Whisky.Auction to offer Revolutionary and Napoleonic era Cognac

Online spirits auctioneer Whisky.Auction will offer five bottles of Cognac at its next sale that span the time period from the American War of Independence to the First World War.

The bottles of Cognac from 1777, 1802, 1812, 1906 and 1914 will be offered at the next auction which will begin on 31 January and run until 9 February.

The bottles have been sourced from the private collection of Jacques Hardy, a member of the Cognac producing Hardy family, and which were purchased from him by a collector in 2003.

Each of the vintages have well-documented stories guaranteeing their provenance. The 1777 for example was distilled at Domaine de la Vie in Grande Champagne – an estate that still exists today – and aged in oak for 100 years before being transferred to a demijohn and then bottled in 1936. Jacques’ uncle gave 12 bottles each to Jacques and his brothers. The brothers drank their allocations but Jacques kept a few bottles. Two bottles have previously been opened at The Lanesborough in London and five are in private collections.

Three of the Cognacs are of course particularly rare as they were produced pre-Phylloxera as well as dating from a time of momentous events.

The 1777 was produced with the American Revolution in full swing, in the year General Burgoyne’s expedition came to grief at Saratoga but when the British took the city of Philadelphia and forced General Washington to retreat to Valley Forge. In France the Bourbon monarchy was living out its last decades before being swept away by another revolution.

In 1802 the new French Republic headed by First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte concluded a (very) short peace with Great Britain, while in 1812 the now Emperor Bonaparte began his ill-fated invasion of Russia.

The last two bottles are no less notable, the 1906 was made during a period of relative peace in Europe but it was a year which also marked the launching of a new type of battleship by Great Britain, HMS Dreadnought, which would spark an arms race between Britain and Germany, adding to the international tensions in the continent which would finally bubble over into the First World War in 1914.

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