Francois Voyer

Francois Voyer - from winegrower to distiller

Since the 1870s, the Chauchet Voyer family has been distilling their wine in the village of Verrières. Today, the fifth generation of the family works on the house’s Cognacs. The family comes from the village of Verrières, which is located near the town of Cognac. The area enjoys a high reputation in Grande Champagne thanks to the high quality of the harvest material.

Around the turn of the century, the family was one of the few who distilled their own production. A cask of Cognac from that time still stands in the house’s cellar today. It was not until the 1960s that Guy Chauchet, the managing director at the time, decided that they should start bottling the first bottles themselves. In the 1990s, the portfolio was expanded to be able to cater to different tastes. In the meantime, the family has handed over the reins to cellar master Pierre Vaudon. Today, the house produces 10 different Cognacs, which are exported to more than 30 countries. The brandies from Francois Voyer now also appear on the menus of renowned restaurants and regularly win awards in competitions with international prestige.

The grapes for Francois Voyer Cognacs

The house of Francois Voyer sources its grapes from winegrowers in Grande Champagne, the top region for base wine for Cognac. The base wines are pressed from two grape varieties:

• Ugni Blanc, the most common grape variety in the Charente
• Folle Blanche, a very old grape variety that is often used only for special Cognacs

Ugni Blanc offers a high acidity and is the carrier of Cognac’s flavor, as the wine quite readily absorbs the aromas during barrel aging. Folle Blanche, on the other hand, is a very sensitive grape variety that must be tended with great effort. It lends the Cognacs a mineral note. The vines of this variety are still quite young at Francois Voyer, so it will only appear in the first XO blends in the coming years. Viticulture for Francois Voyer is completely HEV-certified, the French version of the award for ecological winegrowing.

Vinification and distillation at Francois Voyer

In the past, the winemaking took place in November - usually at 23 to 24°C. Due to global warming, however, the date has been brought forward to September. To ensure that our vinification process is carried out under the same conditions as back then, the fermentation is controlled in order to limit the rise in temperature and preserve the aromas of the wines that will form Cognacs aged more than 40 years. It takes only 4 to 6 days for the yeasts to consume the sugar content and thus produce a still wine that must be protected from oxygen. For this, a process called ullage (topping up the barrels after fermentation) is used. In addition, no sulfites are used in the production process.

The wine is distilled with two stills. The first was installed in the 70s, the second in the late 80s. Then the wine is boiled in a pot (the boiler). The resulting vapors are selected through the head and the swan neck before being condensed in the coil (a spiral bathed in temperature-controlled water). The first condensed vapors form the “brouillis” - at 30% ABV - which is returned to the boiler for a second distillation (the “bonne chauffe”).

The first 10 liters of the “bonne chauffe” are directed back towards the boiler and redistilled with the wine the same evening. Then comes the heart: the distiller diverts the condensed vapor flow into a new vat. This step is called the “coupe” (or “cut”): the distiller is the judge of the moment of the “coupe”. The next 900 liters are “cut” in a similar way - the “coupe au cœur”, or “heart cut”. The next 500 liters, also called “seconds”, are also blended back into the boiler by adding lees (this is also called “surcharge en fin de cycle”). During the night, the boiler is kept at a very low heat to release the aromas in the subtlest way and start a new cycle.

The heart, also called eau-de-vie, is the only part that is kept for aging. Both the seconds heads and the overload brouillis are redistilled. This helps to avoid waste. The volume of the wine is reduced by distillation to just one ninth of the original amount.

Aging

10 to 20% of each harvest is stored for 3 years in new barrels. Afterwards it is transferred to old barrels in order to enhance the aromas. Francois Voyer uses French oak barrels from the Limousin region or from the forests of Bercée, Gâvre or Reno Valdieu. The humidity of the cellars varies - this helps obtain a more delicate or smoother bouquet. Damp cellars make spirits smoother, while dry cellars make them sharper.

Pierre Vaudon likes to refer to the angels as “his 3rd customers”: every year the equivalent of 10,000 bottles evaporates from the cellars, the so-called “angel’s share”. It takes only 1 hour for 1 liter from the reserve to evaporate. Natural evaporation ensures that our Cognac reaches 40% ABV within 50–60 years. In addition, distilled water is regularly added to the spirits used for the younger blends. Thus, diluted younger Cognacs offer less dense aromas compared to older Cognacs that have been concentrated through natural evaporation.