Some regions are made to be visited, and others to be savoured slowly, sip after sip, estate after estate. The Charente belongs to the second kind. Time flows differently here: it is counted in decades spent in oak, in generations succeeding one another under the same roof, in cellars dug more than five centuries ago and still alive. For a week, we set out to meet these houses — family-owned for the most part, singular every one — that make cognac not as a product, but as an act of transmission. Here is what we saw, heard and tasted, from 20 to 25 July 2026.
Day 1 — From Warm Welcome to Adventure
At the Pasquets', the journey begins the way we like them to begin: around a table. We are welcomed for a family lunch, that simple, warm hospitality that immediately sets the tone for a week placed under the sign of transmission. Once the meal is shared — between melon, grillon charentais and Charentais walnut — we take the time to visit the new cellar: a chance to see how the house imagines the future of its ageing and the space it sets aside for its eaux-de-vie. It is also the moment to recall the Pasquets' little trademark: they show up at trade fairs in charentaise slippers — champions of the Charente to their very toes! The conversation, of course, drifts towards regulation with Amy — a thread that will run through the whole trip — before the most anticipated moment: discovering the house's latest releases, those recent cuvées that say where Pasquet wants to go. Like that organic small batch at 46%, bound for Japan. A curious, mouth-watering opening, before hitting the road.
The afternoon takes us to Duluc, and to a visit with a twist: a Jeep tour through the plots, reconnaissance-mission style. Duluc holds a place apart in the cognac ecosystem: the house does not bottle its own production, but sells its eaux-de-vie as lots, both as vintages and as blends. Two cellars answer each other — one dry, one humid — to offer two paths of maturation. And on the distillation side, four stills stand side by side, dating respectively from 1952, 1973, 2017 and 2019: a striking shortcut through several generations of know-how gathered under one roof.
This first day is also what brings up a deeper question, one that still stirs the whole region: the matter of dating and of the “vintage” label. The subject is not unique to cognac (armagnac and calvados know it too), but here it takes on a particular twist. Since cognac has a more industrial side, with the presence of the big houses, is an extra layer of verification needed to make sure that, when a producer writes “vintage” on a label, it truly is one? This is precisely what would still justify the role of the BNIC, whose representatives come each year to open and then re-seal the cellars during the IBV measurements, in order to certify the vintage — and it is not free… Alternatives would exist, via the DGCCRF or customs control, but for now that option is not accepted. The debate, for its part, remains open, and rather heated.
Day 2 — From Heritage to Creation
The second day takes us, quite literally, down into history. At Prunier, we visit the Maison de la Lieutenance, which dates back to 1492 — the oldest in Cognac. Below ground, linked to those of other houses, its cellars form a veritable underground city, a maze of galleries where History has left its mark, sheltered from time and light. The place alone is worth the trip.
Prunier was also the occasion for a sharper conversation, about what holds cognac back today: the excess of rules. Take Horizon Prunier, a blend of Grande and Petite Champagne bringing together vintages ranging from 1966 to 1989. That richness, the house is not allowed to spell out on the label: disclosing the precise composition is simply forbidden. The result is over-regulation that, ultimately, penalises the consumer most of all — deprived of knowing what the bottle in their hands actually holds. Too many laws, too many constraints, and it is the whole communication around cognac that ends up stifled.
The day continues with a visit and a long exchange with Cholet. Christophe is a lover of his terroir and his products, doubled with a tireless, innovative businessman. Because Cholet is not only cognac: it is also atypical maturations in wine casks, the creation of amaro-style cognac liqueurs, the ageing of whiskies — peated or not — that pick up awards, agricultural rums from Marie-Galante aged on site… This burst of creativity is also what allows the estate to endure and grow, in the face of market swings and demanding regulation. It is a visit entirely unlike anything else in the region.
