35 - The waters of life - Dax & Labastide d'Armagnac

 Saturday, 6 January 2024

It was a very rainy morning today in Dax, or at least that's what the weather app said and it sounded like from my bed.  With the shutters closed, I could only rely on that info to make the very important decision to sleep in more.  

As I went to bed last night, I had a scaffold of a plan in mind for Saturday: visit les halles de Dax to buy some local groceries and visit a place that makes armagnac (as well as learn what is armagnac).  As I hadn't actually yet looked through the tourism material I have about armagnac producers, I spent a bit of time once I woke up checking the websites of les domaines viticoles listed.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a whole lot of success determining which places offered tours or tastings; most had hours listed for summertime or the autumn but very few mentioned anything about January openings...  The area that produces armagnac in les Landes is about an hour away from me, which would be a decent amount of time to lose if I just rolled the dice and found a bunch of closed vineyards/distilleries.  

After going in circles for a bit, I took a break to faire les courses aux halles.  I arrived to the weekly market just closing up shop outside les halles.  It's a darn shame to have narrowly missed it today but it occurred to me that it was the first time I've seen it because it's the first Saturday I've spent in Dax... In fact, I haven't seen Dax by the daylight since my very first weekend here.  Anyhow, I bought some locally grown kiwis, brussel sprouts, 3 types of cheese, a slice of pâté en croute (various pâté meats baked into a loaf of bread), some sausages, and then a baguette plus a large brioche ring.  

A quick stop by the thermal fountain in the center of town

mmm, just the slightest hint of sulfur.  That's how you know it's the good stuff haha

I had lunch back at my apartment from among my newly acquired groceries.  The sun had peeked out during a break in the rain so I scooted my table into the sun beam and enjoyed food whilst basking.  

So turns out the bakery I visited was doing a Pokémon special and thus my brioche came with a little Pokémon crown.  

And turns out the brioche was a gateau des rois, so there was also a tiny Pokémon figurine inside.  Ditto in English I guess became Metamorph in French.  If someone gives you a slice of gateau/gallette des rois, chew carefully...

After relaxing, I walked my way back into central Dax to check out one of the museum's I'd noticed before.  The museum is a collection of art from Georgette Dupouy, a painter who spent many years of her life (and died) in Dax.  The man at the reception was super nice: I wasn't carrying 2.5 Euro in change on me to pay the entrance fee but he waved me in all the same because he wanted me to see the museum.  There was a good amount of biographical info about Georgette and the paintings were arranged in a mostly chronological order.  Born in 1901, through an arranged marriage she married a man 15 years her senior and moved from Paris to Dax with him; despite pressure from the inlaws to not spend time as an artist, Georgette eventually returned to painting and apparently was quite successful:  several paintings were exhibited at various galleries around the world.  I liked her landscape paintings the most: her technique lies somewhere between impressionism and realism and she knew how to pick an impactful scene.  Her still lifes (which I think of separately from landscapes) and portraits were less appealing to me but à chacun son truc.  

I nabbed a couple madeleines from here: sweet and buttery!

One of the big thermal hotels in Dax; I don't think I'd ever taken a minute to really soak it in before.  The facade is actually quite nice

Just the tiniest bananas peeking out the top!

For dinner, I returned home to cook the sprouts, sausage, and some potatoes I nabbed from a store on the walk back.  From my days in Biarritz, I'd come home with a ...glob of duck fat that had been once encased a ...puck(?) of foie gras that we had eaten there.  So I cooked the potatoes in the duck fat as had been recommended to me and I whole-heartedly approve of the combo.  

Ended up watching the 4 episodes available of Season 2 of Invincible with French subtitles.  Highly, highly recommend the show to all (on Amazon Prime).  Even if it gets campy or bloody, it's an amazing show with incredible voice acting.

Sunday, 7 January 2024 - Labastide d'Armagnac

Quick breakfast pastry called une Suisse: like a chocolatine but with pearl sugar on top too.  Went really well with a cup of coffee!

I hadn't yet fully given up on visiting the Armagnac region of les Landes, so today's plan was to find a hike in the region as a back up.  It was because of the hike I'd found in All Trails that I made my way to the town of Labastide d'Armagnac.  Fortunately, the back up plan wasn't needed: when I decided to poke my head into town before starting the hike, I found an Armagnac shop open!  

Let me start by saying that I can see why many of the armagnac places listed in the tourism pamphlets were more or less shutdown for the season: in my time in town I think I saw a total of 5 people who could potentially be counted as tourists.  I got lucky that the woman who walked me through my tasting had opened the shop up so that she could do some paperwork/accounting, no other place in the town's centreville appeared to be open.  And she was super awesome: when I said I didn't know anything about Armagnac she walked me through its history, its manufacture, and the culture its involved in.  Then she let me taste basically whatever I wanted to but based on her recommendations we tried a VSOP (Very Superior Old Pale, aged > 7 years), an XO (Extra Old, aged > 15 years), and a millésime (I'd say it's akin to single vintage) from 1998.  Here's a few highlights to rattle off:

