Tasting Notes: Wire Works – Full Port

Following last week’s St. George’s Day post, I’m sticking with the White Peak distillery and looking at one of their most recent releases: Full Port.

In February 2023 the team released “Double Oak Port” – a limited release of their lightly peated spirit which had spent its time initially in ex-bourbon barrels and then in port casks. The release soon sold out.

Flash forward to the end of the year and as the festive season invites its welcome addition of port drinkers, so too does White Peak distillery with its limited Full Port release. As the name suggests, this spirit has spent its whole maturation in port casks.

Using tawny port casks from the Dias Cooperage in Porto, the Wire Works signature lightly peated spirit started its maturation in 2019, and has now yielded 1,995 bottles of “Full Port” at 52.4% ABV.

As with all White Peak releases, the Wire Works whisky is bottled at its natural colour and without chill-filtration. At the time of release the 70cl bottles were made available at £67 RRP, with only a few remaining at the time of posting here.

Nose

A real Black Forest gateau affair: a meld of very cocoa-y chocolate, cherries, and vanilla/cream. With a bit of time the smells become more juicy in nature with orange, apple, and strawberry notes. There’s a tiny hint of bitterness and smoke behind those sensations too – ones that I could only really appreciate after I’d tasted it.

Taste

A fresh and punchy profile brings summery flavours to mind at first: strawberries and cream and afternoon teas with jam on scones. They are swiftly followed by a dirty sooty smoke that tars the sweet sensations. With time, those sugary sweet notes dissipate and bring richer wedding cake flavours: fruit cake and spices with sweet and nutty marzipan.

Finish

The fruits and smoke leave a jam or marmalade on toast sensation – with the smoke note being the most prevalent.

Verdict

A real medley of influences here. Lots of them sweet, but with smoke and a touch of bitterness that keeps things interesting. In fact, the nose didn’t really reveal the smoky flavour but it more than made up for it on the finish.

I was quite surprised that this was not totally port-like, ie it wasn’t all just red berries and sticky sweet notes. In hindsight, the tasting notes reminded me more of the flavours that traditionally go with a port!

I’ve really enjoyed each release I’ve tried from the Wire Works and they have delivered on many levels – this one just did not quite hit the same heights for me, but was enjoyable nonetheless.

Sample disclosure: I was able to taste this whisky courtesy of a sample swap with Malt Musings. The sample arrived after Brian made some nice comments about my post on the Wire Works Caduro (you can see that post here…). One thing led to another and before you know it, samples were soon exchanged through the postie (with Brian’s being a lot sooner than mine – apologies). A great way of sharing experiences and the cost of whisky tasting! All notes are an honest, fair, and independent review of the whisky, and not a promotion. Please drink responsibly. Please drink wisely.