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We are proud to bring you our first ever whisky matured exclusively in rare Marsala Vergine barriques, and sourced from the historic Frazzitta winery in Sicily. Marsala Vergine wines are known for their nutty, dry, and deeply oxidative profile, much like a dry sherry.
Bottled at a robust 50.7% ABV and limited to just 12,300 bottles worldwide, this limited release is lightly peated, laden with flavours of baked apples with apricots and lingering smoked toffee, and also marks a new era in our packaging journey.
Sicily is Italy’s largest wine region with more than 300 wineries, and a winemaking history dating back 3,000 years; it’s even said that Julius Caesar was partial especially to Sicilian wines.
Our Marsala Cask Limited Release presents a unique meeting of two coastal terroirs: Sicily and Raasay. What sets this release apart is not just the cask type, but the provenance and pedigree of the wood itself. The casks used are Marsala Vergine DOC barriques from Frazzitta, one of Sicily’s oldest Marsala producers, known for aging their wines for decades in traditional oxidative environments. Marsala Vergine is one of the highest classifications in the Marsala wine family and has been protected by the Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC) since 1969 – the very first in Italy’s history.
Key Characteristics of Marsala Vergine:
Marsala Vergine wines are known for their nutty, dry, and deeply oxidative profile, much like a dry sherry, and during maturation these Frazzitta Marsala barriques impart residual Marsala flavours and oxidative compounds from the oak, leading to rich nutty, dried fruit, saline, herbal and maritime notes.
Tasting Notes:
“Marsala Vergine casks, particularly from a historic producer like Frazzitta, are rare in the whisky industry, and have brought an exceptional depth of flavour to our Raasay spirit. The casks we’ve used to mature our whisky have been seasoned with the bone dry Marsala wine for up to 30 years. It’s one of the most distinctive cask maturations we’ve ever released, elegant and assertive all at once.”
– Alasdair Day, Co-founder & Master Distiller, Isle of Raasay Distillery
Like everything we do, we take our inspiration always from our island home. Raasay has a geological abundance unlike anywhere else in the UK, and has been a favourite spot for Geologists for decades. Deriving from Raasay’s incredibly diverse geology, cool slate grey tones are reflective of our island’s rugged volcanic landscape.
“This new look is about giving our range a clearer identity, we’ve rapidly grown in the last few years and have released many truly exceptional whiskies, this new packaging will help differentiate our limited releases from our core range whilst still telling the story of where we come from and what makes our whisky so unique.”
– William Dobbie, Managing Director, Isle of Raasay Distillery
Our island is built on geological greatness and you can see examples of this in the images below. Raasay is home to Jurassic sandstone, ancient Lewisian gneiss, volcanic basalt, shale, and more. Some formations have been found to be over a billion years old!
