Talk:Armagnac

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Three regions in Europe? Are we not counting Calvados?

Any suggestion on how to pronounce this?

We are indeed not counting calvados, which is produced from cider, not from wine.

The pronounciation of "Calvados" is quite straigtforward. "Armagnac" is pronounced "Armaniac", with a short "i". [aRmaɲak], in International Phonetic Alphabet. Rama 19:17, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that Calvados is produced from cider in no way alters its status as a brandy and an officialy demarcated brandy producing region.

Cognac is produced in alembic stills, while most Armagnac is made in column or continuous stills.

Armagnac is often aged in Monlezun black oak, Cognac is usually aged in Limousin or Troncais oak.

This article contains several unnecessary value judgments as to the quality of various brandies.

Actually Brandy needs to be made from grapes. Calvados is a fruit spirit.

But Spain has more then one region for Brandy; Jerez and Penedes.

To state that Armagnac is made by a column or continues still is misleading as this leads you to think that you use the same still as for vodka. In fact the still used for Armagnac is called alembic armagnacais and has a column with very few plates, maybe only three paltes. Similar stills are often used for rhum agricole.

For oak limousin and alsace is used more frequently then Monlezun

There is also a need for a paragraph on labeling regarding how age is labeled.

Source for example "Distilling Knowledege" Dave Broom 2006, Wine & Spirit Education Trust, London Puntos (talk) 08:29, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article says "Ageing in the barrel removes a part of the alcohol by evaporation .... When the alcohol part reaches 40% or more, the armagnac is kept in large glass bottles" This seems to imply that aging continues until this is reached, and - but wait - it is going to start at 40% or more! What really happens? Notinasnaid 13:40, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I miss a statement to the bouquetieres or bonificateurs used in the Armagnac production !?! --Symposiarch 10:18, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Along with cognac in Cognac, France and sherry in Jerez, Spain, it is one of only three officially demarcated brandy regions in Europe." Perhaps I'm missing something, but how is sherry a demarcated brandy region, if sherry is a fortified wine, which I have never known to be a subset of brandy... -Verdatum (talk) 12:20, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well you do get brandy from Jerez, but that's not quite what the sentence seems to be referring to. I have no idea whether the claim as a whole is true, and this WP page suggests that there are in fact more anyway. I've just taken it out as it seems dubious all round. --Nickhh (talk) 10:32, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article states

"In the case of assemblies, the age on the bottle refers to the youngest component. An "XXX" or "VS" armagnac is a mix of several armagnacs of at least two years of ageing in wood. For the VSOP, the ageing is at least five years, and for XO, at least six. Richer and more interesting flavours appear from 15 or 20 years of ageing, or more."

It then goes on to state

"Ageing Requirements for armagnac are:

   * VS [Very Special] " XXX "- at least one year old
   * VSOP [Very Superior Old Pale] or Réserve - at least four years old
   * XO, Napoléon, Extra, Vieille Réserve - at least five years old."

