all the more delicate. Most recently you might have seen my experience with the ex-Rioja cask Linkwood, where the spirit was all but pushed aside by over-dominant cask influence. 

But we’re not looking at Scotch whisky today, this is the French take on malt whisky, and surely they know their way around a wine cask. Or do they?

Nose

Dark red, just dark red. I used to think sherry bombs were a dark red but this shade of red is even darker, nigh on brown, but not quite. Dark berries, like blackcurrants, blueberries, cranberries, cherries even, a lot like Ribena of course, plus hints of leather.

Palate

Sour and bitter arrival, the basket of berries dialled up to eleven now, tannic (from the wine casks I’m guessing). I’m getting some spices that I can’t quite put a finger on, some combination of cardamom, cinnamon and pepper. Tannins present themselves again on the finish, making it quite drying, and disappointingly rather short, yet weirdly moreish in the sense that it felt like there was so much going on, but the event flashed by so quickly, so I go in for another sip.

The Dregs

From the get go, I think the score of this review needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, this is a French take on single malt, if I’m usually out of my depth with Scotch, I might be way out of order here.

I’m not sure what got Mrs McAtear so keen to be honest, this is nothing like a well aged Glendronach or Glenlivet, it’s not the smoothest whisky I’ve tasted, quite a lot of jagged edges in fact. I wasn’t able to find an age statement on the bottle, if I were to make a guess I’d say maybe around the order of 5 to 7 years or so. Not a bad whisky, in fact it’s even a nice easy sipper by the couch if I was to have this with me while I’m watching football or something, but sitting down with it with my fingers on the keyboard (instead of a notebook and a pen, because, come on), I couldn’t parse out a lot of complexity. 

Maybe the wine cask influence was too dominating, maybe the youth of the whisky caught me by surprise, maybe my palate is simply too Scotch centric, because all of my instincts tell me that the whisky could have used more time in a less active cask, possibly ex-bourbon, for a longer maturation, to that you may ask, wouldn’t they be making a Scotch like whisky then? 

As whisky production is usually a result of the frugal utilisation of local by-products, for French whiskies to be matured in readily available wine casks is the blatantly reasonable and obvious solution, the question is what other parameters in the process would need to be changed in order to produce spirit suitable for prolonged wine cask maturation. 

Or maybe other distilleries have already figured it out, I’m just not sipping a good representation of French whisky.

Score: 4/10

Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. MMc

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