Subscribe to our FREE Newsletter , or Telegram and WhatsApp channels for the latest stories and updates. In what might be considered either audacity or brilliance—perhaps both—Glenfiddich has unveiled its latest limited edition, the Grand Château. This 31-year-old whisky spent nearly a decade finishing in Bordeaux wine casks.
The grand unveiling, recently hosted in Kuala Lumpur at The Yard, Sentul Depot—a venue whose industrial chic perfectly complemented the evening’s sophisticated offerings—treated guests to an extraordinary vertical tasting of Glenfiddich’s Grand Series. The journey began with the 22 Year Old Gran Cortes, with its rare sherry cask finish, progressed through the 23 Year Old Grand Cru’s cuvée cask flourish, ascended to the 26 Year Old Grande Couronne’s cognac-kissed complexity, and culminated in the star of the evening, the 31 Year Old Grand Château’s Bordeaux-influenced elegance. Brian Kinsman, Glenfiddich’s Malt Master, speaks of the nine-year finish with the reverence of a vintner describing a particularly good harvest.
“The Bordeaux casks cocoon the spirit,” he explains, in what must be one of the more poetic descriptions of wooden barrel ageing ever uttered. The result, he says, is an “exceptionally vibrant liquid” that manages to both intensify Glenfiddich’s characteristic fruitiness while introducing notes of deep oak and warming vanilla—a feat of balance that would make a Bordeaux winemaker proud. The presentatio.