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Frédéric Mestreau & Cie was founded in 1830 on the île d’Oléron and established in Saintes from 1837, becoming one of the great Cognac houses of the town and shipping to nineteen British cities by 1879. Trading ceased in 1911 and the name lay dormant for a century, until Maison Grosperrin revived it in 2012 after buying old Mestreau bottles, hidden from the occupying forces during the Second World War, from the family’s own descendants. Today it is a négociant-éleveur label. We carry four bottlings: a VS and a VSOP blend, the XO N°08 in pure Borderies, and the Cuvée Abel in Grande Champagne above them.
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Some Cognac names disappear quietly. Frédéric Mestreau & Cie was one of them. The family story begins not in Saintes but at the Grand-moulin de Mosnac, and its first thread into the eau-de-vie trade is a marriage: in 1808, Pierre Gastineau, an eau-de-vie merchant who had married into the family the year before, became part-owner of the Mestreau family home. The house itself was founded in 1830, on the île d’Oléron, by Jean-Frédéric Mestreau (1778-1862), a draper who became a banker and then a merchant of wine and brandy. In 1837 he moved the business to Saintes, to the rue du Port-des-Frères.
From there it became one of the great Cognac names of the town. By 1879 Mestreau Cognac was shipping to nineteen cities in Great Britain, and in 1900 the house was a founding member of the Cognac eaux-de-vie trade syndicate. Then it stopped. Trading ceased in 1911, and the name slept for a century, until 2012, when it was revived in the old merchants’ quarter of Saintes by Guilhem Grosperrin. We carry four bottlings from the revived house, from an everyday VS to the Cuvée Abel in Grande Champagne.
Borderies, the smallest cru
Candied citrus, orange, chocolate | 40% ABV
Grande Champagne, very old, with rancio
Grande Champagne | 43% ABV
The Mestreau chais at Saintes, casks rolled on rails between the vats
Collection La Gabare, cognac de collection Jean Grosperrin
A period F. Mestreau & Cie Fine Champagne label. Between 1877
and 1912 the house filed forty-three marks.
Jean-Frédéric Mestreau (1778-1862) was a draper on Oléron before he was a banker, and a banker before he was a Cognac merchant. He founded the house in 1830 and brought it to Saintes in 1837. By 1864 the trade directory Didot-Bottin lists him as both banker and négociant in eaux-de-vie.
His son Eugène-Frédéric Mestreau (1825-1891) entered the firm in 1841 and built its export trade, but his real appetite was public life: préfet of the Charente-Inférieure in 1870, then député in 1871. In 1885 he went to bat for the Cognac houses of his département so that mail misdirected to the town of Cognac would be forwarded on to them, a small fight that says a great deal about being a Cognac house in Saintes rather than in Cognac.
His son Abel Mestreau (1854-1939) took the family further still from commerce. He partnered with his brother-in-law Anatole Huvet in 1892 and kept the house going into the new century, but he was at heart a collector. A Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur, he assembled the collection of Saintonge art and furniture that became the musée Dupuy-Mestreau, housed in the Hôtel Monconseil, the finest eighteenth-century mansion in Saintes. His grandson gave it to the town in 1993.
The house stopped trading in 1911. The verdict on the Saintes Cognac houses of the period is unsentimental and applies squarely here: they were mostly run by families who had not started out as merchants, and they faded through a want of heirs and of commercial appetite. Jean-Frédéric sold cloth before brandy; his descendants occupied themselves more with politics and heritage than with trade. There is a nice irony in it. The same instinct that let the business slip is the one that preserved the collection, the mansion, and in the end the bottles.
One trace outlived the business in the most practical way. In 1913 the town of Saintes drew on the Lorfond spring at the Mestreau distillery to supply its population with water while works were carried out elsewhere.
The house registered its first trademark on 16 May 1877, the fifth Cognac house of Saintes to do so. The emblem was a sheaf of flags wreathed in vine leaves, and at its centre an escutcheon bearing four words: England, Scotland, Ireland, America. That is a statement of intent, and the 1879 shipping records bear it out.
Between 1877 and 1912 Mestreau lodged forty-three marks. This was the era when Cognac houses stopped shipping in barrel and began selling in bottle, and the label became the first tasting: the thing that had to seduce before the Cognac ever did.
Eugène-Frédéric Mestreau (1825-1891), who joined the family firm in 1841 and went on to serve as préfet and député of the Charente-Inférieure
The house prix-courant, c.1900: eaux-de-vie in cask by vintage, back to 1870
A scrollable timeline of the house, from a marriage in 1807 to the revival of 2012.