Day 3 — The Memory of Heritage and the Heritage of Memory
Some visits are remembered for a place, others for a person. At Navarre, it is Jacky himself who leaves a mark. Established in western Angoumois since the early 14th century, the family has produced cognac from father to son since the 18th — and Jacky seems to carry its whole history: every anecdote lights up a corner of the region's past, and his Charentais accent completes the impression of listening to a direct witness of know-how handed down from one generation to the next. The current property, the Domaine du Renclos, was acquired in 1811 by Pierre Navarre, owner and merchant; it was his grandson who had today's house built, in 1868, gracefully set on the bank of the peaceful Charente.
The estate spans 16 hectares, exclusively in Grande Champagne: fifteen hectares of white-grape vines — around 6% Colombard, the rest Ugni Blanc — and one hectare set aside for Pineau des Charentes. Jacky's relationship with grape varieties says a lot about the man. He no longer grows Folle Blanche: he ended up giving it up, largely for lack of grafts to be found, and he happily recounts, with relish, how he had nonetheless managed to get hold of some. The venture ended badly: after some twenty years of cultivation, the vines were severely damaged, the grapes eaten by rabbits. He does, however, keep his plot of Colombard, which he prizes for the freshness and expressiveness it lends to young eaux-de-vie, even if he finds it drier with ageing. The rest of the vineyard is planted with Ugni Blanc, a choice matured by experience.
On the distillation side, the house cultivates loyalty on a small 10 hl copper still, and the still itself dates from 1971. Jacky, for his part, has been distilling since 1960. Cultivation, vinification, ageing in oak casks in cellars that benefit from the humidity of the nearby river, bottling: everything is done at the property. One detail, though, betrays his era. In the past, distillation began at the end of November and ran until February; today, it often starts as early as October. An evolution he attributes to climate change and to the need for water cold enough to ensure proper cooling during distillation — the great history of the world slipping right into the calendar of a Charentais distiller. One fine question remains, raised on the spot: the estate is in Grande Champagne, yet its cognacs are marketed under the name Grande Fine Champagne. Why keep that “Fine”? The word was long a mark of distinction: at one time, asking for “a Fine” at the counter simply meant ordering a cognac. Jacky explained that Grande Champagne is the name of the cru, but that his finished product is the Grande Fine Champagne. When did usage tip towards “Grande Champagne” or “Fine Champagne”? A regulatory shift, or a change in habits and marketing?
In the afternoon, on to Fillioux, a house where one quickly understands that patience is not one virtue among others: it is the backbone of everything. The family estate has officially existed since 1894, but the family's roots in cognac reach back much further. Today it is Christophe Fillioux, fifth generation, who holds the reins. Owner and cellar master at once, he personally oversees the ageing, the blending and the style of the house — a way of saying that nothing here is decided at a distance.
On the property, the oldest trace of the past is not a bottle but a well: dug in the 15th century, roughly 29 metres deep, it watches over the estate like a silent witness to its history. On the vineyard side, Fillioux also grows Folignan, that grape born of a cross between Folle Blanche and Ugni Blanc, conceived to marry the aromatic qualities of the former with the robustness and regularity of the latter. Yet the Folignan eaux-de-vie are not yet on the market: ageing for about nine years, the house judges that they are simply not ready. Saying no to the market as long as the spirit is not ripe — there is a philosophy.
Distillation is carried out on nine copper stills, and here again the detail matters: Fillioux plays on the intensity of the heat according to the maker of each still and its own characteristics, in order to reach exactly the profile sought. But what truly defines the house is its speciality: very long ageing. Here, one thinks in terms of decades. Time is considered the main lever of complexity and finesse. Proof of this loyalty to old vintages: despite its long history, Fillioux only launched its very first VSOP in 2022, illustrating a long-standing determination to favour aged cognacs over entry-level categories.
Day 4 — The Family Lifestyle
Heading to Lasdoux, in Petite Champagne, to Lhéraud. A family whose history goes back to 1680 and whose first distillations date to around 1802. It is Jean-Charles Lhéraud, cellar master and fifth generation, who embodies the house today.
