Sadly, this was the last day of the cruise. 😦 It has been the most amazing and certainly in the top five of all of our travels! But it’s not over yet – Cognac was a unique and fascinating city! This was a full day excursion. Our boat was docked back at its starting point in Bordeaux. It took around an hour an a half to get to Cognac by bus from Bordeaux, but as you can imagine, it was a scenic ride. There may have been a small nap or two along the way…

Cognac, the Brandy

You think wine is complicated? Hmph. It takes seven liters of wine to make one liter of cognac. Cognac is in the brandy family. The word brandy comes from the Dutch word brandewijn, which translates to burnt wine. Cognac is made by heating up the wine, then capturing the vapors and converting them back into liquid. As part of this process, the liquid is separated into three different types. One of those parts is collected over several iterations, then it is run through the process in place of the wine. It gets stored in special containers, eventually making it into oak barrels. Then later, based on the master brewers sampling, it may or may not be transferred to different barrels, and/or moved to different locations, or it may be blended with another batch. It is mind boggling how complex the whole process is.

Once completed, it can be stored indefinitely without impacting the flavor or quality. We saw some racks, shown above, that had been stored since 1815! Might be a tad expensive, I’m thinking.

Speaking of expensive, here’s a bottle of Baron Otard premium. Note the price. People pay untold fortunes just to get an empty crystal deancter that it was stored in. Think about how rare they would be; when you pay almost 4,000€ for a bottle of cognac, how long do you think it would last? Exactly, that’s why finding empty ones is a challenge!

Chateau de Cognac

We arrived at the castle of Chateau de Cognac at 11am. The original castle was built way back in the year 950 in response to Viking raids in the area. Funny to hear this sort of history after living in the land of the Vikings for a year and a half!

Fast forward another five hundred or so years to 1494, Francis I was born in this very castle. In fact, see the window on the bottom right? He was born in that room. But his father wasn’t king, so Francis wasn’t born a prince or a king, he had to work his way to it. He became the king of France in 1515, and reigned until his death in 1547.

King Francis I was a battle king, and rode many times into the bloody battles with his men. One of his more famous conquests was the taking of Milan. He was even captured once by the enemy.

King Francis I was close friends with Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo came to settle in France in his later years. In addition to being a painter, he also had a great passion for architecture. The room shown above was designed and constructed by Leonardo. Isn’t it amazing that things like this are just sitting out there? And, in this case, in such great condition and open to the public.

And although it’s hard to tell from this picture, it was inside a chapel that is inside the castle. This is the exact spot where Richard the Lionheart married off his son, Philipp.

The castle took on several different owners over the centuries, including King Charles X. At one point, in 1795, it fell into the hands of the government and was targeted for destruction. Two local wine growers recognized the historic value of the property and purchased it. The two gentleman were monsieurs Otard and Dupuy. And ever since then, its deep, dark cellars have been used to store and age some of the worlds finest cognac.

Today, it is still used to age Baron Otard cognac. Rows upon rows of old and new barrels. And the storefront is located here, as well. There is an elegant sales floor where they have their product displayed.

After touring the castle, we walked across town towards the Hennessy showroom. We toured their cellars as well and had a great tasting, shown above. Classy, huh? If you are even a remote fan of cognac, then you have had Hennessy before. They are world renowned. They only keep 1% of their product for sale in France, the rest is exported all over the world.

We did get spend some time strolling through the small, cozy town that is Cognac. As you can imagine, it is a town rich in European history and culture. It has a very small town feel to it. They have tried as much as possible to preserve as many of the old buildings as they could.

And, sadly, this concludes our cruise. I hope you have enjoyed the trip, although probably not as much as we did! But I thank you for following along with us and for your continued support – thank you!