I’m back with you this week to talk about single estate cognac, a spirit I think is as a noble and rewarding as single malt whisky, ancestral mezcal, or pot still rum. Forget any notions of mass-market blends, sticky with added sugars and loaded into crystal decanters. This is about small producers and spirits with a sense of place.
It’s traditional when writing about cognac to mention this venerable brandy’s image problem. So, let’s get that out of the way early.
“‘Cognac is very expensive, cognac is for old men, cognac is for rappers.’ Everyone has a preconceived notion about what cognac is, but very few people have tasted anything outside one of the Big Four.”
That’s Amy Pasquet from Jean-Luc Pasquet, a small producer in Grande Champagne that specializes in organic viticulture. Amy and her husband, Jean, grow grapes, make wine, distil eaux-de-vie, and age cognac on their land. This is what we mean when we talk about single estate cognac.
The Big Four – Hennessy, Remy Martin, Martell and Courvoisier – are responsible for as much as 90% of all cognac sales, titans compared to Jean-Luc Pasquet. This enviable market share means that they have enormous sway over the way cognac is perceived the world over.
“I understand why people would see cognac as industrial spirit, because that's all they can find,” Amy tells me. “It gets overlooked because of its massiveness. You see these four producers with three different kinds of cognac and think, ‘what's to explore in that?’ But there’s so much more.
“There are about 4,250 growers in Cognac. About a quarter of these growers have their own pot stills, the others sell their wine to one of the Big Four or 15 medium-sized houses. Those houses have 90% of all cognac vines on contract. The rest is what we call free spirit.”
When Amy and I speak, she’s kind enough to share with me the estate’s L’Organic Folle Blanche L.XIV Cognac. After 10 years in oak, it’s pale and dry with vivid notes of peach, wildflower honey, orange blossoms and chamomile, limestone and sea salt. It’s a world away from the sweetened, confected spirit that many of us associate with cognac. It has individuality and a sense of place – qualities that put this in the same weight class as a good single malt. This is what cognac can be.
The Folle Blanche grape mostly vanished from Cognac in the 19th century. The big houses deemed it too temperamental, not suitable for their yield targets and economies of scale. But small operations like Jean-Luc Pasquet are still able to celebrate the elegance and singularity of this ancestral variety.
“We've never wanted to make crazy decanters or anything like that,” says Amy. “We're not mixing 1,200 different eaux-de-vie. We’re really just blending what we have in our stocks to make the best cognac we can bottle.”
The giants and the free spirits
Brandy from the Charente in southwestern France was one of the first spirits to achieve international success. The region traditionally produced light, acidic wines that were considered inferior to those from nearby Bordeaux. Dutch traders then brought pot stills to the region in the 16th century, which were perfect for distillation. An established Charentais merchant class was quick to capitalize on this new technology and began exporting casks of ‘burnt wine’.
Over decades, a complex system of supply and distribution formed with winemakers and growers at the bottom, negociants acting as brokers in the middle, and large houses with extensive cellars and skilled blenders at the top. These houses helped turn an agricultural product into an internationally traded commodity and a cornerstone of French gastronomic soft power.
This global reach gave rise to a model in which eaux-de-vie derived from individual vineyards are blended to create a consistent product. The identity of cognac as a spirit born in the soil of the Charente grew hazy. Big players doubled down on luxurious packaging and increasingly esoteric marketing.
The contract model under which growers commit to supplying wine to large companies works fine if you’re exporting 8.5 million cases of product a year, as category leader Hennessy managed in its peak in 2021, but not so well when trade wars upend your distribution channels.
“Up until the 1960s, there were no contracts between growers and negociants, now its 90%,” says Amy. “This seems like it would have a stabilizing effect, but right now, we're going through something unheard of because there are two trade wars going on. When you export 98% of your product and you’re proud of telling people that, it puts a target on your back.”
Contracted growers are obliged to supply wine to big companies, but those companies don’t always hold up their side of the bargain. As sales flatten, growers are even being incentivized to rip up their vines to prevent oversupply. But this may spell opportunity for those brining cognac back to its roots.
Treasure hunting in Cognac
David Baker has been sourcing casks for his company Hermitage Cognac since 1990.
His clients include Berry Bros. & Rudd and the Bordeaux Index as well as private collectors and investors. He’s evangelical about singular cognacs that have a clear sense of identity, style, and terroir.
“We only have single estate cognac,” David explains. “That's to say it only comes from a single producer, we do not blend cognac. What you're getting from that is the cellar master and the distiller’s experience. They all have their own skills, their own independent ways of putting things together.
“When you’re walking into an old barn with all these barrels in it, the family that made them having died off probably 50 years ago, and you see little chalk marks that say 1845 on the barrel. That’s where you find the good ones.
“We can take you through every stage of how a cognac was made, where it was made,” David tells me. “The cellars it was aged in, there’s so much there to talk about, all sorts of stories to tell. This is something I really enjoy. I suspect I’ll be doing it till the day I die.”
