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Hermitage Pre 1900 Cognacs

Provenance

There are hundreds of small cognac houses, most sell their young brandies to the big houses, but a few keep their special treasures tucked away for those who appreciate the golden nectar. 

Hermitage Cognac Limited has, for decades, sourced cognacs from the very finest producers in the Premier Cru of cognac, known as Grande Champagne.  Perhaps because of our exposure to many small family creators of fine brandies, we occasionally find cognacs hidden away in family cellars, often referred to as ‘Paradis’.   These innermost chambers house small batches of cognac in glass bonbonnes and sometimes contain cognacs that were made more than one hundred years ago.  These cognacs may have lived in their barrels for decades, and some, because of how they were made and aged, will be the perfect nectars that we are proud to call Hermitage.

Old cognacs are rare, and cognacs made before 1900 are exceptionally rare.  Cognacs are produced in France.  Nowhere else in the world is allowed to call their brandy ‘cognac’. The available quantity of cognac made before 1900 is miniscule and consequently, the value of these old vintages is increasing. We do not know how many more old and desirable cognacs we will find. But what we do know is that when they are all sold, the value of those still in circulation will rise alarmingly.

Hermitage pre 1900 Cognacs

Vintage Cognac Values

During the 1990s individual bottles of vintage cognac, from as early as 1790, were available in the marketplace for between £1500 to £2000.  Cognacs from 1800 – 1860 could be purchased for between £1200 – £1700.

By 2015, very early bottles from before 1800, were being sold for £27,000 and cognacs from 1800 to 1860 for £12,000 to £19,000.

Within the last 5 years, two imperial three quarter gallon bottles of Massougnes, which in 2000 sold for £7000, sold in London for £246,000 each.

The acceleration of cognac values since 2015 leaves us in little doubt that by the end of the decade, prices will have doubled again.

Our Offering

In addition to purchasing our Hermitage Pre 1900 Cognacs in bottles, we also offer the range in glass bonbonnes.  Each vintage can be purchased in either 10 litre or 30 litre bonbonnes.

Our Latest 2004 Vintage Cognac

2004 Vintage Cognac

We always like to introduce new vintages into our Hermitage Cognac range. The MD spends many hours visiting some of the many distillers, usually situated in Grande Champagne, looking for our next cognac masterpiece. Our latest find is a 2004 Vintage Cognac and for a cognac that is not yet 20 years old, it is sensational.

This Hermitage 2004 Grande Champagne Cognac comes from the gentle slopes around the town of Segonzac, in the centre of the premier cru.  A truly amazing cognac it has a complexity of flavours that would enhance many, much older spirits.

Aromas of cocoa, walnuts, dark toffee and truffle are followed by the rich and complex charecteristic flavours of the Hermitage style. These include dark toffee and cocoa which are followed by delicious bouts of clove, almond, damson and candied fruits.

Retailing at just under £130, this would make a magnificent present for the cognac lover in your life!

Our Latest Montanaro Grappa Di Arneis

Montanaro Grappa

Our whole range of products from Montanaro, including grappas, vermouths and bitters, has been exceptionally well received by our customers. In fact, it was they that asked us to expand our offering of grappas to include the Montanaro Grappa Di Arneis. So, here it is! Marked by the floral and herbaceous fragrance, typical of the original vine of the Arneis grape, it is a wonderful Montanaro Grappa which explodes in the mouth with the very first sip and is so easy to drink.

Montanaro is one of the oldest distilleries in Langa established by Master of the Still, Francesco Trussoni in 1885. He established the first single vineyard Grappa using Nebbiolo grapes for Barolo. In 1922 Mario Montanaro, together with his wife Angela Trussoni and son Giuseppi, refined the product using the first alembic steam stills. At the end of 2000 Giuseppe Montanaro, aged almost eighty and without direct heirs, decided to sell the Montanaro Distillery to a group of “Albese “ businessmen. Today, Monatanaro is known worldwide as an excellent artisanal and prestigious distillery.