Lhéraud's identity rests largely on a radical choice. Until 1998, the estate produced cognacs from several crus. That year, the house decided to focus exclusively on the vines surrounding the family property and converted the estate to 100% Petite Champagne. A deliberate narrowing, in the service of an assertive terroir identity. The main grape is Ugni Blanc, complemented by a small proportion of Colombard, those plots having arrived with the acquisition of the François 1er estate. In 2024, the house even marked a first: its very first distillation of a 100% Colombard cognac.
Lhéraud has also produced vintages continuously since 1988, in the wake of the reintroduction of officially certified vintages in cognac. And distillation here plays out like a little choreography between two Charentais copper stills. The first is about 25 years old, the second dates from the early 20th century and still runs. The first distillation is done on the younger one; the bonne chauffe, the second run, on the elder — a way of preserving the house's traditional style by entrusting the final gesture to the century-old still. One last curiosity: Lhéraud also produces armagnac. Some cuvées come from its own vines, others from purchased blanche d'Armagnac. But in every case, the ageing takes place in the Cognac cellars — the house holding an official, specific authorisation to mature its armagnacs outside their appellation of origin. A rare case, that says much about its singularity. Just like that branch of the river, diverted long ago to cool the still, which runs directly through the building and remains visible and active beneath its glass plate.
If one had to keep a single image of this trip, it might be that of Grosperrin: a cellar set on the banks of the Charente, which the river floods every winter by about 65 centimetres. This flooding is no accident: it is intended, preserved, almost cultivated. For it recreates the conditions of extreme humidity in which many very old cognacs once aged. In such a humid cellar, water evaporates far less than alcohol: the strength falls naturally over the decades, and the cognac gains in roundness, softness, elegance.
It is this annual flood that explains a startling sight: the dame-jeannes set on pallets. When the Charente rises and water covers the floor, it is best not to let those large glass demijohns sit in it. The house uses them precisely to freeze an old cognac at the exact degree of maturity sought. But it does not stake everything on humidity: it has several types of cellars (humid, dry, mixed) to tailor the ageing to each eau-de-vie. The dry cellars, where water evaporates faster than alcohol, keep a high strength for longer and yield concentrated, structured, powerful eaux-de-vie; the mixed cellars offer an in-between, allowing casks to be moved from one environment to another. This flexibility is precious for a house that ages cognacs from many different crus and producers: rather than imposing the same conditions on all, it chooses for each cask the cradle that suits it.
Grosperrin also watches over a more fragile heritage: Folle Blanche, that historic grape now grown rare. The house maintains five contracts with growers who cultivate it, some 8 hectares in all, a way of preserving access to this variety of old. Notably, Folle Blanche, Colombard and Ugni Blanc are distilled separately, grape by grape, then placed in new oak casks and first aged in the dry cellar — where the strong evaporation of water works to structure and concentrate the eau-de-vie during its early years.
The day closes at Vallein Tercinier. Founded in 1850 and today carried by the sixth generation, the house farms some forty hectares of vines, in the Fins Bois and Bons Bois crus. The property is organised into three distinct buildings, like three clearly separated functions: the family home; the office and shop; and finally the productive heart, which brings together the farm, the distillery, the ageing cellars and the bottling line.
The house also cultivates a fine flexibility in sourcing. Alongside its own production, it buys wines from other estates to distil them itself, and selects young eaux-de-vie that it then ages entirely in its own cellars, under its own maturation regime. Estate cognac, contract distillation, carefully chosen eaux-de-vie: three sources, but a single hand on the ageing. This openness has old roots. The family was once based in Barbezieux, where the earlier generations distilled the Grande and Petite Champagne wines brought to them by neighbouring growers. It is this historic contract-distillation activity that explains why the house still holds old stocks from these two crus today, even though its own vines are now located in Fins Bois and Bons Bois.
This is also where the house's technical curiosity hides. The distillery counts eight Charentais copper stills, but above all a twinned configuration seen nowhere else: two stills connected to a single boiler and sharing a single cooling column. A clever setup that lets both stills draw from the same heat source and share a single condenser, gaining efficiency without ever giving up the traditional Charentais double distillation.