Among the oldest bottlings David has to offer now is the Hermitage Paradis 1884 Grande Champagne Cognac. It’s an extraordinary spirit, filled with intense notes of passionfruit, plum, dry spices, cedar and soft leather. At the time of writing, it will set you back £7,813.20. No small amount of money. But for perspective, that’s about what you can expect to pay for a good Scotch whisky distilled in the 1970s.
Not every bottle from Hermitage is quite so hard on the wallet, the firm’s flagship 10-year-old Grande Champagne Cognac is £67 and is likewise excellent. Full of character and as far from mass-produced spirit as you can imagine.
David says: “The big houses buy cognac from smaller producers and put them all in a big pot, stir them up, and that's what they have to do. They have to add sugar to it, they have to add caramel to it, and that's their market, but it's not our market. We're looking at the very best specialty cognac for the people who want something which is different and original.”
The big houses employ talented people, work with great eaux-de-vie, and supply consistent product around the world, but grower-producers like Jean-Luc Pasquet and speciality negociants like Hermitage are far more agile in trying times. Yet they still need to overcome the issue that so few of us understand: why is their cognac any different?
“Craft is not a vain word”
“Why don’t we drink cognac shots in Europe, like shots of tequila?” Marine Deschamps, co-owner of the Ragnaud-Saboruin estate asks me. I have no good answer for her.
“One challenge we have to address now is how we can be more appealing to the younger generation,” she says. “Maybe through different ways of consuming cognac, making cognacs which have real storytelling and give a sense of craft. We know that younger generations want to understand where things come from, how they’re made and the stories behind them.”
Ragnaud-Sabourin has been making cognac in the top cru of Grande Champagne since 1850. It recently sold a stake to shoe designer Christian Louboutin, showing that committing to craft can still be good business.
“Craft is not a vain word. Craft means working in little batches, working the way we've always worked,” Marine explains. “Some people talk about cognac, but they don’t even know it’s a brandy because it’s so transformed. We talk more about brands than we talk about what the spirit is. Cognac has known such a success around the world that consumers can forget that it’s an eau-de-vie de vin.”
We as spirits fans can support this kind of work by finding room in our hearts and on our shelves for single estate cognacs. Not out of a sense of charity, but because they offer extraordinary quality at competitive prices.
A spirit doesn’t need to be expensive or ancient or glamorously packaged to feel special, it must feel like it was made with intention, by people that care. Single estate cognac has this in spades.
Santé, Amy, David and Marine. The next round of cognac shots is on me.
Former French Airforce pilot Benjamin Baker set up shop in the Fin Bois region of Cognac in 2022, sourcing casks that show unique character and flavor.
Nose: Root beer, genepi, the tiniest bit of wood smoke. Dundee cake, pecan pie, Paris-Brest, milk chocolate cookies, pine sap, vine leaves and hazelnut liqueur. Those Borderies violets come in right at the end, backed up by cherry blossoms and dried rose petals.
Palate: Cola and cocktail bitters, ultra-dark chocolate cake, a slice of bresaola, aged balsamic, plum sauce, star anise, 100-year-old Port, more pecan pie, autumn leaves, Finnish licorice, dried cranberries, mahogany, cedar, rosewood, oolong tea.
Finish: Sweet, savory and intense. It just goes on forever. There’s no age statement here, but it’s clear this has been left to mature undisturbed for a very, very long time. This is what small producers like WV Baker offer. This isn’t cheap, but the value for money just immense. An absolute knockout.
Age statements can be a thorny matter in cognac, as the industry broadly favors classification like VSOP and XO, but I have it on good authority that this was aged for at least 35 years. Age isn’t everything, of course, but that’s pretty impressive for the price.
Nose: Tarte tatin, polenta cake with oranges, chestnut puree and slivered almonds. Then nectarines, plums and white grapes. Vanilla flowers, lime blossoms and honeysuckle.
Palate: Richly textured and waxy, with more oranges, red apples, apricot preserves, ginger biscuits and redcurrants. In cognac, you’ll often hear people talk about ‘rancio’ – the term for concentrated fruitiness and slightly funky notes that only develop through long ageing in oak. Those rancio notes are present and correct here, bringing light tobacco, coffee beans, and warm tannins.
Finish: Long and palate coating, with more beeswax, vanilla, honey and white miso. Seriously good stuff.
Score: 91
Hermitage 1995 Grande Champagne | ABV: 43% | Price: £165.60
Offering vintage bottlings requires producers to jump through various bureaucratic hoops, so many simply don’t bother. David Baker of Hermitage estimates he has about 6,000 liters (1,585 gallons) of various vintages in stock at the moment, but he’s always on the hunt for more hidden treasure in Grande Champagne.
Nose: Antique shop notes of polished oak, linseed oil, beeswax and old books, followed by apple pie, nectarines, honey cakes, raw chocolate and walnut wine.
Palate: Ristretto coffee, Brazil nuts in dark chocolate, hazelnuts, walnuts, raisins and peaches with honey and mint. Cigar wrappers, Italian bitters, rosewood, allspice and cardamom.
Finish: Dry and long with manuka honey, more stone fruit and polished copper.
There’s a great sense of age here, but it never feels too oaky or tired. An impressive balancing act from one of the great curators of vintage cognac.
