Distillerie des Moisans 1991 Bons Bois Cognac

This 1991 possesses an exotic nose that evokes coconut, plummy fruit, toffee, and spice. The texture on the palate is round with prune, dried apricot, and plenty of spice The palate benefits from its lively 43% ABV, which also helps push the flavors through its long finish. Charles Neal

Olivier Petit is the General Director of the Distillerie des Moisans, a large distillery in the Fins Bois that converts wines into eaux de vie that will later become cognac for many neighboring producers. In 2021 Charles Neal was on the hunt for interesting spirits and visited the distillery. The distillery was raised to its present success by Roland Bru who bought it in 1955. His initial fortune was in logging, but he made the smooth transition to expanding his new venture. He worked through the decades to expand the breadth of his business until he passed away in 1997. Unique for the industry, the distillery was eventually taken over by his two daughters. One of them, Véronique Bru-Legaret, eventually assumed control with the aid of her son Roland. Over the three generations the family has acquired 60 hectares of vines themselves, both from the Fins Bois and in the Petite Champagne.

In addition to their own vineyards the distillery buys wines from over 100 growers. Charles reports that the distillery itself is quite impressive. Its high ceiling is made out of wood from cashew trees, and the distillery contains twelve 25-hectoliter stills. These stills are well used, and produce around 600,000 liters of distillate per year. The vast majority of the distillery’s production is Ugni Blanc, and they supply most of their output to the Big-Four houses. Within their ten aging cellars are hundreds of barrels ranging from 350 to 40,000 liters in size. After touring the distillery and bottling facility Charles was led to that olfactory mecca, the tasting room. Charles reports to us that he found the Deau Cognacs to be lush and rich, full of flavor and spice, with round, soft finishes. After tasting through the standard set, he was particularly attracted to several rare Bons Bois vintage bottlings on display and asked if he could also taste a few of them. (Bons Bois is an outlying territory, a region that historically didn’t get much respect, but has found new-found esteem from the large houses, who are gradually paying more and more money for their distillates.) Olivier was kind enough to pull out a set of bottles and reported that in addition to the day to day work at the distillery the company also kept a constant lookout for old barrels from small producers that they are happy to give top Euro for. The bottling that most attracted Charles’ discerning attention was a 30 year old that was distilled in 1991.

Olivier reported that it was from a tiny producer with a very humid cellar in the western part of the Bons Bois near the Gironde estuary, a dozen or so miles as the bird flies from the famous vineyards of St-Estephe in Bordeaux. Charles happily reported to us that here was a Cognac that was truly eye-opening, Enjoy! Michael Kennel, D&M