This bottle – it ain’t cheap. You can find it for 300 Euro at LMDW, but it occasionally comes in and out of stock at Master of Malt for around 275 USD (excluding shipping). On a good day, you’re spending around 350 USD to get this sucker to your door. That’s the price of a new gaming console, a nice dinner for four, or a monthly cable bill (thanks, Comcast!). Despite my better judgement, I bought one. And then I tasted it. And then I bought another. I guess I’m showing my hand on how I’m going to score this. Before the notes, some bottle deets.
Cognac House: “Maison François Voyer was established over two centuries ago in the towns of Verrières and Ambleville, in Grande Champagne, where it produces cognacs that are initially aged in new barrels for three years to provide the necessary structure lengthy ageing” (LMDW Website). Voyer is a producer and they grow, distill, and bottle their cognac. Voyer began distilling around 1870 and the Voyer family has been distilling for 5 generations. Pierre Vaudon is the current cellar master at Voyer. The Cognac Expert blog has a few pictures up of the Voyer vineyards as well as what looks to be their Paradis (a fancy name for a fancy cellar). https://blog.cognac-expert.com/visit-francois-voyer-cognac/. Voyer ages their spirit in new oak for 3 years and then shifts it to other cooperage. The bottle reviewed is “probably” a 1971 vintage (“71” is on the label, implying the vintage).
Bottler: Through the Grapevine. If you’re a whisky drinker, LMDW has you in their sights with the bottling line. Single cask, cask strength…they know their crowd. I emailed them and asked about chill-filtering, coloring, and additives (such as sugar and boise). No response yet…and I’m not holding my breath. I’ve found chill-filtering is commonplace amongst the small and large cognac houses, so it’s likely they are chill-filtered. The coloring of the Through the Grapevine bottles on the LMDW website look suspiciously the same, and the three bottles I have open all look the same as well, so they are probably colored. This bottle says it was bottled by Voyer and the others say they were bottled at their respective cognac houses.
Region: Grande Champagne. A lot of what I’ve read so far promotes Grand Champagne as the “greatest cru.” Just look at the regions name – it has to be the best, right? At the very least, the people in Grande Champagne hired the right marketing firm. The region is approximately 134 square miles with vineyards covering around 51 square miles. The region is hilly and the soil is largely clay with limestone underneath. I’ll dive into crus and whether there are noticeable differences (from a consumer perspective) as I explore more, but one trait that I’ve seen ascribed to Grande Champagne is that distillate from its grapes take well to extended aging (were talking about 40 to 50 years in oak).
Notes
Nose: fruity, sweet, and lightly floral. Guava, mango, pineapple, passionfruit, honeysuckle, buttercream and rose petals.
Palate: tropical fruit cup (like when you were a kid), pears, green melons, saffron and something like sandalwood in the background. The tropical fruits are the dominant notes.
Finish: more tropical fruits followed by a wave of citrus that attacks mid-palate. Medium to long length.
Final take: I love this bottle. It’s fruity, thick, and enormously flavorful for a lower proof bottling. Barrel entry proof for cognac is around 70% (max by law is 72%) and some producers gradually add water to the barrels over the years (for multiple reasons, including reducing the angels share and down-proofing to drinking strength). If this was slowly watered down, I imagine that has a different effect than watering down at bottling. Alternatively, it’s possible this is cask strength and the low ABV is a result of evaporation; the cognac is 45/46 years old so very possible. Either way, the proof is not an issue and the fruity profile really pops – think Guy Fieri and “Flavortown” (I apologize for that reference). The fruity profile put this bottling in the same class as the 1973/75 independently bottled fino cask Speysides (cough, cough, Glenfarclas, cough) and the 1989/91 Irish whiskies. With that, I’m giving this bottle a straight A. The price almost pushed it down to an A-, but given the similarities to the aforementioned whiskies and that it’s relatively priced around (or even slightly below) those whiskies, I decided to give it a solid A.
Grade: A
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