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 | Maison Dhiersat is a seven generation family estate at Rouillac, in the northern part of the Fins Bois cru, run today by Marie Dhiersat with two female relatives. Its 55 hectares of vines all sit within three kilometres of the domaine, and every stage happens on site: growing, distilling in three 25 hectolitre Charentais alambics, ageing across three chais, and bottling. The range runs from VS De Luxe through VSOP, Napoleon and Tres Vieille Reserve to the Reserve de Famille, a single barrel XO aged up to four decades that reaches 40% almost entirely through evaporation. Alongside the cognacs the family bottle Pineau des Charentes, holding back one cask for each family member born.
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Visit Maison Dhiersat: 477 Rue du Moulin à Vent ,16170 ROUILLAC
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Our latest visit took us north of the town of Cognac, up towards Rouillac, where the flat plain gives way to a lumpier, more folded landscape. This is still the Fins Bois, but it is a quieter corner of the cru, one where the roadside signs and the family domaines gradually thin out. Sitting on a high point in that rolling terrain, we found Maison Dhiersat.
The family have worked these vines for seven generations. Three family members run the estate today, led by Marie Dhiersat, and all three are women, which is still a rare thing to see in Cognac. A small seasonal team helps out in the vines. Their 55 hectares all sit within a three kilometre radius of the domaine, and everything happens on site, from the work in the vines through distillation and ageing to the bottling line. That kind of complete, hands-on estate is exactly what we look for.
The Dhiersat vines above Rouillac
Ugni Blanc on the estate
Marie Dhiersat walked us through the distillery, where three traditional Charentais alambics sit side by side, each of 25 hectolitres. They distil with the lees, though Marie was quick to point out that the quantity and quality of those lees changes from one year to the next. It is very much a vintage by vintage decision rather than a fixed recipe.
That choice matters. Distilling on the lees gives the young spirit more body and a richer aromatic base, which is what you want when the eaux-de-vie are destined to spend decades in wood rather than a few years.
The house works to a simple principle across the whole range: no colouring and no sugar. What goes into the bottle is as close to what came out of the cask as they can keep it.
One of the three 25 hectolitre alambics
We all know that XO means a minimum of ten years in barrel. This one, however, has spent up to four decades, so this is a 40-year-old cognac. Marie tells me it’s actually a single barrel, and when this barrel ends, they move on to the next barrel, always at that same age. It’s at 40%, but she says there’s basically no reduction done at all. The angels’ share naturally does most of the work, so to go from whatever the raw strength was down to 40%, it’s very, very, very little addition of water.
The other interesting thing about this cognac, other than it being a mega old XO, is that there is a nice chunk of Folle Blanche in it. She can’t say how much to be exact, because it’s kind of a co-plantation sort of deal, but there is a hefty chunk of Folle Blanche in this cognac, which is very, very unique, especially at this age. And there’s no colouring, there’s no sugar, they are putting in bottle as natural, as unmessed-with a product as possible.
First thing: really nice, deep, coppery, amber colour, which is a natural colour, by the way.
Big wave of vanilla, beautiful vanilla, too. I’m feeling the impact of the oak, I’m feeling the vanilla. It’s very, very elegant. Where are these fruits? Yeah, they’re there, but they’re under this layer of vanilla, so you’ve got to like that. But then what fruits do stick out? Well, there’s oranges, there’s like clementine. I’m not gonna say peach, but more on like apricot jam. And then these pastes, this is a common thing that we get in old cognacs, this quince paste, and I’m definitely getting this kind of thing here. But this little cloaking of vanilla is there covering everything. It’s very, very elegant. It’s very present. And it also suggests that this is some pretty old stuff. So we’re getting those fruits, they’re covered in the vanilla, the oak, a little bit of spice, a little bit of rancio, but we’re definitely not in any kind of tropical territory or exotic or anything like that.
