Cognac Day 4 - Martell

26-Sep-08 - Visit to Cognac Martell. Martell is the oldest of the 'big' Cognac houses and the centrepiece of the complex is the original house in which Jean Martell, a Jerseyman by birth, set up in business in 1715 - there's an evocative virtual tour of it on the company website. We were shown round by Michael Mathews and although, inevitably, when you visit any region there's a good deal of duplication and repetition, this visit at least ran exactly on time from start to finish. Janet Burns (Accent PR) had to leave early to take Eleonora Scholes back to Bordeaux for her connecting flight to Lyon and then Italy, and this might be a good moment to mention that, had each individual visit been as well-organised as the overall tour and timings, this trip would have been a masterpiece. It was a very good trip, except for the timekeeping of individual visits, which are out of our hands, and all credit to Janet and her team for the vision. The CWW publishes a list of visit guidelines and, in the future, it is hoped that these will be adopted as an industry norm. It's understandable that, when a producer has a bunch of international journalists in, they want to keep them there for as long as possible, but all that happens is that many of the visitors become frustrated at the delays, repetition and boredom, and that is not good PR for the host.

Anyway, back to Martell, and the tasting which was conducted by Damien Batteux in the atmospheric tasting room in the old cellars. There had been discussion earlier in the trip about the various merits and demerits of distilling Cognac 'on the lees' or after filtration to remove the lees. The former adds a certain 'gaminess' to the raw spirit, which many blenders like; the latter produces a cleaner, purer spirit, and this is the method preferred by Martell: we were able to taste both methods, side-by-side. Another side-by-side comparison was loose-grain and tight-grain oak, and that reminded me of the zillion different decisions a winemaker, distiller and blender have to make, every vintage. My personal preference was for the tight-grain style, which seemed to have more finesse as well as some lovely floral hints. We then went on to the VSOP (4-8 years old) which had some rather beguiling 'plummy' fruit, and then the Cordon Bleu, which is mainly Borderies and blended from 120-150 base Cognacs. This had a mid-palate with some palpable fruit, and rather nice 'chewy' finish, which I liked: 'blackberry leaves' was Daniel's description. Hmm... Finally the XO in the 'half-moon' bottle is blended from 200-300 base Cognacs with ages between 30 and 40 years. This was rich, dark, powerful with hints of caramel, and longer than the M25: magnificent.

The team in the old house at Martell: l/r Sandy Leckie, Vivienne Franks, Caspar Auchterlonie, Angela Reddin, me, Eleonora Scholes, Godfrey Spence, Roshna Ahmad, Janet Burns (Accent PR), Susan Hulme, Sophie Kevany, Timo Jokinen. Pic.: Steven Morris.

And the visit finished bang on time at 12:00 noon. The others were off to lunch at Martell's Château Chanteloup, but I had volunteered to head back to Bordeaux early with Timo Jokinen, who had to catch his flight to Finland, and Sophie Kevany, who lives in Bordeaux. I had fancied a leisurely couple of hours in the first-class lounge (I'm a member of Priority Pass, which I heartily recommend if you travel as much as I do), typing up my notes and having a couple of large ones. This was not to be. The check-in desk didn't open until two hours before the flight, so I sat in the concourse for an hour or more waiting and then, of course, managed to get in the check-in queue behind a family of four with enough luggage to sink a battleship, and a bunch of blokes with surfboards (in Bordeaux?) ski-ing equipment and what looked like several kitchen sinks. And when I got there it wasn't worth it. The lounge at Bordeaux is one of the most dismal I've ever encountered: it's small, has only one loo for Ladies, Gents and disabled, was unattended, and has whisky and gin in almost-empty quarter-bottles. Definitely not worth the subscription.

I managed a bag of those little nibblythingies on the flight (BA - very different from my Club Class flight out) and a decent glass of wine (Gran Feudo red from Chivite) and got a lift on the milk-float at Gatwick north. My driver was waiting for me, fortunately, and I was home by about 7:00 pm, absolutely Christmas-crackered and vowing never to go away again... Until the next time. Fortunately Jill had laid in stocks of the necessary, and after several extremely large ones, a large slice of meat-and-potato pie and half a bottle of Rioja, I staggered off to bed. Didn't have to get up the following morning - result!