Three Glen Grant for Diego


March 23, 2024

Angus's Corner
From our correspondent and
skilled taster Angus MacRaild in Scotland

Three Glen Grant for Diego

We received some extremely sad and shocking news this week, that we lost Diego Sandrin, a great man and a great friend of Whiskyfun too.

It is always hard to know what to say in such circumstances, and without wishing to eulogise too much, I would simply say he was a remarkable and extremely talented man. I believe all that knew him would agree upon his generosity. He was someone who always had time for people and prioritised his sense of humour and his sense of fun before what he considered more boring things such as business. He was a person in who's company you always, and very quickly, found yourself laughing.

He was loyal and enthusiastically supportive as a friend, especially to younger people such as myself, and to Phil and Simon Thompson, with our respective distillery projects which he happily and generously backed. He was also very clearly a complete whisky geek in the truest sense, as evidenced in his remarkable collection and stash of bottles, but also in his eagerness and willingness to open bottles and to taste and share whisky. He persisted with this in the face of silly prices and silly people with his absolutely typical coolness and generosity. Without Diego and his generosity, it is true to say there would be many great drams missing from my tasting experience, and the archives of Whiskyfun would be undoubtedly less populated with notes for fascinating rarities and discoveries.

The fact that he would create very cool private bottlings by mixing old bottles and samples together, or his notoriously great 'finished Laphroaig' private bottlings (WF93 no less!). Always illustrated the kind of 'precisely no shits given', 'life is about having fun' attitude that he exuded in all that he did.

His great achievements were really in music though, he was a successful, professional musician and songwriter, which is where he made his mark on this world most profoundly. My fondest memories of Diego are from visiting him in Italy and discussing music and guitar playing every bit as much as we talked whisky.

He touched many, many lives in our community and he was one of those rare people that everyone seemed to love and have time for. For me, and for a lot of our friends, I know that memories of great trips we took together such as the Islay Odyssey and the Pre-War Whisky Tour are some of the most cherished experiences and memories of our whisky lives. Made that bit more poignant by losing one of the people who was so integral to making these such special adventures. A man that stands in Bowmore visitor centre, belting out Italian opera with a glass of (independently bottled) 1966 Bowmore in one hand is truly the sort of person we all need more of in our lives.

Our thoughts are with his family, and especially with his young children. And we'll dedicate these few humble notes for some glorious old Glen Grants to his memory.

Here's to you Diego!

Glen Grant 1965/2004 (40%, Gordon & MacPhail)
Colour: amber. Nose: a simply gorgeous combinations of nectars, pollens, precious honeys, waxes and soft, detailed earthiness. Fig jam, prunes in Armagnac, sumptuous leathery aromas and feelings of old library books, linseed oil and hessian. The kind of whisky that demands a frankly outrageous measure in a Cognac snifter glass. Mouth: soft, abundant and supply fruitiness. Dark sticky fruits, golden sultanas, moist Guinness cake, treacle, lamp oil and old sweet madeira. Then those lovely honey and mead notes return, along with greener fruits and flower nectars. Sumptuous, gorgeous and completely deadly! Finish: long, rancioed, liquorice, salted caramel and dark chocolate and then more layers of tobaccos, mint, treacle and dark fruits. Comments: almost embarrassingly delicious, a mere 91 points in technical terms but the kind of juice you could guzzle until the stars go out. Old Glen Grants seem to nail this style more often than any other whisky I believe - it's why I just adore them so much.
SGP: 651 - 91 points.

Glen Grant 20 yo 'Director's Reserve' (75 proof, OB, Giovinetti Import, 1970s)
Colour: gold. Nose: the densest, most superb honey aroma. Pure honeycomb, coconut, acacia, wormwood, ancient yellow Chartreuse and resinous fir and hardwoods. What I adore about these old official/G&M Glen Grants from this era is how they deliver what is in some ways a rather singular profile, but that profile is just utter beauty and poetry in a glass. You could also mention waxes, medical tinctures, citrons and crystallised exotic fruits. Mouth: perfection! Glorious soft threads of dry, herbal peat, interwoven with any number of preserved and crystallised green and exotic fruits you care to mention. Also some marrow, mechanical oils and wee tarry aspects adding body and power. There's also metallic notes, bouillon stock and a more pure and punchy waxiness coming through now. Finish: long, wonderfully resinous, honeyed, herbal, waxy and becoming mentholated and showing wee notes of dried flowers and yellow fruits. Comments: as I have said before, old Glen Grants always were, and remain, steadfastly terrible. That is all.
SGP: 000 -30 points. (ok, ok… 562 - 92 points, whatever!)