On the palate: great, great mouthfeel. Not a chest thumper. This is not some massive cognac that’s gonna rip your cheeks off, but it’s got a very fine texture. It coats the mouth. It’s a little bit oily in a way. It’s got a very, very good flavour intensity, which to me suggests that whatever reduction was done was not very much. And it’s also surprisingly elegant. The fruit is there, the vanilla is there, all those same notes that were on the nose show up on the palate, but it’s very elegant, and it doesn’t go down like a rustic, sort of gritty path that some other old Fins Bois can do. And that’s really, really interesting. I wonder if that has to do with the healthy percentage of Folle Blanche in this cognac.
One more shot. I mean, what more can you ask for? Grapefruit, the oak, the spice, the vanilla is all there, slightly ahead of the fruit for sure. So it definitely is a warming, comforting kind of cognac. It’s not really summery. It is very old. It feels old, but everything is still intact. Beautiful mouthfeel, very elegant, very fine, very, very fine, and well, well done.
I don’t know how many bottles of this are left, but once this one ends, remember, they’ll move on to another cask. And of course, each cask is gonna have a different signature. So: a very, very interesting XO cognac. Far superior, and it far exceeds what a normal XO would be.
This is a very, very, very special Pineau, because the family holds back one barrel of Pineau from each of the family members’ birth years. This one, as you can see, is from ’65, making it incredibly rare to have a Pineau coming from a single cask with this age. Absolutely bonkers. Usually when we talk about old Pineaus, we’re talking about 20 to 25 years. Not this kind of age.
Again, I don’t know how many bottles of this are left, so once this barrel ends… Marie did say that it would be her year next, and it is not a ’65. So this might be one to jump on.
So, what does it smell like and what does it taste like? Pah! Old Pineau. Heavy rancio. The fruits are long gone, or at least the fresh fruits are long gone. We are in all sorts of nuts and nuttiness. There’s a little bit of spice, but this is very, very nutty. If there are fruits present, I’m feeling like this is going to be very fig paste, black cherry, you know, kind of dried cranberry stuff. But make no mistake: the nuttiness and the rancio and these non-fruit elements are leading the pack here.
What’s not to like about old Pineau? That is wild. Very long. A very comforting, caressing sort of mouthfeel. It’s sweet, it’s round, it coats everything, but it’s not sticky, it’s not heavy, it’s not gloppy, absolutely not. The fruit is there, it’s definitely on the dried red fruit side of things. So, absolutely the fig paste, the dried black cherries, dried cranberries, that kind of thing. But then you have a really healthy helping of nuts and spice and that kind of rancio stuff.
This is unmistakably extremely old Pineau. It is of the highest quality and the highest rarity, I would say. So: fantastic, fantastic Pineau.
Maison Dhiersat is a family estate at Rouillac, in the Fins Bois cru of Charente, France. The family have grown vines here for seven generations, and the estate is run today by Marie Dhiersat with two female relatives. Their 55 hectares of vines lie within three kilometres of the domaine, and the family handle every stage themselves, from the vines through distillation and ageing to bottling on site. The legal entity behind the brand is SCEA Dhiersat.
Fins Bois is the largest of the six cognac crus, wrapping around the Grande and Petite Champagne zones. It is known for cognacs with roundness and generous fruit that develop relatively quickly. Maison Dhiersat sit in the northern part of the cru, near Rouillac, and pair that natural suppleness with very long ageing.
Three things. It has spent up to forty years in cask, far beyond the ten year legal minimum for an XO. It is drawn from a single barrel at a time rather than blended across many. And it carries a significant proportion of Folle Blanche, an older grape variety that is rarely found at this age.
For each family member born, the house sets aside one barrel of Pineau des Charentes from that year. The 1965 is one of those birth year casks. Old Pineau usually means twenty to twenty five years, so a single cask of this age is exceptionally rare. Expect heavy rancio, nuts and spice, with dried figs and black cherry underneath.
No. The house works without caramel colouring and without sugar across the range. The colour in the glass comes from the cask, and the strength of the older bottlings comes largely from evaporation in the chai rather than from adding water at the end.
Maison Dhiersat bottlings are listed on the Maison Dhiersat brand page. Availability of the older single cask bottlings is limited by their nature, as each cask is finite and the next one carries a different signature.
