A look at Carpathian Single Malt from Romania
I came across an ad about this distillery and I was curious to find out what it was. It caught my interest. The first hopeful sign is the organized, modern, beautiful website. So far so good. Own domestic barley. ✅ Fresh water from the Carpathians. ✅ 46% ✅ Non-chill filtered. ✅ Natural color. ✅ Many, many cask finishes. ✅
The biggest selling point for me was the Fetească Neagră finish... dry/semi-dry red wine... from Romania I really like this wine. Juicy, fruity. I enjoy a glass of this wine with my father every now and then.
Where does the name come from?
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc across the Central and Eastern Europe. Roughly 1,500 km (932 mi) long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at 2,500 km (1,553 mi) and the Scandinavian Mountains at 1,700 km (1,056 mi).
The Southern Carpathians, situated in Romania, represent 50% of Carpathians, and have the highest peaks around 2,500 m.
The name "Carpathians" is strongly linked with the old Dacian tribes called "Carpes" or "Carpi" who lived on a large area, spread from the east, north-east of the Black Sea to the Transylvanian Plain. This area was the correspondent of today's Romania and Moldova. The name "Carpathians" may ultimately have Dacian origin and mean mountain, rock, or rugged.
Briefly about the distillery
The launch of a single malt whisky matured in Romanian wine casks is a world premiere. Deep in the Sub-Carpathian hills, they have been quietly maturing the first Romanian single malt whisky, since 2017. Alexandrion Group, through Alexandrion Rhein 1892 Domains, its wine division, produces some of the best, internationally awarded wines in Romania. The combination of Scottish know-how (master distiller Allan Anderson from Scotland), Romanian malt, pure Sub-Carpathian water and superb wine barrels, make Romania a perfect country to produce this high-quality single malt. Alexandrion Group became, thus, one of the few companies in the world that use barrels from their own wine production facilities to age single malt whisky. The distillery has double distillation copper pots. All of their products are Natural Color and Non-chill filtered, they have 46% and 40% abv. bottles. Their core range consists of the Romanian, Spanish & Portuguese, French, Greek & Cypriot and Italian wine cask collection.
Carpathian Fetească Neagră - Natural Color, Non-chill filtered, 46%
Feteasca Neagră is an old variety of grapes from Romania, from which red and rosé wines are made. The variety is cultivated in Romania and in the Republic of Moldova. Thia wine has ruby hues and an aroma of berries, cherries, prunes, black raisins, it's lightly spiced, reminiscent of cinnamon, pepper, allspice and vanilla, and it gets richer and smoother with age. In 2022 the 2017 Negre wine, a blend of Fetească Neagră (51%) and Băbeșca Neagră, produced in the Valul lui Traian vineyard (Tigheci, Leova), was designated the best red wine in the world.
"Having spent its initial years in a charred first fill ex-Kentucky bourbon cask of white American Oak this whisky was then transferred to a toasted European Oak red wine cask previously holding a Romanian Fetească Neagră wine sourced from our own winery."
Nose: Very intense. Toasted wood. Char. Very malty and characterful. Christmas spices, cloves, cinnamon, red berries. Some dryness creeps out of the glass. Wine gum, freshly squeezed grapes. Candies. White pepper. Great complex nose overall. This is much more than I expected.
Taste: Thick, mouthcoating. Doesn't feel young at all. Vanilla and again that toasted, recharred oak. Malty. Raisins, forest fruits. Wine gum and grapes again. Sweet. A little less complex than the nose.
Finish: Sweet, dry, fruity, malty and long. This is great stuff lads.
Overall I am quite impressed with this release. Thankfully I got a bottle that I can open and just stock another bottle on the shelves. 86 / 100
Carpathian Pinot Noir - Natural Color, Non-chill filtered, 46%
"This Carpathian Single Malt expression matured exclusively in a European Oak red wine cask, sourced from own winery, is exclusive to Alexandrion & SABER Distilleries 1789 and Romania. A truly unique whisky from a wining collaboration"
Pinot noir is a red-wine grape variety of the species Vitis vinifera. The name may also refer to wines created predominantly from pinot noir grapes. The name is derived from the French words for pine and black. The word pine alludes to the grape variety having tightly clustered, pinecone–shaped bunches of fruit. The tremendously broad range of bouquets, flavors, textures, and impressions that pinot noir can produce sometimes confuses tasters. Broadly, the wines tend to be of light to medium body with an aroma reminiscent of black and/or red cherry, raspberry and to a lesser extent currant and many other fine small red and black berry fruits.
