nouveau / liquid assets / preview / review
Frapin 1998 and Trilogie No 1: Astonishing lift and engagement
Andrew Jefford meets Patrice Piveteau, the maître de chai of Cognac’s most significant farm distillery, to discuss the house’s latest releases
Y
ou’ll find Frapin’s Château de Fontpinot at the heart of Cognac’s Grande Champagne subregion
—hence “Premier Cru de Cognac” on the label. Not only is it the most significant farm distillery in the region, but it’s also the only estate in Grande Champagne entitled to call itself “Château.”1
Its 240ha
(593 acres) of vines make it significantly larger than any Médoc first growth. Fontpinot has been in family ownership for more than 750 years (now shepherded by one branch of the Cointreau family); all of Frapin’s Cognac comes from the vines that rise and roll away to each side of the buildings. Soft Charentais rain and tempered light produce fresh Ugni Blanc grapes each growing season; meticulously aged Cognac, in flask-like bottles, is driven away from the farm year-round. A multitude of interventions are needed to turn the former into the latter. They all happen here. Frapin has recently released a 1998
Vintage Cognac and its Trilogie No.1—a blend of three older vintages (1986, 1988, and 1990). Some notes on the enjoyment of these are given below. In January 2025,
70 | THE WORLD OF FINE WINE | ISSUE 87 | 2025
I had the opportunity to talk to Patrice Piveteau, Frapin’s maître de chai, about his work and approach in bringing these spirits to market.
Time and terroir
The 1998 vintage was the result of a generous season, a warm dry summer, and relatively high levels of ripeness. “Concentration of sugars,” says Patrice, “is part of the Frapin style.” This intrigued me, since I’d always understood that Cognac distillers want relatively thin, high-acid wines of just 9% ABV or so. “I begin to make Frapin with a bunch of grapes,” says Patrice. “I want that sense of fruit. To have fruit in an eau-de-vie, it must be there in the wine. I can control everything here. If you’re running a large house with a thousand growers, you can’t control everything. The rules forbid sulfur additions, remember, in any wine to be distilled into Cognac. Without sulfur, it’s safer to have lower alcohol and higher acidity. I don’t have that constraint; I have my hand on the tiller. So, I distill wines of between 10% and 11% ABV; even 11.5% doesn’t worry me.”
I wondered is he could tell how good the spirit was going to be as it distills—by the odors in the air or its look as it trickles from the condensing coil. “The earliest period of quality assessment is just after distillation. But it’s not error-free; it’s a long-term game. You can sometimes be encouraged, only to be disappointed later.” He does, though, physically taste right from the beginning, “even at 50% or more. Just a tiny sip, for confirmation and to look at balance. You can’t do everything on the nose; the mouth is important, too.” This particular bottling is the first
outing for the 1998 vintage, at the 25-year mark. “Exactly when a vintage is ready is rather subjective, but in general you can say that there are ‘short’ vintages and ‘long’ vintages. The 1991, for example, was wonderful after just 20 years, but others take much longer and need 30 years. The 1998 is somewhere in the middle. It’s not a grande précoce, for sure.” Frapin has both humid ground-floor warehouses with beaten earth floors, as
Above: Patrice Piveteau, Frapin’s maître de chai; the alambics and casks at Château de Fontpinot.
All photography courtesy of Frapin
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216 |
Page 217 |
Page 218 |
Page 219 |
Page 220
