Boozehound - Jason Wilson [94]
G’Vine uses green grape flowers, which were being snipped from the vine while I was there, as part of its botanical infusion. That goes against both the gin-making and wine-grape traditions in Cognac. The Rebouls were among the first vineyard owners to allow G’Vine to use their flowers. “I was under a confidentiality agreement, so I didn’t say anything,” Alain Reboul said. “But this is a very small town, and my neighbors were curious and were spying on me. The rumor was that I’d been working for a cosmetic company!”
The first G’Vine gin, Floraison, relied heavily on floral notes. Paul Pacult published a positive four-out-of-five-stars review, but wrote that he wished the distiller would “elevate the alcohol level” and “tone down the floral aspects one notch.” So Robicquet adjusted the recipe for his second gin, the wonderful Nouaison, which has a stronger juniper kick. “Pacult said we needed more juniper and a higher alcohol content. So we gave it to him. We’ve left him no choice but to give us five stars,” Robicquet said, with a wink. Pacult winked back, giving them four stars again in Spirit Journal, only this time adding, “if I bestowed half stars, which I don’t, I’d rate Nouaison Four and a Half.” D’oh!
But the gin market was swiftly becoming saturated, and Robicquet was already brainstorming in different spirit categories. “All the know-how is grouped here in Cognac,” he said. “People here know how to distill, how to bottle, how to express the greatest qualities of a product. If they can do it with cognac, there’s no reason why they can’t do it with any other spirit.”
During my visit, Robicquet was checking out an experiment involving merlot grape flowers. After several attempts, he’d finally been able to extract the flavor he wanted. The success moved him nearly to tears, and he broke out champagne for his staff. “What will you do with this?” I asked. “Make another vodka?”
“No,” he said.
“A gin?”
“No.”
“An aperitif?”
“Who knows?” he said. “Something new.”
A year later, I would meet him at Tales of the Cocktail. He would be presenting a tequila, in partnership with Carlos Camarena of El Tesoro, in which the tequila has been aged in Sauternes and cognac casks. A French tequila?
While in Cognac for La Part des Anges, I visited one day with Patrick Peyrelongue, the president of Delamain Cognac. Delamain is located in the small town of Jarnac, along the Charente River. A telltale black fungus that lives on cognac vapors coats most of the building facades as you walk the narrow streets.
Peyrelongue took me on a tour of his cellars. The key to making cognac, like many spirits, is in aging and blending. Delamain, like most houses, buys barrels of wine or eau-de-vie from growers, like the Rebouls. As with Calvados and its Pays d’Auge, Cognac has a sweet spot region within its AOC called Grand Champagne, and Delamain only uses wine from grapes grown in Grand Champagne. At a certain stage, the casks are sealed with red wax and locked in a room with two keys, one for the distiller and another for the BNIC (Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac), the authority that governs the cognac industry. “I cannot get into my own casks,” Peyrelongue said.
Peyrelongue popped open a cask dating from 1952 that was not locked up and poured me a glass. I tasted in the cool cellar. It was unbelievably smooth, and the hard-to-place rancio flavor and character were unmistakable. And it hadn’t even had a chance to open up yet. “That’s the magic of cognac,” he said. “Early on, you take an undrinkable wine, and then you age it in a barrel. And fifty years later,