A venerable duet

Sunday’s delights

very old GC

Two very old Grande Champagne cognacs here, showing radically different ways of handling extreme age.

Daniel Bouju Réserve Familiale 42% (2021 bottling)

Saint-Preuil again. And one of the high-end blends from Bouju. 80yo+. 42%. Let’s go!

Colour: Petrol, red lights. Irregular heavy tears.

Nose: Intense precious wood at first, immediately followed by a great freshness on eucalyptus. Totally on the dark side. I wouldn’t call it austere, as you still get a very charming rancio on wet undergrowth and cigar notes, but it feels like all the finesse is buried under a solid structure. A level of oxidation close to a 50–60 yo Port.

Palate: Strong balsamic shades on the attack. Interesting sapidity with briny notes such as virgin olive oil and anchovies. Nice mouth length on caramel sweets and chocolate. A very distinctive kind of rancio, extremely dark as mentioned before. This is where I miss a bit of freshness to bring balance to this 80yo+ GC.

Last Notes: Heady herbal notes on tarragon and thyme. Strong raisin notes. The specific rancio of a right-bank Bordeaux wine. Back on the palate, a few walnut aromas emerge. Heavy tannins. It ends on soy sauce and cider apple.

Not an easy one to score. Typical Bouju style, with its strong structure and very particular oak integration. A truly venerable cognac, but far less readable than other spirits of similar age.

88+/100

Grosperrin Grande Champagne N°24 43,4% (Lot N°314)

Another treasure in Grosperrin’s range. Not that much info about the terroir. But a fabulous story. This Lot N°314 comes from extremely old stocks of Cognac that were accumulated over many years by a local broker in his village and surroundings. He carefully purchased and stored barrels of rare Grande Champagne eaux-de-vie in a cellar he fortified and kept locked, even from his own family. Only at the end of his life did his son discover the collection, about fifteen barrels marked with origin, quantity, proof and harvest year, but without archival records. This is how Jean Grosperrin acquired these very old Grande Champagne. This Lot N°314 was bottled in March 2013. Let’s go!

Colour: Dark amber, orange lights. Irregular medium tears.

Nose: A spectacular entrance with delicate blackcurrant and hawthorn notes. What a perfume. The noble rancio of a venerable eau-de-vie, with faint floral Borderies-like shades. You can immediately anticipate a spirit that has preserved its freshness over time. Stunning evolution, turning more and more exotic minute after minute. Gentle aniseed notes in the background.

Palate: Not as thick as expected, but with a high-acidity profile. Delicious acidulous notes on cherry sweets. Rotten mango, walnut pie, and a powerful rancio strongly reminiscent of MMC3, somewhere between vinous and musky. Infinite mouth length. A golden profile. Slight dryness in the aftertaste, with nutmeg powder and old leather.

Last Notes: Even brighter with air. Where you might expect fragility, this 1924 gem truly shines if you give it time. After all, it waited at least 80 years for you. Umeshu, plum pie, beeswax, quince liqueur. It even shows traits of very old malt whisky, like a 1960s Lochside: fruitiness, brightness, intensity. Very few spirits can compete at this level. Back on the palate, another drop of god spreading across the entire mouth. Perhaps a slight lack of evolution on the palate, but that’s really splitting hairs.

A glorious 20s Grande Champagne. Easy 92 in absolute terms; just missing a final extra-funky edge (like the bold and insolent N°34) to reach the 93–95 league.