Armagnac and catching up with friends

We started off the day waiting for our laundry to dry and eventually we got on the road around midday.

Our first stop was the Armagnac Museum. This showed the process of creating Armagnac by distilling white wine which had been fermented only once. Only 4 grape types are used.

The stills are specially designed for Armagnac being columnar and are cooled with the wine itself. There were a variety of stills.

The buildings and area of the old farm were in amongst the grapevines.

There was a huge collection of quirky ceramic bottles - not necessarily for Armagnac. We liked the Sydney Opera House.

After we did the museum, we then went for the tasting.

First we started with floc - a mix of Armagnac and grape juice. This is a very pleasant aperitif or dessert wine. We liked this very much.

We then went through different vintages of the Armagnac.

We found it a very strong spirit that hits hard in the way that whisky does. It does have undertones of prunes and almonds so very nice with desserts.

It’s interesting but not something we would drink regularly. So we bought some floc as we will use that for aperitifs more often 😊.

Leaving we drove along some lovely roads.

We then continued west to our next destination to catch up with friends Stephen and Claire who are Grant and Anne-my brother and sister in law’s very good friends from Wellington. We hadn’t seen them since motorhoming with them in the middle of last year. They are spending 2 months on the Eurosol campsite near Vieille-Saint-Girons north of Biarritz - as they have done for the last 8 years. They managed to get us a spot for the night on the campsite which we wouldn’t have been able to do as outsiders. The cost was very high - but it was worth it for a big catch up.

We got Gus settled in amongst the tall trees on a nice flat block.

We all walked down to the beach bar and had the prime table surveying the beach.

It’s an excellent beach with soft white sand and quirky wooden huts built on the dunes.

After our beers and G&Ts we walked back to the campsite restaurant next to the screening of the Olympics opening ceremony. We had a fantastic dinner of duck and steak followed by a shared profiterole plate.

After dinner we went back to Claire and Stephen’s place for too many drinks. We didn’t realised the time and I ended up leading Glenn back to Gus after 12.30pm. A good night was had by all!