Learn more about the different Cognac ages
Learn more about the different Cognac growth areas
Guy Tanguidé et Fils is a 25-hectare family estate at Chez Réveillé, in Champagnac, on the southern edge of the Petite Champagne cru where the boundary follows the Seugne. The family grows Ugni Blanc on clay-limestone soils over chalk and has been bottling under its own name since the early 1980s. Jonas distils in the traditional Charentais manner, on the lees, charging them twice. Part of the crop goes to Rémy Martin and to Marnier-Lapostolle for Grand Marnier; the best parcels stay at home.
This is the estate's XO in its 70cl carafe, the house's luxury presentation of its top quality. The cognac is the same as the 50cl bottling: still 40%, but far more powerful in the glass than the Napoléon below it, exotic and spiced. The family's own summary was simply that the XO is magic. On the wider XO shelf a decanter from a genuine grower-distiller, rather than a blending house, is not a common thing to find.
Behind it is the same lees distillation the estate sells to Rémy Martin. Jonas charges the lees twice, having tried three times and deliberately stepped back on the view that rigour matters more than quantity, and holds that the difference is still clear after long aging in wood. Working to two very different briefs year after year, the lees eaux-de-vie for Rémy Martin and clear wines for Marnier-Lapostolle at Grand Marnier, is its own kind of schooling. We tasted comparable bottlings in our small-producer XO tasting.
The obvious choice as a gift or a centrepiece bottle, and the format to buy if the XO is the one you already know you want.
A square carafe with rounded shoulders and a wide stopper, holding 70 cl, which shows the deep amber colour of the Cognac far better than the 50 cl bottle. The label is the round medallion with the pigeonnier and the handwritten lettering. That presentation has since been revised: the 70 cl carafe has been redesigned and the label now uses a matte, lightly textured paper with hot gold foil on the lettering.
Neat, room temperature, in a tulip glass, poured early and revisited. It develops over fifteen to twenty minutes. No ice and no water.
The estate serves it with an exceptional dark chocolate, a Mbô 71% for example.
