The Yak on the Hill

The spirits world has spent the last decade in total flux. With the American Whiskey boom, explosion in craft distillation, glorification of all old and rare brown liqueurs—there are few places for spirits drinkers to turn that haven’t already been overrun by hoards of other excited officianados. There’s more interest and information about booze than ever before. In a lot of ways, that’s a great thing. Demand has pushed producers to refocus on categories that just a few decades ago were on their death beds. Now, we have more exciting and unusual products being produced and many distillers on every scale are selling products of true quality and character rather than created by focus groups or corporate boards.

But this new paradigm also means competition for the limited and highest quality products in the spirits world has never been more fierce. And while agave, gin, and rum are poised to continue growing, it is still Whisk(e)y that is king of the bar. It’s extremely difficult to replace the experience you get from a great old bourbon or rye with anything more available. Only one category remains a salient alternative to the unobtainable whiskies of the world and has yet to be incorporated by mainstream ideals of desirablity and inflated prices. The great idiosyncratic spirits, the world’s first brandy, which I believe embodies the ideals of craft and quality like no other: Armagnac. The cognoscenti have quietly moved their buying patterns toward Gascogne’s finest, but it remains totally undervalued in a way that reminds precisely of bourbon 20 or 30 years ago.

Several factors limit Armagnac from being adopted by the mainstream in the way bourbon or Scotch are. First, there’s no big, high-quality producer pushing the category in a meaningful way. Even the biggest producers in the category or small compared to Scotch or bourbon. And of course it’s not as though Cognac is doing anything to help their cousins to the south. In addition, there’s no easy gateway into the category. While we sell some very good inexpensive Armagnac for less than $50, there’s very little available of high quality on the lower end. With most whisk(e)y categories, you can get a great bottle for $40 if you’ve got good luck or good timing. Because brandy is an agricultural product, however, the base cost is significantly more expensive and therefore the cost-to-age/quality curve is inverted compared to whisk(e)y. As you get older/better, though, your dollar goes a lot further in Armagnac as compared to whisk(e)y.

So while there’s a tiny market worldwide for high-quality old Armagnac, the barriers to entry are relatively high. The result is the unprecedented availability of ultra-high-quality brandy at insanely low prices. If you just scratch the surface above the entry-level offerings and take the time to seek out quality producers, you’ll find a seemingly endless supply of quality old brandy for extremely reasonable prices. There are, of course, producers in the region that realize how incredible their products are and price them accordingly. This is another barrier to entry. If you’re not paying attention, you might expect to pay $300+ for a 30-year-old Armagnac because, on paper, that doesn’t sound like a bad deal. Many of the legacy estate producers can command these prices because they’ve got little need to move product. But at the same time, a number of high-quality producers are able to offer us top quality products at a fraction of those prices.

It’s simple economics. Save for a few exceptions, the French don’t expect to pay high prices for Armagnac. Without local pressure on stocks, producers are happy for any commerce that comes their way. Of course, we're not out there chiseling the guys for €s. We pay them exactly what they ask. The going market rate for their products just happens to be extremely low compared to the actual quality and enjoyment those products can deliver. And while we’ve seen some increased interest, particularly from guys who used to buy old bourbon and rye for a fraction of what they’d cost today, the lack of coordination between producers and the pressure from Cognac to the north have kept the prices down over the last ten years.

The famous Chateau de Pelleahaut is one of those great estates producing the highest quality Armagnac at an unbelievable price. Positioned perfectly at the top of the grade on the rolling hills outside of Montreal de Gers, the Chateau is home to one of the most prominent wine operations in the Southwest. But the family has always made Armagnac, long before wine was a viable commercial option here, which is a relatively modern development.

If they’d been located 30 miles to the West, they might be able to charge triple the price, but since it’s Ténarèze, their reputation is based exclusively on quality rather than any pretense. The Beraut family, while certainly one of the regions most prominent, isn't as aristocratic seeming as some of their peers. Instead, Mathieu Beraut strikes me much more like the other farmer/winemakers we see throughout Gascogne, not the elegant noble class that runs many of the other historic estates and live in Paris.