Glen Grant 67 yo 1955/2022 (49.8%, Gordon & MacPhail Private Collection for LMDW, Collection Antipodes, 1st fill sherry butt, cask #839, 100 bottles)
Colour: deep brownish amber. Nose: stunningly deep and superbly earthy. Riddled with these wonderful mulchy and mushroomy notes that lead into umami seasonings such as Maggi along with sultana, fig and prune on the fruitier side of things. Add to that these damp and deep layers of camphor, tobacco leaf, cigar humidor and musty wine cellar funk. One of these hypnotic old sherried whiskies where the sherry seems to have somehow managed to remain fresh and there's enough fruitiness and complexity in the nose to keep everything balanced. Mouth: pure walnut wine laced with ancient cigars, pipe tobacco, the bitterest and most gorgeous dark chocolate with tiny inflections of sea salt and pure umami. A whisky where the sherry influence has run so deep you cannot help but start to wonder about Amontillado? Oloroso? etc. Then the usual tars, resinous herbal and medicinal aspects and bitter dried mint notes. It's certainly old and certainly has taken up the tannin of the wood but it remains wonderfully alive and these peppery, medicinal qualities that really make you think of some old G&M Taliskers are utterly sublime. Finish: impeccably tarry, rustic, earthy and long. Layered with tobaccos, typically glorious old rancio and balsamic, and also some dark honeys, herbal tinctures, aniseed, fennel and salted liquorice. Remains alive and still showing a glorious balance of bitter herbs, umami, earths and preserved dark fruits right to the end - whenever that may arrive… Comments: priced and boxed up as a rich person's plaything, which is extremely sad because it's actually a rather spellbinding and hauntingly brilliant liquid. An astonishing flavour that only time and the greatest distillate and oak ingredients can yield.
SGP: 562 - 92 points.

Diego, my brother

What to say about Diego, an entire book wouldn't be enough, but I want to tell you something about him as I knew him in these 20 years of beautiful friendship. The most important thing was the constant laughter about everything, not just whisky, like the football rivalry between Juventus and Milan (I jokingly gave the kids a Milan football shirt so he could get angry every time he saw it). I don't think I've ever seen him really angry in all these years, and the time spent with him flew by too fast.
As you may know, we bought many whisky collections together and never, and I mean never, had discussions about how to divide them. We invented a method which consisted of dividing them into more or less equal blocks and drawing lots with a BIC lighter.
I remember him as a devourer of sweets and biscuits, and I recall during a car journey (I believe it was to go to D Day) we stopped at a bar and he then bought a pack of 50 Kinder chocolates, and after two hours of travel, I asked for one and he said... there are only 5 left hahaha he had eaten 45 in 2 hours.
A generous, humble, and extremely intelligent person who I miss at every moment and I can't stop thinking about him, and every time I open my phone, I hope to see a message from him on WhatsApp with the laugh of the day.
There are many other things to say, but I am very sad and cannot find the words to express myself. However, I want to share what Diego loved. Diego cherished his family, friends, football, whisky, and collecting. He also had a profound passion for dogs and contributed by being part of an association "SALVAUNCANE" where they have rescued and treated over 1000 dogs. Therefore, I propose in his honour, for those who wish, to make a donation to them: Paypal clodine.nuvola@gmail.com with the note "In Diego's memory".

Massimo 'Max' Righi

Diego

Diego is an incredible person. Indeed, I cannot speak of him in the past tense, even though that will inevitably happen one day. He's someone who invades you without you realising it, in the sense that when he's gone, you notice he was actually a part of you. It's a peculiar feeling. A sort of positive Alien, I suppose. That must be what friendship is.

But it's true that Diego has countless facets, as they say in marketing. He's larger than life. First, he's Italian. The French adore the Italians (but please don't tell them, they'll just mock us again). Then, he's a real trendsetter, it seems. For instance, I've always seen him wearing beanies, well before all the hipsters on this planet started copying him. And I've known Diego for nearly twenty years, I believe it was Massimo who introduced us. Additionally, he's an exceptional musician. He came to play his hits for us at my wife's and my hundredth birthday (combined, of course). The audience loved him and I was very proud. I had just lost my father that week and he had greatly lifted my spirits! He also came to our annual D-Day here at WF Towerz. His work in music, after a punk period, including with Elvis's daughter and under his own name, is well-known, but did you know he had also started producing rather experimental jazz records? Anyway, he has very funny anecdotes from his American showbiz days to tell. And I've listened to demos of his new album, sublime. With real strings! I hope it will be released soon. I also recently discovered that we share a passion for a late Italian musician called Lucio Battisti – I recommend 'Amarsi un po'. You're welcome. And then the jokes we all sent each other at the beginning of Covid, remember? Diego's were the funniest, without a doubt. Even his recent sponsorship of a junior football team in Africa with an Ugandan coach, who turned out to be Nigerian and ran off with the cash, made me laugh a lot (but less than him). And of course, whisky and spirits in general. His wonderful collection. And the day he sent me a sample of Macallan 50 years 1928 to see what I thought of it. Could I also taste the Adami, please? After all, he's Italian, Valerio Adami... Or take, for example, the ultra-rare Port Ellen twelve years Samaroli, it was Diego who introduced it to me. Port Ellen, indeed... Incidentally, but just as a fun fact, I remember that after the big merger, many were calling the new entity, 'Diageo', by the name of 'Diego'. It's crazy. Anyway, see you next time, Diego, are you coming to Limburg this year? At any rate, I hope you'll come to our D-Day!

By the way, this week, in the night sky above Port Ellen, under an absolutely clear sky, I saw a shooting star.