A single-year Armagnac from 1959: the kind of bottle you buy for a birthday or an anniversary, or just to taste what one Gascon year says six decades on. Armagnac's rules on vintages are looser than Cognac's, so vintage Armagnacs are far more common, and that's why a year like this can still be found at all. The Delord story starts in 1893, when Prosper Delord took his alambic (still) from farm to farm, turning local white wine into Armagnac. His sons Gaston and Georges then founded Delord Frères in Lannepax, and this 1959 dates from before Gaston's son Jacques took over in 1963. Today Prosper's great-grandsons Sylvain and Jérôme run the house. They still distil in the middle of winter, and one of their column stills is a 'Sier' from 1900. The family keeps its oldest vintages in glass jars, out of the light, in a room they call 'Paradise', which seems a fair name for it. Pour it into a tulip glass, give it some time and keep it for a slow evening.