C ognactoday is the culmination of centuries of history and generations of accumulated expertise. The world’s pre-eminent brandy (although the Cognaçais don’t care for the b-word), it has conquered the planet from San Francisco to Shanghai, with many millions of bottles of Hennessy, Martell, Rémy Martin and Courvoisier consumed every year. Change? Innovate? Why on earth would anyone want to do that?
And yet they are. Some of this new thinking is rooted in the way Cognac is made – the grapes used, the oak in which it ages – and some of it is a less-tangible leap of the imagination, lifting the veil on one of the world’s more mysterious spirits and unlocking the stories that lurk in vineyard and cellar.
Alexandre Gabriel owner and master blender at Maison Ferrand, is the closest Cognac gets to a rebel.
