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Guy Tanguidé et Fils is a family estate at Chez Réveillé, in Champagnac, on the southern edge of the Petite Champagne cru, farming 25 hectares of clay-limestone vines and bottling under its own name since the early 1980s. The house distils on the lees, charging them twice, and sells part of its production to Rémy Martin and to Marnier-Lapostolle for Grand Marnier, keeping its best parcels for four Cognacs of its own: Sélection (5 years), VSOP (10), Napoléon (20) and XO. The estate also makes Pineau des Charentes in white and red.
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The old stone pigeonnier at Chez Réveillé, still standing in the courtyard
Our visit took us to the far south of the Cognac region, to Champagnac in the Charente-Maritime, a quiet corner of Petite Champagne we had somehow never knocked on before. Here, at a hamlet called Chez Réveillé, the Tanguidé family farms 25 hectares of vines on the clay-limestone slopes that run down to the Seugne river. The estate has been bottling under its own name since the early 1980s, when the grandfather of the current generation first opened the doors to visitors. What we found was a house that supplies eaux-de-vie to some of the biggest names in the region, and quietly keeps its very best parcels back for its own four Cognacs.
20 years old
Petite Champagne | 40% ABV
Powerful, exotic and spiced
Petite Champagne | 40% ABV, Extra carafe
Jonas and his mother, at the estate in Chez Réveillé
The tasting room, where the fire is lit for visitors
Jonas distils on the lees, and does it with a discipline that is easy to underestimate. The house charges the lees twice. It has tried three times, and deliberately stepped back. "Twice is good, that is enough," we were told. "You have to work them properly. You have to be rigorous about the distillation, and that is enough." The point was made plainly: piling in more lees is not a shortcut to quality. Growers who charge the lees four times do not necessarily win more praise for it, and too much can simply turn the spirit heavy.
That judgement is sharpened by who else buys from this estate. Tanguidé supplies eaux-de-vie distilled on the lees to Rémy Martin, and clear wines distilled without lees to Marnier-Lapostolle for Grand Marnier, where the house needs something very fine and elegant so the bitter orange peel can sit on top of it. Working to two such different briefs, side by side, year after year, is its own kind of schooling. The estate is, in its own words, well regarded and well rated in the region. And when it comes to the family's own bottles, the lees are not negotiable: after twenty years in wood, they said, you can still tell.
Distilling on the lees is not an easy trade, and Jonas is candid about it. Between December and February the filters at the outlet of the still fill with a thick deposit, light brown, more often dark brown, sometimes almost black. These are fatty acids, condensed out of the vapour as it is cooled, and they have to be captured before they reach the basins. It is a tiny quantity from each heating, no more than a handful, but more than enough to mark a spirit with a harsh, faintly metallic note if it is left in. So it is caught, and it is thrown away. "Better to have gloves on when you distil," we were told, and after a day in the still room, the smell follows you home.
Jonas with the new XO carafe
Guy Tanguidé et Fils is a small family estate at Chez Réveillé, in the commune of Champagnac, Charente-Maritime. The family farms 25 hectares of vines on clay-limestone soils in the Petite Champagne cru, distils on the lees in the Charentais tradition, and has been bottling under its own name since the early 1980s. Part of the crop is sold on to larger houses; the best parcels are kept back for the estate's own range of four Cognacs, plus Pineau des Charentes and grape juice.
Petite Champagne is one of the six official Cognac crus, wrapping around Grande Champagne to the south and east. Its shallow clay-limestone soils sit over soft, chalky Cretaceous limestone, and its eaux-de-vie are prized for finesse, floral aromatics and a long, slow ageing curve, closely resembling Grande Champagne in character. Champagnac, where Tanguidé farms, lies within the Petite Champagne area, near its southern boundary along the Seugne. On the bottle you will see the traditional wording Appellation Cognac Petite Fine Champagne Contrôlée, which is how this estate labels its cru.
The estate is at Chez Réveillé, 14 route de Réaux, 17500 Champagnac, in the southern Charente-Maritime. It is one of the more southerly corners of the Cognac region, close to Jonzac, where the Seugne marks the edge of the Petite Champagne cru. The soils change noticeably across the commune: chalk breaks the surface on the limestone slopes, while the land beyond the ridge towards Jonzac turns markedly more clay-rich.
Jonas distils in the traditional Charentais manner, on the lees. The house charges the lees twice: it has tried three times and deliberately stepped back, on the view that rigour in the distillation matters more than the quantity of lees. Distilling on the lees is demanding work, as fatty acids condense out of the vapour and collect in the filters at the outlet of the still, and have to be removed before they can mark the spirit. The estate considers the extra effort worthwhile: on the lees, it says, the difference is still clearly there after twenty years in wood.
The house works with four qualities, all of them well above the legal minimum age for their names: Sélection at five years, VSOP at ten years, Napoléon at twenty years, and XO. The twenty-year-old quality also appears as Vieille Réserve in a 50 cl bottle. The Napoléon is the house best seller, sweet and broad; the XO is more powerful, exotic and spiced. A high-strength 60% Cognac à brûlot is also made for the Charentais tradition of flaming a coffee.
Yes. The estate sells eaux-de-vie distilled on the lees to Rémy Martin, and clear wines distilled without lees to Marnier-Lapostolle for Grand Marnier, where a very fine, elegant spirit is needed to carry the bitter orange. Working to two quite different specifications side by side is part of what shapes the house style. The family keeps its best parcels for its own bottlings.
The estate produces Pineau des Charentes in both colours: a white from Ugni Blanc and Colombard grown on its limestone slopes, and a red from Merlot. Older cuvées are also bottled, a Pineau Blanc Vieil Or with woody and candied notes, and a Vieux Rouge. Non-alcoholic sparkling grape juice from the same vines is made as well, in white and in rosé.
