A street artist known for murals the size of a building has just designed packaging you can hold in one hand. The Dalmore Portfolio Series 2026 is the third and final chapter of the distillery’s art collaboration with V&A Dundee, and this year the artwork comes from Aberdeen-born muralist KMG, who built her designs from the seaweed, flowers and plants growing along the Cromarty Firth outside the distillery.
The Dalmore Portfolio Series 2026 is a travel retail exclusive trio of Highland single malts, each finished in red wine casks from France: No.1 in Bordeaux wine casks, No.2 in Châteauneuf-du-Pape casks and No.3 in select Bordeaux Cabernet Sauvignon casks from a Premier Cru Classé estate. All three are natural colour and non-chill filtered. The packaging is by Scottish street artist KMG, commissioned through V&A Dundee. The series reaches airport boutiques worldwide from September 2026 and is sold in limited quantity at V&A Dundee. The Dalmore’s own boutique lists the three-bottle set at £2,700.
Dalmore Portfolio Series 2026 at a glance
- Release: The Dalmore Portfolio Series 2026 (third and final edition)
- Whiskies: No.1 Bordeaux Wine Cask Finish, No.2 Châteauneuf-du-Pape Wine Cask Finish, No.3 Select Bordeaux Cabernet Sauvignon Cask Finish
- Style: Highland single malt Scotch, no age statement, natural colour, non-chill filtered
- Bottle size: 70cl
- Price: £2,700 for the set of three (The Dalmore boutique)
- Artist: KMG, in partnership with V&A Dundee
- Availability: Global travel retail boutiques from September 2026, limited stock at V&A Dundee
- ABV and bottle counts: not yet published by The Dalmore for 2026 (see editor’s note)
What is the Dalmore Portfolio Series?
The Portfolio Series pairs a trio of wine cask finished single malts with packaging commissioned from a Scottish artist, chosen together with V&A Dundee, Scotland’s design museum. It launched in 2024 and has run as an annual release for global travel retail, which means duty free boutiques in international airports rather than high street shops.
The whisky side follows a fixed format. The Dalmore’s whisky makers select three parcels of spirit, each finished in a different style of French red wine cask, and the three rise in rarity and price from No.1 to No.3. What changes each year is the artist and how they read the distillery.
In 2024 that was Edinburgh street artist Fraser Gray, who worked from the architecture of the distillery buildings. In 2025 graphic artist Gabriella Marcella of the risograph studio RISOTTO built her designs on the Mackenzie tartan, a nod to the family who owned The Dalmore for generations. For 2026, the brief went outdoors.
Who is KMG, the artist behind the 2026 bottles?
KMG was born in Aberdeen and is now based in Edinburgh. She is known for character-based outdoor murals with bold lines and bright, playful figures, and her work draws on Celtic folklore, oral storytelling and cultural memory. One of her murals is at Aberdeen Airport, a neat link for a release that lives in airports.
Her route into art began in the early 2000s with activist stickers and stencils, before moving into graffiti and street art. Today she works on commissioned murals and installations and regularly collaborates with community groups, healthcare organisations and schools.
The Dalmore’s corner of the Highlands is personal for her. As a child she visited her grandparents in nearby Dornoch, on the other side of the Dornoch Firth from the distillery’s home in Alness.
“When I arrived at The Dalmore distillery and looked around, it became immediately obvious to me that the designs should be inspired by the landscape,” KMG says.
How KMG turned wine cask flavours into colour
The process mirrored how she makes a mural. KMG photographed the shoreline of the Cromarty Firth and the land around the distillery, sketched the natural forms, cut them out and layered them into collages.
The palette is where the whisky comes in. The five colours, vermilion, coral, brown, green and yellow, were chosen in response to the flavours of the three finishes. “I considered how the flavours within the whisky, raisin, fresh ginger, vanilla, blackcurrant and dark cocoa notes, would translate visually and then formed the basis for the colours from there,” she says.
