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Mahu 1956 for Darroze
Nose: Yummy old oak, dried citrus peels (bitter orange, grapefruit); walnut baklava, and hints of that rare tropical rancio.
Palate: Nice full blast of oaky and booze, licorice, marmalade, butter, cardboard (fresh and dry), NOLA coffee and some passionfruit and pears (rancio).
Rating: 8 / 10 – the finish is quite sweet with walnuts, honey, oranges, and also a good amount of oaky bitterness. Overall it is a delicious armagnac, rustic with all the oak and licorice, but also sweet and complex.
Saint Aubin 1973 29yr 47% for Darroze
Nose: Dates, walnuts and yogurt covered raisins.
Palate: Sweet, with cola, lemon zest, date paste and mushrooms.
Rating: 5 / 10 – Black pepper, vanilla buttercream and stone ground mustard. Overall, a tasty dram. Nice balance of sweet and oak, of age and fruit. Nothing surprised me here, for good or bad. These were common flavors on yak of this age. Enjoyable though.
Bellair 1951 for Darroze
Nose: maple, oak, tons of licorice, linen, pear and butter.
Palate: apple skins, licorice and raspberry jam.
Rating: 4 / 10 – The finish is bitter lemon and juniper. I expected more rancio, but while this didn’t taste young, it had most of the boring components of aging and few of the exciting ones. I didn’t find anything wrong necessarily, but neither does it have much to recommend it.
Pounon 1988 for Darroze
Nose: Oh I like this one! Extremely sweet and enticing. Stewed peaches, huge sweet oak and forest floor.
Palate: dark coffee, sweet caramelized raisins, Iberico ham, pepper jelly, tobacco, burnt toast, and dank earthy mushrooms. As always, it gets smoother and sweeter with time in the glass and warmth. But the funky mushroom flavors and burnt flavors come out more too.
Rating: 7 / 10 – 2/3 of the finish is black coffee, with 1/3 being apricot and fig jams.
For the most part, this is pretty fantastic. Reminds me of my favorite Darroze offerings from domaine Bouillon. But with a little less complexity and funk.
Salie 1979 47% for Darroze
Nose: The abv tickled the nose, but there’s plenty of classic old Armagnac raisins. You can smell butter, French oak, plums, vanilla cream, balsamic vinegar, and some wool sweaters.
Palate: It tastes quite peppery and boozy, with pleasant drying oak and burn. A bit of tar, toasted pumpernickel rye and figs.
Rating: 6 / 10 – Pretty long finish, with tar, sour oranges and carpet.