François Mestreau, father of Marguerite and Jean-Frédéric, receives fourteen barriques and five tierçons from his father-in-law. The family’s first recorded stock.
Marguerite Mestreau marries Pierre Gastineau, son of a merchant of Sainte-Lheurine. It is this marriage, rather than any business decision, that brings the family into the eau-de-vie trade.
Gastineau, now an eau-de-vie merchant, becomes part-owner of the Mestreau family home at the Grand-moulin de Mosnac.
Jean-Frédéric Mestreau is trading cloth on the île d’Oléron. He buys a house at Saint-Pierre-d’Oléron three years later.
Jean-Frédéric Mestreau formally founds the trading house at Saint-Pierre-d’Oléron. Every later label will carry this date.
He moves the business to the rue du Port-des-Frères in Saintes. His son Eugène-Frédéric joins the firm in 1841.
The Didot-Bottin trade directory lists Mestreau as both a banker and a merchant of eaux-de-vie, a combination that was less unusual in Saintes than it sounds.
Eugène-Frédéric Mestreau is appointed préfet of the Charente-Inférieure, and elected député the following year. The same year, phylloxera is found in the family vineyard at Trudon.
On 16 May the house lodges its first trademarks at the Saintes commercial court, the fifth Cognac house of the town to do so. Forty-three marks will follow by 1912.
Mestreau Cognac is shipped to nineteen cities across Great Britain. The house mark of this period shows a cherub astride the globe, and the escutcheon reads England, Scotland, Ireland, America.
Part of the Trudon vineyard, ruined by phylloxera, is grubbed up. The disease had been officially declared in the Charente-Inférieure in 1873.
Eugène-Frédéric defends the Cognac houses of his département, arguing that mail misdirected to the town of Cognac should be forwarded on to them. A small fight, and a revealing one.
A year after Eugène-Frédéric’s death, his son Abel Mestreau enters into partnership with his brother-in-law Anatole Huvet, who renews the house marks in the company’s name.
The house prix-courant offers eaux-de-vie in cask by vintage, from 1898 back to 1870, alongside bottled VO, OSP and Fine Champagne extra. Goods held under bond at La Pallice.
F. Mestreau & Cie is among the founding members of the Cognac eaux-de-vie trade syndicate.
The house advertises in the Moniteur des eaux-de-vie de Cognac of 28 February, under the line Maison fondée en 1830, Saintes près Cognac.
Trading ceases. There is no dramatic collapse on record, simply a family whose attention had moved to politics and to collecting.
The Lorfond spring at the former Mestreau distillery is used by the town of Saintes to supply its population with water during works elsewhere.
An advertising card for the house, still trading on the founding date of 1830.
Abel Mestreau dies at eighty-five. The Saintonge collection he assembled in the Hôtel Monconseil becomes the musée Dupuy-Mestreau, given to the town of Saintes by his grandson in 1993.
Guilhem Grosperrin buys old Mestreau bottles from the Dupuy family, among them a Grande Champagne of 1820 and a Fine Champagne predating 1893, hidden in the Charente-Maritime through the Second World War.
Frédéric Mestreau & Cie is revived at Port-la-Rousselle in Saintes, the town’s historic wine and brandy merchants’ quarter.
Scroll sideways to follow the house through two centuries →
Between 1877 and 1912 the house lodged forty-three trademarks. These are four of them, as filed at the commercial court of Saintes.
N°73 · 16 May 1877
A cherub astride the globe, flanked by the medals of the 1865 Bordeaux Exposition. Registered for bottles destined for export.
N°76 · 16 May 1877
The circular Frédéric Mestreau & Co label: a sheaf of flags wreathed in vine leaves and grapes, over the words Eau de Vie Vieille.
N°79 · 16 May 1877
A shield of gold stars and a comet on blue over red, crowned by the house name. Engraved by Romain & Palyart of Paris.
N°389 · 1892
Anatole Huvet renews the house mark in the company’s name, fifteen years after the original deposit of 16 May 1877.
Registrations lodged at the commercial court of Saintes.
Mestreau is a Cognac house founded in 1830 on the île d’Oléron by Jean-Frédéric Mestreau and established in Saintes from 1837. It became one of the leading Cognac houses of the town, ceased trading in 1911, and was revived in 2012 by Maison Grosperrin. Today it works as a négociant-éleveur, selecting eaux-de-vie lot by lot across the six crus and ageing them in humid cellars on the banks of the Charente.
