Armagnac

​After Nizza came lunch, then an afternoon session.  I chose to attend the one on Armagnac.  I am not a particular fan of brandy in any form; brandy being defined as distilled wine.  I was hoping that Armagnac might be a more palatable form of brandy.  I was wrong.
Not knowing (or caring) much about brandy, I have had to do a bit of research to write this blog.  As pointed out in the presentation, Armagnac is produced in the Armagnac region of France (hence the name), an area south of Bordeaux.  The more well-known French brandy, Cognac, comes from the Cognac region which lies north of Bordeaux.  There are some significant differences other than geography.
First, Cognac is double distilled, whereas Armagnac undergoes only one distillation step.  Hence Armagnac has more of the complexity of the grape.  While Cognac is made almost exclusively from the Ugni Blanc grape, four grapes are commonly used to make Armagnac:  Columbard, Ugni Blanc, Folle Blanche, and a hybrid grape, Baco 22A.  Whereas Cognac is produced in great quantities by a few very large companies, Armagnac is made in small amounts by a large number of small producers.
Our presenter was Toshio Oeno.  He had us taste seven versions of Armagnac, as shown below.  Labeling is somewhat complicated.  VS means the brandy has been aged for at least one year in wood.  Age it for ten years and you get to label the brandy XO.  Now, if you age the wine at least ten years and it is all from the same year you can label by that year – as seen in the wine labeled 2005.  If you have multiple vintages in one bottle you label it with the number of years the youngest vintage was in the barrel.

​The fifth Armagnac on the table is labeled both 20 ans (i.e., 20 years minimum aging in oak) and Baco, meaning it was made from Baco 22A grapes.  Now things get very interesting.  You see, Baco 22A is a hybrid produced in 1898 by Francois Baco, combining the French grape Folle Blanche and the American grape Noah.  To make things even more interesting, Noah itself is a hybrid of two American grape species.  Thus, Baco 22A has DNA from three of the five grape species used to make wine!
Now for a technical/historical interlude.  If you do not wish to be bored to death, please skip what follows.
When Leaf Ericsson came to North America, he found some many grapes growing that he named it ‘Vinland’.  It should have raised great interest in Europe were it not for his father naming one of the most inhospitable places on earth ‘Greenland’.  Anyway, turns out that North America east of the Rocky Mountains was populated by four grape species.  That is four times more than Europe.  Unfortunately, it was also populated by a voracious root louse, phylloxera.  This nasty varmint eats the roots of grape vines.  The American grapes species have natural protection from this nasty insect; the European vines do not.  Hence, when some idiots brought potted North American grape vines to Bordeaux in the 1860’s the phylloxera that hitched a ride almost destroyed the European wine industry.  It was saved by an American, Thomas Munson (remember that name).  Munson was able to graft European vines to American roots, saving the world wine industry.  The French were so grateful to him that he was named a Chevallier, their highest civilian award.  The vines for the grape Folle Blanche were not as successfully grafted to the American vine roots as vines from other grape varieties, so Baco created the hybrid as a potential replacement for Folle Blanche in the making of Armagnac.
End of technical/historical interlude.  On to the tasting.
I’m guessing Armagnac is an acquired taste, sort of like scotch, which, in my much younger days, was my preferred alcoholic beverage.  Well, I have not acquired a taste for any brandy.  While I tasted all seven samples, I cannot say which I preferred since all of them tasted absolutely terrible, though different.  Towards the end of the session the presenter pointed out that you taste Armagnac straight but drink it diluted with water.  My question then if it is so bad tasting that you need to dilute it to drink it, why taste it straight?  Shouldn’t you taste it in the same condition that you drink it?  Perhaps, but wineries often serve their tasting pours of red wine at temperatures well above the proper serving temperature….