July 12
Written July 13 and 19
Written July 13 and 19
Dear Friends and Family,
On Thursday, we left Melissa and her train station for Bordeaux. We decided to work in a visit to the city of Cognac, as part of our research into drink, I suppose. On the way over, we passed dozens of quaint villages but we discovered that this part of France does not have the ubiquitous bakeries of Germany. We'd hoped to find one for a mid-morning snack and coffee, but all we found was a tiny shop selling limited foodstuffs, some of which looked like breakfast cakes. After biting into these squares, we thought there had been a mix-up and the shop had substituted street pavers for breakfast bread. Really bad. Eventually, we did fine a Super U grocery store and indulged in some packaged pastries. Quite good actually.
As we got closer to Cognac, we saw mile after mile of vineyards, vineyards we would later learn were the source of that brandy call "cognac". When we reached Cognac, we looked for a place to play tourist and were stymied by a lack of parking. We must have hit market day or something, but eventually we did find a nice parking place in the visitors' lot at the Martell distillery. Of course this meant we did have to promise to take the tour, but only after lunch. We were starving.
    Map -- GOOD breakfast -- vineyards at 100km/hr -- lunch spot |
We walked into town and found a very typical, nondescript, but perfectly acceptable bistro and enjoyed our lunch outside, under threatening skies. After lunch, we walked back and signed up for our Martell tour. I now feel compelled to write about our cognac course:
Martell Cognac
Martell describes itself as the oldest major maker of cognac brandy in the area and was started by Jean Martell in 1715. The tour starts with a visit to his original house, restored but with some of the original furnishings, including his folding desk and a massive ledger, written in his own hand. It was a bit intimidating being able to actually touch a 300-year-old book.
From there, we went through a series of very PR-polished audio-visual shows, depicting the whole process of turning wine into cognac. We learned all sorts of facts. Barrels are hand-made of French oak and can be used more than once. New barrels are for young brandy and old barrels for brandy that stays in barrels for up to several decades, the expensive stuff. The barrels include strips of chestnut wood around the circumference, both as a surface on which to roll the barrel and as a sacrificial material to detect any invasion of wood-boring insects (bugs prefer chestnut to oak.)
Cognac is still made with "pot stills", a concept invented by Arabian perfume-makers although wine was made for centuries in the Cognac area before the Arabian secret process was discovered. Originally, all transport was by river and this gave Cognac, with two navigable rivers and an ocean port, an advantage.
Each type of Martell cognac is a blendand the selection of blend material is still done by hand, by expert cellar masters working with hundreds of different constituent wines. Asia is the largest market for Martell cognac, especially for the more expensive bottles, including the most expensive bottle, which retails for 2,300 euros (about $3100). The oldest bottles on display were a pair from an 18th Century shipment that had been confiscated by the customs office in Ireland, shortly after bottling. For good will, the Irish recently returned the priceless bottles. (No jokes about my Irish relatives seldom returning ANY spirits undrunk.)
At the end of a normal, paid-for tour, visitors sample a Martell cognac. Not the $3100-variety, but some nice sips nonetheless. In fact, we had received free samples even earlier, before lunch, just for looking thirsty, I suppose. The end-of-tour free sample simply disqualified me from driving, but it was Marianne's turn any way.
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After our tour, we headed south to Bordeaux, Marianne driving. She did an excellent job, as usual, in navigating a new city and at 5 pm we found ourselves at the door of the La Villa B&B. But, that's another story.
John and Marianne
ps: A map for drive to Bordeaux via Cognac:
