Fanny Fougerat
Fanny Fougerat is a fourth generation distiller. Her family had been selling ‘en vrac’ to the big Cognac houses, Hennessey, Remy Martin, Martell and Courvoisier, like many other small producers do, however Fanny decided that she would be the first member of the family to bottle her own spirit and began doing so in November 2013.
She and her fiancé have 30 hectares of Ugni Blanc, primarily in Borderies but also in Fin Bois. Borderies is a small cru situated in the north west of the region where the soil is clayey and chalky, which produces a sweet, very floral Cognac that some say imparts a distinct aroma of violets along with an intensely fruity nuttiness, as found in tawny port. They reach optimum quality after a shorter ageing period than the Cognacs of Grande Champagne. The Fin Bois cru surrounds the Grande and Petit Champagne cru’s and produces a light, elegant, mineral and floral style of spirit, which like the spirit produced in Borderies matures fairly quickly.
Fanny is crafting terroir-driven Cognac. She understands the unique nature of her areas, each vineyard, each harvest, each distillation and each barrel. Her philosophy is one of craftsmanship and allowing the characteristics of the regions to shine through in her spirit rather than allow the rancio to overpower the terroir notes.
Unlike most Cognac producers she chooses not to blend her barrels, but makes a selection for each cuvee and then bottles each of those barrels separately. In this respect she is more akin to a whisky maker in that she not only wants her spirit to express it’s heritage and terroir but she also wants to savour the uniqueness of the single barrel, thus each label will carrel a barrel number and a bottle number.
To give you an idea of the miniscule scale of her production, each barrel contains roughly 480 to 590 bottles; the current release of Cèdre Blanc (White Cedar) is from 2 barrels only, the Iris Poivré (Peppered Iris) is from 12 barrels and the Petit Cigüe (Small Hemlock) from 15 barrels.
She also produces a bottling called Le Laurier d’Apollon (The Laurel of Apollo) which is produced from vineyards in the Petit Champagne region that are owned by another family member. This limited edition bottling of 2450 bottles comes from a single vintage and only 5 barrels.
She and her fiancé have 30 hectares of Ugni Blanc, primarily in Borderies but also in Fin Bois. Borderies is a small cru situated in the north west of the region where the soil is clayey and chalky, which produces a sweet, very floral Cognac that some say imparts a distinct aroma of violets along with an intensely fruity nuttiness, as found in tawny port. They reach optimum quality after a shorter ageing period than the Cognacs of Grande Champagne. The Fin Bois cru surrounds the Grande and Petit Champagne cru’s and produces a light, elegant, mineral and floral style of spirit, which like the spirit produced in Borderies matures fairly quickly.
Fanny is crafting terroir-driven Cognac. She understands the unique nature of her areas, each vineyard, each harvest, each distillation and each barrel. Her philosophy is one of craftsmanship and allowing the characteristics of the regions to shine through in her spirit rather than allow the rancio to overpower the terroir notes.
Unlike most Cognac producers she chooses not to blend her barrels, but makes a selection for each cuvee and then bottles each of those barrels separately. In this respect she is more akin to a whisky maker in that she not only wants her spirit to express it’s heritage and terroir but she also wants to savour the uniqueness of the single barrel, thus each label will carrel a barrel number and a bottle number.
To give you an idea of the miniscule scale of her production, each barrel contains roughly 480 to 590 bottles; the current release of Cèdre Blanc (White Cedar) is from 2 barrels only, the Iris Poivré (Peppered Iris) is from 12 barrels and the Petit Cigüe (Small Hemlock) from 15 barrels.
She also produces a bottling called Le Laurier d’Apollon (The Laurel of Apollo) which is produced from vineyards in the Petit Champagne region that are owned by another family member. This limited edition bottling of 2450 bottles comes from a single vintage and only 5 barrels.
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