Random Armagnacs by one of the game’s biggest and most respected players, Darroze. In fact, together with L’Encantada, Darroze is probably THE bottler of Armagnac. Working closely together with many small and medium sized domaines, they almost always guarantee a very high level of quality. Todays Domaines are all one-offs in our sample library, hence…
Cognac: Through the Grapevine
Through the Grapevine is LMDW’s Cognac range and today we shall check out what we have! We’ve had a few rather nice ones, but not that many samples left over, unfortunately. Through the Grapevine Francois Voyer Cask 88 (Grande Champagne, 1988-2017, 42,7%): Cask 88 refers to the vintage, of course. Nose: Quite a bit of…
Armagnac: Aurian
Typically I’d be telling you something about Aurian and its history at this point, but I am not sure how useful that is given that you can just as well click on the company history page of Aurian and get first hand information. For me, Aurian was absolutely unknown until last year’s Wu Dram Clan…
Armagnac: Château de Léberon
All of these products are cask strength and neither sweetened nor coloured. Just what we are looking for. They also claim to be made to 65% from Ugni-Blanc and to 35% from Colombard. We are still noobies in this field, but these two grapes seem to produce our least favorite Armagnacs. Just saying – even…
Cognac: Vallein Tercinier
Let’s begin the Cognac part of “Yaktober” with my absolute favorite bottler: Vallein Tercinier. They just release stuff like no other. They are the Velier of the Cognac world if you want. We shall have a standard first and the move on over to the serious fellas. Vallein Tercinier Roots XO (Blend, 44%): A blend…
Armagnac: Domaine de Danis
The Domaine de Danis is located in the north-west of the Gers department and features 35 hectares of vines. The family-owned estate, which has been passed on from generation to generation for more than four centuries, is producing both, wine and Armagnac, made mainly from Folle Blanche, but also Colombard. Danis 1986 (48%): Nose: A…
Armagnac: Château de Lacquy
Welcome to “Yaktober”! Yak (i.e. Armagnac and Cognac) has gained increasing popularity with us over the last year and a half and it was simply about time to dedicate a full month to our new fling. So if you are a long time reader, I invite you to take the journey with us, no matter…
Saint Lucia Distillers 2002
Saint Lucia Distillers have finally made the leap from being a distillery where only the IBs were really good to providing excellent co-bottlings under the Chariman’s Reserve line. While we are more than happy to celebrate the latter, we should also not forget the bottlers that have contributed to making the brand what it is…
A pair of very old Gardels
Two real heavyweights from days looong gone. Both of these Rums have been distilled before we were even born! Rumclub Gardel 1983 38YO (46,6%): Did you believe that we will see such a bottling in 2021? Personally, I did not. Such old Rums in general are getting rarer and rarer and if you consider that…
Gardels that shouldn’t be Gardels
If the name of the article doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry, it is actually quite simple: Everything we know tells us that the Gardel distillery was already closed by 1998 (my information is that the still(s) have been scrapped in 1992). Now either these Rums have been labelled incorrectly or there have been…
Versailles from the Diamond Era
Today we shall have a vertical tasting with a few Versailles that have been distilled during the era of the Diamond Distillery, i.e. the time from 2000 till today. The most prominent such batch would be the 2004 one, which we already treated, and shall treat again shortly, in a separate post. These Rums typically…
Armagnac: Lafitte, Lafite & Lahitte
We will be having an entire month exclusively with Yak (i.e. Armagnac and Cognac) soonish (Yaktober sounds good to me, eh!?) but still have some background work to do. Among others, that will feature a whole page dedicated to France’s other noble spirits – keep in mind that Rhum is still numéro un. As a…
Single Cask Rum 