Blending crus and years : the art of Cognac merchants

The blending process is the key point to understand the differences between the "bouilleur de cru" and the "négociants", the Cognac merchants

• The bouilleur de cru will create his cognacs with his own eaux de vie, produced in his distillery if he has one, or at least by distillation of the wines produced in his own vineyards. Usually a few acres, the « big ones » owing about 200 acres. A lot of them use wines from one sub regional « cru » only. From time to time, they do not blend at all the eaux de vie elaborated in different years: hence, they produce single vintage cognacs…and they do not tell it, because it is awfully complicated here to claim that. French regulations again...

• The merchants, for their part, have full opportunity to purchase their products (wines, young eaux de vies, older eaux de vie) wherever they want, in any region of Cognac producing area. But they don’t. Because every Cognac house has made choices ; the reasons of the choice may be purely economic, or historic, or even artistic. Anyhow, the result is that each merchant has one’s strategy concerning purchases. After that, with the wines or eaux de vie they decided to buy, they play around with distillation process, maturation conditions, ages, and elaborate complex blends…or single vintages.

• Some merchants have built their reputation on single crus, or vintages. But “Complex blends” is the usual choice ; in the biggest houses, Cognacs are elaborated by blending patiently scores and scores of different eaux de vie throughout the years. The blending is not an ultimate step made in a few days: the process can take months or years to obtain harmony. You will find quite easily in the shops Cognacs containing more than 200 eaux de vie, and some rare blends are said to include more than a thousand different ones. .