Le Reserve De Gaston Armagnac

Region

Armagnac, France

Producer:

Chateau de Pellehaut

Wine Description:

The top Armagnac from Chateau De Pellehaut, a blend of reserves with a minimum age of 20 years. Powerful and rather oaky, the fruit flavours (peach and cherry plum) blending perfectly with the elegantly spicy bouquet. Warming and mild, with peppy notes of paprika.

At Pellehaut, two grapes varieties are used to produce the brandies:

•    Ugni Blanc, used for the armagnacs that will be on sale from 15 years of age.

•    Folle Banche, the oldest grape variety in the Armagnac region, which produces fine, complex brandies that can be drunk younger, from 10 years of age in the case of Château de Pellehaut.

The wines from which the brandy is distilled are made in the traditional way, with particular care being taken to protect the juice, and then the wines, from oxidation in order to conserve the aromas without the need to add sulphites. Inert gas is therefore used to protect the grape juice throughout the vinification process. The wines are only distilled after careful ageing on the lees and regular stirring.

The armagnac owes much of its typical character to the still. At Château de Pellehaut, we distil the traditional way using the continuous still specific to the Armagnac region, the alambic armagnacais, heated by a wood-burning boiler. It works using the “single distillation” principle, as opposed to the double distillation typical of the Charente region used to produce cognac and certain other armagnacs. Consequently, the distiller attends to the still day and night, watching over the slow transformation of the wine into brandy. This crucial stage in the production of the brandy is also a time of conviviality at Château de Pellehaut, as the presence of the still in the wine cellars is a sign that the grape harvest is over.

On leaving the still, the brandy is kept in 400-litre barrels, referred to as ‘pièces’, made from open-grain oak (from the estate and the Limousin region). The last Folle Blanche to be distilled are aged in the Bordeaux and Burgundy-type barrels that were used to make our best white wines. Our armagnacs are diluted gradually with petites eaux, a mixture of distilled water and alcohol prepared long in advance: we add the alcohol to the water and not the other way round.

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Producer Description

Situated on the slopes surrounding Château de Pellehaut, at an elevation of over 180m, the vineyard is set in an ideal terroir with maximum exposure to the sun. Protected by the Pyrenees, the Gers region also has the advantage of relatively low rainfall in summer.

"Pellehaut" gets its name from the Roman or mediaeval word pila (meaning any kind of solid, pillar-like construction). The presence two kilometres away of mosaics decorated with vines at the Gallo-Roman site of Séviac bears witness to the fact that vines were already grown at Pellehaut in Roman times.

Domaine de Pellehaut