750 ml bottle. Pours a dark amber with full foamy head. Aromas of candi sugar, sweet white wine, oak, raisins and toasted malts. Flavors follow same but more sutble and without the sweetness/sugars. And more port like. Very dry. A nice sipper.

The 2023 edition of this Excellence du Val-Dieu, apparently a wine barrel aged version of their Grand Cru (the best in their regular range in my opinion) and not to be confused with the 2024 edition, which was aged on rum barrels. Bottle from the Delhaize supermarket in Lokeren. Snow white, thickly moussey, fluffy, cobweb-lacing head on a hazy deep peach blonde robe with pale brownish-beige tinge, resulting in a 'dirty amber' of sorts clearly betraying oxidation. Aroma of demi sec wine, Pineau de Charentes, ripe peach, sweet sherry, Doyenné pear, pronounced vanillin-exuding oak wood, raisins soaked in bourbon, overripe yellow plum, apricot jam, honey, white port, Camembert and something 'sweaty', coriander seed, something earthy (cooked sweet potato), marmalade, wet clay. Sweet, fruity onset, ripe pineapple, sweet pear, peaches in brandy, touch banana, gooseberry jam perhaps; vague 'grapey' sourish edge from the start, quite vinous and full body with moderate carbonation. Sweetish, bready, bit biscuity but also somewhat 'thinnish' body, smooth but with considerable residual sweetness (honeyish), becoming glucose- and raisin-like especially when the connection with the wine is made; yeasty fruitiness then blends with actual grape fruitiness, over soft floral hops and through a heap of vanillin-flavouring oak wood including gently astringent tannic effects. All this is of course followed by Pineau- and brandy-like, warming alcohol, while vanillin and raisin linger; that said and for a beer this strong, the alcohol warms without scorching and even adds to an overall (fortified) wine-ish effect. Remains sweet till the end, but generally this is, to me personally at least, the most interesting and layered Val-Dieu beer to date, even to the extent that I almost regret having missed out on earlier Excellence editions. I will certainly keep an eye on this series next year - but the price tag of 20 euros put on these bottles by Delhaize still remains unjustified.