Nose: Malty...but how much..wow. Strong smell of burnt oak. Vanilla. Grapes appear. The red wine unfolds. Earthy, interesting.. Cherries and raisins.
Taste: Full-bodied, dominated by vanilla, caramel and grapes. Apple pear. Malty, buttery. Fresh toasted bread. Oily, mouth-warming. Forest fruits and raisins. Pleasant.
Finish: Medium sweet and sour. Malty, buttery.
Yet again a very good whisky. I love the fact that it's an integrity bottling as Ralfy would say. 84 / 100
Carpathian Cognac Finish - Natural Color, Non-chill filtered, 46%
"The 53-gallon 1st fill American white oak ex-Kentucky bourbon barrels, this whisky spent its initial years in compliments perfectly the 285L French Cognac finishing cask, adding more complexity to this rich golden coloured whisky. This full-bodied whisky has notes of vanilla & honey with a sweet lingering finish again bottled at 46% abv non chill filtered to retain the full range of complex flavours."
Nose: Fairly simple. Green apples, vanilla, caramel some pear and cinnamon can be found along with some grapes. Quite malty yet again and the oily aspect shows through on this one too.
Taste: Very sweet. Vanilla, caramel, cinnamon and loads of icing sugar. Grapes with some distant oak and spiciness. Bit young perhaps.
Finish: Medium. Very sweet again. Grapes and vanilla. Just what you would expect from a Cognac finish.
The lightest in color of the bunch I got in the tasting kit. Young? Not much time spent in the secondary cognac cask? I don't know. But I think this one has some room for improvement, even though it was great. 82 / 100
Carpathian Commandaria - Natural Color, Non-chill filtered, 46%
"Sourced from Troodos Mountains of Cyprus, these 200L oak barrels once previously held the ancient Cyprian wine Commandaria. This sweet dessert wine has influenced the whisky to give notes of vanilla raisin fig and a little spice its light copper colour has a sweet round lingering finish to the end. Again, this expression of Carpathian Single Malt has matured in 53-gallon 1st fill American white oak ex-Kentucky bourbon barrels for three years, before being transferred to the Commandaria barrels."
Commandaria is an amber-coloured sweet dessert wine made in the Commandaria region of Cyprus on the foothills of the Troödos Mountains. Commandaria is made from sun-dried grapes of the varieties Xynisteri and Mavro. While often a fortified wine, through its production method it often reaches high alcohol levels, around 15%, already before fortification. It represents an ancient wine style documented in Cyprus back to 800 BC and has the distinction of being the world's oldest named wine still in production, with the name Commandaria dating back to the crusades in the 12th century.
Nose: I'd say that this is a very hefty nose yet again. Bursting with dark honey, malt, barley sugar, sweet grapes banana and vanilla.
Taste: Sweet of course as you would expect from the dessert wine. Toasted oak with again loads of dark honey, all kinds of nuts with vanilla and grapes. Loads of barley sugar aswell. This is amazing.
Palate: Sweet, long, round and complex.
Take notes Malt Mates, this is how you start up a distillery a non-Scottish distillery no less and produce amazing single malt with awesome cask finishes. This one was amazing and I will be looking out to buy a full bottle of this. 85 / 100
"When I first visited the Carpathians, the first impression was the untamed beauty of the snow-covered mountains dotted with pine trees everywhere, fresh air that had a whiff of pine needles & wild juniper: it was definitely a welcome escape from the busy city landscape. I realized then that this is still a wild untamed part of the world, perfect for making Carpathian Single Malt whisky, just like my Scottish forefathers had done many centuries ago in the Mountains & Glens of Scotland". - Allan Anderson, master distiller
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. To many more. Sláinte.