Recently, I had what I would call the perfect scrambled eggs. It’s not hard to make scrambled eggs – anyone with a pan, hotplate, and eggs can do it. But to make the perfect scrambled eggs, that takes skill. More often than not, scrambled eggs are over-cooked, saturated with additional ingredients, or stirred wrong and curdled into large chunks. But we still eat scrambled eggs, even if they are mediocre or overloaded, because eggs are eggs and fucked up eggs still taste ok. An Ohio greasy spoon changed my whole perspective on scrambled eggs. The restaurant had an open floorplan and I could watch the cook while he worked. He oiled up an already heated stainless steel pan, lightly whisked the eggs in a bowl, poured them into the pan, flipped and stirred them occasionally, and then dumped them onto my plate. That’s it. I didn’t think anything about the cook’s method before I shoveled the scrambled eggs into my mouth. But afterwards, all I could think about was how good the scrambled eggs were and how the cook accomplished scrambled egg greatness with such a simple formula. The whole experience was cathartic – simple can be great.
I think that at some point in his life, Jean Grosperrin had a similar catharsis about cognac. You don’t need sugar, boise, coloring, or significant dilution to make cognac great and palatable. A lot of cognac shines brightest when it’s left alone and not tampered with…when it’s simple. This is the type of cognac I am looking for.
Jean Grosperrin started in the cognac business as a cognac broker, estimating the quality of various cognacs and connecting producers to houses, traders, and sellers. His job took him all over cognac and while exploring the cellars of producers, he found family treasures that were not intended to be sold to large houses. With strong connections to some of these producers, he was allowed to purchase some of these family treasures which he bottled under his own name. In 2004, Guilhem Grosperrin, Jean’s son, took over the brand. Jean Grosperrin cognac is about as simple and pure as cognac can get. They are careful with water reduction, and if they do reduce, it’s slowly over years; some Grosperrin cognacs are released at true cask strength. Grosperrin does not add color, boise, or sugar, and they do not chill-filter. In fact, they reportedly clean their bottles with cognac prior to bottling.
Grosperrin owns warehouses where they age their vintage cognacs, and according to their website, they also age some cognac in ORECO warehouses. What the hell is an ORECO warehouse? Well, take that image in your head of what you think a cognac warehouse is…ancient, barrels stacked on top of each other, crumbling brick walls, cobwebs in every corner, ancient demijohns strewn about…and replace it with the cold, stainless steel, antiseptic feel of modern industry. ORECO is a modern commercial storage facility located in cognac that offers a number of different storage options for cognac producers and bottlers. It has a very “goodbye art, hello science” ambiance. I highly suggest you check out their website (listed below) – it has a lot of great information and provides some insight into the current state of cognac.
At the very end of this post there are a couple linked videos about Grosperrin cognac; an interview with Guilhem Grosperrin (his discussion about vintage cognac is very interesting and a topic for a future post) as well as a video from an Israeli site that shows Guilhem negotiating with a family to purchase a batch of cognac. I highly recommend you watch them.
Onto the review. This is the Jean Grosperrin Borderies N°64 at 52.1%. I’m guessing that it was distilled in 1964, but perhaps due to some documentation issue, Grosperrin could not list it as a vintage cognac. Serge reviewed this and gave it 86 points – while respectable, it’s not a glowing review. So, what do I think?
Nose:
Soft but not muted…pears, apricots, shitake mushrooms, vegetal undergrowth (root-like, think potato skin), mint, a little flower petal
Taste:
Peaches, mint, some light citrus, a little grassiness, too…then tobacco leaves along with a floral / tea-like thing (chamomile)
Finish:
Medium length and dry…the light citrus lingers with a little metallic minerality.
Thoughts:
This is a good cognac. I think Serge was a little low – if I was grading on Serge’s scale, I’d put it closer to 89. There is nothing offensive and I’d describe it as an austere cognac. So, I’m giving this a…
Grade: B +
One final thought…
Grosperrin is doing it right, just like L’encantada. I look forward to exploring their cognacs and hearing back from the community if they choose to explore Grosperrin.
Links
ORECO
https://www.oreco.fr/
https://vimeo.com/58530159
General Video on Grosperrin
https://youtu.be/6EJqC903qps
Great Video on Grosperrin Cognac Acquisition
https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-5067731,00.html
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