Today, the house is carried by the sixth generation, with roles that are shared without being compartmentalised. One handles, notably, the management, along with the follow-up of ageing and blending, and has served as cellar master for eight years. The other leans more towards commercial development, steering the brand and carrying the identity of Vallein Tercinier. But decisions around the eaux-de-vie remain taken as a family. The different generations are in particular involved in the tastings and the selection of lots, as with the cask-strength bottlings, whose choice is made collectively.
One last, almost sacred object remains: a large foudre holding the family's Hors d'Âge. Since the great-grandfather, every Hors d'Âge blend has been added to it, and the foudre is never completely emptied: each bottling is topped up with older eaux-de-vie, in a principle of perpetual blending close to the spirit of a solera, without truly being one. As a result, every bottle contains a small share of very old cognac inherited from previous generations, and the house style is passed on, literally, from one bottling to the next. This foudre that never runs dry sums up, on its own, a phrase heard at nearly every producer on the trip: keep the mindset, keep the heritage, keep the family, keep the soul.
Day 5 — The Forgotten and Hidden Discoveries of the Past
Fifth day, a house turning a new page. The great Laurichesse family — for here is a particularity worth bearing in mind: the Laurichesses one comes across in the region all belong to the same family, branching yet united by the name. The story goes back to the end of the 19th century and to one figure: Samuel Beau. At the time, he ran the Nouvelles Galeries in Segonzac. In 1895, he bought vines and founded the Samuel Beau distillery — the birth certificate of a family adventure that, more than a century later, keeps writing itself and today throws its doors wide open to visitors.
The finest story of the house is nonetheless recent, and holds in a single name: “Le Chai de Mon Père” (My Father's Cellar). In the garden of Olivier's parents stood a small building that everyone took for a mere garden shed. Closed, without electricity or light, no one ever went in. Until the day someone finally pushed the door open and discovered around a hundred casks of cognac that had been ageing there, in silence, for decades. Rather than blend these eaux-de-vie into the classic range, the family chose to preserve the identity of this forgotten cellar: it was in agreement with Guy, Olivier's father, that the “Le Chai de Mon Père” range was launched. The cognacs are bottled individually, faithful to the character of the place and its stocks — a tribute to the previous generation and to that collection of casks left untouched for so long, which the house is now considering opening to visitors, so that everyone may discover the cellar where it all was found.
This philosophy — letting the cognac decide — also shows in the range choices. The Vieille Réserve has been put on hold: unsatisfied with what remained in stock, the family preferred to let these eaux-de-vie keep ageing rather than bottle them. It will be replaced by a blend of the same age but with different taste characteristics. Here, one does not bottle to keep a range going: one waits for the cognac to be ready.
In the afternoon, at Vaudon & François Voyer, one and the same family keeps two houses alive. Pierre, sixth generation, watches over the estate and its two brands: Vaudon and François Voyer. It was Vaudon that bought Voyer, and together they cover two complementary crus: Vaudon in Fins Bois, Voyer in Grande Champagne. The estate spans 70 hectares, of which 62 in Fins Bois and 8 in Grande Champagne, planted with Ugni Blanc and a small touch of Folle Blanche (around 2%). As with the very best, everything is done on site, from harvest to bottling — and at the height of the season, the house presses up to 50,000 litres of juice per day, for two weeks.
Distillation rests on two stills laden with family history: one comes from the grandfather, Pierre, the other was fashioned by Pierre's father. On the ageing side, the house has worked with the same cooper for some twenty years, a guarantee of consistency in style. Part of the production goes to the big houses (Hennessy, Courvoisier, Martell) while the rest feeds the house's own cuvées. The cellar, on site, plays on two levels: humid below, dry above.
