AW: Whisky matured on oloroso sherry casks and color / coloring

Wed Jun 14 19:25:17 CEST 2006

Hi,
Well there is a really dark Sherry, from Williams & Humbert  Pedro Ximenes
Collection, sweet and nearly black. It used to be called Don Zoilo before.
 Bernhard

  _____  

Von: MALTS-L at RZ.UNI-KARLSRUHE.DE [mailto:MALTS-L at RZ.UNI-KARLSRUHE.DE] Im
Auftrag von Luc Timmermans (LWS)
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 14. Juni 2006 18:37
An: MALTS-L at LISTS.UNI-KARLSRUHE.DE
Betreff: Re: Whisky matured on oloroso sherry casks and color / coloring

Hi Paul, 

Like I told before, I'm no sherry specialist, but since my wife is a sherry
drink and prefers Lustau, I have quite a few versions at home.  So come on
by to try them i would say ;-)

Lustau Solera Reserva Dry Oloroso Sherry "Don Nuño"
Description
A rich concentrated wine which is classically dry with hints of sweetness,
its amber gold colour and flavours of rich bitter chocolate and baked
chestnuts leave an intense lingering aftertaste. This wine finds great
appeal with the connoisseur and is appreciated by all oloroso lovers.   µ

This one is from the Palomino Fino Grape Variety.

One thing is very apparent, when you taste this sherry and you taste a dark
oloroso matured whisky, you spot the flavors/aroma's coming from this kind
of sherrycask instantly.

Hope this gives you some more information.

Regards,
Luc 

Paul Dejong wrote: 

>From Jerez?
I believe you Luc, but how does this oloroso comes to it’s colour? Since in
Jerez oloroso is made from white grapes (palomino)
Different grapes? Different production method? What makes it different?

Paul

On 6/14/06 6:20 PM, "Luc Timmermans (LWS)"
<mailto:luc.timmermans at LINDORES.BE> <luc.timmermans at LINDORES.BE> wrote:

Paul,

I can only say that your friend should buy for example Lustau Dry Oloroso
sherry, or some of the Lustau Almacenista Oloroso versions and you'll see
while pooring your glass how dark this Oloroso sherry is.....and that is
where are precious sherried whiskies get their color from.  I'm no sherry
specialist, but buy a bottle of that one, and you'll see how dark it
is......

Luc
www.lindores.be  <http://www.lindores.be> <http://www.lindores.be> 

Paul Dejong wrote: 

Hi all,

Since Ralf posted his question on American bourbon casks...
I would like to post a question regarding a nagging problem that has been
err...nagging me and a friend of mine for a couple of weeks now.
A friend of mine -who imports some whisky into belgium- wanted to take
things a bit further, and wanted to supply some of his own casks, to be
filled with new-make, to his friends in the industry. Since there have been
a couple of problems in getting good sherry-butts, he decided to go and
visit a number of bodega's in spain, in order to buy some casks.
Naturally he tasted some of the sherry produced in those bodega's...
When he asked for dark oloroso casks...the only thing he got, was raised
eyebrows... Seems that oloroso from Jerez, gets no darker (no matter how old
it gets) than  our "average" 40% (caramelised) marked house whisky (such as
the 10yo standard Macallan...)...thus, nowhere near as dark as the "dark
oloroso Ardbeg's" we know, or the black bowmore, or....

Before his trip, Our (hopefully) logical assumption was that the oloroso,
which this naturally very dark whisky, matured on... Had to be even
darker... Because we would find it very hard to understand that the maturing
whisky could end up being "mahogany" if the original oloroso was -at best- a
darkish brown...? 

If there is no oloroso that is virtually black (in Jerez)... What type of
casks did that dark whisky mature on?
(mind you, all the bodega's that were visited gave us the same answer...and
proved it! Jerez Oloroso is far from "almost black"  !! )

So that leads to my question: How can "oloroso" matured whisky end up being
nearly black, if the originating sherry is even lighter in colour than a
thorougly matured single barrel bourbon such as George T. Stagg...(and that
irrespective of age, and the sherry matured in a solera system)...

Possible answers:
1. since the names of the different types of sherry are a little bit
confusing... Could it be just a case of mistaken identity? The only 'black'
sherry he found in Jerez was Pedro Ximinez... Could oloroso be actually
Pedro X?
2. since Jerez is the only region my friend visited (the most logical choice
since sherry got its name from the region) ...and i assume sherry is not
exclusively made in Jerez, could it be that oloroso sherry is made elswhere

in spain (from different grapes?) to a much darker colour? And that those
butts did not originate in Jerez, but a different region?
3. somebody suggested it may have somethig to do with the evaporation...
(although I find that very unlikely, because i cannot believe it would
become that dark...)
4. maybe it has to do with the wood? Quercus alba is much lighter then
Quercus robur...  But nowadays most sherry is matured on quercus alba...and
my friend saw with his own eyes that european oak gives no more colour to
the sherry than the American white oak... So that seems unlikely to.
5 Could it be that the higher alcohol% extracts more colour from the wood?
I think so...but I doubt it would make that much difference...

Questions, questions, questions... Who can provide the answers?

Paul

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