• Armagnac is a spirit / brandy distilled from wine, similar to the more globally known Cognac.  
• Armagnac is in a different territory than Cognac when it comes to appellation but there's also a difference in how the alcohol is distilled.
• Armagnac region is broken into three areas: Bas-Armagnac (lower), Tenaréze, et Haut-Armagnac (upper).  I visited a town in Bas-Armagnac.
• Armagnac has a much smaller production compared to Cognac, there aren't really any large Armagnac businesses and it remains a product more or less sold directly from the vineyards primarily for domestic consumption.  
• This is in contrast to merchants buying, stockpiling, and trading cognac for export to the rest of the world.
• While distillation of les eaux de vie ("the waters of life" i.e. distilled ethanol) had existed potentially well before the middle ages, aging it in oak barrels yielded Armagnac and record of Armagnac can be found dating to the middle ages.
• Armagnac/Cognac glasses are designed to be held such that the hand warms the glass.  By swirling the spirit, we begin to warm the drink and vaporize the volatile components that compose its flavor and aroma.  
• She said that when it comes to drinking Armagnac, it's a slow process to be savored; a rushed glass of Armagnac is a real shame.
• A distiller offers their services to the vineyards of the region.  Their mobile still (un alambic ambulant) is set up at the vineyard and works continuously to distill wine directly to the prepared oak barrels.
• Distillations are fêted with food, music, and drink.  Perhaps to some degree, this was to help ensure the fire for the still was attended to overnight but now it's more just a good reason to gather around for a meal in November.
• Once the glass has been emptied, residue on the glass offers an amazing way to savor the aroma by sticking one's nose in it.  
• While the glass is full, sticking your nose into your glass is a great way to experience a burning sensation from the alcohol vapors so stick to swirling near your midriff and appreciating the fumes as they rise up to your nose instead.  
• The three different regions of Armagnac are known for leaving behind different aromas in the empty glass: Bas-Armagnac is like a prune while the others tend to be hazelnut or violet.

The difference between VSOP and XO was surprising but I suppose another 8 years of extracting flavor/oil from the oak barrel allows those thirsty angels to temper the sting of the alcohol 

For the distillation nerds out there: I thought it pretty neat that the condenser is also the pre-heater for the wine being fed to the still.  One of the differences mentioned to me between Armagnac & Cognac stills is the presence of plates/trays in the column: Cognac stills have an empty column and each batch is distilled twice vs the once through trayed column for Armagnac.  

Note that the feed enters at the top of the column (kinda like an inverted still) and that no distillate is returned as reflux; I'm not super familiar with distilling ethanol but apparently this set up gives them the rectification they're looking for.  

There are no cuts (têtes/heads, heart, base, etc) associated with continuous distillation like this and I don't see a lights stream, so I can only conclude that the base wine doesn't contain much methanol - or slight volumes of methanol in the drink might explain why les Landais are the way they are 🤣  

I'm not exactly sure how much time I spent tasting at the store (Domaine de Luquet) but it must've been at least an hour.  While tasting, she also offered me advice about what else to see in town, which was really just a few streets preserved from the old medieval village plan.  After all that she had taught me, I felt a little guilty for only buying a tiny 8 Euro bottle of VSOP; but I wasn't ready for a full size bottle and she seemed fairly happy just to have someone in the store, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.  The town of Labastide d'Armagnac itself was lovely: a spacious center square with an old stone church and then narrow streets between some really old houses.  Walking through narrow streets was a great way to verify that I was in a safe driving condition 🤣

I'm not sure I've ever met a more indifferent cat...

The aptly named "Little Road"

I wonder what it's like to live in houses here...

Beware of dog, he's too nice

The gate is open but the signs says "Private Property" as well as "Cellar visits & tastings"; since I already did a tasting, maybe I'll just admire it from this side of the fence...

When I returned to my car, I realized that it was getting late for the full length of the hike I'd looked at.  So I read through it a little more and decided to roll the dice by driving to one of the highlights listed for the hike, which turns out was a vineyard.  As I pulled into the parking lot, it dawned on me that this was one of the places listed in the tourist brochure I'd read (Chateau de Paguy); what I didn't realize was that the cars in the parking lot belonged to the owners 😅  Fortunately, the dog's barking got somebody's attention and when I said I was interested in learning more about armagnac or floc de Gascogne (another local product listed in the tourist brochure), he put on a jacket and walked me over to the tasting room.  The tasting room was rustic: a stone room adjoined to the living quarters of the chateau with a couple lights suspended way up in the ceiling, and around the corner I could see barrels of liquor and what I thought were ceramic vessels of wine aging.  He also seemed pleased to have a visitor today but wasn't nearly as free-flowingly informative as the woman at Domaine de Luquet; still, here's my takeaway:

• He's been a vignoble / armagnacais (I'm making up that title for someone who makes Armagnac) for over 60 years.
• The tasting room was really cold so it took a lot longer to warm up the 15 year old armagnac he poured for me.  
• Floc de Gascogne is an aperitif made by blending armagnac with unfermented grape juice to an abv of ~16% (similar to a fortified wine).
• It should be consumed fresh out of the fridge
• After sampling, I can confirm it is a much lighter drink as opposed to the digestif that is armagnac.
• The tourism in this region doesn't really start up in earnest until March/April; he mentioned people from the Netherlands seem to form a decent amount of that season.

The dog at Chateau de Paguy.  At first he wasn't too sure of me, but after sniffing my hand and receiving a few head scratches, I was practically his new best friend.

From Chateau de Paguy, I made one last stop in the area before returning home: the woman at Domaine de Luquet had pointed out a place called Notre Dame de cyclistes.  Unfortunately, it was closed but apparently cyclists from the Tour De France have sent jerseys to be stored and displayed inside.  A quick stop with some neat gates.  

Ooh, purrdy

After getting home, I had a quiet night in and dined on my leftovers from the previous night.  Overall, I'm pleased with my weekend.  A lot of rest but I feel I still managed to soak up some of France.  

Almost forgot to take a picture of les produits du terroir I bought today: