Torula News September 2000

29/09/00	Tasting Cognac Menuet David and Christine Croizet, young viticulteurs of the 5^th generation of Menuets have produced a very special tasting for the Rixendis’ Cognac Tasting Society last week. Not only they presented top range of their products from VSOP to a 50-years old Hors d’Age but arranged an all Pineau des Charentes dinner at L’Auberge in St. Même les Carriere with foie gras, quails, Roquefort and fabulous dessert. 22 tasters from various countries scored VSOP in the 17-20 points range, XO in the 17-24 range, Extra in 21-27 range and Hors d’Age in 22-27 points range with one taster giving it a maximum score of 30. For tasting results click here.
28/09/00	Gautier at Cognac Cigar Club At the last Cognac Cigar Club dinner at Le Coq d’Or in Cognac we enjoyed excellent cigars, Cognac Gautier (Pinar del Rio and Panatelas Pineau des Charentes), good beef and the company of 50 cigar lovers. Among them, in the haze of the cigar smoke, we recognized a selective group of Cognac makers; Bernard Hine form Cognac Hine, Jean Marc Olivier from Courvoisier, Yves Tricoire from Hennessy, Anne Blois from Gautier and Alain Royer from A. de Fussigny. Well done, Gerard.
27/09/00	More on Seagram ... Heard on the floor of Vinordic in Stockholm, last week: Absolut Vodka, Cognac Martell and a strong whisky brand might emerge, under the guiding hands of V&S AB and an investment bank, from the Vivendi-Seagram debacle as a new spirits group. An interesting dream but dreams have habits to become realities, sometimes. Bloomberg News reports that Charles Bronfman, the co-chairman of Seagram Co. has abandon plans to bid for its wine and spirits business. (IHT9-10/09/00)
26/09/00	Hennessy XO wins in San Francisco It received a double gold award beating many known brands. For details click here. The San Francisco Spirits Competition was held during 15-17 September and was produced by the Anthony Dias Blue Organization. The Tasting Jury Director was F. Paul Pacauld, known writer and taster. For complete spirits competition results go to http://www.sfspiritscomp.com/
25/09/00	Decision day for Pierre Ferrand On Wednesday, the 27 September at 14:00 in the 4th Chambre A de la Cour d'Appel de Paris decision will be render in the long running legal woes of Pierre Ferrand vs. Gabriel&Andreu.
22/09/00	Vinordic 2000, Stockholm, Sweden In the City of 1000 islands, between 11 and 14 September some 13,000 professionals visited a 4-day fair and exhibition on gastronomy, wine and spirits. The well organized Vinordic 2000 was a Scandinavian version of Vinexpo, smaller in scale but no less important. Vodka, World of Malt and bottled waters dominated the exhibits. Cognac Jon Bertelsen and A. de Fussigny were the only truly visible Cognac products. Continuing on its success (30,000 bottles sold in year 1), Jon Bertelsen introduced his Prelude (VSOP) and Symphonie (XO) products to Swedish markets (available through Bjorn Lindstrom of Sweetwater International). Just a week earlier, he introduced Orchestra (an Extra quality) in Norway. Cognac Jon Bertelsen reflects a long reach of Olivier Blanc' marketing style and Léopold Gourmel quality. These activities contribute to a Norwegian importer', the House of Cognac, an undisputed market leadership. While Torula News spotted in the exhibition aisles Jacques Riviere of A.E. Dor and Monique Fillioux of Jean Fillioux, it was Alain Royer of A. de Fussigny who worked hard on his stand carrying the Cognac torch. Among the thousands of spirits bottles we spotted Rémy Martin, Gautier’s new Myriade, Meukow, Château Beaulon, Martell, J.Normandin-Mercier and Hennessy products. Of those, Peter Danielsson of Contorum (J.Normandin-Mercier importer) and Per-Ake Wahlund of Service Gruppen (Château Beaulon importer) displayed interest and knowledge of Cognac. As for the rest, we suggest change of importers. During the lunch hosted by the Vinordic organizers we sat next to Bengt G. Kronstram, Editor-in-Chief of Vin&Mat and the President of Swedish Wine Writers Association. We noted, to our mutual disappointment the absence of Sopexa and BNIC. We try to excuse the absence of BNIC as they were in Vietnam at the same time. The question was asked: "Is Vietnamese market bigger than Scandinavian?" In the Technology area, we found Sven Stapel who sells cash registers and spirit dispensing equipment. He used Cognac Hardy XO bottle as his demonstration tool as it is his favorite Cognac. Cognac sales are recovering in the USA and Asia but that is not a reason why BNIC and the industry in general, continues to ignore the most loyal market of them all, Scandinavia. The introduction of many vodkas and down turn in overall consumption of spirits, the Cognac industry must become more visible and more aggressive in the Scandinavian market. It needs to protect loyalty of its consumers! The best Vodka we tasted was seriously from H. Facile Company. It reminded us of Hennessy Pure White marketing campaign in the UK.
21/09/00	Cognac leads French Wine and Spirits exports With Champagne exports down by 20% in comparison to the same period in 1999, Cognac exports are up 16.5% in the forst quarter 2000 (1Q00). (Alsapresse09/09/00)
20/09/00	French weekly Le Point does wines and Calvados In the issue dated 08/09/00, Jacques Dupont tastes, rates and opinionates on French wines and Calvados (not a product of wine!). An obvious omission is Cognac and other wine based brandies. Torula News speculates that he will soon cover Cognac and brandies separately. Otherwise, it will be yet another example of BNIC not working to promote Cognac.
