The relationship between age and improvement is not linear. This is true of humans, and it’s certainly true of alcoholic beverages. Wines are more fragile than spirits, of course, since they are lower in that awesome preservative, alcohol. But wine is aged for months in wood, whereas spirits can be aged for decades. . . and in rare cases for more than a century.
Last week I tasted an Armagnac made from grapes harvested in 1893. You can’t buy it—there’s none left—and to be honest, unless it’s your birth year, you’re better off saving your money (if that is your birth year, many happy returns and thanks for reading this far). I’m not saying it wasn’t great; it was. Thought-provoking, awe-inspiring, downright ethereal, but it lacked one thing I really like in my booze: hedonism.
That Marcel Trépout 1893 Armagnac has a little brother, however, and it is one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. Marcel Trépout 1925 Armagnac will sell for around $1,000 when it arrives in stores next month. I can feel you getting ready to click to the next post, but before you do, let me just say that I’ve tasted several stratospherically expensive spirits and this is the first one that I would buy if I had more money than I knew what to do with.
I’ve rarely enjoyed single malt Scotches with more than 21 years in wood (I generally find, as I taste through a product line, that the 17-year-old bottling is my favorite). American whiskies are almost never left in the barrel that long (although the few I can recall off the top of my head—Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve 20-year-old Bourbon, Rittenhouse 21-year-old Rye, Sazerac 18-year-old Rye—were awfully good). But Cognacs and Armagnacs last much longer, I assume because they are made from grapes, which have more acidity than grain—though to be honest I haven’t researched the topic.
The stunning thing about the entire line of Trépout Armagnacs was their acidity. This gave them all long and delicious finishes. But what set the 1925 head and shoulders above everything else on the table was its richness and complexity. All around the room people were blurting out associations for the aromas and flavors they were finding; I was blown away by the rich, silky mouthfeel and long, incredible finish.
As soon as the formal tasting was over, a few of us (including Esquire’s David Wondrich and Cigar Aficionado’s Jack Bettridge) casually bolted for one of the three empty place-settings where all 10 brandies had been poured but left untouched. Each of us snagged a single glass. I looked around the room. In front of every chair there were 10 glasses. Glass number 9, in the majority of cases, was the only empty one. We smiled, perhaps a bit smugly, and took another sip.
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