Cognac and Margaux

Today’s title suggests that we were hanging around some pretty high end beverages today, but that was the whole point. After we left La Rochelle this morning, we travelled only around an hour before we came upon the famous brandy town of Cognac.

Since this was a detour on our way to our next hotel in the Medoc, we thought it reasonable to pick one of the famous distillers of cognac and maybe do a tour, but at least check it out. The first one we came to was Martell, which also turned out to be the oldest cognac house, founded in 1715.

When we checked on tours, we found that for 7.50 E a person that we could grab a tour - in French of course - at 10:30, so we were in. The site we were at appeared to house the offices for Martell but they are no longer allowed to manufacture here because it is considered part of the historic town. So we had a fabulous tour in the historic grounds of Martell, with not an employee to be seen. They had turned the original distillery into a wonderful museum telling the whole story of the company and its distilling history.

Cognac is double distilled and it ages in oak for a minimum of 3 years, which helps explain the cost of the product and of course Martell sells the full range of cognac from the VS (very special), through the VSOP (very special old pale) to the XO (extra old) and their own versions like Noblige which is between VSOP and OX. Of course it’s all about age with their oldest being the most sought after and expensive. It was also interesting to note that they produce an entirely different version of their cognac for the Asian market, which, needless to say, is large and getting larger.

For our own consumption, we chose the Noblige, which we found a little more interesting than the VSOP and it rang in at 18.50 E for a half bottle. We left Cognac shortly after noon and stopped for a picnic along the way. We decided that our route to Margaux would be through Blaye which had a ferry running across the Gironde. Emily, our GPS concurred. It’s the first time I’ve heard heard her say, “Take D151 to the ferry.”

Anyway, Blaye has an impressive citadel protecting its harbour. The Gironde, at this point in its flow to the Atlantic is a good kilometre wide and of course with the tides, it’s super muddy.

When the ferry came to its landing in the Medoc, we noticed many fishing platforms with purse nets, so clearly there are fish is this muddy mess.

Margaux was not far from the ferry landing and before we knew it we were in Margaux and had found our hotel, The Pavillon de Margaux. We were quite impressed by the setting of this hotel, nestled in the Margaux vineyards.

The last two photos show our hotel. As a primer on Bordeaux wines, the best wines fall in five categories which were created in 1855, so there is immense history is these wines. The best are called Les 1ers Grands Crus Classes and there are five of them: Chateau Lafite-Rothschild in Pauillac; Chateau Latour, also in Pauillac; Chateau Margaux in Margaux; Chateau Mouton-Rothschild in Pauillac; and Chateau Haut-Brion in Pessac-Leognan. Of course, Chateau Margaux is of greatest interest to us and we hope to explore it tomorrow along with some of the others and maybe a few 2emes or 3emes as well. We expect them to be along the lines of Chateau Palmer, shown here, which, by the way is not in any of the top 5 classes.

For dinner tonight, we opted for dinner at the restaurant in our hotel. Although not the finest cuisine, the setting was delightful and the we had their Margaux wine which was excellent and more importantly, affordable. The wines of the top five Chateaux have a price point starting in the hundreds of Euros and going up from there, so there’s not much chance we’ll be buying any of those.