I do not see how these two claims are consistent - and I am not competent to decide which, if either, is correct. Any experts? --Silver149 (talk) 16:15, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, they're not consistent of course and anyway the second set look more like the (very similar) naming conventions used for Cognac. I've deleted the second part so only the first description is still there. They seem to be the correct designations and ageing stats, but it might be worth double-checking. --Nickhh (talk) 10:35, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Would anyone be able to start of list of companies that make/sell Armagnac? There is a similar list in Cognac and I think it'd be useful for people wanting to do *ahem* "further research" in Armagnac. --I (talk) 17:13, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Don't these tend to be either very subjective & NPOV if selective (ie the "best" producers), and liable to take up too much space on the page if completist? Plus they can easily end up being magnets for commercial spam. --Nickhh (talk) 10:39, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Those are both good points and I see their validity but if you have a look at how well it's worked in the Cognac article I think it'll work well in this article too (perhaps use the same format?). In order to address your first point I think there should be no distinction or selectivity - the listing should be either alphabetical or in order of founding, something which is fixed. As to the problem of having too big a list the Armagnac region is limited in size geographically and we could limit the list to those producers that a) have a website, b) have been reviewed in a third party source or c) both of the above/some other *simple* criteria. --I (talk) 16:55, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I've had a look at the Cognac page, but I'm still not convinced tbh. It just seems a bit too commercial and/or listy to my eyes - and don't forget there are 1000s of small producers in Armagnac, so it would be have to be selective in some way, and I'm not sure what criteria it would be best or fairest to use. But I guess if you or anyone else wants to give it a go, it wouldn't be illegal as such of course. --Nickhh (talk) 17:37, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I can't help but feel that a year or so later, all we've got is a long and rather pointless list of non-notable and random producers. Is this actually telling anyone anything as currently set up? I'm quite tempted to just remove all these names ...--Nickhh (talk) 09:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How about the five/ten largest sellers? That is determinable, and equitable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.125.251.177 (talk) 01:48, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Daily Mail is indeed not a great source to use, especially when it comes to health. They print a lot of "miracle cure" stories so I would suggest finding the original study that article cites as a reference instead. Reading the article should make this clearer, e.g. "Boffins at Bordeaux University" and "People who live in the Gascony area of France ... live five years longer than average in French, despite puffing on cigarettes all day". These quotations should show it's not really a serious paper or a useful source. Kombucha (talk) 18:25, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Daily Mail is indeed not a "great source"! For criticisms of their paper (from valid to worthless), see “Too good to be true?” ("half of what the Daily Mail is too good to be true; the other half is too bad to be true")..

In addition to Vital du Four's 1310 treatise (early epidemiological marketing!) , the original studies are:

• Umar, Anwar (2002). « Effets d'extraits d'Armagnac sur l'agrégation plaquettaire ». Thèse, Université de Bordeaux II, 2002, 150 pp.
• Umar, Anwar; Guerin, Viviane; Renard, Martine; Boisseau, Michel; Garreau, Charles; Begaud, Bernard; Molimard, Mathieu et Moore, Nicholas (2003) “Effects of armagnac extracts on human platelet function in vitro and on rat arteriovenous shunt thrombosis in vivo.” Thrombosis Research, Vol. 110, No. 2-3, 2003, pp.135-140.
• Umar, Anwar; Depont, Fanny; Jacquet, Alain; Lignot, Severine; Segur; Marie Claude; Boisseau; Michel; Bégaud; Bernard and Moore, Nicholas (2005) “Effects of Armagnac or vodka on platelet aggregation in healthy volunteers: a randomized controlled clinical trial.”. Thrombosis Research, Vol. 115, No. 1-2: 2005, pp. 31-37.

The statement on mortality and smoking in Gascony is usual Daily Mail rubbish, but with some truth. The department du Gers includes most of the Armagnac region; as regards life expectancy in 2008, among 100 départements, it ranked:

• Life expectancy at birth:

• 8th highest for men (+1.5 year compared to France as a whole)
• 4th highest for women (+1.2 year)
• 35th lowest difference between men and women

• Life expectancy at 60 years:

• 2nd highest for men (+1,4 year)
• 11th highest for women (+0.6 year)
• 6th lowest difference between men and women Source: Insee “Mortality and life expectancy by department”, December 2011.

Gers ranks pretty well as regards life expectancy, with 1,5 year longer for men, 1,2 for women at birth than the average in France (mostly above 60 year of age for men). It is in southwest France that the French paradox (lower coronary heart disease and cardiovascular mortality than risk factors would predict) is stongest. Smoking in the Armagnac region is not especially high. Touchatou (talk) 00:32, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  One cannot forget the demarcated region of Lourinha, Portugal, for it's 'Aguardente da Lourinha'. Commonly known as 'Lourignac'.
The Lourinha region in 1992 received 'DOC' status from the Portuguese government, which translates as 'Controlled Designation of Origin'.
The only one in Portugal and the fourth in the world, alongside Jerez Spain, Cognac and Armagnac France.
In the XVIII century, the Marquis de Pombal,[The Equivalent to today's Prime Minister] mandated that the Aguardente da Lourinha be used
in the fortification of Port wine because of it's superior quality. For the next 200 years the best Port wines benefited from Lourinha brandy to produce their world famous fortified wines.
The Aguardente da Lourinha has won 8 gold medals since 2008.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.233.97.18 (talk) 21:43, 3 September 2016 (UTC)[reply] 

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