THE ROAD from the Atlantic coast traverses a landscape which quickly endears itself to the traveller. It was not in any sense spectacular - merely undulating hills exuding the golden sheen of late summer. There were parched brown sunflower fields ready for the harvest and here and there the joyous pink and white of patches of cosmos flowers. But in the vineyards appearing along the road with growing regularity, the ripening grapes were not destined to make wine: these are the French departements of Charente and Charente-Maritime, and the grapes were predominantly the white ugni blanc. Ugni blanc is not a name to conjure with on a wine label, and yet it is the grape at the heart of one of the world's noblest drinks - a drink synonymous with my destination: the town of Cognac.
Cognac is an attractive provincial town on the banks of the River Charente, imbued with a sleepy atmosphere on this languid late summer's afternoon. The 19th century city hall stands sentry above its peaceful gardens with their graceful fountains, a sign of the wealth built on the brandy-ageing cellars scattered through the town centre.
My journey from Royan on the coast to this home of some of the world's most sought-after brandies had something in common with the journey of an Irishman whose name has left an indelible imprint on Cognac and cognac over the past two centuries: Richard Hennessy.
Hennessy also got to know Cognac from the sea and he, too, was bewitched by the landscape. ‘Mercenary' is a strong word, but that is more or less what Hennessy was; in 1745 he signed up to the army of Louis XV of France to fight the English. After many successful campaigns in the 1740s, he was garrisoned on the Ile de Re on the Atlantic Coast, from where he discovered the charms of the Charente region. In 1765 he settled in Cognac and got involved in the trade in eaux-de-vie. More than 240 years later, the firm he founded remains one of the most illustrious names in cognac - these days as part of the luxury goods giant Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy or LVMH - and my destination was the Hennessy offices and cellars on the banks of the Charente in the heart of Cognac.
Hennessy is not embarrassed about the importance of branding, marketing and spin in the modern brandy trade. On the contrary, they pride themselves on the success and international recognition of the Hennessy name. So my host, Monsieur Michel Compaigns, was a predictably silky ambassador for the brand. The aura of cigar smoke and expensive after-shave that enveloped him as we boarded a Hennessy boat to cross the Charente from the offices to the phalanx of ageing warehouses on the opposite bank was like an olfactory advertisement for the refined culture with which cognac wants to be associated.
These warehouses - the Chais Hennessy - constitute the historical cradle of the Hennessy story, but the company has long outgrown its infancy and larger volumes are now aged at new premises on the outskirts of town. But the Chais Hennessy remains the heart of Hennessy and includes the secluded corner of the Founder's Cellar called ‘Paradis', where Hennessy's unrivalled library of eaux-de-vie are preserved.
Yet this is to anticipate Michel Compaigns' tale. First he led us to the exhibition with which Hennessy initiates its visitors into the world of cognac. Like any self-respecting winemaker - for cognac starts life as wine, or rather half-fermented must, before distillation transforms it into eau-de-vie - his account starts in the vineyard. The 1909 proclamation that created Cognac's appellation d'origine controlee divided the region in which cognac grapes may be grown into six zones. In descending order of quality these were the Grande Champagne, Petite Champagne, Borderies, Fins Bois, Bons Bois and Bois Ordinaires.
‘Champagne' in this context has nothing to do with sparkling wine, but rather stems from an archaic form of the French word for countryside - campagne. Compaigns pointed to the cross-sections of soil in each of these zones to show why the two Champagne regions with their high chalk and limestone content produce the most complex and sought-after eaux-de-vie, and how every zone has its own characteristic aromas.
Nine grape varieties are allowed in the making of cognac - including colombard, folle blanche and semillon - but some 90 per cent of Cognac's 75 000 hectares of vineyard are planted to ugni blanc. This grape produces ‘wines' high in acidity and with an alcohol content of 7.5-10 per cent - the raw material for distillation.
Hennessy owns only one per cent of the vineyards that produce the wine for its pot stills; for the remaining 99 per cent of its production, it sources wine and eau-de-vie - but not grapes - from 2000 vignerons in the four top zones. The Bons Bois and Bois Ordinaires, explains Compaigns, do not have enough limestone to produce high quality eaux-de-vie with complex aromas.