Yes. The family has welcomed visitors since the 1980s and receives them all year round, showing the chais and the distillery and offering a tasting. The courtyard also holds the estate's pigeonnier, the old stone dovecote drawn on every Tanguidé label, which can still be walked into: its walls are lined with hundreds of nesting boxes, with old vineyard tools hanging alongside them.
Inside the pigeonnier, wall after wall of stone nesting boxes
Old vineyard tools, kept where they were left
old shot from the domaine bird perspective
The family house at Chez Réveillé
Champagnac sits right on the boundary of Petite Champagne. The limit runs just below the estate, along the Seugne. That edge position turns out to be an advantage rather than a compromise, because the land here is genuinely varied. Walk the parcels and you find chalk breaking the surface in small white stones. Cross the ridge towards Jonzac and the soil changes character completely, more clay, still limestone, but different. As the family put it to us, the crus had to be drawn somewhere, but everyone here knows that certain slopes are simply more qualitative than others.
The house works with four qualities of Cognac, and the ages behind them are well above the legal minimums for each name. Sélection is a five-year-old, which the family considers a mixing Cognac rather than a sipping one, lively and already open. VSOP is a ten-year-old, old enough to hold its own in a glass but with the roundness that makes a serious cocktail. Napoléon is a twenty-year-old, and it is the house's best seller: sweet, broad, generous, with the vanilla note the family likes to keep from the younger spirit. It is also the bottle that carries the house look best, dark green glass that reads almost black in the hand, and that old fashioned script on cream paper that practically no one prints any more. The same twenty-year-old quality also appears as Vieille Réserve in a 50 cl bottle. At the top, the XO is a different animal: still 40% ABV, but far more powerful in the glass, exotic and spiced. "The XO is magic," they told us, before adding, honestly, that some tasters find it simply too much and are happier with the Napoléon.
Alongside the Cognacs the estate makes Pineau des Charentes in white, from Ugni Blanc and Colombard grown on its limestone slopes, and in red from Merlot, plus older Vieil Or and Vieux Rouge cuvées. There is also a 60% Cognac à brûlot, kept for the Charentais tradition of flaming a coffee, and, for those who arrive with children, sparkling grape juice from the same vines.
Chez Réveillé, in the commune of Champagnac in the Charente-Maritime, right on the southern boundary of Petite Champagne.
Five years old, the family’s mixing Cognac. Lively and already open.
Ten years old. Round enough for a serious cocktail, old enough to sip.
Twenty years old and the house best seller. Sweet, broad, generous.
Still 40% ABV, far more powerful, exotic and spiced.
Every bottle comes from this one cru, and from these 25 hectares. Click the badge or the pin for detail.
The first thing you notice in the display cabinet is the bottle itself. The Napoléon and the VSOP wear the old Charentais bottle in dark green glass: hold one up to the window and the glass is not black at all, it is a deep green, the one most of the region has quietly traded for clear or lightly tinted glass. The Sélection, the Vieille Réserve, the XO 50 cl and the brûlot Cognac are bottled in clear glass, which lets you see the colour of the eau-de-vie. The label keeps the same register: cream paper, a flowing old fashioned script, a little stone pigeonnier drawn in the corner. Hardly anyone presents Cognac like this any more, and that is exactly what makes it stand out on a shelf of modern labels. The pigeonnier is not a decorative invention either. It still stands in the courtyard, and you can walk inside it: hundreds of stone nesting boxes rising wall after wall, old vineyard tools hanging where they were last hung.
That said, the house is not standing still. The XO has since been redressed: a matte, lightly textured paper, hot gold foil on the lettering, and a new 70 cl carafe. Part of that was forced: the previous carafe had gone out of production, and since the war in Ukraine, glass and packaging suppliers have been asking for order quantities a 25-hectare estate simply cannot commit to. The Napoléon, VSOP and Sélection bottles will stay much as they are. "What matters is what is inside," we were told, "but we know a slightly more up-to-date dress helps too."
Leaving Champagnac, what stays with us is the balance this house strikes. It sells to two of the most demanding buyers in the region and keeps the best of the crop for four Cognacs of its own.
There is no website, no marketing department, no story invented after the fact. There is a family that has welcomed visitors through the chais and the distillery all year round since the 1980s, a pigeonnier full of nesting boxes, and a twenty-year-old Napoléon that outsells everything else because people keep coming back for it. For anyone who wants Petite Champagne from a grower who distils it, ages it and bottles it himself, this is exactly the kind of address worth knowing.
We thank Jonas and the Tanguidé family for their time, their patience with our questions, and for opening the pigeonnier for us. We thoroughly enjoyed their Cognacs, and we know our Cognac Expert community will too. Cheers!
Cream paper, an old fashioned script and the pigeonnier in the corner
The vines, the pigeonnier, the distillery and the cellar
A poem to the Saintonge, burned into a slab of wood
Guy Tanguidé et Fils is a 25-hectare family estate at Chez Réveillé, in Champagnac, on the southern edge of the Petite Champagne cru. The family grows Ugni Blanc on clay-limestone soils over chalk, distils on the lees in the Charentais tradition, and ages its eaux-de-vie for far longer than the names on the bottles require: five years for the Sélection, ten for the VSOP, twenty for the Napoléon and Vieille Réserve. Part of the harvest goes to Rémy Martin and to Marnier-Lapostolle for Grand Marnier; the best parcels stay at home. Alongside the Cognacs the estate produces Pineau des Charentes in white and red, a 60% Cognac à brûlot for the Charentais coffee tradition, and grape juice from its own vines. The chais, the distillery and the pigeonnier are open to visitors all year round.
The pigeonnier in the courtyard, open to visitors all year round
