Valinch & Mallet Diamond The Spirit of Art Versailles 1996

Stunning nose. Mouth slightly less complex but still so easy and pleasant. Serious stuff!

A rum tasted at the WLP. The alcohol stings a little on the nose and the aromas struggle to express themselves, varnished wood and fermented yellow fruit. The palate is more balanced than the nose, full-bodied with caramel and prunes. You can almost feel crystallized brown sugar on the sides of the tongue. The finish is a little too bitter, but with lovely fruit.

Nose of yellow fruit withered in the sun, mango, papaya, nice attack, fairly round, warm brown sugar, alcohol finish, but nicely coated.

Nice, drinkable, but nothing extraordinary

Very close to ‘98 ICBU batch, and nothing to do with Versailles&Diamond stills in my opinion. Alcohol integration is not that good, probably because it’s too light-bodied. Even by ignoring expectations due to Velier’s bottling, I’m disappointed by the rum itself.

Diamond and Versailles 1996 naturally arouse the highest expectations - which are not met here, partly because this is a completely different rum in terms of type. Trying to ignore these (unfair) expectations, the rum certainly has something going for it, but reminds me of a blend of a young continental aged Guyana rum with a somewhat older Versailles. However, I would have thought the 27 years impossible blind. Okay, but not any more.

Very old diamond with a very low average rating. Curious what's up with that. N: sort of Port Mourant-ish. Aniseed. Light. Sugarcane. Light woodiness. Green apple. Not brilliant. Very dense and closed. T: strangely thin and spirity. Litchi. Pretty strong and alcoholic. Not at all typical Diamond flavours and for sure a lot younger in taste. I would not have bottled this. It has a few interesting flavours but it's also a tad too hot and light to make it interesting enough

#4122 This one was a huge disappointment. The overall profile is not very well balanced and I wonder if they just had to do a quick set this time? Had expected way more from this set 😮

Terrible désillusion pour Valinch & Mallet. Un blend millésimé entre Diamond et Versailles laissait beaucoup d’espoirs, mais que nenni. On se trouve en face d’un rhum très réservé, qui peine à s’aérer avec le bois, la vanille, la réglisse, les fruits secs et les notes herbacées. La timidité est encore plus flagrante en bouche. Épices, bois, caramel, fruits secs et légers zestes de citron font face à une amertume déconcertante et à une longueur très limitée. Aucun punch dans les saveurs en bouche. Par ailleurs, l’intégration de l’alcool est perfectible. La finale manque de longueur et souffre du manque d’arômes exprimé au nez et au palais. On retrouve un côté médicinal sur les plantes et le tabac, mais le constant reste sans appel : un terrible assemblage continental qui ne vaut pas son prix et qui ternit l’image d’un embouteilleur qui a habitué à mieux.

Another disappointing pick. Not a bad rum, indeed, but nose is really closed and on the mouth it's pleasant but you expect much more complexity and also a bit of "intensity" with such a long ageing

Too bad, very disappointing. Despite the age, the alcohol is not well integrated and the rum tastes very much like neutral alcohol.