“Every single element within the artwork comes from the landscape around the distillery: the flowers, plants and seaweed.”
It is a lovely inversion of her usual work. A mural belongs to a street; these belong on a shelf at home.
The three Dalmore Portfolio Series 2026 whiskies
The notes below are The Dalmore’s own. We have not tasted the 2026 bottlings and will update this piece if we get them in the glass.
| No.1 | No.2 | No.3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finish | Bordeaux wine casks | Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine casks | Select Bordeaux Cabernet Sauvignon casks |
| Cask source | One of Bordeaux’s oldest estates, gravelly soils | Vineyards on the stony soils of Châteauneuf-du-Pape | A Premier Cru Classé estate |
| Nose | Lemon drizzle cake, Manuka honey, grape pulp | Pink grapefruit, ginger, marmalade, raisins | Dark forest fruits, Seville orange, cedar |
| Palate | Rich vanilla, citrus, ripe fruit | Crushed almonds, sultanas, fresh ginger | Blackcurrant, demerara, dark cacao |
| Style | Brightest, most pastry-led | Spicier, nuttier | Darkest and most structured |
| Who it’s for | Fans of the classic Dalmore citrus and vanilla | Drinkers who like spice with their fruit | Red wine drinkers and collectors after the top bottle |
The Dalmore Portfolio Series No.1: Bordeaux Wine Cask Finish (distillery notes)
Nose: Lemon drizzle cake, Manuka honey, grape pulp, Golden Delicious apple
Palate: Rich vanilla, citrus, ripe fruit
Finish: Poached pear drenched in creamy custard
ABV: TBC | Cask: Bordeaux red wine cask finish | Size: 70cl
The Dalmore Portfolio Series No.2: Châteauneuf-du-Pape Wine Cask Finish (distillery notes)
Nose: Pink grapefruit, ginger, vanilla, hints of marmalade, toffee apple and raisins
Palate: Crushed almonds, sweet sultanas, fresh ginger, soft liquorice
Finish: Poached pear and cranberries
ABV: TBC | Cask: Châteauneuf-du-Pape red wine cask finish | Size: 70cl
The Dalmore Portfolio Series No.3: Select Bordeaux Cabernet Sauvignon Cask Finish (distillery notes)
Nose: Dark forest fruits, Seville oranges, liquorice, cedar wood
Palate: Blackcurrant, baked apples, demerara sugar, warm dark cacao
Finish: Bergamot, passion fruit, baked brioche, balanced wood spice
ABV: TBC | Cask: Bordeaux Cabernet Sauvignon cask finish, Premier Cru Classé estate | Size: 70cl
Why red wine casks suit The Dalmore
The Dalmore’s house style leans on orange peel, chocolate and dried fruit, a profile usually built on ex-bourbon American oak and long-aged sherry casks. Red wine casks push that in a different direction: the grape brings red and black fruit, a little tannic grip and, with Cabernet Sauvignon, notes like blackcurrant and cedar that sit naturally beside the distillery’s citrus.
The three finishes also form a clear ladder. The Bordeaux cask on No.1 keeps things bright and pastry-like, the Châteauneuf-du-Pape on No.2 adds spice and nuttiness, and No.3 goes darkest, with cacao and wood spice. Bottling at natural colour and without chill filtration means what you see in the glass is what the casks gave.
Who makes The Dalmore?
The Dalmore sits on the northern shore of the Cromarty Firth near Alness, in Scotland’s northern Highlands. It was founded in 1839 and for much of its history was run by the Mackenzie family, whose clan stag still appears on every bottle. Today it is part of Whyte & Mackay.
The distillery is known for an unusual still house of mismatched still sizes and for its long partnership with sherry house González Byass, and in recent years for an intense run of cask-led limited editions. This month alone it has also closed its Cask Curation Series with the Madeira Cask Edition, a set of 30, 34 and 45 year old malts. The distillery’s reimagined Highland home reopened to visitors earlier in 2026.
