Taste Guide: Maury Wine Cask

Maury is an Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) for fortified vin doux naturel wines made in the Roussillon wine region of France. Almost all wines are red, made from at least 75% Grenache noir (Garnacha). Other permitted grapes are Grenache blanc, Grenache gris, Macabeu (Macabeo), Malvoisie du Roussillon (Tourbat), Syrah, Muscat and other local varieties. Although the grapes are different, they are used and marketed very much like port. It is made in the communes of Maury, Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet, Lesquerde, Tautavel and 
Rasiguères. The AOC was granted in 1936.
Maury is a "vin doux naturel" style created by adding fortifying spirits, such as brandy, to the wine in mid-fermentation. This halts the activities of the wine yeast leaving the wine with "natural" residual sugars. Maury is vinified in a manner similar to port, but initial aging is often conducted in large 25 liter (6.6 US gallon/5.5 imperial gallon) glass jugs known as bonbonnes, les dames jeannes or demi-johns. The wines may also be aged in wood for up to 15 years. The resulting wines vary in depth and concentration.
In food and wine pairings, Maury is often served as an apéritif or as an accompaniment to foie gras, duck and strong blue cheeses. For dessert, aged Maury, much like Banyuls, is recognized as a suitable pairing for chocolate. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

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At the end of May 2021, a delivery of casks that had previously contained French Maury fortified wine arrived at the Kilchoman distillery for the first time. The wine, which was still quite plentiful in the Maury butts, was emptied out and the casks were filled with Kilchoman distillate in the following days.

Participants at the Kilchoman tasting organised by Kilchomania.com at the Fèis Ìle 2025 with Anthony Wills and Hans-Peter Neumann were able to taste a cask sample of Maury Butt 1222/2021 for the first time. The whisky, then just four years old, caused quite a stir and was one of the favourites of the evening, already very well matured for its relatively young age.

At the end of March 2026, Kilchoman then released the Maury Cask Matured Limited Release, the first bottling of this cask type, continuing the series of wine cask full-maturations that began in 2014.

For the release, 19 Maury butts from 2021 were vatted and bottled at 50% abv. This yielded a total of approximately 15,000 bottles.

As one might expect, the whisky’s flavour profile lies somewhere between Port and Madeira cask maturations. The casks not only give it a beautiful red colour, but also notes of dates, raisins and dark honey, which complement Kilchoman’s natural peat smoke and citrus freshness wonderfully.

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