Cognacs With Age Statements
Cognac house Maison Bache Gabrielsen has released a new series of cognacs with age statements called Years in Cask. Good to see them following in our footsteps! These cognacs are also vintages so by definition they must be single estate and cannot be blended. Once vintage cognacs have reached their optimum maturity they are transferred to glass bonbonnes where they will mature no further.
Bache Gabrielsen have released 4 new cognacs aged from 19 to 37 years. The younger two come from Grande Champagne, the top cru, where cognacs take the longest to mature whilst the older two come from Fin Bois, a lesser known cru. Their prices range from £163 to £344 for a 70cl bottle with abvs being between 40 and 47 percent. It is great to see another cognac house heralding the benefits of age statement and vintage cognac but before you part with your hard earned cash to try them out, take a look at the quality and price of the following, produced by Hermitage:
COGNAC
It’s been a difficult time, financially, for everyone this year as prices increase.
We were delighted to welcome Paddy Shave from Brightwells Auction House to our offices a few weeks ago. He brought with him an imperial half gallon (2.27 litres) bottle of Massougnes 1802 Cognac which had passed through our hands almost thirty years ago. We are fortunate to have acquired a number of these large bottles over the years from the owner of the Massougnes Estate, the Comtesse de la Bourdeliere, Marie-Antoinette Pintaurd des Allees – a direct descendant of Henry II and Eleanor of Acquitaine. This particular bottle from 1802 in the Napoleonic era, was originally sold by us to the Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland, where is was on display for many years. Still unopened, it was fascinating to see it turn up for sale once more and although the estimated price of £100,000+ was not reached, it still sold for an impressive £52,000. We have sold one or two of these oversized bottles of Massougnes over the years (vintages range from 1800 to 1812) and still have 
In 1917, SS Kyros set sail for St Petersburg from France. As it approached Sweden, the cargo ship was sunk by a German submarine UC58. For decades the ship was assumed lost but in 1999 it was discovered 77 metres below sea level having been damaged by fishing trawlers and trawl boards. It took 20 years to clear the shipwrecked vessel for exploration, but it was worth the wait as hidden inside were 50 cases of cognac from De Haartman & Co. An exciting and historical find from the time when Tsar Nicholas II was Emperor of Russia. It is difficult to estimate the current condition of the cognac as this will, in part, be dependent on the bottle seals (see 
The Spirits Business have just announced their top 10 award-winning cognacs and Hermitage appear in the list three times with their 10 Year Old, 1975 and 1972. Spirits Business comments are thus:
Gifts for all the men in your life …
Yet another alcohol related special day occurs this Saturday; it is World Gin Day. According to the website its purpose is:
National Cognac Day on June 4th invites you to enjoy one of the finest alcoholic drinks available. Cognac, which originates from a town of the same name in France, is a type of brandy enjoyed because of its distilled and fine taste. Cognac begins as a white wine that has been produced in one of six designated growing regions. This definition explains the axiom ‘ all cognac is brandy but not all brandy is cognac’. Ironically, the white wine from which cognac starts, is considered by most wine connoisseurs to be entirely undrinkable. But once it has been distilled in an alembic still and aged in oak casks for years, it is absolutely delicious.