Cognac Had Outside Help

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Parent Category: Travel Info

Category: Places To Eat

Published on Monday, 16 May 2011 05:00

Written by Barney Lehrer & Jesse Nash

The Norwegians

Bache-Grabrielsen is a mid-sized cognac house with a large range of high-quality cognacs. Compared to many of its competitors, Bach-Gabrielsen is a relatively new house, founded in 1905 by Norwegian immigrants.

Thomas Bache-Gabrielsen, who had arrived in Cognac in 1903, fell in love with a French woman who also happened to be the daughter of an established winemaker. In 1905 he teamed up with a fellow Norwegian to buy the French-owned cognac house, Dupuy, and to this day the Bache-Gabrielsen brand is the largest-selling cognac in Norway.

And, indeed, Norway is also the largest per capita cognac consuming nation in the world, with more than 3 million bottles shipped there every year to serve its four million population. Remarkable for such a small country.

Six other cognac houses -- Larsen, Braastad, Birkedal-Hartmann, Jenssen, Jon Bertelsen and Otard -- also all have roots in Norway.

The English and The Irish

In the February 1877 edition of the British publication Popular Science Monthly, "England consumes by far the greater part of the supply; English firms practically control the export trade; and English influence is so potent in Cognac, that the rural population of the department speak jocularly of the place as the ‛little English town on the river Charente.‛"

Indeed, the English controlled most of the export trade from Cognac in the 18th and 19th centuries, meaning that many British and Irish (at the time Ireland was a British colony) settled in Cognac, married French women, many of whom were daughters of local winemakers and distillers, and set up trading houses. And three of the largest companies -- Hennessy, Martell and Hine -- trace their roots to the British Isles.

Hennessy is the largest cognac manufacturer and exporter of cognac. Maurice Hennessey, the seventh generation of the family, born and raised in France, still considers himself as Irish as his forefather Richard Hennessy, who founded the firm in 1765 after fighting for Louis XV against the English for twenty years.

Bernard Hine, now the senior spirit of the Cognac region, is still involved in the Hine cognac house. Although also born and raised in France, Mr. Hine still very much keeps up English traditions dating back to his ancestor, Thomas Hine, who arrived from England and started the business in the 1790s. In fact, the Hine house every year ships a portion of its young cognacs to Bristol, where it is aged and eventually bottled. And Hine to this day is the official Purveyor of cognac to Her Majesty the Queen!

Among other English and Irish cognac houses with English and Irish roots are Delamain (Ireland), Otard (roots in both Ireland and Norway) and Hardy (England).