Port Charlotte is Bruichladdich's heavily peated whisky, named after the village of Port Charlotte down the road from Bruichladdich, as a homage to the Loch Indaal Distillery that closed in 1929. Weighing in at 40 ppm on the malt, Port Charlotte sits between the distillery's unpeated Bruichladdich whisky and the super-heavily peated Octomore whiskies. But don't panic, there's still plenty of smoke to be found here. The Port Charlotte "brand" has undergone something of a refresh in the last year or so, re-launching during the 2018 Feis Ile celebrations with new expressions, a new bottle and label design, and a renewed spotlight on this often (wrongly) overlooked whisky. Since then we have seen a new permanent addition to the Port Charlotte range, the 10-year old, and a new 2011-vintage Islay Barley expression (both reviewed here) in the new packaging. Both of those great whiskies now include wine casks in their recipes / vattings, and are very reasonably priced, and although I preferred the Islay Barley expression when first introduced to them, I now have trouble picking a winner between the two. And now we have a brand new and very exciting addition to the range, a cask strength expression that has spent time in French red wine casks!
My level of anticipation is very high for this one. Even higher than it always is for each whisky that Bruichladdich release, in fact, because the seed had already been planted by a very special cask that was sitting in that cold, damp warehouse at Bruichladdich during my first pilgrimage to the Hebridean paradise of Islay. The entire experience at that warehouse tasting was phenomenal, but despite being a huge Octomore fan, on that occasion it was the Port Charlotte cask that really blew me away. It was a fully-matured Bordeaux red wine cask, at 12-years of age and 57% ABV, and it was one of the whisky highlights of that entire pilgrimage to Scotland. This whisky is a little different, and of course it's not really fair to compare it to a single cask that was specially selected for the warehouse tastings at the distillery, but (spoiler alert) it's a fantastic dram. Port Charlotte MRC01 is a 7-year old whisky that was distilled in 2010 from Scottish barley peated to 40 ppm at Bairds Maltings in Inverness, and was matured in 50% first-fill bourbon casks and 50% second-fill French wine casks for six years, before being married together and finished (or additional cask enhanced - ACEd - in 'laddie speak) for a further year in first-fill red wine casks from the Bordeaux region of southern France. It was bottled at a strength of 59.2% ABV, and of course is non-chill filtered and naturally coloured.
Given the name (or codename) of this bottling, the astute wine buffs have probably already guessed where those finishing casks came from. Unfortunately Bruichladdich aren't allowed to say anything more than "the left bank of the Bordeaux region", which is home to over 200 producers of many different types of wine. These acronyms are going to be the standard for Port Charlotte going forward, and they've already been used to great success in bottlings like the travel-exclusive CC01 (cognac cask), and the more recent of the distillery exclusive Valinch bottlings. In this case we can reasonably deduce that those casks came from a particularly famous producer in the Paulliac appellation that can be traced back to the 18th century. These casks would certainly not have come cheap!
This is the first general release (i.e. not travel- or distillery- exclusive) high strength bottling of Port Charlotte in quite a while. At least it is if you don't consider Bruichladdich's current standard bottling strength of 50% ABV to be high enough! If memory serves the last was the extremely limited (6,000 bottles) PC10 cask strength bottling from 2011, which I don't believe ever made it to Australia, and which is not to be confused with the 'regular' bottlings of 10-year old Port Charlotte - of which there have now been three different versions. MRC01 is not yet available in Australia, but it's on the way, and at a series of recent tastings hosted by the magnificent Chloe Wood, Bruichladdich's Asia Pacific Brand Ambassador, and Mark Hickey of Australian distributor Spirits Platform, a lucky few were given the chance to pre-order a bottle or two before they arrive in April. And yes, I'm already on the list! There's no official figure on the number of bottles in this release, but sadly only a very small quantity are going to make the lengthy voyage to Australia. After a fantastic tasting in Brisbane at the end of Chloe's extremely busy tour, where the MRC01 was the stand-out whisky of an already excellent line-up, I was lucky enough to secure a little extra sample for this review. So let's get to it!
Distilled in 2010 from Scottish barley peated to 40 ppm, matured in 50% first-fill ex-bourbon & 50% second-fill ex-French wine casks for 6 years, married & finished for 1 year in Bordeaux wine casks. Natural colour, non-chill filtered.
Colour: Amber.
Nose: Lovely. Fruity, softly spicy & smoky. Charred BBQ smoked meats, warm charcoal briquettes, a flash of salted lemon, drying kelp and warm asphalt. Dried cherries and grilled peaches, and a little brown sugar. Time brings out more spicy wood smoke (mesquite?) and hints of gristy malt in the background.
Texture: Lovely again. Medium-heavy weight, lightly oily. Remarkably mellow for 7 years of age and over 59% ABV.
Taste: Sweet fruity entry, with more cherry and peach, plus some plum and a little nectarine now. And they're all caramelised & lightly charred from the grill. Then a gorgeous wave of that thick sweet & spicy BBQ wood smoke, with a little drying wood ash. Some thick butter & brown sugar caramel underneath.
Finish: Medium-long length. That sweet & spicy wood smoke carries through, with some grilled salted lemon, and all of that grilled stone fruit again, but with the brown sugar caramel served alongside for dessert. There's a little medicinal edge coming through the smoke to finish, like a freshly unsealed but older bandage.
Score: 4.5 out of 5.
Notes: Picture a wood-fired BBQ full of charred smoked meat and caramelised stone fruit with a few squirts of lemon over the top, and let that soak in. That's where this whisky takes you. And it's absolutely fantastic! This is no massive Islay peat bomb, but the volume, complexity and balance of flavour on offer here is really remarkable. Especially considering the age and ABV. But rest assured, there's still plenty of smoke to be found in this Port Charlotte, and it's a delicious sweet and spicy wood smoke that has worked perfectly with those French wine casks. This is a great example of what Port Charlotte is all about. It stands apart from all of the other Islays, it's approachable and enticing, and it's capable of absolute magic!
It's looking like MRC01 will be quite reasonably priced as well, so if you get the chance to grab one of these, I suggest you do so immediately. This is an excellent example of what this versatile and yes, progressive, Islay distillery does. Hats off to Bruichladdich, you've nailed it again!
Cheers!
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