Cognac and the Viking connection in la France profonde

The chestnut trees were still resplendent in yellow leaf along the banks of a misty autumn river on its glide through woodlands, pasture, comfortable towns — and vineyards. This was the Charente. Eighty years ago, before the lorry became dominant, it would not have been so peaceful. In those days, barges laden with barrels of Cognac made their way along this river to the coast to be shipped all over the world.

Wine has been grown in Cognac for centuries and exported since the Middle Ages. But it was always inferior to the products of Bordeaux, to the south-west. Even so, its acidity and low alcohol content made it ideal for distillation once the Dutch discovered the technique. They called the result brandwejn: burnt wine, hence brandy. The vintners of Cognac, piqued that foreigners should be pocketing extra profits, invented double distillation, which defines the brandies of Cognac: their finesse, subtlety and strength.

That latter quality was crucial in important markets. Strong waters have always had an appeal in the frozen North, where an implacable climate is reinforced by religious extremism. Mere wine, created from the sunshine of gentler regions, neither thaws the chilled body nor placates the austere soul. Among the craggy hills of Scotland and Scandinavia, drink is associated with guilt. In the Highlands of Scotland, there is often a generational succession. Alcoholics are replaced by teetotallers and vice versa.

Moderation rarely intervenes and drinking is often denounced from Scottish pulpits. I often wonder how those clergymen explain the Miracle at Cana. Then again, the Scots have usually been more at ease with the Old Testament than with the New. Puritanical Protestantism, surely the least attractive religion west of al-Qa’eda, would have us believe — to paraphrase Gibbon — that man is an abject criminal: God, a bloodstained tyrant.