The History of Armagnac

The dominance of cognac in the French spirit markets has created over the years a market inferiority complex, perhaps partly because the region has always been much poorer than regions to the north, but also because understanding of the spirit and its history has never been fully explored.
The Bureau National Interprofessionel de l’Armagnac (BNIA),  is [...]

Phylloxera was no less kind to the Armagnaçaise than to those in the rest of France and although a few growers managed to continue producing grapes, the vast majority lost everything they were growing in their vineyards. The Folle Blanche was much in favour in Gascogne, but was also one of the most vulnerable to [...]

Two important changes happened in the 19th century that changed the fortunes of the Armagnaçaise for the better. The first was the introduction of the continuous still which is essential for extracting armagnac’s particular qualities. The cognac stills used previously were unsuitable for wines from the sandy and clay soils around much of the region [...]

During the 16th century, a spirit distilled from a wine in Toulouse known as aygue ardente or eau de vie became popular with the Dutch to supply their ships. They were happy to buy their the spirit at Bayonne, which after some time became known as Armagnac, and was found comparable in quality to the [...]

Geographically, Armagnac appears for the first time in the middle of the tenth century. By the fifteenth century, the English kings had come and gone for the past 450 years Armagnac (indeed the whole of Gascony) has been a happy country without much history.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, Bayonne, the nearest port had the [...]

Armagnac, as the locals invariably inform even the most casual visitor, is at once the oldest and youngest spirit in France. Oldest because it was first distilled in the middle of the 15th century and youngest because the Armagnaçaise are still arguing over how it should be made. President de Gaulle talked about the problems [...]

As early as the 16th century, when the English had been chased from France for more than a century, we find the expression Vin du Cognac. Wines shipped along the Charente from the town of Cognac were traded, initially for salt but later for timber, furs and wools which had been shipped from England, Ireland [...]