I grew-up in the Cognac area and during my entire childhood, my father and grand-father, both master-blenders, transmitted to me the secret of distillation and ageing Eaux-de-vie. Later, as I was a teenager, a friend of mine, cognac producer, asked me to help him working in the vineyard and to assist him during the distillations. Then, as I was studying economics, I’ve worked over the W.E. & summer holidays providing tours of his company. I can really claim Cognac became a passion around the age of 22. ; at that time, there was no school to learn how to produce Cognac or how to become a Cellar- Master, but I already had my family secrets in mind.
I first worked for the BNIC (The National Bureau of Cognac) in their laboratory where I studied about the grape and the soil. Then I joined Martell distillery to learn about distillation which I left a year after, just before the company got bought by Seagram. I started to work at Cognac Frapin, a family own-House in the heart of the Grande Champagne, in February1987 with the whole team who took time to teach me about Frapin’s secrets and the complexity and specificity of the family know-how of the “assemblages” (blends). Two years later, Frapin’s former master-blender offered me to carry on what he has been achieving over so many years: I became the youngest Cellar-Master in France at the age of 25. ; I even had a chance to be interviewed by TF1, the 1st French TV Channel.
|
