World Whisky: Carpathian Single Malt Feteasca Neagra Cask finish Review

The good thing about travel has been the widening of peoples horizons from all over the world, local boundaries are breached and if you are in any way adventurous with food and drink you can immerse yourself in an abundance of variety. When I travel I absolutely love delving into local cuisine and libations which can help cement the memories made on a trip. It can also help you realise that all that you are used to back home isn’t necessarily ‘the best’!

Sometimes with whisky we can get hung up on the traditional old guard of producers to be seen as the bar of excellence, that somehow whisky made outside the big three of Scotland, Ireland or the U.S. could never match those standards. 

So when I heard there was whisky being produced in Romania I have to admit that I instantly prejudged it as probably not being up to much. I’m not sure why it surprises me that whisky is produced there as Romania has a long history with viticulture, stretching back almost 6,000 years in fact. Romania is the 6th largest producer of wine in Europe producing 4.5 million hectolitres in 2021.

Like many countries Romania was badly affected by the phylloxera crisis. To survive many of the vineyards were replanted with mainly French grape varietals. Thankfully though some of the native Romanian grapes survived including the Feteasca Neagra which means Black Maiden. This grape is resistant to cold temperatures and drought conditions. The wine produced by this grape is generally now used in blends along with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot for added body and the grape is said to lend a conspicuous black currant note to the profile.

Carpathian started distillation in 2017 under the guidance of Allan Anderson who started out with Loch Lomond group, eventually rising to Distillery Manager. After 19 years he moved to Ireland to help set up new distilleries in the burgeoning Irish whiskey scene before moving to Romania. This makes Allan the first person to have produced single malt whisky in Scotland, Ireland and Romania.

The Carpathian single malts are all produced from 100% Romanian barley whilst also utilising the local water and are double distilled. This expression is bottled at 46% abv and is also natural colour and non chill filtered, so all the good stuff we like to see presentation wise.

So let’s take a journey to Romania via the medium of single malt and let’s see if it’s a journey worth making! It’s available on Master of Malt for £70/$95.

Oh and on a side note this is post 250 on Causeway Whiskey! That’s a lot of grumpiness!

Let’s Taste!

Nose: Very fruit forward and biscuity. Luscious fruit notes of plum, strawberry coulis and pineapple. Clove rock and cinnamon along with black pepper and citrus peels. A dry woodiness with perhaps a little leather too. Toasted oak and sawn staves.

Palate: A pretty syrupy consistency to this - coats the palate well. Quite oak forward on the palate, drier than the nose suggests. Cask char is prevalent. Then we get manuka honey, shortbread and those red fruit notes alongside ripe red apples. Pepper, ginger and sesame oil next before turning jammy again with the cask char reappearing too.

Finish: Short to medium with an almost fino sherry dryness plus nuttiness along with that ever present cask char.

Score: 6 out of 10

Overall: 

This is a very interesting dram with a lot going on with only the shortness of the finish giving away its youth. While it is an engaging dram it is definitely oak forward and the cask defines the whisky. It’s probably representative of many modern whiskies in that it’s more about the aggressive cask finish rather than the distillate. That being said it holds up well against whisky from its more historical counterparts such as Ireland and Scotland. Well worth investigating and hopefully I’ll get to try more expressions in the future.

As ever whisky has reaffirmed that it’s not wise to prejudge….it often leaves you looking a little foolish.

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