A Weekend To Remember at The Melchior Club, Gleneagles
Lewis Chester DipWSET experiences the exclusive fine wine club’s members’ event in Scotland.
Modified on August 13, 2024 , Published on August 13, 2023
For around $12,800 and a guaranteed spend on fine wine or rare spirits (which comes in at just under $130,000), you can join The Melchior Club, an elite, exclusive group that currently has 15 members from across the globe. With a goal to grow to 50 members over the next two years, Clement Robert MS, previously the wine director at The Birley Clubs, is overseeing the Club’s management. He promises unprecedented access to the world of fine wines and rare spirits, including bringing members to meet top winemakers and distillers, personalities, wine journalists, Masters of Wine and Master Sommeliers. In an industry where allocations of the top wines are viewed as gold dust, members receive allocations of some of the world’s most sought-after fine wines and rare spirits.
Membership buys you more besides. “We arrange ‘money-can’t-buy’ experiences for our members, including wine tastings of rare vintages, large format tastings, exclusive wine dinners, and wine trips to some of the finest producers in all the key fine wine regions,” explains Clement. “We also have what we believe is the most exclusive fine wine concierge programme anywhere, with wine service recommendations in real time on WhatsApp, reporting of member’s collections, investment advice and bespoke tailoring of our members’ cellars.”
Clement Robert MS
As I am a buyer from Wine Source, the merchant that owns The Melchior Club, I asked Clement if I could experience one of the members’ exclusive wine and spirit trips to see if the offering was sufficiently enticing for wine collectors such as myself. As luck would have it, Clement’s first event since taking charge would be a fine wine and rare spirit event at Gleneagles in Scotland, the famed resort which recently won the Arts of Hospitality Award, and which is part of the inaugural World’s 50 Best Hotels 2023 Awards.
The three-day event proved to be a magical adventure, not only for me but for the members who flew in from Florence, London and Hong Kong for the experience. How better to start a trip to Scotland than with a rare whisky tasting from Stephen Martin of The Dalmore, one of Scotland’s top distilleries? Stephen didn’t hold back, giving us not only an incredible masterclass on whisky, but pouring some extremely rare and expensive bottlings for us to taste.
Gleneagles, Scotland, which plays host to the The Melchior Club’s weekends
First up, the 1989 33-year-old Dalmore Limited Edition Pauillac Premier Cru, aged for three years in Château Latour casks along its journey and priced at £6,800 (around $8,700) per bottle: delicious. We then tried a new release, never tasted before outside of the distillery, called the Cask Curation Series: three rare bottlings in a beautiful presentation case where the bottles can be inserted into a specially designed holding tray for display purposes. The three bottles were a 26-year-old whisky aged in Gonzalez Byass vintage sherry casks, a 28-year-old aged in Gonzalez Byass Matusalem sherry casks (my personal favourite) and a 43-year-old aged in Gonzalez Byass Apostoles sherry casks. The casks were originally used as part of a solera system to make sherry in Jerez—as opposed to the more ubiquitous casks made specifically for the whisky industry—thanks to Dalmore’s long-term partnership with Gonzalez Byass. At £25,000 ($32,000) for the set, one of the members’ from Hong Kong put down an immediate purchase order. Before we headed off to dinner, Stephen pulled out an extremely rare jewel for us to try: the 1969 Dalmore, finished in a port cask and then, from 2022, in a bonbon glass container. “No one, other than our cellar master, has ever tasted this whisky, including me,” Stephen told us. Simply divine.
Off we ventured to the underground wine cellar at Gleneagles for dinner. The cellar is simply magnificent, and more importantly, not too cold for us to enjoy a superb dinner under candlelight on a long table set up in the middle of the room. Surrounded by a huge collection of wines from Petrus and Domaine de la Romanée Conti, we enjoyed food paired with an array of fine wines, including a standout 2017 Corton Bressandes from Philippe Pacalet and a 2008 Château Lynch-Bages.
Whiskies from The Dalmore, whose Stephen Martin was part of proceedings
The next morning, members had an array of activities to choose from including archery or a round of golf at Gleneagles. I chose the more relaxed option of a massage in the spatial Wellness Spa. I then headed off for a five-minute walk across the beautiful gardens to reach The Birman, the golf course restaurant, which had a plethora of Indian food dishes on the menu that took me pleasantly by surprise. Post-lunch, we were whisked off in a luxury SUV to visit the distillery at Glenturret, a thirty-minute drive from Gleneagles.
Glenturret must be among the fanciest and most beautiful distilleries in Scotland. Recently purchased by two investors, including Silvio Denz, the owner of Lalique Crystal and Château Faugères close to St Emilion, the furnishings in the guest VIP area must have cost an absolute fortune, featuring Lalique doors, chairs, tables, mirrors, glassware and everything else besides. The gift shop was extremely enticing, especially for those who love the Lalique glassware that we were tasting from. And, the whisky wasn’t too bad either!
With little time to rest, we were soon back at the hotel, dressed and sitting down for dinner at Scotland’s only restaurant with two Michelin stars, Andrew Fairlie, located in the hotel’s main building. Also waiting to greet us was Aaron Masonde, UK ambassador for The Macallan. Lined up by our place settings were three whiskies from The Macallan, including one of the standouts of the trip, The Macallan London Limited Edition (more than £10,000, or around $13,000, per bottle), which was quickly consumed by most of the members in the hope that Aaron would give us a second pour. The eight-course tasting menu was sumptuous and plentiful, and respectful of the dishes Andrew Fairlie himself used to serve before his untimely passing in January 2019.
The Macallan, provider of a standout Limited Edition pour—a weekend highlight
Off to the American bar we stumbled after dinner, to engage in a Japanese drinking game that had us all in fits of laughter: Shabu Shabu—I can highly recommend it! The next morning, we transferred to Edinburgh to enjoy a fabulous pairing lunch in the private room at Michelin-starred The Timberyard, while enjoying the wines of Burgundy’s Yann Durieux and Domaine Prieure-Roch, before departing for home, enriched with many new friendships and memories.
The Melchior Club hosted an exclusive Château Lafite Rothschild dinner in September, and members will soon be off to enjoy the high-life in St Tropez, as well as going on a trip to the boutique wine hotel at the Abadia Retuerta estate in Spain before the end of the year. There is also a members’ Gala dinner in Paris, hosted alongside Château Cheval Blanc, on 15th December.
Click here to join this very special club.
Lewis Chester DipWSET is a London-based wine collector, member of the Académie du Champagne and Chevaliers du Tastevin, co-founder of Liquid Icons and, along with Sasha Lushnikov, co-founder of the Golden Vines® Awards. He is also Honorary President and Head of Fundraising at the Gérard Basset Foundation, which funds diversity & inclusivity education programmes globally in the wine, spirits & hospitality sectors.
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Photography:
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