Of course, their success in business (both in wine and cattle) offers them near unlimited resources for brandy, which is an important part of their legacy. While not hugely lucrative commercially, there’s a sense of honor and duty around the production of this venerated brandy. While Mathieu has an authentic rustic aura, he’s actually an accomplished and well-travelled winemaker. He’s made wine across the globe, even spending a vintage as Jim Clendenon’s right-hand man, but he seems most comfortable discussing brandy with us.

Put all those factors together and the result is a Armagnac-Ténarèze that can punch with the big boys in Bas-Armagnac. Although there’s no pravado and their personal style is somewhat subdued, the Beraut's independence and pride have kept them from falling prey to the temptation to emulate Cognac or allowing an out-of-touch Oenologe to create their blends. Instead, they stick to the program of planting on the right soils, distilling slow and steady, and buying high-quality new oak barrels every year.

For the last decade we’ve brought wonderful single-vintage offerings in from the excellent estate and, while the brandies seem to just keep getting older and more delicious, the prices have stayed almost unchanged. We’ve brought three of their very best vintages and each is selling for an almost unbelievable price. Unlike some of the smaller producers, Pellehaut doesn’t really offer single barrels. They spend a great deal of time and energy insuring that each vintage is blended consistently across all their stock, but the vintages do change over time and each has an undeniably distinct character.

‘94 Chateau de Pellehaut 24 Year Old "Folle Blanche" K&L Exclusive Vintage Tenareze Armagnac $80

The astonishing 94 Folle Blanche from Pellehaut is testament to this special varietal and the uncompromising producer themselves. While Pellehaut uses a hefty dose of new oak, this age offers perfect balance between the elegant nuances of the spirits and the deep spice of the Gascogne oak. Expect a purity and adroitness on the nose rarely scene in any spirit. The bouquet is full of dried cranberries, flambeed orange peel, sandalwood, eucalyptus, candied apricots and persimmon. On the palate the fruit and spice are on full display at the front, while the herbal almost minty quality of the Gascogne oak takes over on the end. Not as deep and long as the older bottles, but with a sense of elegance and tension that the older bottlings lack. This is what I dream for Folle Blanche to taste like. Sometimes the special difficult to grow rarity delivers just what we ordered.

‘89 Chateau de Pellehaut 30 Year Old K&L Exclusive Tenareze Armagnac $90

The dark and brooding '89 is a perfect contrast to the fresh and bright '94. A different grape varietal (100% Ugni Blanc) and 5 more years in the barrel and we're in a total different arena. The nose is a spice bomb with roasting clove, cinnamon, dried plums, roasted vanilla bean and herbaceous myrrh. On the palate we're on the herbs at first. Then vanilla and clove take hold, but a creamy richness keeps it from feeling bitter. The finish has lots of tangy citrus and a splash of numbing mintiness. This might be what I push a cross over rye whiskey drinker toward as the spice is so well integrated and balanced. This will of course appeal to any lover of the rustic Armagnac in general.

‘83 Chateau de Pellehaut 36 Year Old K&L Exclusive Vintage Tenareze Armagnac $100

I didn't buy the '83 cynically, despite it being my birth vintage and an absolutely stupidly good value for a 36 year old brandy. We've had the Pellehaut 1983 before, nearly 5 years ago now, and it's always stood out as one of my favorite vintages from the brand. They don't offer true single barrels at the estate as they're doing a lot of work to blend and homogenize within a vintage, it's extremely interesting to see how a vintage develops over the years. The 83 has always been on the dense darker side of things, but the vintage is now showing a surmaturité that's not present in the other two offerings. The nose is moving fully toward the dense dried stone fruit, rich nut oils and that elusive complexity known as rancio. The palate is extremely supple and long, with a big sweetness that's unique to this offering and a surprising bevy of dark roasty flavors - hazelnuts, arabica, tobacco leaf, dried quince and sweet cooked herbs. The fact that we can sell this for $100, the same price as any number of bourbon or scotch, is proof that the golden age of brandy is upon us.