Velier Enmore MEA 1990

Bottled by Velier, the Genoa house that did more than any other to put old Demerara on collectors' shelves, this is a 1990 vintage Enmore drawn from the Guyanese estate whose wooden Coffey still is the last of its kind anywhere. It wears the MEA marque and reflects the lighter, more elegant side of the Demerara family, woody without the tar and oil of a Port Mourant. Aged in Europe rather than the tropics, it keeps a paler colour and a slower, gentler maturity than its eighteen years in Guyana would have given.

Distilled from molasses and matured in ex-bourbon oak, it noses on herbal citrus, ripe mango and grapefruit, then turns syrupy and dark on the palate with yellow fruit, dried fruit and sawn timber. The finish is mineral and faintly liquorice over barrel char. Bottled at a full 61% without reduction, it rewards a few drops of water and slow sipping, intense and balanced in the way these continental Enmores often are.