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Saturday, June 15, 2013

John & Lynne's French odyssey. Day 3, A visit to Cognac producer Grosperrin in Saintes

We tasted Grosperrin Cognacs at the Fusion Brandy Festival at the CTICC in May and contacted Guilhem Grosperrin
to see if we could visit him when we came to the Cognac region before our visit to Vinexpo in Bordeaux
Guilhem took over his father’s business ten years ago when his father fell ill with MS. He was 23

Ancient beams in the old warehouse building he has bought and renovated

Bottles of Cognac ready to be packed and shipped

Barrels of aged Cognac and Pineau de Charentes

New and old demijohns in the cellar

Prototype bottles and labels

and samples of bottles and decanters

A variety of different cognacs in the lab – we tasted several of them. Sadly, the driver, as usual, spat most of it out

A new label, aimed at the young market and designed by Guilhem’s sister

with a vintage single vineyard Cognac

The oldest we tasted, distilled in 1810

at that time other flavours were often blended in to suit the buyer’s taste and this had a trace of rum

Ancient bottles of Cognac and Pineau

and a sherry

1989 from the Petite Champagne region

Grande Champagne and Petite Champagne are regions of Cognac
and have no relation to the “other” Champagne, far to the north-east, famous for lovely fizz

A deluxe label of Petite Champagne Cognac

The 1820 was rich and amazingly fresh

A 1991 from l'Ile d’Oléron, our next destination

Two different labels for an XO Petite Champagne Cognac

Guilhem’s retail shop

where he sells natural and organic wines

He gave us a 2009 Côtes de Rhône from Faugères, which was soft and fruity with a mineral backbone

A window display of Grosperrin Cognacs

and shelves of Calvados and Pineaus

Guilhem using a pupitre (we call it a "wine thief") to give us a taste of aged Pineau from the barrel

2004 Grande Champagne Cognac in the barrel, made from Colombard,

Every barrel produced has to be decanted and sealed by the bailiff before it can be bottled

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John & Lynne's French odyssey. Day 3, Saintes and Ile d'Oléron

A delicious breakfast of toast with home made preserves and country honey, cherry clafoutis, fresh cherries, orange juice and good coffee

Buds on the vine

in a Charentes vineyard on the outskirts of Cherac

The Charente river runs through Saintes

We had a little time before our appointment, so we parked our car outside one of the riverside houses, built of local stone

and walked a little way along the bank

After our visit to Guilhem Grosperrin,(the subject of another blogg)

we drove west to Ile d’Oléron, over the causeway

passing the defunct old causeway and the guard tower

to Dolus d’Oléron, the central town on the island,

where we had booked our accommodation

We unloaded the car and drove along the island’s east coast to the village of Boyardville

and went for a walk

looking at some of the very touristy restaurants

and curio outlets

the boats on the canal

and in the bay

and watched the people fishing from the harbour wall

had a look at the very strange Fort Boyard across the water, which took about 300 years to build. When they finished it in the mid nineteenth century, it was obsolete!