Veritas

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Prior to the vine plagues (mildew, oidium, phylloxera) of the late nineteenth century, Armagnac (just as Cognac) was distilled from wine made from the folle blanche grape. After the scourges devastated the vineyards, Cognac began to be produced entirely from ugni blanc. Armagnac producers also began to use ugni blanc, in addition to a hybrid grape called baco 22A, which was a cross between folle blanche and an American varietal, noah. Many Armagnac producers also employ some colombard, and a few use miniscule amounts of extant folle blanche. Laberdolive, because of its favored site rich in sandy soil, still supports a reasonable amount of ungrafted, pre-phylloxera folle blanche, which is typically blended with ugni blanc and baco.

V: Interestingly, however, you often no longer even offer the big names that you once helped publicize. Why is this? R: Well, the hardest thing in this business is to stay vibrant. We are absolutely convinced that unless we stay on the cutting edge, we will be history. Accordingly, in our latest incarnation at Michael's (say during the last five years), we redefined the restaurant and its wine program. Among the first things we did, and perhaps the most radical, we removed all the big names from the wine list. We dropped Grgich, Far Niente, Duckhorn, Jordan, and not because there's anything wrong with those wines. In fact, quite the contrary. The challenge, rather, is that we have an affinity for small producers, boutique names that remain unfamiliar to most people. Since we maintain a relatively large list, if we were also to carry those big names, they would be the only ones we would sell. We cannot practically rush to every table and twist everybody's arm to try a new producer unknown to them.

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