Over the years Waterford distillery has created a large range of single farm origins, singular spirit with a unique terroir. While these bottlings are very interesting and often simply very good, their best expressions have been the Cuvée bottlings, in my opinion. These are combinations of different farms, which often leads to higher complexity. Check Waterford Micro Cuvée Der Wanderer or Waterford The Cuvée.
Recently Waterford presented a new benchmark release: Waterford Cuvée Koffi (after Nathanaël Koffi who created the label’s artwork). It is a composition of 24 different farms, ageing in first fill and virgin American oak, French oak and Vin Doux Naturel casks. They say it’s their most expressive, most complex single malt to date. It’s also older than previous cuvées, with every component over 6 years of age.
Waterford Cuvée Koffi (50%, OB 2023)
Nose: pipe tobacco and tea leaves appear first, with caramel notes and vanilla pods. Toasted oak, creamy hazelnut paste. A light hint of stewed vine peaches (nice) and dusty pepper. Then back to earthy notes and bread, as well as some burnt heather. Sweetness but also umami. If anything this confirms it has nothing to do with classic Irish pot still whiskey.
Mouth: a nicely chewy texture. More peaches, along with baked apple and cinnamon, as well as caramel candy and milk chocolate. Plenty of barley. Then waves of spicy notes, like pepper, ginger and aniseed. Still some bread crust, along with an earthy side. Mulching leaves with tobacco. Hints of raisins and strawberries with cream. Very subtle bitter flashes. Quite complex indeed, there is a lot going on.
Finish: medum long, with alternating sweetness and spiciness. Aniseed, caramel, dried fruits.
Cuvée is written CUVΣE, with the sigma sign referring to the end result being bigger than the sum of parts. It is indeed a complex whisky that exceeds expectations for its age. Some bitter spice towards the end brings it down a little, but otherwise this is a very tasty whisky. Only seen in the Waterford shop and LMdW for now.