06/12/2024 A Tobermory for St Nicholas

Tobermory 10yo (463.%, OB, P038582 16215 6 09:40 BB, b. ca. 2014): nose easy-going and welcoming, the bouquet is full-on orchard fruits, cider apples and barrels of crunchy Comice pears. There is a drop of eau-de-vie in here too, fairly mellow, and on the fruity side too. Past that, we enjoy a saucerful of secrets custard  served in a pine-forest clearing. By the way, the saucer in question is made of cardboard -- think kids'-birthday-party plates. The second nose is softer and fruitier still, apples turn yellower and yellower without reaching Golden Delicious levels of sweetness. Stewed Jonagold, perhaps. Mouth: fresh and crisp, it is borderline unripe, according to these taste buds. That means we see bright-green Granny Smith apples, as acidic as they are fruity, but also something bitterer, closer to gram flour. That quickly steps away to let orchard fruits shine, yet it does not disappear entirely. Chewing unveils greener things, fresh spinach or steamed mangetout. The second sip has a fairly-generic woody-eau-de-vie allure that I will relate to a faintly-medicinal dash of alcohol. Finish: it kicks the top of the gob harder than expected. Once the shock recedes, we find ourselves back in orchard-fruit territory again, with apples, quince, crunchy pears, and cider. Via retro-nasal olfaction, a delicate bitterness re-appears, though much softer here than on the palate. Once more, it is gram flour, maybe augmented with grated green capsicum for originality. The second gulp is mellower, more approachable. It keeps the same ingredients, and adds bone-dry white wine towards the death, mineral, fresh, fruity, acidic, ashy. It leaves the tongue as if it had licked fruit-flavoured sandpaper. This is pleasant, if also not too interesting. It seems younger than it actually is. 6/10 (Thanks, adc)