Raison Personnelle XO 5.1 Grande Champagne Cognac

Raison Personnelle XO 5.1 Grande Champagne Cognac

Raison Personnelle is the work of Sabine and Bertrand de Witasse, who farm around twenty hectares of Ugni Blanc on the slopes around the church of Angeac-Champagne, in Grande Champagne. They distil on two Charentais copper stills built in 1935, one of them fired by wood, and bottle roughly one cask at a time, fewer than 600 bottles a year, each one hand numbered. The 5.1 is an XO assemblage, 100% Grande Champagne and 100% distilled over a wood fire.

It brings together eaux-de-vie distilled in 2005, 2006, 2010 and 2011, bottled in 2025 at 42.4% vol. The style is round: gingerbread, Christmas tea and cocoa powder, with the fruit of the cru behind them. It follows the 5.0, drawn from the same vintages and bottled a year earlier. For the background on Sabine and Bertrand, read our introduction to the house.

Bottlings this small sell out and are not repeated, so the 5.1 suits drinkers who follow the estate release by release, and anyone who wants Grande Champagne from a grower rather than a large house.

Presentation of the bottle

A tall, straight-sided clear bottle with a short neck and a natural wood cap. The label is screen printed straight onto the glass in orange: COGNAC set vertically, a line drawing of a Charentais house with a bunch of grapes, then RAISON PERSONNELLE and the line Appellation Cognac Grande Champagne Contrôlée. A small white band around the neck carries the house name and the number of the assemblage, here 5.1. The producer’s own text runs in small print at the foot of the bottle.

How to drink

Serve neat in a tulip glass at room temperature, after a meal. Sabine de Witasse pours it alongside chocolate desserts, and the house also drinks it as an aperitif over ice in summer. No water is needed at this strength.