VAT 02 is the 15 Year Old in Glenfiddich's Perpetual Collection, the travel retail line built around the idea of a marrying vat that is drawn down and refilled in perpetuity. The standard Glenfiddich 15 has been built on the Solera principle since 1998, when then-malt master David Stewart adapted the sherry industry's fractional blending system to single malt. VAT 02 sits squarely in that lineage.
The component casks are American oak, European oak and new American oak, married together in the Solera tun. The result on the nose is the familiar Glenfiddich 15 character: honeyed sweetness, dried fruit, marzipan, the gentle heat of cinnamon. The palate is rounder and more sherried than VAT 01, with raisin and baked apple sitting on a bed of soft oak.
It is, in essence, the domestic 15 in airport clothing, bottled at the same 43% but presented in the Perpetual Collection's livery and priced for the duty free customer. There is nothing here to surprise anyone who has met the regular 15, but the Solera method does what it has always done: it smooths the rough edges and produces a malt of remarkable consistency batch to batch. A reliable Speyside, well made and honestly priced.
