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The winemaking activities at Château de la Raillerie go back to the 18th century. Under the reign of Louis XV and during the French Revolution, Le Terrier de Rigaleau, which forms part of the current vineyards, already consisted of?: five or six homes, a communal oven, and numerous wine cellars in caves. Initially the château was made up only of functional agricultural and winemaking buildings, but it was later embellished with a manor, a symbol of the owners’ wealth prior to the phylloxera crisis (1870). Beginning in the reign of Napoléon III, the centre of the domaine’s vineyards shifted further east, in line with today.The estate, which covers 22 hectares, is one of the few currently growing three varieties of grapes for the white wine used to make cognac, combining the traditional virtues of ugni blanc with those of the strongly-scented colombard and sémillon varieties. This enables it to produce balanced, fine, mellow cognacs from the limestone soil of the Petite Champagne.
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The Domaine de Chez Maillard is an exceptional site producing outstanding cognacs. The vineyards have excellent chalky soils and receive above average sun due to their superb aspects?; in short, the vineyards offer the perfect terroir to produce this distinct cognac.For the past five years, owner Francis Abécassis has awakened the world to quality Fins Bois cognacs produced on his 53 hectare estate. He has not only renovated the entire estate and its vineyards, added modern stainless steel fermenting tanks and new ageing cellars but he has also ensured that the distillation is supervised by an award-winning distiller. Additionally, he has disposed of all cognacs not regarded as having the required typicity and invested in new oak— sound investments for the future of the estate’s cognacs, which have already begun to win medals and plaudits around the world.
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The Trijol history is one of measured achievement. The family originally settled as growers and distillers in St Martial Sur Né, in the heart of the Cognac region. Their first still was installed in November 1859, and since then they have built on their expertise as growers and distillers, becoming professional distillers in 1962.An independent family firm, Maxime Trijol has twenty 2,500 litre charentais pot stills and is now one of the largest distillers of cognac. The current head of the company, Jean-Jacques Trijol, is an artist, wielding his skilful palate through the process of distillation and blending, adapting—sometimes minutely—the spirit he collects from each still and varying his technique slightly depending on the harvest and the wine. In recent times the company has concentrated on releasing more of its own cognacs, which have been building a great reputation for quality.
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