Maison Surrenne Collector's Series

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A rattan-wrapped demijohn in the Surrenne “Madame” cellar. Cognac is usually transferred to glass soon after its 50th year in oak. The
1875 Héritage described below was in demijohns (“bonbons”) when Cabanne found it. The bonbon in the photograph holds about
48 bottles of a 120-year-old cognac. Some things are genuinely rare.

Inconceivably rich. In 1922, Surrenne filled an oak tonneau with old petite champagne cognacs. Concerned about evaporation because the tonneau gets direct sun from the half-moon casement over the entry door, Surrenne’s successive cellar-masters topped the tonneau every year for 79 years, always with old petite champagne of very high quality. Never used, this rare solera-like blend contains a high proportion of cognac aged more than 100 years. From the Madame facility in Jarnac. Bottled unfiltered from tonneau no. 1 on August 19, 2001. We’re bringing in 196 bottles only, at $270.00

Exceptional quality: some of the finest cognacs available anywhere. (We will add one or two cognacs to this list every year). We source these bottlings wholesale, so they are very attractively priced. Scroll down for detailed information, and please call us with any questions you might have. We are proud of these bottlings and love to talk about them.

Distilled in the fall of 1946 in the village of Bilhouet by artisan Hubert Portier, using grapes grown in his family’s vineyard. The first harvest following World War II was superb, the best in memory. Portier’s ancestral still—located in a rustic building behind the vineyard—was a wood-fired antique. He produced sixteen barrels of a wonderful cognac, using methods passed from father to son for generations....

Fifty-one years later, Surrenne rediscovered the 1946 while cataloguing their inventory Portier’s cognac, originally intended to become part of a blend, had remained a separate lot. Its aromas and flavors are simply superb. Surrenne has bottled the lot unblended, with no additives, just as it came from the tun, in tribute to its distiller, who quietly produced one of the finest cognacs ever made. The rich fruit is astonishingly generous for a 52-year-old bottling. Bottled in 1998, this cognac received a 96 score from Wine Enthusiast Magazine. $400.00.

In October of 1998, courtier Alexis Cabanne discovered Wine & Spirits Magazine’s “Cognac of the Year” in the cellar of an 18th-century farmhouse outside Jarnac, in the grande champagne region of Cognac. On the earthen floor, among age-darkened oak barrels, Médéric Rousseau had preserved a family treasure: six rattan-wrapped demijohns of a cognac whose precise date of distillation is unknown but whose existence is attested in 1875.

The Héritage was almost certainly distilled from wines vinified from pre-phylloxera grapes. Its exceptional quality is demonstrated—despite its age—by its unusual softness, delicacy, and finesse. You can taste that it has aged for more than a century. There is an extraordinary presence: a serene profundity that comes from decades of undisturbed slumber in a quiet backwater. It is a relic of a time, an entire world, that you and I can only dimly imagine. $1200/bottle

Exceptional quality; genuine rarity. This is one of the finest cognacs in existence. Surrenne will release two cases—24 bottles—a year.

The barrel was shown to me when we were tasting through the Surrenne inventory of cognacs aged at least 100 years. It is simply astonishing product. The previous cellar-master, Hilaire Guilbaud, had assembled Cask 356 in 1961—his personal choice of the house’s finest old grande champagne cognacs. The cask was placed to age between the supports of Tonneau no. 23 in the home Madame cellar, where it has spent another 40 years, undisturbed. There remains cognac sufficient for some 235 bottles. Every component of the blend is well over 100 years old. Bottled unfiltered from cask no. 356 on August 10, 2001. 24 bottles only, at $2000.00

Note: to state the year of production on the label, French cognac regulations specify that the cognac must have been aged in a government warehouse. Very few cognac producers—who blend almost everything they sell—have bothered to do this. Consequently, our labels are coded: the year of distillation—based on Surrenne’s cellar records—is denominated by a “lot” number. Thus the Surrenne 1946 unblended grande champagne has a red stamp on the right-hand side of the bottom label reading “Lot no. 1946”.