Cyril Laudet

Cellar Master Laballe

was born in September 13th 1978. He grew up in Laballe and left the region for his studies. He did Viticulture Oenoligy BTS (2 years after French Bachelor) a Wine Marketing License in Carcassonne Languedoc Roussillon. After 6 month in Ireland to learn English, he became commercial director of a brand new winery in Corbières Château de Cruscades. He develops sales in France and aboard for 5 years.

In the meantime, at Laballe Cyril’s grandfather Noel Laudet was running the vineyard putting the accent on wine production instead of armagnac. It was the solution he chose to keep the domaine at its balance. In June 2007, his grandfather called Cyril saying that he didn’t want to harvest and that he stopped his wine activity (he had 83 years by the time!) (he wanted to keep selling his armagnac stock).

So Cyril who has done his studies and experiences dreaming of coming back to Laballe, quitted his job at Cruscades and arrived in Laballe. The transmission between him and his grandfather has been complicated, facing a generational conflict. Moreover, Cyril had the commercial technique knowledge but didn't know the winery work and the material in Laballe was far too old to do good actual wines. So Cyril decides to find partnership with close neighbors and hire a oenologist the produce the wines. He developed and stabilized the wine ranges, qualities and sales for a few years.

Since Cyril’s arrival at Laballe, even if his grandfather was still selling his own armagnac, Cyril produced armagnac as it is a real DNA of Laballe and he has always believed in this spirit. He distilled 1 barrel in 2007 and up to 45 barrels for the last 3 years. For now, the production of the armagnac has been made in the traditional Laballe way: vinification in concrete tank, distillation with the same itinerant still which comes to Laballe since 1923, ageing in Bartholomo barrels (last barrel maker in Landes region); barrels made with black oak from Gascony in order to keep the local typicality.

Since 2010, when the grandfather totally stopped the business, Cyril started review the aging and sales policies of the armagnacs in Laballe. Vintages remains the history of Armagnac so it is an important point in Laballe but the idea is to produce and propose on the market young and fresh armagnacs.

In this sense, Laballe launched in 2014 the 3-12-21 collection: 3 blends for 3 different moments of tasting to touch new type of clients and to enter into the spirit world and refresh and bit the aging image of the armagnac in France and in the world. (see full presentation of the collection per attached).

Other projects are on progress, still in the same idea: young (up to 10 years) blends, marketed for new generation such as cocktail bars, different styles of consumption, different from digestive, aging in different barrels, do aging experiences… in other words: change the codes!