The partnership with V&A Dundee has run since 2020 and has also produced The Luminary Series, which paired The Dalmore’s whisky makers with architects including Kengo Kuma, the designer of the museum itself.
Dalmore Portfolio Series 2026 price and where to buy
The Dalmore’s online boutique lists the Portfolio Series 2026 as a three-bottle set of 70cl bottles at £2,700, with complimentary delivery. That boutique ships across the UK and a small selection of products to some EU markets, so check at checkout whether the set ships to your country.
The main route is travel retail. The series is rolling out to The Dalmore’s partners in airports worldwide from September 2026, and a limited allocation is sold at the V&A Dundee museum shop in Scotland. Previous editions launched first at a single hub airport (London Heathrow in 2024, Singapore Changi in 2025) before spreading wider, so availability at your departure airport may vary through the autumn.
For context, the 2025 edition was priced individually at £500, £750 and £1,000, a combined £2,250. Individual 2026 prices have not been confirmed yet.
Is the Dalmore Portfolio Series 2026 worth it?
This is a release for two kinds of buyer. The first is the Dalmore collector who owns the 2024 and 2025 sets: with this being the final edition, the 2026 set completes the trilogy of artists, and that alone will make it the one to own.
The second is the traveller who wants a bottle that is clearly of its place. KMG’s designs come straight from the Cromarty Firth shoreline, and the whisky inside is The Dalmore’s citrus and chocolate style run through three quite different French red wine casks. If you are flying through a major hub this autumn and like fruit-forward, wine-finished Highland malt, No.1 is the natural place to start, and No.3 is the bottle to hunt if you want the rarest of the three.
What we would like to see before a full verdict: the 2026 ABVs and bottle counts. Once The Dalmore confirms them, we will add them here.
Frequently asked questions about the Dalmore Portfolio Series 2026
What is the Dalmore Portfolio Series 2026? It is a limited trio of Highland single malt Scotch whiskies from The Dalmore, each finished in a different French red wine cask, with packaging by Scottish street artist KMG commissioned through V&A Dundee. It is the third and final edition of the Portfolio Series, which launched in 2024 as a travel retail exclusive.
Who designed the Dalmore Portfolio Series 2026 packaging? The artwork is by KMG, an Aberdeen-born, Edinburgh-based street and mural artist whose work draws on Celtic folklore and storytelling. She built layered collages from plants, flowers and seaweed found around the distillery on the Cromarty Firth, and chose vermilion, coral, brown, green and yellow in response to the whiskies’ flavours.
What casks are used in the Dalmore Portfolio Series 2026? No.1 is finished in Bordeaux wine casks from one of the region’s oldest estates. No.2 is finished in casks from Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the Rhône Valley. No.3 is finished in select Bordeaux Cabernet Sauvignon casks from a Premier Cru Classé estate. All three are bottled at natural colour and non-chill filtered, with no age statement.
How much does the Dalmore Portfolio Series 2026 cost? The Dalmore’s online boutique lists the full set of three 70cl bottles at £2,700 with complimentary delivery. Individual bottle prices for 2026 have not been published. For comparison, the 2025 edition sold at £500 for No.1, £750 for No.2 and £1,000 for No.3, so £2,250 combined.
Where can I buy the Dalmore Portfolio Series 2026? It is sold mainly in travel retail boutiques at international airports from September 2026, with a limited allocation at the V&A Dundee shop in Scotland. The set is also listed on The Dalmore’s online boutique, which delivers across the UK and ships selected products to some EU markets.
What does the Dalmore Portfolio Series 2026 taste like? According to The Dalmore, No.1 brings lemon drizzle cake, Manuka honey and vanilla. No.2 adds pink grapefruit, ginger, sultanas and almonds. No.3 is the darkest of the three, with forest fruits, Seville orange, blackcurrant, dark cacao and cedar wood. These are distillery notes; The Daily Whisky has not tasted the 2026 bottlings yet.
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