Blog Archives - Château de Lacquy

Château de Lacquy named best brandy producer in the world !

We are very proud to announce that Château de Lacquy has just been named best brandy producer (Brandy Producer Trophy) by the famous IWSC competition in London.

Great recognition for our family, our employees and all the partners who trust us!

See the official communication

Musique en Bas-Armagnac Festival 2nd edition (2023)

Sunday August 20th, 2023

A romantic afternoon at the Château de Lacquy

At 3 p.m., visit of the cellar with tasting/armagnac-chocolate workshop.
At 5 p.m., 45-minute opening recital by the young pianist Vincent Martinet.
Bucolic break for refreshments under the trees.
At 6.30 p.m., recital by Tanguy de Williencourt.

VINCENT MARTINET, piano

CHOPIN, Ballades n°1 et 3

CHOPIN, Valses opus 34 n°1 et 2, opus 42, opus 64 n°1 et 2

SCHUBERT/LISZT, Auf des Wasser zu singen

Winner at the Ravel Academy

The young Vincent Martinet, rising star of the younger generation, will open this romantic musical promenade with the most beautiful works of Chopin and Schubert, leading us, through increasingly intense virtuosity, into a veritable odyssey of the human soul.

TANGUY DE WILLIENCOURT, piano

BEETHOVEN, Sonate “Clair de lune”

SCHUBERT, 4 impromptus opus 90

BEETHOVEN, Sonate “La Chasse”

Acclaimed by his peers, regularly honored by the press and adored by an ever-growing public, Tanguy de Williencourt is now one of the major figures of the great emerging French pianists. With his brilliant, subtle, inspired, charming or jubilant playing, he will offer some masterpieces of the romantic repertoire.

To buy tickets, see here: https://assotaba.fr/billetterie/

Find all the information about the festival and the complete program here: https://assotaba.fr/musique-en-bas-armagnac-presentation/

How to prune the vines

Our Vineyard Manager explains in this video how we prune the vines at Château de Lacquy.

From November the sap goes back down into the roots, the leaves fall, and the vine then begins its winter sleep, its buds – already present for the next cycle – being dormant.
It’s time to grab your pruning shears and prepare the vine for its wake up. This essential work aims at limiting too much development of the vine, reducing the number of buds and therefore of bunches, and ensuring the good growth of the grapes.
At Château de Lacquy we use the “simple Guyot” method: we leave a long vine shoot (with 5 to 8 buds) and a spur (with two buds). The upper branch will form the wand and the lower branch the spur. This pruning system involves trellising.

Club Oenologique Magazine – July 2023

Vertical tasting of Château de Lacquy’s armagnacs
by Francis Mallmann and Joel Harrison.

We are delighted and very proud to send you a copy of the article and tasting notes published in the latest issue of Club Oenologique (UK), written by Francis Mallmann -a famous Argentinian chef of international renown- and Joel Harrison -consultant and spirits expert.

These scores (including two 100/100 for the 2008 Folle Blanche vintage and the 1999 vintage) reward constant work to offer the best of this exceptional terroir that we have in Lacquy.

Musique en Bas-Armagnac: 1st edition of the festival

CONCERT on Saturday AUGUST 20th, 2022 at 6 p.m., price €20, free for children under 18, free seating

4 p.m.: Visit of the cellar and tasting

6 p.m.: concert

JEAN-MARC LUISADA

piano recital

La poésie au bout des doigts

There are pianists whose touch reaches such a degree of finesse and expressiveness that it becomes almost legendary. Jean-Marc Luisada is certainly one of these: plunging into the heart of the intimacy of musical language as if to decipher the mysteries of the human soul, he takes us on this quest to the depths of our beings to share his perception with us. full of nuance and subtlety. An eminently charismatic and generous personality, sensitive as much as a poet, he gives us under his expert fingers a vibrant and inspired reading of Mozart’s famous Sonata Alla Turca. Next will come Chopin, of whom he is recognized as one of the most remarkable specialists of our time, and Schubert, to whom he has just devoted an album unanimously acclaimed by critics, confirming him among the highest figures of the romantic piano.

MOZART, Sonate” Marche turque” nᵒ 11 en la majeur

CHOPIN, Fantaisie opus 49

SCHUBERT, Sonate D.960

Reservations and full festival program here: https://assotaba.fr/musique-en-bas-armagnac-presentation/

Concert at Château de Lacquy – 17th August 2019

CONCERT ON AUGUST 17, 2019 at 6 p.m., free entrance

We are honored and delighted to welcome TRIO ZADIG, Boris Borgolotto, violin, Marc Girard Garcia, cello, Ian Barber, piano.

