Chateau De Laubade 1942 Bas Armagnac Bottled 2022

Description

Chateau De Laubade is a well established, family owned growers and distillers of Armagnac, the rustic brandy from Gascony in France.

Distillation is achieved though a small and traditional continuous still with all the spirit initially aged in the dark and flavoursome Gascony oak.  And then, the distillate is stored in glass demijohns for an inordinate amount of time.

In this case, for probably over 60 years.

From ElixirVitae, “Can you taste time? No. Not I. Not in that sense. I could taste the mellow, soft, silky texture on my tongue and savor the remaining fruit, still present but wrapped with delicious, subtle hints of old hand-rubbed leather and cinnamon spice and dark, scuffed up forest floor on a cool day, meaty preserved plum and a whiff of tobacco smoke lingering in the air. The Armagnac was dazzling in a quiet and wonderful way.

I could taste age, but not time. 1942—the Armagnac— was a gentle creature, warming, like the banked embers of a fire, glowing with soft comfort and beguiling the palate and slowing down the soul to revery. 1942—the year—was turmoil and rupture, a tearing apart of the civilized fabric of life. The two co-existed, but had little overlap, and that only in fading memory of a time familiar to me but before I was conceived”.