Few have done so much to retrieve Armagnac’s past glories from neglect as Francis Darroze, a former Michelin-starred chef and Relais & Châteaux hotelier. In 1974, with the region’s economy in the doldrums and Armagnac sales flagging, Darroze began buying up the small stocks of brandies languishing in family-farm distillers’ barns. Aging the spirits in his cellars and bottling them undiluted, he and son Marc have built a world-reference collection of straight-from-the-terroir artisan Armagnacs–250 different bottlings as of today. This year, Darroze expects to sell 60,000 bottles in 35 countries, worth about $3.3 million.