A bit of news from the cognac/fortified wine specialist at Moore Brothers:
Apparently the big Cognac houses, Martell, Hennessy, Courvoisier, etc. are anticipating a massive increase in demand for their products from places such as Russia, China and India. This makes sense, as, in good times and bad, Cognac is a durable luxury good, and bad vintages and the like don’t bother the big houses too much.
So the big houses are buying up independent growers’ lands in the best (“Grande Champagne”) part of the Cognac region, in the Charente province north of Bordeaux. They are offering top dollar and many independents are selling out.
Obviously this could be a major disaster for Cognac fans. The big houses’ top-line products are OK, but their more mass-market brands are riddled with caramel and chemicals and are, really, not true expressions of Cognac’s flavor and heritage.
The small producers, such as Jean Filloux (Moore sells his magnificent creations) and the like, make Cognac that’s the real deal, and will blow you away with its quality and flavor: try some of his $38 Cep d’Or brand vs. Hennessy, say, and the difference will be astonishing. Every time I serve Filloux’s products (his Pineau de Charentes is nectar from God) I make converts.
Let’s just hope the big boys leave room for Filloux and his brethren.
06 May 2008
Trouble in Cognac?
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1 comment:
The good thing is that, try all they might, even LVMH can't turn armagnac into cognac. So we should have that available to us in the case of a surfeit of good cognac. (Praying all the while that Snoop or fiddy doesn't latch on the armagnac.)
In the meanwhile lay in a few bottles of Bijou Napoleon.
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