Three generations. Jean-Frédéric (1778-1862), a draper turned banker turned brandy merchant, founded the house in 1830 and moved it to Saintes in 1837. Eugène-Frédéric (1825-1891) joined in 1841, built the export trade, and became préfet of the Charente-Inférieure in 1870 and député in 1871. Abel (1854-1939) was the collector: he assembled the Saintonge collection that became the musée Dupuy-Mestreau, given to the town of Saintes in 1993.
In 2008, Guilhem Grosperrin bought several old Mestreau bottles from the Dupuy family, Abel Mestreau’s descendants, including a Grande Champagne of 1820 and a Fine Champagne predating 1893. They came from Eugène-Frédéric Mestreau’s own cellar and, per a written attestation by Christiane Dupuy in 2000, had been hidden in the Charente-Maritime during the Second World War and never found by the occupying forces. In 2012 the house was reborn in the Port-la-Rousselle quarter of Saintes, the town’s historic wine and brandy merchants’ district.
Grande Champagne is the innermost and most prized of the six Cognac crus, a band of soft chalk soils immediately south of the town of Cognac. Its eaux-de-vie are famously slow to mature and are the ones most often kept for decades, developing the savoury rancio character that defines very old Cognac. The Cuvée Abel is drawn entirely from this cru.
The N°08 is a house cuvée number, not a vintage or an age. Borderies is the cru: the smallest of the six Cognac growing areas, a compact pocket of clay and flint soils north-west of Cognac town. Borderies is prized for a distinctive floral, nutty, violet-and-walnut character that develops relatively early. Borderies bottlings are uncommon even in France, which is part of why this one is a favourite of ours.
Cuvée Abel Mestreau is the top of the range, named for Abel Mestreau, the collector whose family cellar led to the revival. It is a Grande Champagne at 43% ABV, released in small numbered editions. The producer describes it as a blend of eaux-de-vie of fifty to seventy years of age, the youngest component (around a fifth of the blend) distilled in 1988, made without added sugar, without boisé, without caramel and without cold filtration, with pronounced rancio.
Yes. The house took a Gold medal at the Cognac Masters 2016 and was included by The Spirits Business in its “Top 10 best value for money Cognacs” list the same year. The independent critic Whiskyfun has also scored the house well, rating the VSOP De Luxe 85 points in April 2023.
We carry four. The VS De Luxe and VSOP De Luxe (40%) are the cross-cru blends and the friendliest entry points, the VSOP showing dried fruit, pressed flowers, beeswax, vanilla and toffee. The XO N°08 Borderies (40%) is the one to take if you want cru character you cannot easily find elsewhere: candied citrus, orange and chocolate. The Cuvée Abel (43%, Grande Champagne) sits apart, a very old cuvée in small numbered editions, for a quiet evening rather than a comparison flight.
The humid cellars on the banks of the Charente at Saintes
Guilhem Grosperrin drawing a sample from a cask in the Saintes cellars
The six crus of Cognac, the island where the house was founded in 1830, and Saintes, where it has traded since 1837.
The smallest cru, north-west of Cognac. Floral, nutty, violets and walnut.
The innermost cru, soft chalk soils. Slow to mature, the classic home of rancio.
Assembled rather than tied to one cru, so it has no single point on the map.
Also a cross-cru assemblage. Dried fruit, pressed flowers, beeswax, vanilla.
Cru boundaries after the official delimitation. Click a badge for detail.
The revival did not begin with a business plan. It began with a cellar.
In 2008, Guilhem Grosperrin, of the Saintes house La Gabare, bought a number of old Mestreau bottles from the Dupuy family, Abel Mestreau’s descendants. Among them were a Grande Champagne of 1820 and a Fine Champagne predating 1893. They had come from the personal cellar of Eugène-Frédéric Mestreau, and Christiane Dupuy had attested in writing, in September 2000, that these eaux-de-vie were hidden during the Second World War in the Charente-Maritime and were not found by the occupying forces.
In 2012 the name was brought back to life, in the Port-la-Rousselle quarter of Saintes. The address matters. Port-la-Rousselle was the wine and brandy merchants’ quarter of the town, home to Rouyer-Guillet and Martineau, to the Saint-Michel distillery and to the great cooperages. The last stills there went cold at the end of the 1999-2000 distilling season. Mestreau came back to a street that had spent a century emptying out.
We list four bottlings from the revived house, and they are best read as two pairs.
The VS De Luxe and VSOP De Luxe (both 40%) are the blends and the entry points. They are assembled across crus rather than tied to one, and the VSOP in particular has drawn consistent notes for dried fruit, pressed flowers, beeswax, vanilla and toffee. It was scored 85 points by the independent critic Whiskyfun.
