Whisky Meets Wine Masterclass

Last saturday I had the pleasure to attend masterclass with the name "Whisky meets wine" at the whisky ships in Lucerne. The evening was hosted by Marcel Telser who is the owner of a whisky distillery in Liechtenstein, a tiny country next to Switzerland, and Jürgen Deibel who is an expert for spirits and a 40 years veteran in the whisky industry. Some of you may already know Jürgen Deibel because he was co author of one of the if not the single best book about the water of life - Michael Jackson: Whisky. Since I own a copy of this book I was quite excited to meet the man who wrote the chapter about distillation.

After travelling to Lucerne with my buddy Pascal we went to the whisky ships first and enjoyed a few drams. We went for some grain whisky because we wanted something light so we wouldn't overwork our palate. After an hour or so we went to the ship where the masterclass took place. It was all set up very beautifully. There was a total of 12 glasses at each place. 8 drams of whisky and 4 glasses of either sherry or wine.


The masterclass was very interesting. When the two hosts started talking we instantly knew that this was gonna be a fine evening because you could just see how passionate and knowledgeable they were about the topic. We learned a lot about the history of maturing whisky in differnet casks and the different types of sherry. The most interesting thing that we learned was that there aren't just sherry casks but differnet types. There are the solera and criadera casks which the sherry producers don't really want to give away to the distilleries and then you have casks which were used to transport whisky. Those have traditionally been the ones that were used by the distilleries to mature their spirits in. A new method are the seasoned casks. Those are casks who are produced for the only purpose of maturing whisky one day. They are produced and filled with sherry. Later the sherry is used to make vinagre while the casks are transported to Scotland. Or to put it in Deibels words: The casks are being matured by the sherry (My favourite line of the whole evening by the way). This method is most prominently used by Macallan.
The evening was very interesting and I learned a lot of new stuff. I also can't state enough how knowledgeable the hosts were. Thanks again to Marcel Telser and Jürgen Deibel for making this evening so awesome.

Those were the whiskies and wines that we tasted:
-Kavalan Solist Fino Sherry
-Fino Sherry (forgot the name but it is the one that is defined as the standard fino by the consejo)
-Benriach 15 Sauternes Finish
-Nomad Outland Blended Whisky
-Macallan Amber
-Alfonso Oloroso Seco Sherry by Gonzalez Byass
-Macallan Sienna
-Telsington VI Pinot Noir Matured
-Abt Pinot Noir (This is produced in the princely wine cellars of the Duke of Liechtenstein)
-Dalmore 15
-Matusalem Cream Sherry 30yo by Gonzalez Byass
-Benriach Solstice 17yo Port Finish

After the tasting I had the chance to have a quick chat with Jürgen Deibel which was also very interesting. We talked about the topics of no age statement whisky, the Compass Box transparency campaign, different types of oak and wood management. It was a true pleasure to talk and mostly listen to him and I hope to meet him again one day. Please go check out his blog if you are interested in reading the experiences of a true expert in the world of spiritts or go to the website of his consulting company.

Me with whisky legend Jürgen Deibel

After this fantastic masterclass me and Pascal went  back to the whisky ships to continue the dramming. Stay tuned for another article about this fantastic evening.

Cheers, U