Cles des Ducs XO Armagnac, 70 cl

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Petite Champagne, sits astride the Charente and Charente-Maritime departments, around Barbezieux (Charente), Archiac and Jonzac (Charente-Maritime). Unlike Armagnac, Cognac historically developed focusing on export to the Netherlands and to England. Cognac was created by wine producers who wished to export their low-alcohol white wine to England and Holland but decided to distill it so it would better withstand the journey.

Armagnac - Wikipedia Armagnac - Wikipedia

The Baron de Lustrac is incredibly smooth and satiny. Extremely flavorful and complex it represents an exceptional value for an ultra-aged Armagnac. Château de Laubade, XO, Bas Armagnac, 40% ABV, 750 ml offers up intense notes of orange peel/marmalade, peach, apricot, toasted bread, dried and fresh herbs, and dried fruit, along with notes of cinnamon, chili pepper, other wood spices and a touch of savoriness. This is a smooth, full-bodied, mouth coating Armagnac blended from brandies 15 to 25 years old.

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Armagnac 2-49_Domaine Saint-Martin 3 travelling alambic that belongs to Marc St Martin, the mobile ... [+] distiller who works with many Armagnac producers. It's name is 'Marie-Jeanne'! Photo, courtesy Marc St Martin Armagnac is a place in the south west of France, to the west of Toulouse, in the historic Duchy of Gascony. There are sources reporting distillation in the region as early as 1411, but how close this would be to the modern brandy is hard to say. Certainly the Gascons have been distilling grapes here a long time. As with Cognac, Armagnac began to assume something like its present form in the 17th and 18th century when merchants discovered the effects of ageing in oak on the local spirit. Cognac on the coast near Bordeaux looked to Britain, Holland and the wider world, and became a global industry, whereas inland Armagnac would have been relatively inaccessible until the coming of the railways in the 19th century. Armin and Rémy Grassa share the same pleasure of innovating and have created over the last two years new wines such as Amplitude, a dry Gros Manseng, and Entracte, their first sparkling white wine.

Armagnac XO ch du Tariquet Spirit type - Waitrose Cellar

The Armagnac region produces 3 million bottles a year of brandy, compared to the 220 million produced in Cognac. However, the French drink only 4 million bottles of Cognac compared to 1.5 million of Armagnac. [3] Grapes [ edit ] The Armagnac region lies between the Adour and Garonne rivers in the foothills of the Pyrenees. The region was granted Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) status in 1936. The official production area is divided into three districts that lie in the departements of Gers, Landes, and Lot-et-Garonne. The region contains 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of grape-producing vines. The Fallières Decree of 25 May 1909 names the three districts as:This year, the Grassa family is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its partnership with Waitrose with its Bas-Armagnac XO. The region covers around 2,420 hectares (compared with over 75,000 hectares in Cognac) and is divided into three parts: Bas-Armagnac, Haut-Armagnac, and Armagnac-Ténarèze. Bas-Armagnac means ‘low’ because it is less than 120 metres above sea level. Around 50-60% of production is from this sub-region and the sandy, iron-rich soils are said to produce some of the finest grapes in Armagnac. Then there is the tiny Haut-Armagnac, the high ground, up to about 200 metres above sea level, with mainly chalky soils which produce a rare delicate and fruity spirit. It makes up less than 2% of production. Finally, there's Armagnac Ténarèze making up the rest of production, around 40%, with its rich clay and chalk soils leading to a more robust spirit. A lot of Armagnac will be blends of the three regions. The resulting brandy has a rustic, assertive character and aroma that requires additional cask aging to mellow it out. The best Armagnacs are aged in casks made from the local Monlezun oak. In recent years Limousin and Troncais oak casks have been added to the mix of casks as suitable Monlezun oak becomes harder to find.

Armagnac de Montal XO : The Whisky Exchange

Armagnac is rich in flavour and, depending on age, will usually have notes of caramel, cocoa, prunes, nuts, vanilla, oak and cinnamon. The opening is delightfully rich and smooth, with a subtle bite of spice on the finish. Understanding Armagnac Age Lettering Run by the Arnaud and Grassa families since 1912, Domaine Tariquet has a longstanding history of developing the production of Bas-Armagnac AOC and pioneered the production of white and rosé wines from Côtes de Gascogne IGP, during the 1980s. Armagnac is sold under several classifications, mostly referring to the age of the constituent brandies. Armagnac is allowed to be sold under vintages. When Armagnacs of different ages have been blended, the age on the bottle refers to the youngest component. A three-star, or VS, Armagnac is a mix of several Armagnacs that have seen at least one year of ageing in wood. For VSOP the ageing is at least four years, and for XO and Hors d'âge ten years. Older and better Armagnacs are often sold as vintages, with the bottles containing Armagnac from a single year, the year being noted on the bottle, aged for a minimum of 10 years. Vintages flavour and appearance change depending on factors including the grape, ageing time, barrel used for ageing, grape variety, weather that year, storage location and more. [7] The base wine of Armagnac is typically distilled on the fine lees. This is a common practice in Cognac; it’s used by major producers like Remy, Hine, Camus and Frapin.The Armagnac is first aged in new oak barrels for the first half of the maturation process and then aged in older, more mature casks in this double maturation process. The dark amber Armagnac is then ready for bottling. On The Nose