Jean Grosperrin

Cognac de Collection Jean Grosperrin – Artisanal Vintages -

Jean Grosperrin worked as a cognac broker in the Cognac region. A broker in eaux-de-vie plays a very discreet yet strategic role between the producer and the buyer. His job is to evaluate the quality of the eaux-de-vie and to introduce interested parties to each other. His profession takes him to many cellars to estimate the value of different batches, among which there are sometimes some very old cognacs. Practically all vine growers distill their own harvest and they usually conserve, as former generations have done before them, some barrels of cognac in their cellars.

These family treasures are very rarely up for sale and the transactions are very confidential.   It is these cognacs, sometimes very atypical with strong personalities that Jean and his son Guilhem (since 2004) seek to obtain in all of the appellations of Cognac.     “I am particularly attracted to these small batches of rare cognacs which bear witness to an era now past, when vines were cultivated using horses and when the art of distillation made the vine grower spend all day and all night next to the alembic to control the intensity of the flames and the cooling vapours.” Many of the oldest cognacs have lost up to 80% of their initial volume as a result of natural evaporation.

In the Cognac district of Charente we call this the “angels’ share”. The philosophy is to keep these batches intact, without blending them with others. I leave them in their original barrels and the oldest ones in glass demi-johns. These vintage cognacs are stocked in a Government-controlled warehouse in Cognac and in their own cellars, where they are carefully supervised by officials. This allows to guarantee their age. Their preparation and bottling are carried out under the supervision of official bailiffs. The French laws concerning cognac, as restrictive as they may be in matters of age and vintage, have allowed the company to acquire an incredible collection of exceptional products. This collection is currently the equivalent of more than 81,500 bottles, dating from 1991 all the way back to World War II.   All these cognacs have the necessary guarantees of quality and authenticity. Each bottle tells its own story and will take you back to a place where time has stood still for decades, resulting in the exceptional product that you are going to taste. The Cognac de Collection Jean Grosperrin are sold in the best establishments in France and by exclusive and select importers in a score of other countries. They are regularly hailed by the French and international press.