After our brief stay in St Emilion we headed up to Cognac to check out Remy Martin’s Louis XIII Connoisseur Experience. At the Estate we paired up Remy’s XO with Foie Gras and later blue cheese, chilled the VSOP to serve with Smoked Salmon Blinis, and sampled the rare ’88 Vintage (‘more monotonal but more visceral than the XO, a Picasso to the latter’s multi-layered Rembrandt oil’).
After an evening stroll around the town of Cognac, which late-60’s timewarp recalls Bulawayo, we enjoyed dinner at the family’s Chateau Le Grollet’ in the Cognac countryside, we visited the famed Louis XIII cellar and tasted this £80 a sip brandy from barrel. The next morning we enjoyed an instructive Tasting of Grande Champagne cognacs destined for this top bottling with maitre de chai Pierette Trichet – still Cognac’s only female cellarmaster and afterwards lunch where during an interview we discussed our respective hopes and ambitions for the future:
Tom: ‘To find the perfect Dry Martini and write the unwritten Flashman episodes’
Pierette: ‘To pass on my knowledge and the library of fine cognacs to a successor and then enjoy a pilgrimage to St James of Compostella’
Boo: ‘To brush my teeth’
Tips for Cognac: -
Rendevouz Remy Martin offers a number of Cognac Discovery Programmes – the pinnacle being the half or full-day Louis XIII Connoisseur Experience. More details are available from www.visitesremymartin.com
Mme Coates’ Les Tilleuls, 98 av Paul Firino Martell, 33 (0)5 45 35 03 12 offers charming lodgings (2 rooms only) – the Grande Champagne suite is capacious and The Petite Champagne room below is more than adequate for driver/valet/pilot/Boo etc.
…And on to Cognac:
After our brief stay in St Emilion we headed up to Cognac to check out Remy Martin’s Louis XIII Connoisseur Experience. At the Estate we paired up Remy’s XO with Foie Gras and later blue cheese, chilled the VSOP to serve with Smoked Salmon Blinis, and sampled the rare ’88 Vintage (‘more monotonal but more visceral than the XO, a Picasso to the latter’s multi-layered Rembrandt oil’).
After an evening stroll around the town of Cognac, which late-60’s timewarp recalls Bulawayo, we enjoyed dinner at the family’s Chateau Le Grollet’ in the Cognac countryside, we visited the famed Louis XIII cellar and tasted this £80 a sip brandy from barrel. The next morning we enjoyed an instructive Tasting of Grande Champagne cognacs destined for this top bottling with maitre de chai Pierette Trichet – still Cognac’s only female cellarmaster and afterwards lunch where during an interview we discussed our respective hopes and ambitions for the future:
Tom: ‘To find the perfect Dry Martini and write the unwritten Flashman episodes’
Pierette: ‘To pass on my knowledge and the library of fine cognacs to a successor and then enjoy a pilgrimage to St James of Compostella’
Boo: ‘To brush my teeth’
Tips for Cognac: -
Rendevouz Remy Martin offers a number of Cognac Discovery Programmes – the pinnacle being the half or full-day Louis XIII Connoisseur Experience. More details are available from www.visitesremymartin.com
Mme Coates’ Les Tilleuls, 98 av Paul Firino Martell, 33 (0)5 45 35 03 12 offers charming lodgings (2 rooms only) – the Grande Champagne suite is capacious and The Petite Champagne room below is more than adequate for driver/valet/pilot/Boo etc.
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