The Unseen Valentino Zagatti Collection returns home

There are many impressive whisky collections in the world. From time to time, the owners of some of them let us take a look at parts of them online. However, there are some that the mere thought of makes your head spin. Collections-legends, collections that have everything else underneath them. One such truly legendary collection is The Unseen Valentino Zagatti Collection. A few words about her.

• The collection began with Valentino Zagatti quitting smoking in 1957 and deciding to spend the money thus saved by buying a bottle of interesting liquor every month.
• Currently, the collection consists of 2987 bottles.
• Among them is a bottle from 1843 (the date of bottling), believed to be the oldest surviving bottle of whisky.
• The age of the liquor contained in the collected bottles ranges from 3 to 64 years old.
• About 97% of the total is Scotch whisky, and 81% of the collection is single malt whisky.
• A quarter of the collection is whisky from three distilleries - Glenfarclas (126 bottles), Macallan (294 bottles) and Glen Grant (229 bottles).
• The collection includes whiskies produced during World War II, when only three Scottish distilleries - Macallan, Highland Park and Glenlivet - were in operation.
• As many as 22 bottles in the collection date back to the 19th century.

Interesting, isn't it?

When, in 2015, Valentino Zagatti, at the urging of family and friends, decided to sell the collection described above, its buyer, Dutch collector Michel Kappen, pledged to keep it intact for the next 10 years and create an opportunity to display it so that everyone could take a look at this unique collection. The exhibition was opened in person by Valentino Zaggati on October 9, 2018 in Sassenheim, the Netherlands.

Scotch Whisky Investments, a company headed by Michel Kappen, has decided to move the entire collection and display it in Scotland, at the company's new headquarters in the small village of Falkland in Fife County, a little north of Edinburgh. In the nearby village of Glenrothes, SWI plans to set up its whisky warehouses, and at the company's headquarters in Falkland, which is almost literally across the wall from the planned site for displaying the collection, there are plans to create an accommodation base, several houses for rent for tourists visiting the area.

As it turns out, the idea of exhibiting such an unusual and valuable collection is a whole series of problems to be solved, of which providing a safe place for nearly three thousand bottles is just one piece of the puzzle. Scotch Whisky Investments is faced with the equally complicated issue of safely transporting the various pieces of the collection to Scotland.

The historic county of Fife, a peninsula of sorts, an area enclosed to the north by the mouth of the River Tay, to the south by the Firth of Forth Bay, to the east by the North Sea coast, and to the west by the course of the A9 freeway, had little to do with Scotch whisky until a decade ago. Or at least in the minds of the average whisky lover with the Scotch of life did not associate with it. There was not a single Scotch malt whisky distillery there, and hardly anyone knew of the existence of the huge warehouse complex at Cambus. The first swallow of change came in 2005, when the Cuthbert brothers decided to expand their farm's operations to include seasonal whiskey production, but it was a long time before Daftmill was taken seriously, and even longer before it gathered around it a sizable circle of devoted admirers. More new distilleries are now operating in Fife, most of which began production in 2014 and beyond. They include InchDairnie, Lindores Abbey, Kingsbarns or Aberargie. Many of them have a wide range of offerings aimed at visitors, and their proximity to such tourist destinations as Edinburgh, St. The fact that the city of St. Andrews, Stirling, Falkirk or Perth has a well-developed infrastructure makes it certain that any investment in tourism here is most appropriate and will undoubtedly bring tangible benefits. It can be assumed that this is what was behind the choice of Falkland near Glenrothes as the headquarters of Scotch Whisky Investment and the location of the Valentino Zagatti collection.

No date is known for the completion of the preparation of the exhibition in Scotland and its opening to the public. It's worth keeping an eye on the news from the world of whisky, especially if you plan to visit this corner of Scotland.


[25.06.2022 / photo: The Unseen Valentino Zagatti Collection]