Naguelann ‘Dieil Sklaer’ Single Malt Whisky de Bretagne
Naguelann ‘Dieil Sklaer’ Single Malt Whisky de Bretagne
Embodying the very spirit of the historic Celtic nation of Brittany in northwest France, Naguelann is the vision of master distiller and blender Lénaïck Lemaitre. The maritime Bretagne peninsula has long been distinct from the rest of France, and the Naguelann whiskies (the name a playful tribute to Lénaïck’s hometown of Languenan) build a bridge across the channel to the shared culture of Scotland. Lénaïck is driven by the terroir of Brittany—the unique history and artistry of the place and its people. He digs deep into its Celtic roots, applying Scotch techniques with absolute precision, delivering something as personal as a fingerprint—an honest representation of the Breton spirit.
Lénaïck came into the whisky trade first as a bartender, developing a passion for malt whisky upon a tour of Scotch distilleries. Later, through his bottle shop in the historic fortress town of Saint-Malo, he began purchasing, blending, and aging whiskies, honing his skills and palate. Eventually, his reputation earned him attention from local distillers looking to collaborate with a skilled partner in order to develop the story of Breton whisky. Before long, he was purchasing a small pot still and building a tiny distillery in his former neighbor’s old stone home. Success led to expansion, necessitating the removal of planks from the ceiling to accommodate new equipment, creating a tightly-packed, quaint whisky workshop, without more than a few feet in any direction for the nimble Lénaïck to shuffle between components.
Dour, Koad, Gedal—Breton for ‘Water, Wood, Time’— is the elemental maxim that defines Lénaïck’s approach. Each whisky is distilled with a specific vision, going directly into their intended wooden cask for their entire term. “I only have recipes,” Lénaïck explains. “It’s not cask finishing, it’s cask starting.” This technique takes an incredible amount of courage—Lénaïck forges his own path by deciding the direction of each whisky at inception, and carefully guiding its individual path through his cellar. Once aged, blended, and rested, every Naguelann whisky is minimally filtered by gravity, then downproofed with Bretagne natural mineral water before bottling.
Naguelann’s single-malt Dieil trilogy of whiskies is each aged three-to-six years (dictated by continuous tasting to gauge the specific barrel’s impact) in different types of barrel where the varied wood influence presents like decisively applied splashes of color on a canvas of ocean-tinged, peated whisky. Dieil Sklaer (‘light’ in Breton), from fresh out of the still to bottling, ages in very worn, old Islay whisky barrels—a relatively neutral vector through which to best focus on the whisky itself, highlighting the singularity of its distillation. Like its Dieil siblings, Sklaer is composed of 100% locally-grown and -malted Bretagne barley, and is peated to a moderate 35ppm.
Flavor Profile: Spirit-forward, with fragrant green apples and distant sea smoke on the nose. The palate offers driftwood, green apple skins, with a pleasing freshness and integrated spice from the subtle barrel influence. The unctuous mouthfeel is kept in ideal tension with the proof.