A page of Vaudon & Voyer's history was written during the Second World War. The Germans, present in the area, left the estate carrying off a large share of the dame-jeannes. Those that escaped the looting were hidden in the attic, then the room was walled up and their existence gradually forgotten. It took until the 1990s for Pierre's grandparents to rediscover them: a treasure of old cognacs surfacing from oblivion, behind a wall.
Pierre finally practises a distillation that runs against the grain: during the bonne chauffe, before the second distillation is quite finished, he interrupts the run and recharges the still with fresh wine, launching the next brouillis without fully emptying the pot. Part of the previous distillation thus remains in the pot, creating continuity from one batch to the next. The principle recalls the American sour mash, where a fraction of the previous cycle is kept to influence the next and preserve an aromatic continuity from one heating to another. Pierre gladly likens it to the Scottish distillery Springbank, said to follow a kindred logic. As for his Hors d'Âge range, it began on a 1948 vintage; as those oldest stocks ran down, the starting vintage moved forward, and the blend today begins on 1970.
Day 6 — Between Tradition, Trade and Experiments
A change of atmosphere at Peyrot, where everything is done on site: vineyard, harvest, distillation, ageing and bottling. A 30-hectare estate, entirely in Grande Champagne, planted exclusively with Ugni Blanc. Travellers in camper vans are even welcome to stay at the estate and pair tastings with walks through the vines.
What strikes here is a deep, long-standing environmental commitment. The estate has done without synthetic pesticides for some fifty years, favouring natural practices such as seaweed-based fertilising. This commitment earned it the Haute Valeur Environnementale certification, and the family observes, year after year, that its vines have grown more resistant. The episode of the black frosts is the best illustration: when the cold freezes the earth and locks the sap in the roots, Peyrot's vines have managed to resist and recover, still yielding healthy grapes. The family attributes this robustness, in part, to decades of regenerative practices and to the absence of pesticides.
Tradition, here, can be touched with the fingertips: distillation is carried out on a 90-year-old Charentais still, still fully operational, and many operations remain entirely by hand. The estate is today in its fifth generation. Its independence has a date: 1972. Until then, the family sold almost all of its production to Rémy Martin. In 1972, it launched the Peyrot brand to bottle and market its own cognacs. Today, only about 4% of production still goes to Rémy Martin; the vast majority carries the family label. The estate counts three cellars: the oldest humid, one dry, and a modern one equipped with a machine to handle the casks. Its philosophy of the vintage shows even in its XO, aged 25 years: where many XOs blend eaux-de-vie of different ages, Peyrot's contains only 25-year-old eau-de-vie, with no younger or older component — a cognac of a single age, from one end to the other. The house has, moreover, stopped paying for the official BNIC vintage-certification seal, deemed too costly, but continues to produce genuine vintages with the same traceability and the same standards.
Their logo, a small bird called a bergeronnette (wagtail), whose name the estate bears, was born of a lovely story: the grandfather diligently fed the birds that came to nest in the letterbox of the estate's boundary wall. During the storm of 1999, that wall collapsed, carrying away with it the letterbox and the wagtail's nesting place.
All these houses were born of a Charentais family rooted in its land. Bache-Gabrielsen, for its part, was born of a journey. In 1903, Thomas Bache-Gabrielsen arrives in Cognac. His father runs a wine and spirits shop in Norway and sends him to France as an intern, to learn the secrets of eau-de-vie production. The young man forges precious professional ties and grows deeply attached to the Charente. He also falls in love with a local singer, a winegrower's daughter — enough to turn an internship into a destiny and seal his decision to settle in Cognac for good. As early as 1904, Thomas and his Norwegian associate, Peter Anton Rustad, buy the cognac house of Edmond Dupuy. Rustad's death, in 1906, makes Thomas the sole owner. More than a century later, Bache-Gabrielsen remains a family-owned, independent house, today led by the fourth generation.