With its virtuosity, elegance and irresistible enthusiasm, the sometimes poetic, sometimes dazzling playing of the Trio Zadig, rewarded with eleven international prizes, captivates the public of the greatest international venues (Wigmore Hall, the Shanghai City Theater, the Eslite Hall of Taipei, the Salle Cortot and the Philharmonie de Paris, the Bozar in Brussels, the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester).

Full of freshness and audacity, it restores vitality to the trio’s repertoire, from Haydn and Dvorak to the composers of our time, including transcriptions or arrangements such as that of West Side Story. Its version for trio (which has just been awarded an ffff by Télérama) “in no way betrays the imagination of the original composer, Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990). Are we losing a few notes? The spirit is there, intact (and what tone in the chamber version of Tonight!) »

To know more : http://triozadig.com/fr/about-fr

PROGRAMME

Haydn– Trio Hob. XV 25 (n° 39) en Sol Majeur “Gypsy”
Bernstein, arr. Bruno Fontaine – West Side Story Fantasy
Dvorák– Trio op 90 n°4 en mi mineur “Dumky”

Concert at Château de Lacquy – 27th August 2017

CONCERT ON AUGUST 27th, 2017 at 6 p.m., free entrance

The concerts at the Château de Lacquy are intended to be accessible to all. Since their creation in 2007, they have seduced the most informed amateurs as well as neophytes curious to discover the classical repertoire in an ancestral setting full of charm, rural and family.

For this 10th edition, François Salque and Pierre Perchaud, two great figures of cello and guitar, come together exceptionally in a concert full of color and emotion.

From classical, traditional, contemporary music, they have cultivated the richness of timbres and the sound spell. Weaving unsuspected bridges between scholarly and popular arts with incredible intuition, François Salque and Pierre Perchaud offer us an original and exciting concert.

New medals for Château de Lacquy

@iwsc

Château de Lacquy has just won 3 medals (out of 3 samples presented) at the IWSC in London, including an Exceptional Gold Medal for the Bas Armagnac vintage 2001 100% Baco.

Details here: https://tinyurl.com/ms7fassz

Vintage 2021: distillation has just begun at Château de Lacquy

The distillation started a few days ago in Lacquy.

The Folles Blanches, very affected by the frost on April 7th, were distilled at 55% alcohol and give beautiful floral expressions.

The Colombards are being distilled and produce magnificent eaux-de-vie.

It will be a great year.

IWSC London 2021

Just launched and already awarded!

Our Bas Armagnacs Vintage 1991 and Blend 21 years have both won a gold medal at the famous IWSC competition in London, respectively with scores of 96 and 95 out of 100.

Having celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2019, the IWSC remains as relevant today as it did when wine chemist Anton Massel founded the original format back in 1969.
When Massel created the International Wine & Spirit Competition, his aim – as it remains to this day – was to reward excellence in drinks worldwide, ensuring recognition for the very best wines and spirits. The IWSC is proud to set the international benchmark for quality, standing out in the crowded world of drinks awards with hundreds of global experts – including buyers, producers, distillers, sommeliers, distributors and influencers – judging wines and spirits throughout the year.

New: two single varietals in the 2001 vintage

We are launching two new releases in our “Les Fûts Uniques” collection, monovarietal and caskstrength 2001 vintage Armagnacs: one 100% baco (cask N°320) and one 100% colombard (cask N°144).

Two masterpieces, for lovers of unique eaux-de-vie.

The vintages of Château de Lacquy are now exclusively sold in the form of “Fûts Uniques” (or “single casks”), bearing on their label the cask number, the bottle number, and the grape varieties used. In Lacquy everything is excellence, high standards and transparency… and a further step towards this transparency has just been taken, since last year the Château launched 3 Single Varietal Casks of the 2007 vintage (100% Baco, 100% Folle Blanche and 100% Colombard), and has -as mentioned above- just selected two more from the 2001 vintage this year.

The cycle of the vine: bud break

In March, the vine enters a phase of its cycle called “bud break”. This means that the protective scales that cover the bud will move away, revealing the future leaves of our vine plant.

The bud break marks the end of the vines’ winter rest. Concretely, the buds surrounded by their scales begin to open and their small leavesbegin to grow. This phase of the vine cycle generally occurs in the spring, but sometimes the warm temperatures at the end of winter favor an early bud burst, in mid-March. Because two factors are essential to initiate the awakening of vegetation: heat and light, and both in sufficient quantity. If these conditions meet, the vines start their activity again: the roots resume drawing water and nutrients from the soil, the sap circulates again, and the vine produces buds which will then hatch.

This is a very delicate period for our vines, because they are then extremely fragile: in the event of early bud break, or during late frosts (at the end of April), negative temperatures (from -2°C) can burn the buds and the small leaves that just emerged, which dry up and wither, leaving little hope of a harvest in the fall.