Best of: Terroir-ism (Part 4)

This is part 4 of a 4 part series which discussed the concept of "terroir" and its applicability (or lack thereof) to the production of Scotch.

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Dave Robertson, Robbo (formerly) of Jon, Mark & Robbo's Easy Drinking Whisky Company, is always ready to chime in, and he is today's guest writer for the final installment in the series on terroir:

In days gone by when the technical aspects were poorly understood it was common place for the then distillery manager to wax lyrical about his/her water source, barley and its own maltings, his/her traditional rake style mash tun with its 6 larch wood washbacks which filled the small copper
pot stills, heated by coal condensed via worm tubs and aged in old sherry/bourbon barrels on site in low lying dunnage warehouses before being mixed in 100's of cask batches to create a massive super blend.

It has only really been since the interest in single malts that the notion of "romantic marketing" and the need for terroir to be talked up in addition to provenance, origin, raw materials and ancient process techniques have become public knowledge.

Romantic - yes. Consistent flavour and high quality - no!

Since those times, science has played a stronger role in the understanding and manufacture of malt whisky leading to improved yields and efficiencies, but more importantly, consistency and quality of flavour. Allied to that has been the massive improvement in wood maturation knowledge - where it is
commonly accepted that some 40 - 80% of a mature whisky's flavour can be derived from the wood (ex-bourbon lower, first fill spanish oak ex-sherry much higher...).

Given all this I could, with a little help from my friends, (Jon & Mark) create whiskies that resembled (and maybe even matched in a blind tasting) any single malt that exists without actually using that malt in the recipe.

For example, our Rich Spicy has been commented on as being Macallan in style and is derived from Bunnahabhain, Highland Park, Glenrothes and Tamdhu - all matured in Spanish oak sherry casks. 

With careful selection from a range of cask types and ages we can create a spectrum of flavours that match anything that exists as a single malt! In some ways, blending (grain and malt or vatting malts
together) can create an even more interesting taste experience - and is much like what top wine producers, chefs, parfumiers and conductors do with their selections!

"Heresy" I hear you shout.

Try it yourselves - take your fav single malt, understand its flavour, and pick some others from your drinks cabinet that you then mix together to create that style you love.  My granddad (a PhD in Chemistry from Edinburgh in 1927) used to love mixing his own hooch by taking a bottle of cheap blend and mixing it with some cask strength malt my dad managed to draw for "testing the instruments" in the good old days and low and behold made some fab stuff.

I have attached a simple chart that covers all the main 4 flavour bases as far as JMR is concerned - fell free to play about with this and I would urge that readers of the Scotch Blog position whiskies on the map for themselves, think about what they like and start mixing.

We think that Dave Wishart has maybe made it a tad too complicated by picking 12....

As we like to say - maximum flavour, minimum fuss - to victory with vatted!

The days of terroir, location, etc., etc., are much less important and can be illustrated by the fact that 1 large distillery on Islay (as a trial) was run without peated malted barley and made some of the tastiest "speyside" style new make spirit - weird, wonderful and wacky!

Oh, almost forgot..... most distilleries will have had to change their water source, barley varieties, maltings, mash tuns to lauter tuns, wooden to steel washbacks, direct fired to steam fired stills, computer operated still cut points, cask types and place of maturation and who the master blender/distiller is......are we really suggesting that nothing has changed and that terroir is still fundamentally important ?

Don't get me wrong I still love the romanticism of it all - but temper my enthusiasm with how the stuff really tastes....

For those that crave flavour we salute you!

Plus ca change
plus c'est la meme chose

Cheers

Robbo