Its singularity lies in its model. Unlike most family producers, the house owns no vines: it operates as a négociant, sourcing wines and eaux-de-vie from growers and distillers across the region, through long-standing relationships, some maintained over several generations. The house thus works with eaux-de-vie from all six cognac crus, and its cellars hold more than 5,000 casks, split between two opposing environments: the town-centre cellar, dry, holds only about a hundred casks, while the main cellar, humid, holds around 5,000. The result can also be measured in figures: roughly one million bottles sold each year in 43 countries, mainly in Europe — which places Bache-Gabrielsen among the ten largest cognac exporters. There remains the finest story of the house, still readable on its labels. Around 1916, in the midst of Norwegian prohibition, Thomas had an idea to keep selling his cognac in his native country: he replaced the three stars on the label with three red crosses, so that the spirit could be sold through Norwegian pharmacies. The trick worked wonderfully. The house made a legacy of it: its VS today bears three white stars (red crosses being now forbidden on labels) and the name Tre Kors, “three crosses” in Norwegian, in memory of that stroke of genius.
Last stop, last family: Mauxion, a house officially founded in 1860, but whose distilling roots reach much further back — the ancestor Antoine Mauxion was already distilling in 1741. The historic logo, for its part, was drawn in 1865 by Charles Mauxion, under the reign of Napoleon III. Some family stories are worth all the guidebooks: at the 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris, Thibault's great-great-grandfather travelled there by train, bought his first automobile, and drove it all the way back to the Charente. It was the first time he had ever driven a car. The journey cost him seven punctures.
The estate today owns about 60 hectares in the Fins Bois cru, in addition to a property in Petite Champagne. The vines bring together several grapes: Ugni Blanc, Folignan, Folle Blanche, Colombard and Sémillon. In 2019, the house produced a Fins Bois cognac made from Folle Blanche. The distillery, set on the estate, houses three copper stills dating from 1973: two small and one large. In the past, distilling demanded constant supervision, 24 hours a day. A staircase, beside the stills, led to a mezzanine where Thibault's grandfather slept during the distillation season, to stay as close as possible to the boilers throughout the night. When the time came to hand over, that rhythm proved hard to reconcile with family life: the wife of Thibault's father refused to let him submit to the same endless routine. The grandfather was therefore called back to take up the distillation again, which he continued to run until the stills were automated.
The estate has two cellars: one for cask ageing, the other to keep mature eaux-de-vie in dame-jeannes. Around thirty hectares are dedicated to supplying Hennessy, another part of the production is sold to Martell, and two further plots are reserved for the house's own cognac. Mauxion is, moreover, expanding its bottling line to support the development of its own cuvées. Today, responsibilities are shared between two brothers: Thibault steers the Mauxion brand, while his brother watches over the vineyard and the family estate. And Thibault is inexhaustible whenever it comes to telling the story of each dame-jeanne, gleaned over encounters and anecdotes, in his Paradis.
What One Brings Back from Such a Journey
From one house to the next, the stills change, the crus stand apart, the degrees of humidity draw opposing cognacs. Some families own every vine, where others have built their name on trust and connection rather than on ownership of the soil.
And everywhere, the same tension runs through the conversations: the feeling of fighting a regulatory hydra. Internationally first, for a product exported at 97%, which too often pays the price of political calculations aimed at sanctioning supranational orientations or the policies of the moment. All of it within a market driven by the majors, whose health directly affects producers, exposing them to vine-pulling campaigns used as an adjustment variable. On the national scale next, that of a region torn between a regulation that protects and the feeling that too many rules end up stifling the producers' voice and blurring the message to the consumer. A middle ground between the regulation of armagnac and the current one of cognac would no doubt be a relief for the industry.
For this industry is made of enthusiasts: men, women, families deeply attached to their terroir, their culture, their roots, each shaping one of the finest grape eaux-de-vie in the world. Working for the next generation, making decisions whose fruits one will not necessarily see in one's lifetime, passing on this material and immaterial heritage to the generations to come: that is another matter of weight. And always this observation — the people of Cognac have often produced in hardship, weathering successive crises of every kind, while commanding admiration through their resilience.
But one thread ties it all together: the choice to trust time. Here, cognac is not merely distilled. It is inhabited.
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