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Port Ellen 1979 - 22 Year Old - Special Releases 2001 - 1st Release
Port Ellen 1979 - 2001. 22 Year Old. Bottled for Diageo Special Releases in 2001. 1st Release. One of 6000 bottles. 70cl. 56.2%.
An iconic Port Ellen, and a hugely important bottling for the distillery, Port Ellen First Release was introduced in 2001 by the recently-formed Diageo as a fancily-packaged upgrade to the popular Rare Malts editions. This PE met with a very positive reception and its success laid the foundations for the whole Special Release concept and, ultimately, the reopening of the Port Ellen distillery. This 1979 vintage 22-year-old was a run of 6000 bottles (!) and clocked in at 56.2%.
One of the great lost distilleries on Islay, Port Ellen was little-known in its lifetime with only a handful of official bottlings produced before the distillery closed in 1983 as part of Diageo forerunner Scottish Malt Distilleries’ swingeing cuts in response to the great whisky lake of the 1970s and 1980s.
Later rediscovered by malt fans thanks to fine independent bottlings from the likes of Gordon & MacPhail, Cadenhead’s and Signatory Vintage, Port Ellen’s reputation mushroomed through the 1990s and 2000s as sensational Rare Malts bottlings were followed by a string of legendary Diageo Special Releases and dozens of superb single cask bottlings from Douglas Laing.
In 2017 the whisky world was stunned when Diageo announced that work was taking place to bring Port Ellen distillery back from the dead - the new Port Ellen distillery is currently scheduled to commence production in 2023.
Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.
This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.