The Cognac Guild : A Group Of Independently Owned Cognac Houses

About a week ago we posted an event that was held in Miami. This event featured cognac from small independently run cognac houses. In our post, we had talked that we would discuss a little more about the Cognac Guild and what they are trying to do. So here it is.

The Cognac Guild is a diverse collection of small family-owned artisanal Cognac producers. It is an open assembly of 22 small- and medium-sized independently run Cognac Houses which was formed in 2008 under the auspices of Cognac Inc., a Miami, Florida-based fine wine and spirits importer, in order to import and market their products in United States. All members that belong to the Cognac Guild are family owned businesses and have been making cognac for many generations.

While collectively the Cognac Guild markets approximately 1.2 million bottles a year, on an individual basis some of them sell less than 5,000 bottles a year, with the result that their exquisite Cognacs are nearly impossible to find outside the top French restaurants. Among the customers of the Cognac Guild are each and every one of the 26 Michelin three-star restaurants in France which shows that the cognac guild cognacs are admired by cognac lovers. It should be noted that at the eve of World War II, there were over 800 independent Cognac makers and today that number has dropped substantially.

The small Cognac houses have been for many years limited to a tiny and exacting market: the better French restaurants and the small tribe of connoisseurs. While the Big Houses will remain dominant in the global Cognac trade, it is the objective of Le Cognac in partnership with the Cognac Guild to bring to the United States many of these unavailable Cognac rarities. The big Cognac houses – Hennessy, Courvoisier, Remy Martin and Martell –dominate the world market, which together accounted for more than 87% of total Cognac sales in 2008! It is indisputable that each of the Big Houses produce and market some high-quality labels, like Louis XIII or Richard. The core business of the bigger brands is the marketing of standard VS and VSOP global Cognac marques, not artisanally produced, highly distinctive aged Cognacs. For mass markets, the Big Four can make a standardized, quality Cognac meant to sell all over: in China, Panama or Russia, in the America, Australia or Germany.

The American market has long been the most difficult for the small producers of quality Cognac; besides the complexity of reaching out to over 300 million consumers, the regulations concerning alcoholic beverages at the federal and the state levels makes it harder for small cognac houses to reach the US market. America’s complex three-tier system of alcohol distribution, set up in the United States after the repeal of Prohibition, forces producers to sell through an importer who, in turn, cannot legally sell directly to retailers either, let alone to the consumer; rather producers and importers have to sell to a licensed wine and spirits distributor. In many cases, these wine and spirits distributors are often big multi-state companies which understandably tend to prefer high-volume labels rather than small niche gourmet products.

With the generalization of the Internet and a growing consumer appetite for authentic, artisanal products of all types, has stimulated increased interest in these products by both large and small distributors. We hope to see more of the small family owned cognac businesses make it to the US market as their products are much better as compared to the most big brands.

We hope to see more independently run cognac houses in the future. After all, most quality products are made in small cognac houses as quality is given more consideration than quantity.

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Related posts:

1. Miami Cognac 2009 – June 11, 12 and 13
2. Cognac Houses That Are Not as Popular But Deserve Recognition
3. 5 Cognac Brands You May Not Know Of
4. Free Cognac Tasting Event In New York – April 4th, 2009
5. Hennessy & Courvoisier : A Brief History

4 Responses to “The Cognac Guild : A Group Of Independently Owned Cognac Houses”

1. LARSEN says:

   June 23, 2009 at 4:52 pm

   well well an independant cognac company is missing…
   and this is: Larsen ” Le Cognac des Vikings” .
   It is around since 1926 but for some reasons, not on the Bureau National du Cognac website…
   I guess you can do the necessary correction…on you website..
2. admin says:

   June 23, 2009 at 5:12 pm

   Hi! We can certainly cover you as well after all, we are trying to promote small cognac houses. If you can provide more information we would love to cover it. Please send us an email at cognacblog(at)gmail(dot)com
3. LARSEN says:

   June 26, 2009 at 3:59 pm

   oh la la, we are not on the site yet:=
4. admin says:

   June 26, 2009 at 9:27 pm

   Larsen, we will try and cover the brand soon. Thanks!