Marcadier Barbot MB XO Prestige Cognac

The nose is quite expressive and shows aromas of soft caramel, toffee, sultana raisins, apricot, cocoa, vanilla, orange peel, oak and almonds. The palate is more pretty than powerful with a flavor set that marries elements of toffee, orange, golden raisin and oak spice notes. D&M Tasting Notes

We want to chat a bit about the band around the bottom of the bottle: Family Tradition Cognac. The story goes that, back in the summer of 2001, the The Matthew Skoller Band played the Blues Passions Festival in Cognac. There, Matthew’s brother Larry (guitarist) met a young local woman by the name of Nadège Maurin. Larry was quite smitten from this single encounter and after a long distance courtship moved to Cognac in 2002. Larry and Nadège were soon married, and jointly decided that the itinerant life of a musician was not how they wanted to spend their time. So, they started to use her local knowledge to find very small scale farmers - producers that had heretofore been pretty much sold at the French equivalent of farmer’s markets. Matthew was back in Chicago and agreed to help Nadège and Larry bring their unique small scale finds to the US. We are glad they did so as we have been enjoying a number of these producers from Frevrier, Jean Luc Pasquet, and Raison Personelle to now Marcadier Barbot. Michael Kennel, D&M