Did You Know? The Charente Terroir

Professor Louis Ravaz was the young professor who established the Station Viticole in Cognac and did much to re-establish the new vines after the Phylloxera around 1890, his definition of the Charente terroir is usefully described thus:

“The same variety of grape can be grown anywhere and in the same way as in the Charente: distillation can be carried out anywhere else as at Cognac and in the same stills; the brandy can be stored in identical casks as those we employ in the region; it can be cared for as well or maybe even better. But the same combination of weather and terrain cannot be found anywhere else. As far as the soil is concerned, it is not enough that it should belong to the same geological formations, it must have the same physical and chemical composition, and no one has ever found such a duplicate. In addition the climate of the region must be identical to that of the Charente and that is almost inconceivable. There is therefore very little chance that all the elements which influence the nature of the product should be found together in any region apart from the Charente; and thus no other region can produce cognac”

He went on to say,

“All the trials which have been made all over the place to produce cognac with the same varieties and the Charentais methods have resulted only in failure”.

What he described then is still the case today…

Brandyclassics sell a number of cognacs from Houses in the Charente region, including a number of Pineaus and our very rare pre-phylloxera Sezerac de Forge Vintage 1805 cognac.