Expansion Of Our Toutain Calvados Range

Toutain CalvadosThe Apple Of A Brandy Drinker’s Eye

We have just expanded our recently acquired Toutain Calvados range; a family firm, now on the fifth generation, who produce calvados from their own orchards.  In keeping with the high standards of Brandyclassics, we know precisely how long each Toutain product has spent in cask.  Unlike most calvados producers, Toutain make their calvados without the addition of pears.  (Pears are usually added to increase acidity and in these cases a pear drop flavour can sometimes be detected.)  They are smooth and mellow with an unmistakable apple flavour and now the whole range comes in a new, boxed presentation.

The two new products on our shelves are as follows:

Toutain Reserve 3 Year Old Calvados.   The youngest in the range but still with the delicious aroma and flavour of vanilla and cooked apples.  RRP £37.92.

Toutain Reserve Odile 60 Year Old Calvados.  This exclusive bottling pays tribute to Odile Toutain who, 60 years ago, took over the management of Domaine de la Couterie.  Distilled in 1959, the calvados was carefully aged for 60 years in the family cellars. Presented in a beautiful carafe and sealed in a wooden housing, only a limited edition of 234 bottles is available.  RRP £881.58

View the entire range of Toutain age-statemented calvados here.

Bonbonne of 1889 Cognac Sells for £68K

1889 CognacA very exciting Christmas present for someone perhaps?  This 8 litre bonbonne of Hermitage 1889 Paradis Cognac was sold last week, the asking price was £68,300.  A one-off presentation of this superb 1889 cognac is a very rare offering by Hermitage Cognacs and was snapped up at Hedonism Wines in Mayfair.

It was distilled in the late nineteenth century (1889) when Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair) in Paris opened with the recently completed Eiffel Tower serving as the entrance arch.  At 300m high it retained the record for the tallest man-made structure for 41 years.

The cognac comes from the southeast part of the region, now known as Grande Champagne, around the charming little village of Bouteville.  It was made on a small wood fired still and is a glorious example of some of the finest Premier Cru craftmanship of the era, when the understanding of cognac production methods was at its best.  Aged for more than 70 years in oak casks, which has optimized its key qualities of balance and rancio, this cognac is completely natural, with no reduction.  Such a long time in wood has produced an even distribution of flavours including cocoa, walnut kernels and coffee with a final and delicious long rancio, the much favoured richness, so highly desirable in these fine old cognacs.

 

New Vintage Armagnacs – Castarede 1983, 1986 & 1987

Vintage ArmagnacsAll from the top cru, Bas Armagnac, we have another three wonderful vintage armagnacs from one of the very best producers, Castarede.   Said to be the oldest business in Armagnac, having been founded in 1832, they own the Chateau de Maniban estate and supply armagnacs grown on their 16 hectares of vineyards.  Four main armagnac grape varieties of Ugni Blanc, Baco, Folle Blanche and Colombard are grown.  All vintages, distilled in 1983, 1986 and 1987 respectively, have been aged for over 35 years.  Take a look at the delicious tasting notes below.

Castarede 1983

Aroma: Guava, passion fruit and cedar.

Flavour: Light and mellow. Flavours of angelica and elderberry with sour apple.

Castarede 1986

Aroma: Celery, palm leaves and a hint of cedar.

Flavour: Dried apples and angelica with a long finish of dried apricot.

Castarede 1987

Aroma: Unusual aromas of pineapple leaves and green tea.

Flavour: Delightful flavours of dried greengage, sage and crystalised mandarin.

Hermitage Paradis 1875 Cognac

1875 cognacWe are very excited to introduce a new cognac to our shelves, and our Hermitage Paradis range, the 1875 vintage.  Only a few bottles remain of this old 1875 cognac which originally came from a cellar near Bouteville, in the cru now known as Grande Champagne.  It was distilled on a very small still and then aged for more than 75 years in a cellar built against a limestone cutting.  The cellar floor and walls were natural, with no cement or concrete, which made it ideal for ageing old cognacs.

The production of cognacs in the 18th and 19th centuries was a way of farming the land that growers owned. At the time these cognacs were made, there were perhaps more than 1500 different growers in the region, each making their wines, distilling them and putting them into cellars to age in oak casks. The skills employed had been handed down from generations before them.  Not every brandy which the growers produced was of a quality that stood out as being truly exceptional but now and again a cognac would be sufficiently good to be kept to one side and stored for the future. The year that the cognac was made was always recorded with a chalk mark on the barrel.

