Bas-Armagnac is the westernmost of the three Armagnac districts, in the Landes and the western Gers around Eauze and Labastide-d'Armagnac, and it is generally held to produce the finest brandy of the region. The soil is the reason: a rust coloured, iron rich sand called sables fauves, acidic and free draining, which gives wine that is thin and sharp to drink and superb to distil.

Armagnac is the oldest brandy in France, recorded in the fourteenth century, two centuries before Cognac, and it has always been made differently. Most of it is distilled once, in a continuous column still of a design peculiar to the region, which leaves more of the character of the wine in the spirit, and it is aged in local black oak. Ugni Blanc, Folle Blanche, Colombard and the hybrid Baco are the four permitted grapes, and the vineyards are scattered among the maize fields, the duck farms and the oak woods of Gascony.