Château Gârreau - Exclusive Single Cask Armagnac
"La Bête" 1985
Cask #T6
Harvested and Distilled in 1985
Bottled in 2021, Aged in Gascony "Black Oak"
36 years old, Cask Strength, 40.9%
100% Baco Grape Varietal
NCF, No Additives

Part II of La Bête is here! And this one is, as they say in french, "le humdinger!"

This barrel is everything that we love about Armagnac. First of all, the Garreau family has been growing grapes, distilling Armagnac, and aging it in their own cellars for over a hundred years. Carole, who runs the domaine, is the great-granddaughter of Charles Garreau who founded the Chateau in 1919. All the ingredients for this beauty - from the grapes to the water and even the French Oak used for the barrels, comes from within a few miles from the estate. This is about as OG as it gets when it comes to spirit-making.

Then there's this particular vintage. 1985 was the last season of Armagnac making for Carole's grandfather (also Charles). It was an incredible year across the whole region, but this particular cask absolutely blew our minds. 100% Baco grape varietal, aged in a single cask, with no topping off, no additives, basically straight off the still, into the barrel, and into your bottle.

There's the value. A 36 year old spirit of this quality for under $200 is impossible to beat.

There's the presentation. Our own beautiful french tiger "La Bête" (french for "The Beast") toyfully smoking a cigarette in his finest three-piece suit, in gorgeous red foil, with a glass cork. (Hint - use your thumb to push the glass cork *to the side* until it clicks, then it comes out easily). The coffee-dark yak swirling around behind him inviting you to dive in for a wild ride.

Then there's the taste. Gawdddddamnnnn... We tasted over a dozen vintages from Garreau. The 2005 that we released earlier this summer was the best younger yak we'd ever tasted. This 1985 is simply one of the best yaks we've ever tasted, period. The nose starts with deep ripe stone fruits - raisins, plums, and prunes. Then we get incredible herbal stuff going on - anise / licorice, deep exotic spices (zatar? allspice?). There's a big beautiful dose of rancio like a massive red wine, but way more concentrated. The wood is all-encompassing yet not overly oaky. It's just very warm and deep wood with all the fruits playing together nicely. It's the type of dram you can sit with for an hour, and every time you pick it up you notice different notes and you can't believe you didn't notice them before. There's definitely dark chocolate, huge aromatic pipe tobacco, and antique leather polish. As it opens up there are also brighter notes like pineapple, citrus, honey, banana, even a hint of coconut. We know, it sounds ridiculous, but we defy you to put this lovely lady in a huge snifter and spend some time with it and not come up with your own absurd list of a million different tasting notes. Wherever you end up, it'll be an enjoyable hour.

The palate is very soft, oily, and more of what we'd think of as a traditional Armagnac. Sweet little fruits and wood, peaches, cherries, lovely oak, soft and extremely easy and friendly. Then on the finish we're back on the wild ride from the nose. There's a deep sour cherry flavor punch that starts at the back of the tongue. As it moves forward across the mouth it morphs into dark chocolate, tobacco, raisins, oak, and little pops of bright sweet fruits, more of those little pineapple/citrus notes. The finish is unearthly complex yet ghostly smooth.

Ok, we fear another over-the-top Armagnac tasting rampage here. Go ahead and laugh. But seriously don't miss out on this most special of drams. We only got 2 barrels of La Bête, the first one is long gone. There are 210 bottles available of this one, when they're gone they're gone.