Then he explains the double distillation process that has remained more or less unchanged since the 16th century: the must is distilled once, with only the middle part of the distillate - the brouillis - retained for a second distillation. At the second round of distillation, again only the brouillis is retained. This clear liquid that flows from the pot still's swan neck for a second time is the eau-de-vie from which cognac will ultimately be made. Every nine litres of must eventually result in only one litre of eau-de-vie.
The colours and flavours this translucent liquid will ultimately have in the glass it will acquire from the oak barrels in which it will now spend years. Hence Compaigns next pauses at the exhibition on the fine art of cooperage. Good barrels are so important that Hennessy procures its annual requirement of 10,000 to 12,000 new 350-litre oak barrels exclusively from the Hennessy family's estates and coopers in the Limousin region. The wood for the staves is seasoned for at least three years in the open air.
Notwithstanding this precaution, the cognac houses cannot prevent 2-3 per cent of their stocks being lost to evaporation every year - indeed, it is an integral part of the ageing process. As in the whiskey cellars of Scotland, this evaporation is known as the ‘angels' share' and it ensures the growth of the black torula fungus which is the hallmark of a healthy cognac cellar's walls and ceilings.
But if making good cognac required no more than distillation and a few years in an oak barrel, it would hardly have been such a coveted drink. What follows now is the territory where the art and science of cognac meets: the blending of the final product.
At Hennessy, this critical task has always been in the hands of one family: the Fillioux. Yann Fillioux is the seventh generation of his family to serve as Hennessy's cellar master, the man in whose senses and memory the inherited knowledge of the Hennessy style resides.
From May to September each year Fillioux and his colleagues taste their way through hundreds of samples of eau-de-vie in pursuit of blends true to the style of the different Hennessy cognacs. For the Hennessy V.S. (for ‘Very Special'), up to 40 younger eaux-de-vie will be blended; for the V.S.O.P. (for ‘Very Superior Old Pale') up to 60; for the X.O. up to 100; for Paradis Extra more than 100; and for the pinnacle of the Hennessy range, the Richard Hennessy, of which but a handful of bottles are produced every year, literally hundreds.
For the Paradis Extra and Richard Hennessy, Fillioux and his colleagues will afford themselves a visit to the Paradis cellar, where Hennessy eaux-de-vie from as far back as 1800 are stored behind sturdy iron bars - some still in barrel, some in glass jars. This task, said an earlier Fillioux, Maurice, was like composing a piece of music.
It was this cellar that recently enabled Fillioux to ‘compose' a cognac released at an eye-watering €15,000 (about $A25,000) a bottle: a blend in which the youngest eau-de-vie was 47 years old and whose Baccarat crystal bottle is stored in a designer box. The ‘Beaute du Siecle' cognac was created in honour of Killian Hennessy, who led the merger with Moet & Chandon in 1971 and turned 100 last year.
Compaigns shows us the repository of brandy history that is the Paradis cellar. Behind the iron bars, the year markings are visible on barrels here and there - years when France was still an empire and when the Napoleonic Wars nearly severed Cognac from its biggest export market, the UK.
Two years after the blend is bottled, Fillioux and his colleagues will summon their handiwork for comparison with the patron de coupe for each cognac - the reference bottle against which each new cognac is measured. Only then will the bottles with the Hennessy crest - a raised arm brandishing a halberd - be placed on the market. Over the centuries, that ‘market' has included for Hennessy the crowned heads and chanceries of Europe. One of the more notorious cognac anecdotes concerns the French foreign minister at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand. The Frenchman was so irritated by a Russian diplomat who knocked back his cognac like vodka that he pulled him up with the instruction that one should bring this tipple to your nose, wet your tongue and then put the glass down and discuss the sensations.
As for me, I have savoured Paradis only once. It was a balmy evening on the balcony of a friend's chateau in St Robert in the Correze region of France. The nectar in the glass had the complexion of dark amber - something between weak tea and the glow of a log fire, but it twinkled with brilliance. The aromas and flavours were a complex mix in which every further sip brought a host of new sensations. Talleyrand was right: a talking point, as much as a drink.