It appears there two versions available on the market. An 80 proof which is available many places, including Total Wine, with vintages back to the seventies. The front label has little information, just the vintage date. Then there is a cask strength version, the front label has vintage, grapes, alcohol by volume, etc. It’s a bit pricier. I have tried the 1981 80 proof version and it is nicely aged, soft, mellow and very drinkable, but not anything really special. Anyone with experience or thoughts about the cask strength bottling?
Thanks!
I haven’t had the specific bottling you are referencing but in general I find Laubade to be exactly as you described - drinkable but nothing special. More expensive, but in armagnac, I look to L’Encantada.
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Labaude has been around for a long time. I drank a 1910 labaude that was phenomenal.
I have some of the 1986 Laberdolive–amazingly good, and now this vintage at least no longer is really in my price zone. I believe this producer is considered the gold standard in Bas Armagnac. Apparently, Khrushchev made a detour to buy some when he was in France for a state visit.
Just as with whiskey, I think drinkers are finding you get a better concentration of flavor from cask strength bottlings, and you can always water back. The 80pf versions are already watered down so…you get what you get.
I have an 80pf 1983 Puysegur with a good story. It fell off a shelf and the stopper broke. I wasn’t really thinking about it at the time but I put a Lustau sherry cork stopper in it. It then got in a mixed case of liquor that I put in storage and forgot about for a while. Fast forward 6 years and it now has a bit of a sherry note to it. I like it!
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For sure. I don’t think I’ve had a cask strength Armagnac (where my favorite producers are Pellehaut, Baraillon, Jouanda, and Chateau de la Grangerie, all sourced from K&L), but cask strength single malt is the bomb. Much more flavor and character. I dilute by letting a big ice cube melt for a bit.
I seem to recall the vintage Baraillon used to be, if not cask strength, at least high proof. Maybe high 90s. Tons of depth and flavor in any case. They were my favorites but I never see them anymore. K&L has a few older vintages in stock but more than I want to spend. A relative deal compared to older vintage scotch though.
Total wine has numerous vintage of Labaud on the shelf, but most all are pretty uninspiring unless you get really old (1970’s or before). I did get one bottle of very nice Darroze from total wine, but it was basically a one-off. In Seattle, it’s very hard to find good armagnac. For now I’m just drinking Pellehaut Reserve, or basic Boingneres if it shows up, and waiting to see if something better shows up.
Fine drams is a great source.
Yeah, I think the Whiskey Exchange may have a better selection. Just need to pull the trigger.
I agree with others who mention that Laubade isn’t typically anything special. As for the cask strength component, I am definitely an advocate for cask strength brandies, but they are much harder to come by and not for everyone. People are always free to dilute a spirit to their taste, but you can never undilute something. I don’t think there was historically much of a market for cask strength French brandy, but now that there is an emerging one, I expect we’ll see more offered. As mentioned, Finedrams is a great place to start.
There are some amazing cask strength French brandies out there, but the bourbon culture brought a lot of focus to names like L’Encantada, and the prices for those releases shot way up with many releases unattainable. The classic French names really don’t bring much to the US market in terms of cask strength or single barrel selections, so that mantle was mainly taken up by independent bottlers. It’s similar to the cask strength issue in scotch whiskey in that independent bottlers are much more likely to do the thing nerds love with just a few barrels vs. the much bigger risk with less scalable reward for the distiller. You also have the same problem in that a single indie bottler can release just as many great barrels as they do bad ones.
It helps to be able to try multiple different ages as the oak bombs some “forgotten” or older barrels turn into can be either a turn off or a turn on. With cask strength, the oak has nowhere to hide and isn’t always well integrated, but some 20 year olds taste more oaky than some 30 year olds and the stats don’t always tell the whole tale. Very fun time for cask strength Calvados, Armagnac, and even Cognac as they find a new niche in the global scene. Other European brandies and American brandies are getting a lot of notice, too.
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I have found Delord, Casterede and Darroze to be good sources of a wealth of aged Armagnac.
Best Armagnac I ever drank was the 1946 Domaine de Jaurrey from Laberdolive!
I am a big fan of laberdolive; blackwell, crush and a few other shops have a good amount of this in the US, for sometimes reasonable prices.
I’ve not tasted nearly as extensively as the other posters in this thread, but among the small number of producers that are easily sourced (especially here) and under $75, I find it hard to beat the Laubade XO. Always in stock at TWM, and they have 10% off deals often enough (they just e-mailed me one today) that bring it down to $67.50. I’ve tried a few others that are also easy to find and in that price range and found them not nearly as good.
That said, I’ve had some vintage Jouandas that I agree are another major step up, but they are closer to $100 and harder to find (again, at least here). Those who can source in SF seem to have a much better selection than the rest of us…
(TWM has done a few L’Encantada offers via their “Concierge” program, so those are also available here from time to time, but they were too pricey for me).
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It is for me. I have a little of the 1964 left to sip one - but Laberdolive is definitely the elite of the elite -
If anyone is interested in an amazing resource, join the “Serious Brandy” Facebook group. There is a wealth of information there, and you can find reviews of brandies that have very few, if any, unbiased reviews available. There is also a Discord for general alcohol (and general general) appreciation called “Aficianados” who regularly do special Armagnac and Cognac selections. There is a brandy-specific thread in that Discord with many knowledgeable people able to answer questions.
I’d also like to mention that, while my previous statement advocated for cask strength spirits, there are a ton of amazing spirits that are watered down to a standard release proof. The enjoyment of those is very much dependent on factors such as style, age, cask proof prior to dilution, etc. So I don’t want to sound like one should ignore 40-42% brandies, esp. since a majority of the well-made brandies in the world are proofed this way (my unscientific assumption).
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Casterede is awesome I used to sell them. I have a honey hole with some old stuff that is still marked up at release pricing and I am trying to save to get some things before they disappear.
Total Wine Concierge has a great quartet of Chateau de Laubade vintage Armagnacs now - definitely going with the '82, wondering about adding '92 or '02 as well
I wouldn’t hesitate to stock up on Armagnac; I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop and the prices to escalate. As much of a db Raj Bhatka is, he seems to be driving interest in Armagnac.