Ladeveze 2019 Row Spirits 53%

Ladeveze 2019 Row Spirits 53%

Young Mauzac = virtuosity?

After a very convincing armagnac, it’s time for a second one from Row Spirits.  And what a kind of armagnac! 100% Mauzac Rose (!!), 4yo, 53%. This grape variety is quite unknown, mainly because this is one of the less used among the ten allowed for armagnac production. So let’s taste this young Tenareze.

Colour: Pale yellow, green lights. Regular heavy tears.

Nose: Very fruity nose, very close to the one you get from the newborn eau-de-vie, straight from the pot still. Fresh fruitiness on cider apple and young pear, with surprising malted notes in the background. Caramel sweets, also something that you can get from a newborn cognac eau-de-vie. Hints of rich dry white wine notes like dry Jurancon.

Palate: Bone-dry texture with immediate caramel sweets notes, a little oily in the aftertaste with discrete oaky shades. Light and fruity profile. Fresh zesty notes too. Quite disturbing as my palate is more familiar with older spirits. But one day, a venerable cellar master said to me that it’s very easy to appreciate an old eau-de-vie, but it’s far more difficult to detect when a young one is good. And without any doubt, this young Ladeveze is one that you can store on your atypical spirits shelf.

Last Notes: You still get bright malted notes. Young spiced and briny scents on fleur de sel and nutmeg powder. Very intellectual eau-de-vie in fact. Back on the palate, you find fruity eau-de-vie shades (plum and pear at the same time) and light honeyed tones. Relevant ABV by the way.

Bone-dry armagnac with funny sides. Don’t know if grape’s originality is involved here, but that’s a very uncommon and interesting young Tenareze, and in my humble opinion, the wood influence seems to be perfect for this kind of age statement, which is not always the case when we’re speaking about armagnac…

My very subjective note: 85+/100

More info about this Ladeveze 2019 by Row Spirits