Cask Selections | Spirit Reviews | Ramblings | Travel Treasure is real, and it isn't even buried.
BAR DORAS - 1933 - GRANDE CHAMPAGNE
One of the finest cognac bottlings I have tasted.
Nose: rich dried apricot, camphor and mushrooms, anise, fennel, artisan honey, chalk
Palate: exotic fruits and oils, cigar box, leather, licorice
Finish: looooong, delicate, dole cup, cigar leaf
Nose: Deep allspice and nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon; liquid gingerbread. Real nice grilled pineapples, huge esters, oil rag, empyreumatic.
Palate: a little disjointed and intensely tannic, but potable. Starts with grilled acidulous pineapples, sour oranges, mango skin, stewed tropical confiture, very mild gasoline, really cool stuff but I wish it didn’t lean so intensely on oak flavors.
Finish: rustic, tannic, very long and acidic.
From IG ():
Aman, Matt, and I had been huge fans of the cognac selections we had tried from private enthusiast groups like 1789b, T5C, (Justin, Mike, Ryan, et al.), and from public drops through Serious Brandy.
Eventually, along my journey away from and , which get younger and more tannic every year (AND MORE EXPENSIVE!), the charity bottlings from dropped. There were a few bottles left of the first batch of Le Cognac de Regis on the webshop so we decided to splurge and each bought some.
Well, those very bottles were so brightly flavored, complex, and affordable (relatively, to the very best of any other genre), with tons of convergent flavor from other spirits, that they were the "straw" that broke this camel's back. It instigated a trip to Cognac to see what we could bottle as a group (Dr. John, Parker, and I flew out of O'Hare the night of the ; yes we saw fireworks, yes it was awesome, yes we were sad that Matt and Aman couldn't make it). While we were going through casks with Amy we mentioned how much we loved Le Cognac de Regis, and she said "Well, we have a second demijohn... would you like it?" Yes, please.
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Le Cognac de Régis, 62yr, 40.5% abv. Distillate from grapes harvested in 1959 in Grande Champagne. 45 bottles, 500ml. Bottled 2023 by JLP Cognac Pasquet
Régis passed away a while ago. He was a third generation vintner and distiller in Criteuil-la-Magdalene in the south of the Grande Champagne. This cognac was split into two bottlings, one in late 2021, and ours. The eaux de vie was transferred from oak and stored in two large glass bottles inside woven baskets (a damejeanne, used to stop aging, and a dying art mind you), which each yielded only 45 500ml bottles. It is depressingly scarce. Coming across treasures like this are singular events, and I am honored to be involved with what is literally is my favorite spirit of all time. It is preposterously delicious.
Nose: Perfect. Just like the very, very best “honey barrels” of American whiskey (over aged, near/hazmat Stitzel-Weller bourbon) which are led by deep cherry, so too does Le Cognac de Regis with its own loudly expressive and complex cherry. Complexity in Cognac comes from generationally aged stock that takes on the aromas of the chai/cellar, known as rancio; bourbon doesn’t really get old enough, cooked and frozen in glorified barns for just a couple decades, where the best flavor profiles require huge flaws in mouthfeel. I suspect benchmark eaux de vies all share some dominant expression of cherry and rancio, but without the mouthfeel flaws present in ultra high-end bourbon thanks to the gentle (almost neutral oak) maturation and generational cellar management. A recent trip to another magnificent cognac house, Cognac Prunier, basically confirmed that suspicion; the very best, oldest demijohns were of the same vein, GC with PC characteristics (see: fruit), particularly cherry.
The second nosing reveals elegant families of fruit, wood and spice underneath. The cherry gives some room for beautiful dried and fresh apricots, oranges, pineapples, mentholated licorice, lemon and lime, buttered croissants, roses, aged tea, persimmon, sandalwood, musk… this is an absolutely stunning evolution that constantly changes. As I’m sitting here writing notes I keep getting wiffs of cherry as it wafts around the room. It must be said that this basically defies any conventional understanding I had of price:performance across spirits. It is not cheap, 1€/1ml, but comparatively to the very best single casks of any other spirit it is an incomprehensible bargain. I am sad that we live in a world where cognac as good as this might end up as a small component in a superblend for some, gag, lifestyle product at the Big Four. Its existence is due to the tireless enthusiasm and passion of Cognac Jean-Luc Pasquet negotiating and curating the very best eaux de vie for their Tresors. Thank you.
Palate: Perfect. Explosive. It follows through with the promise of the nose in every stage. The fruits are sweet and dry, and the spice and wood accentuate their sweetness with just enough expressiveness to provide elegant complexity, amplifying the freshness. The front and mid palate texture is oily, due to the fine tannic structure it gained from over 62 years in French oak.
Finish: Driven by sour cherry. Dangerously painless, impossibly long and evolving; near the end it started to present saffron, mentholated lemon and fennel.
You find messages in the strangest places. Grosperrin Cognac
L'Encantada, Domaine Lous Pibous, Cask #132, 1994-2015 (some confusion here, please correct me if needed), 53.5% ABV, 50cl. This is the cask that started it all.
This is a great pour of which, unlike lesser casks, follows through on the palate with the promise of the nose. There are a few domaines known for more intense oak-driven profiles, like Le Freche (another domaine bottled by L'Encantada) for example, which are fiercely championed for their reminiscence to dusty and over-aged American whiskey. Casks 124, 132, 187, and 188 are some of the best examples of this convergence.
One of the most bourbonesque noses I've come across in other genres. This is very similar to 187/188, except just slightly less intense, and little more spicy; expect gourmand. Huge dark chocolate, deep grape jelly, orange peel, cedar and sandalwood, fennel and cola, brown sugar... something you want to smell forever. This is one of the best bottlings of I've tasted, and I understand how this could spark the craze; it lives up to the lore.
IG
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