Sauza Tres Generaciones Tequila Anejo

I found the strong mineral fade on this Anejo to be dissapointing.

Sauza is a company with a lot of history, Cenobio Sauza established it in 1873 and they claim to be the first tequila ever to be sent into the United States. Also among the things that I found about this distillery is that they were the first to use steam instead of direct fire to heat the stills. Cenobios son, Eladio Sauza continued the business and then his son Javier that was the last Sauza to be a part of this tequila company. Sauza is made up to this day in the distillery La Perseverancia but now one of the largest companies in the business owns the company, Allied Domecq. Sauza has several different brands including the well known Jiro which was one of the large "well" (Under the Bar) tequilas in all the bars around America, Sauza Silver, Sauza Extra Gold, Hacienda which is new, Triada, Hornitos and the top of the line Tres Generaciones. 3G as some people call it is a long traditional tequila in Mexico honoring the three generations of Sauza's, years ago one of the top high end brands, but for many years now it has been losing a big part market share to companies such as Herradura and Don Julio. Their main business has been done with the lower end brands and not with Tres Generasiones. Their production methods have little to resemble the old days, they use high tech in every sense including in their cooking of the agave that gives a different taste, but I will go into that a little later. The distillery is located in the city of Tequila, just by La Rojena of Cuervo. Tres Generaciones Anejo used to be presented in a dark brown bottle with the faces of the three generations, Cenobio, Eladio and Javier, now it has changed to an amber bottle with images in the front chest of the bottle and a more "modern" looking label. It mentions in the bottle a triple distilling with I first saw it done by Casa Noble, and that must have improved 3G's new taste. 3G Anejo is a shiny copper color with a medium to heavy body, which looks fantastic in a cognac snifter, if you swirl it around the glass it will cling to it and slowly go down the sides leaving some nice legs. Main aromas that are perceived are pepper and oak with little raw agave and a slight trace of butterscotch and banana. This is a very nice combination of aromas but I would like to see a bit more of the agave specially cooked agave that is the base of great tequila. The reason we do not get this great cooked agave aroma is the cooking method of Sauza that is done a very special way in modern steam pressure cookers which do the job very fast but miss the essence of the this process. Taste is very nice with a little bit more alcohol than what I like but resembling the older style of tequilas that were made stronger. The notes of pepper and oak again are very much there, followed by raw agave and hits of butterscotch that combine very nicely to make a up scale spirit with a medium finish, I would like them to stay much longer. Not the best anejo but probably because of the omission of the old traditional methods but not bad for such a big company. Triple distilling help very much the quality of 3G maybe they should keep imitating the more boutique tequilas. This is not a tequila for mixing I would use it as an after dinner drink as I do with most anejos I like.