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.
The XO sits at the top of the range and it is a different animal from the Napoléon below it. Still 40%, but far more powerful in the glass, exotic and spiced where the Napoléon is sweet and broad. The family's own verdict when we visited was short: the XO is magic. Set against the wider XO shelf, this is a grower's XO rather than a blending house's, from parcels the estate deliberately keeps back.
The lees are what carry it. Jonas charges them twice, having tried three times and stepped back, on the view that rigour in the distillation matters more than the quantity of lees. Between December and February the filters at the outlet of the still fill with fatty acids that have to be caught and thrown away before they can mark the spirit, which is the unglamorous part of the method. The reward is a depth that is still legible after long aging in wood. We put estate XOs of this kind side by side in our small-producer XO tasting.
This is for the drinker who tracks growers rather than labels, and who wants Petite Champagne at full development without a large-house price.
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 estate's Napoléon and VSOP keep the old Charentais bottle in dark green glass. The label follows the same register: cream paper, a flowing handwritten script, and the estate's stone pigeonnier drawn in ink in the corner. The labels were made in the family, and for years their edges were burned by hand. The pigeonnier is not a decorative invention, it still stands in the courtyard, lined with hundreds of stone nesting boxes.
The XO presentation has since been revised: a matte, lightly textured paper with hot gold foil on the lettering.
Neat, room temperature, tulip glass, and give it real time. This one changes over fifteen or twenty minutes in the glass, so pour it early and come back to it. No ice, no water.
The estate serves it with an exceptional dark chocolate, a Mbô 71% for example.
