Armagnac appreciation 101

The bottle of Armagnac sat on display near the counter of my local liquor store for over a year. When it comes to spirits, I'm not normally moved by come-hither numbers, but in this case the Chateau de Laubade's classic 1957 vintage and its $399.99 price tag aroused a kind of lust that wasn't normal.

I was waiting for the slightest, flimsiest justification or provocation to buy that bottle of brandy, which was strange, because until recently I'd never tasted much Armagnac. Then, in late November, I traveled to Gascony, in southwestern France. This was the traditional time of year for distillation, after the annual grape harvest, when production happens around the clock. At night, during these weeks, distillers dine, play cards, smoke cigars and even throw parties right next to their hot stills, which are in many cases still fueled by wood. I went to a couple of such soirees and ate so much rich Gascon foie gras that I feared I might meet the same fate as the geese. To wash it all down, I drank a whole lot of Armagnac, ranging across many producers, blends, vintages and price points.

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( Bureau National Interprofessionel de L'Armagnac / ) - Traveling stills called alambics are moved from estate to estate at distillation time.

Decadent? Yes, incredibly so. And it only fueled my new Armagnac desire.

Gascony is notoriously provincial and ornery. "It's difficult to get to and from here," said Arnaud Lesgourgues, president of Chateau de Laubade. "We don't have any airport. We don't have a big train station or big highways."

That is probably why you so often see Armagnac referred to as cognac's "hick cousin." It can be made only in the Armagnac AOC, one of the government's designated appelations, which is split into three regions: Bas Armagnac, Tenareze and Haut Armagnac. A majority comes from Bas Armagnac, which produces more-delicate and elegant brandies. Tenareze, which produces about 40 percent, is known for more robust, full-bodied Armagnac.

Even though Armagnac and cognac share the same predominant grape and are both aged for a long time in oak barrels, I was surprised by how different the two brandies are.

As a fan of cognac, I'd thought that aficionados of the lesser-known Armagnac were like hipsters who are happy to tell you about obscure bands you've never heard of. But it turns out I was just as ill-informed as most other Americans are about what might just be the finest brandy in the world. It's definitely one of the more ancient spirits: Armagnac celebrated 700 years of existence in 2010.

Part of the mystery is that so little Armagnac is available, particularly in the United States. A little over 6 million bottles of Armagnac are sold worldwide each year, with less than half a million of them reaching our shores. That sounds like a lot, but it's a drop in the bucket compared with the ubiquity of cognac, which annually sells about 150 million bottles worldwide, including nearly 50 million in the United States.

It's not for lack of supply in France. In the 1980s, when Armagnac had been riding a wave of popularity, producers increased their output. But after the collapse of the Japanese economy in the 1990s and with a steady decline of consumption within France itself, there is now a glut of Armagnacs in barrels from the late 1980s.