 

We understand that this cognac was removed from cask and placed in bonbonnes between 1950 and 1955, making it 75 – 80 years old.  Our tasting notes confirm that the cognac has developed a significant rancio consistent with very long cask ageing.  Specific tasting notes can be found here.

The Drinks Business – Boutique Cognac Houses

Boutique Cognac HousesRichard Woodward writing in The Drinks Business last week, about Boutique Cognac Houses, names Hermitage Cognac as an independent bottler focused on the highest quality:

“Cognac has close to 80,000 hectares of vineyard … cultivated by some 4,000 growers …  . Twenty years ago, there were 8,000 vignerons in Cognac, illustrating a growing professionalism as small landowners exit the industry.

That picture of consolidation extends to brand owners, with Cognac’s “big four” – Hennessy, Martell, Rémy Martin and Courvoisier – accounting for more than 80% of global consumption. That leaves little space for smaller operations, but a number of boutique houses still carve out a niche for themselves, pitching their artisanal credentials against the might of that dominant quartet.

Most growers sell the vast majority of their production to big houses, but many still bottle their own Cognac as well. The best of these are the hidden gems of the region – growers such as Château Montifaud, Jean Fillioux and Michel Forgeron, or David Baker’s Hermitage Cognacs – an independent bottler focused on the highest quality.”

Read the complete article here.

Calvados, The Modern, Sustainable Spirit

spiritCalvados has long been the underdog of French spirits.  “Even in France, people quite liked it, but the image was dusty and old fashioned,” says Xavier d’Audiffret Pasquier, co-founder of Maison Sassy. “Our mission is to bring calvados back to life. We want to almost promote calvados like a gin, as a very modern spirit.”

Outside France, calvados has always been popular was the bartending community.  Tim Etherington-Judge says “First, it’s delicious. It has a very approachable flavour profile, not complex like a mezcal. But also, as a cocktail nerd, if you go back to some of the historical cocktail books, like The Savoy Cocktail Book or The Flowing Bowl, calvados is a regularly used ingredient.”  Coupette is a calvados bar in London that is helping to introduce the spirit to a new generation of fans.  Their most famous cocktail creation is named Apples, and the recipe is simple.  Each month a different calvados is mixed with the juice from a different variety of apple and carbonated. The result is stunning and in 2019 was named Cocktail of the Year.

The scope for calvados to continue to modernise is immense now that every spirit brand aims to brag about is sustainability credentials.  In a 2021 report by Business Wire, 85% of people indicated they had shifted their purchase behaviour to be more sustainable in the last five years.  There is no doubt that calvados has a case for being the world’s most sustainable spirit. This is what Etherington-Judge set out to create and Avallen was the result.  “We went right back to the raw materials that are used to create alcohols and instead of using the usual metrics of cost and flavour, we put the environment first. Based on four metrics – carbon emissions, biodiversity, water consumption and pesticide and fertiliser use – we analysed the ingredients and that research led us to apples.  The trees are carbon sinks, they support biodiversity in the traditional orchards of Normandy, there is no artificial irrigation, and there’s very little pesticide and fertiliser use within the orchard. From an environmental perspective, the orchards of Normandy are fantastic.”

We at Brandyclassics have searched high and low to find an exceptional calvados brand to champion and the result is Toutain.  Full of appley flavours, it’s the best we have ever tasted.

Read the full article on Modernising Calvados, written in Drinks International here.

Cognacs With Age Statements

Age StatementsCognac house Maison Bache Gabrielsen has released a new series of cognacs with age statements called Years in Cask.  Good to see them following in our footsteps!  These cognacs are also vintages so by definition they must be single estate and cannot be blended.  Once vintage cognacs have reached their optimum maturity they are transferred to glass bonbonnes where they will mature no further.

Bache Gabrielsen have released 4 new cognacs aged from 19 to 37 years.  The younger two come from Grande Champagne, the top cru, where cognacs take the longest to mature whilst the older two come from Fin Bois, a lesser known cru.  Their prices range from £163 to £344 for a 70cl bottle with abvs being between 40 and 47 percent.  It is great to see another cognac house heralding the benefits of age statement and vintage cognac but before you part with your hard earned cash to try them out, take a look at the quality and price of the following, produced by Hermitage: