Rum Review: Santa Teresa 1796
Santa Teresa 1796 Ron Antiguo de Solera
Up for review today is the Santa Teresa 1796 Ron Antiguo de Solera from Venezuela. Like so many rums, there is no definitive age statement on the bottle, but it does note that it contains rums over 15 years old. Aged in the solera style, the rum goes through a variety of used french oak casks before being combined by the master blender.
The 1796 refers to the year the Hacienda Santa Teresa was founded; this rum was originally released in 1996 to celebrate the bicentennial.
The bottle is lovely. Tall and upright, the label is classic. The natural cork stopper is topped by a red plastic cap, then hand dipped in red wax. Well done. The label on the back of the bottle contains quite a bit of information, but the minuscule script font makes it quite a chore to read.
Let’s pour a few ounces in the tasting snifter and see what we have here. In the glass, the color is more copper than mahogany, and a swirl yields a good number of legs that move downward at a medium pace. With my nose above the glass, I can detect caramel, vanilla, toffee, cherries and raisins. The astringency is moderate, and sweetness is muted.
On first taste, the front palate gets a good dose of the vanilla and caramel, which immediately gives way to orange peel and dried fruit. Shortly thereafter, the baking spices kick in with a lively finish that gradually fades back to the toffee. The mouth feel is spicy and somewhat thin. The more I sip, the more pleasant it gets, but I can’t help but feel the rum is lacking at mid-palate. There is a depth of flavor that I keep searching for, and it’s not forthcoming.
I honestly wasn’t impressed by this rum the first time I tried it at a local rum bar. It’s more spicy and dry than I was expecting from a Venezuelan rum, and I just wasn’t feeling it. Now that I’ve had a few more ounces, I have definitely warmed up to it, but I wouldn’t put it up there with my favorite rums. That said, it’s undoubtedly a quality rum, and based on some other reviews I’ve read, I appear to be in the minority on this one. Summing up, it’s a really nice rum, just not as good as I was expecting.
On to the scores :
- Appearance 1/1
- Aroma 2/2
- Mouth feel .5/1
- Taste 3.0/4
- Aftertaste 2/2
- Total 8.5/10
Inu A Kena 
I couldn’t agree with your assessment more;
‘I can’t help but feel the rum is lacking at mid-palate’
and
‘it’s a really nice rum, just not as good as I was expecting’
I’d add and too expensive for what it is, they are reaching too high on this one.
Cheers
Thanks, MJ. I have gone back to this one a few times and keep waiting for some transformation to occur, but it has yet to happen.
Your review encapsulates exactly what I felt..I kept hoping it would turn out better, but it never gelled. Mind you, the Bicentenario by the same company is a whole lot better (the claim is that it contains rums up to 80 years old)…but alas, overpriced.
Thanks for your comment, Ruminsky–I have yet to try the Bicentenario, but will keep an eye out for it.
Can’t help feeling you’ve been influenced by other reviews and given it a higher score than what you really thought.
I’ve just cracked open a bottle and it has similarities to Pampero than Diplomatico (it hasn’t been overly sugared or doesn’t taste to have been anyway).
Seems another well crafted rum that doesn’t quite have that extra little notch of flavour that would make it a 8-10 scoring rum (in my opinion) BUT it’s early days and I won’t be reviewing till another few visits.
As usual a very good review. Well written and some notes I will definitely use.
Yeah, this is an older review. Not sure what I would think of it now. I still have plenty left, so perhaps it’s time to revisit. In fact, I’d like to do that with a lot of rums I reviewed, but there’s just not enough time to do so these days.
Yeah same here I cringe when I read some of my reviews. And they are only a year old!