Eauze and a visit to Domain de Lagan

We left Montréal for the town of Eauze where we had a very brief stop; just walked around the town, saw the church, a tribute to the three musketeers and, most importantly, went to a café to get our passports stamped.

We then hoped back on the bus to head out to the family run Domain de Lagan. They have been making Armagnac here for many years and currently Katia and Dimitri are the 10th generation to do so. Interestingly, it is the women in charge of the Armagnac production and the men make the wine, the base product. The family only sell their wine from the cellar door, you can’t buy it in a store.

We first visited one of the sheds to hear about the distilling process. This presentation was by Phillip, an American studying wine who started an internship with the family only three weeks ago. He did a great job of explaining the distillation process works and what the different parts of the still do. It is quite the engineering feat and all happens manually with no mechanical input or from computers. The wine goes in at the top and the Armagnac comes out the bottom. It’s all a matter of how much the still is heated and the manual control of the flow rate. During the six week period they turn the base wine into Armagnac, the still runs continuously 24/7. This happens during January and February as they require the weather to be colder, and they first need to make the base wine from white grapes harvested in September.

Armagnac brandy can only be produced in the Armagnac region of France. It is less famous than Cognac, despite that fact that it is much older. The origins of Armagnac appear to begin around the 12th century. Because Armagnac is distilled only once, it has an alcohol content of about 53%, which is lower than some other brandies. It also has a stronger fruit flavour, which develops into a complex and elegant mouthfeel if the Armagnac is aged sufficiently. Typically Armagnac is is aged for a minimum of 2 years, and sometimes for much longer.

After getting the lowdown on the still, we went outside to join Gisèle, the matriarch of the family, and most other family members to do some tasting. We first tasted a white and red Floc, a combination of grape juice with Armagnac. It was bloody delicious, very much like a dessert wine. We then went on to taste three Armagnacs from various years, a young one, a 13 year old one, and one even older. Personally I found the Armagnac too strong, although the aromas made me think of Dad, as he was always one to enjoy a snifter of Cognac. (Ed - I really liked the 13 year one.) I definitely preferred the Floc! (Ed - I liked this too.)

It was a lovely experience sipping the Floc and Armagnac under a large 600 year old oak tree in the late afternoon. We then headed to Aire-sur-l’Adour to our lodgings for the night. Unfortunately, we found out at dinner that Bronwyn had also come down with COVID. There wasn’t much we could do at this late hour, but we contacted the tour company and started looking at options to get her to Biarritz. We would have to make the arrangements the next day.Read more