Casks resting in the chai
The old cognac cellar
Fresh spirit spends 8 to 12 months in new oak before it is moved across into older, calmer casks. The one exception is the VS, which is left in new wood a little longer to pick up more spice and a more obvious oak signature.
Three chais on site handle the ageing, some humid, some dry, which lets the family steer how quickly each lot develops. Their preferred cooperage is Vicard, working with both rough and fine grain oak and a traditional cognac chauffe. They do experiment with other toast levels, but they keep coming back to the classic.
The ageing method here is deliberately staged. A young eau-de-vie needs a period in new oak to gain structure, tannin and the vanilla and spice notes that come from fresh wood. Leave it there too long and the wood takes over. Move it too early and the spirit never builds a frame.
Maison Dhiersat settle on 8 to 12 months in new oak, then transfer into older casks where the wood has already given up most of its extract. From that point the cask becomes a container rather than a flavour source, and the slow work of oxidation and evaporation takes over. Across several decades that is what produces rancio, and it is also what quietly raises or lowers the strength in cask, which is why the angels take their share.
The effect is clearest in the Réserve de Famille. After up to forty years in wood, the spirit has come down to 40% almost entirely on its own, with very little water added at the end. Very few houses can say that about a cognac at this age.
The range is complete without being sprawling: VS De Luxe, VSOP, Napoleon, Tres Vieille Reserve, and at the top the Réserve de Famille. Alongside the cognacs the family make Pineau des Charentes, including some remarkable old single casks, and a small range of cognac based fruit liqueurs sold under the Epona name, after a Gaulish horse goddess whose statue was found beneath their commune.
The story we could not stop thinking about is the Pineau. For each family member born, the house holds back a single barrel of Pineau des Charentes from that year. The one we tasted is from 1965, which makes it a single cask of extraordinary age. When people talk about old Pineau they usually mean twenty or twenty five years. This is something else entirely.
On the nose the fresh fruit has long since gone. What is left is nuts, spice and a deep rancio, with the darker dried fruits underneath: fig paste, dried black cherry, cranberry. The texture is sweet and round and coats everything, yet it never turns sticky or heavy. It is the highest quality old Pineau we have tasted in a long time.
Marie told us that when this barrel runs dry, the next one to be opened will be hers. And hers is not a 1965.
An XO must spend at least ten years in cask. This one has spent up to four decades, and it is drawn from a single barrel at a time.
Deep coppery amber, natural colour, and a big wave of very fine vanilla on the nose. The fruit sits underneath it: orange, clementine, apricot jam, and the quince paste you so often find in genuinely old cognac. On the palate the texture is fine and faintly oily, the intensity is high, and yet it stays elegant rather than turning rustic, which old Fins Bois can sometimes do. Marie attributes part of that to a healthy proportion of Folle Blanche in the blend, a legacy of old co-planted parcels.
The family line runs back seven generations. Jean, Dominique, Jules and then Rene Dhiersat each took over the small farm in turn. Jean Claude expanded the business in the 1960s, followed by Nadine and then Marie, who leads it today. Alongside the cognacs and the Pineau, the estate also bottles a Vin de Pays Charentais from the same vines.
We thank Marie and the Dhiersat family for their time and their patience with our questions. These are cognacs and a Pineau worth hurrying for. Cheers!
Maison Dhiersat is a seven generation family estate at Rouillac, in the northern reaches of the Fins Bois cru of Charente. The house is run today by Marie Dhiersat and two female relatives. Their 55 hectares of vines sit within three kilometres of the domaine, and every stage of production happens on site: growing, harvesting, distilling in three 25 hectolitre Charentais alambics, ageing across three chais, and bottling.
The house style favours patience and restraint. Eaux-de-vie spend 8 to 12 months in new Limousin oak before moving into older casks, there is no colouring and no sugar, and the flagship Réserve de Famille reaches bottling strength largely through evaporation rather than reduction. Alongside the cognacs, the family bottle Pineau des Charentes and hold back a single cask for each family member born, a practice that has left them with extraordinary old vintages such as the 1965.
For anyone drawn to small independent houses where the same family does everything from the vine to the cork, this is a name to know. You can read more on the Maison Dhiersat website.
