Filey Bay Orange Wine Barrique

A different kind of Orange Wine

Over the last few years, deep within our warehouse, four ex-orange wine barriques have been happily maturing for this deliciously different special release. But this isn’t the skin contact orange wine you’d expect to find on the list of your local artisan wine bar.

“Vino Naranja del Condado de Huelva” comes from a very specific part of Spain, taking the sunshine and oranges that the south is famous for. Made in a similar way to other fortified wines but with a key difference: the grape spirit used to fortify the base wine has been aromatised with orange peel before being matured.

Why 46.2%?

Matured for just over 7 years, firstly in ex-bourbon casks for 3 years and 3 months, to soften the spirit, before being reduced to 50% abv and then re-racked into orange wine casks for a further 3 years and 10 months.

Over the years the abv has slowly slipped away as the angels took their share. In this very rare example, the strength in the bottle of 46.2% is the strength that the whisky reached in the cask all on its own with no final reduction before bottling.

The natural reduction of strength over many years in the orange wine casks is a big part of what makes this whisky so soft and delicious. It’s a process that requires constant checking of the casks to make sure we get the whisky out at precisely the right time.