Then the two that matter most to us. The XO N°08 Borderies (40%) is pure Borderies, the smallest of the six crus, a compact pocket of clay and flint soils north-west of Cognac town known for a floral, nutty, violet-and-walnut character. Borderies bottlings are uncommon even in France. Above it sits the Cuvée Abel (43%) in Grande Champagne, the top of the house range and the bottle that carries the revival story on its label.
The top bottling is named for Abel Mestreau, the collector whose family cellar started all of this, and it is the one place where the heritage story and the liquid meet.
Cuvée Abel Mestreau is a Grande Champagne at 43%, released in small numbered editions. The producer describes it as a blend of eaux-de-vie of fifty to seventy years of age, with the youngest component, around a fifth of the blend, distilled in 1988, and is explicit about what is not in it: no sugar, no boisé, no caramel, no cold filtration. It carries real rancio, the savoury walnut-and-old-leather note that only long patience in a humid cellar produces.
Editions are small and irregular, so availability comes and goes. If you see one on the shelf, that is the moment.
Mestreau is not a grand maison and does not pretend to be. It is a name that was allowed to lapse in 1911 by a family more interested in politics and paintings than in selling brandy, and picked up a century later by someone who knew exactly what he had found.
What we like about it is the honesty of the proposition. There are no estate photographs to romanticise, because there is no estate and there has not been one since the phylloxera took the Trudon vineyard in the 1880s. What there is instead is selection: a very wide net across the crus, a cellar on a damp riverbank, soft-tannin wood, restrained reduction, and a refusal to correct the spirit on the way out. For anyone who wants to taste the Charente by cru rather than by brand, the Borderies and the Grande Champagne here are the two to reach for.
With thanks to Maison Grosperrin for bringing the name back. Cheers!
Mestreau is today a small, specialist Cognac label operating from the Port-la-Rousselle quarter of Saintes, under the stewardship of Maison Grosperrin, which revived the name in 2012. It works on the négociant-éleveur model: eaux-de-vie are selected lot by lot from a network of more than 150 owners across all six Cognac crus, then aged in humid cellars on the banks of the Charente, in soft-tannin oak and without heavy toasting. The house adds no sugar, no boisé and no caramel, and does not cold-filter; some of the oldest stock is not reduced at all. The range we carry is small and cru-led rather than tier-led: a VS and a VSOP blend, the XO N°08 in pure Borderies, and the Cuvée Abel in Grande Champagne above them. The house has been recognised in trade competition, taking a Gold at the Cognac Masters 2016 and a place on The Spirits Business list of best value-for-money Cognacs the same year.
The family’s first connection to brandy came through marriage: in 1807 Marguerite Mestreau married Pierre Gastineau, an eau-de-vie merchant’s son, and in 1808 Gastineau became part-owner of the Mestreau family home at the Grand-moulin de Mosnac. Her brother Jean-Frédéric Mestreau (1778-1862) was by 1814 a draper on the île d’Oléron, and it was there, in 1830, that he formally founded the trading house. In 1837 he moved it to Saintes, rue du Port-des-Frères, and by 1864 was listed in the Didot-Bottin directory as both banker and négociant in eaux-de-vie.
His son Eugène-Frédéric Mestreau (1825-1891) joined the firm in 1841 and became one of the notable figures of the region, préfet of the Charente-Inférieure in 1870 and député in 1871. The house registered its first trademark on 16 May 1877, an escutcheon reading England, Scotland, Ireland, America, and filed forty-three marks in all between 1877 and 1912. By 1879 its Cognacs reached nineteen British cities. Phylloxera arrived in the meantime: traces appeared in the family vineyard at Trudon in 1870, the disease was officially declared in the Charente-Inférieure in 1873, and part of Trudon was grubbed up in 1880.
Abel Mestreau (1854-1939) took over, partnered with his brother-in-law Anatole Huvet in 1892, and saw the house become a founding member of the Cognac eaux-de-vie trade syndicate in 1900. Trading ceased in 1911. Abel devoted the rest of his life to collecting, and the collection of Saintonge art he assembled in the Hôtel Monconseil became the musée Dupuy-Mestreau, given to the town of Saintes by his grandson in 1993.
The name returned by way of that same family. In 2008 Guilhem Grosperrin bought old Mestreau bottles from the Dupuy family, including a Grande Champagne of 1820 and a Fine Champagne predating 1893, which had been hidden in the Charente-Maritime through the Second World War and never found by the occupying forces. In 2012 Frédéric Mestreau & Cie was reborn at Port-la-Rousselle, the historic merchants’ quarter of Saintes.