20/09/00	Norwegians love Cognac, in Norwegian Craig: Konjakk og biff ….Ragnaud-Sabourin. Giraud. Delamain. Gourmel. Normandin-Mercier. Fillioux. Og, eh, Bertelsen.
19/09/00	LVMH up 31%, Hennessy/Hine 19% up Led by Hennessy VSOP and XO, Cognac registers 19% operational increase due primarily to activities in the American and Asian markets. Helped by Pure White and Classique introduction in Japan, productivity improvements and lower price of eaux-de-vie, Hennessy and its parent, LVMH benefits from the strong performance of Team Navarre. (TopFinance14/09/00)
19/09/00	Grande Champagne honor list from Belgium This amateur taster and collector of Cognacs from Grande Champagne knows his products. Click here for his list and ratings.
18/09/00	XO Real Pleasures From Norway comes another declaration of love for Cognac; news, reviews (tastings with results) and more. Visit http://connect.to/cognac
15/09/00	Lusina ISG.,Inc. expands After solidifying its presents as No. 1 Cognac and brandy reference site (over 200.000 visitors in the firsthalf of this year) on the Internet (www.cognacnet.com & www.swfrance.com ), the Group has opened www.bottled-waternet.com. The information content on the site already has bottled water tasting results, retail prices from a number of countries, kids info, brands and producers listings and, of course, daily news. This service is part of BWnet.com, newly formed subsidiary of Lusina ISG. BWnet.com aims to fulfill the consumer info void in the non-alcoholic sector of drinks and beverage industry.
14/09/00	Seize the market, exploit the brands That is what is on the mind of Paul Walsh, CEO of Diageo, as he prepares for the final mile in the race for Seagram’s Spirits Group. Among the brands he has are Guinness, Johnnie Walker, Gordon’s and Smirnoff. Noted omission is a Cognac brand. Martell will fit in well. Diageo’s last year results met most analysts’ expectations. (FT04/09/00)
13/09/00	6^th Gastronomade 24-26/11 Angouleme Patrick Mardikian, the organizer of this International Food, Wine and Cognac extravaganza is hard at work preparing the 6^th version. Cognac will be present of course, but any new ideas of presentation (i.e. showing cognac houses TV ads) have been rejected by the BNIC, according to Torula News sources. We wonder why?
12/09/00	New look at BNIC web site BNIC (www.bnic.fr, www.cognac.fr ) has upgraded its web site and has assigned Anne-Marie Michenaud to be its webmaster. A sharp looking site.
08/09/00	eXtraOrdinary achievers … Hennessy enters Financial Times pages with a clever campaign that selected Alexis de Belloy of fotango.com and David Darling Codemasters as the two eXtraOrdinary Achievers in August. (FT26/08/00)
07/08/00	“A mighty soufflé collapses on Alain Ducasse” … The New York press led by William Grimes of The New York Times (“Would I ever lay eyes on Ducasse” to the Fortune Magazine’s “Ishtar: The Restaurant”, have sharply criticized the newly opened restaurant in New York at the Essex House. Two British papers, Guardian and Daily Telegraph respectively said: “it’s only OK” and “the beginning of the end of the cult of celebrity chef”. The moral of this story is: consumer wants quality, price value and will no longer be dazzled by 1 or 8 Michelin stars. This is the lesson that the Cognac producers must learn. See our item below “Killing me softly …”. (IHT17/08/00)
06/08/00	"Killing me softly …" ... Maximum allowable sugar syrup and caramel (mostly used for coloring) in production of Cognac is an equivalent of 2% alc. vol. In theory, a 40% alc. vol. bottle could be as low as 38% alc. vol. With a difference accounted for by caramel and syrup. In the recent months several new and some old bottlers of Cognac have began traveling the sugar road. The products have no nose to speak off. The nose is simply flat. On the mouth, the product is a sugary, weak spirit: short and awful. We visited some 20 producers and tasted 30 products recently. These producers offered similar comments: “Customers complain about alcohol presence”, “We rely on the oenologue advice”, “Women prefer sweet Cognac”, “Anyway, you add Schweppes and it is even sweeter.” It is getting so bad that some local brokers (courtier) refuse to taste commercial Cognac. In general the BNIC should be looking after the quality of the product. That is not the case, obviously. Dorothy traveled the Yellow Brick Road and woke to the reality while some producers in the region have embarked on a RL highway trip. They will wake up to a disaster. In the meantime, the angels in the warehouses (chais) sing: “Killing me softly …”.
05/08/00	Sign pollution in the Cognac region … Since 4-6 weeks the Cognac region has been inundated with new road signs: Les Etapes du Cognac (la vigne), Les Etapes du Cognac (le fleuve) and Les Etapes du Cognac (la Pierre). This supposes to direct visitors and tourists to roads associated with Cognac. Strangely enough, this project ignores Bon Bois and Bois Ordinaires regions completely and the majority of Fins Bois and Borderies regions. The text is bilingual (French and a very staid and odd English), the pictures are old stock from BNIC (they are getting a bit boring!) and the map is a cute reminiscence of the 60s. In a way it is understandable as this project originated in West Charente. Once again, right hand does not know what the left does or one politician tries to out compete the other. Result is a misleading set of information adding to the confusion among visitors to the Cognac region. How could BNIC allow this to happen?
04/09/00	Cognac Pascal Chaignier ... From his small vineyard in the Petite Champagne cru, Pascal Chaignier produces local, wine, Pineau des Charentes and Cognac. His Cognacs are VSOP (about 8 to 10 years old), Reserve (about 20 years old) and XO (about 30 years old). For the 3^rd year running he and his wife operate a small shop, selling exclusively their products, in the center of Jonzac. Worth a visit and a tasting.

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