| 24/02/00 |
Click here to view the Glenmorangie Single Highland Malt Scotch Whisky -
Cognac Matured ... label. Some view it as a positive endorsement of finer
qualities of Cognac and some are in shock. We think it is good marketing for both
products, Single Malt Scotch and Cognac. See related
news items on 01/02/00, 04/02/00 and 10/02/00. |
| 23/02/00 |
Cognac Pierre Ferrand, Cognac Gabriel &
Andreu and their other products plus Cognac Landy' Claude Chatelier
and Pierre Ferrand Pineau des Charentes can now be seen on the Internet. |
| 22/02/00 |
In September 1998 seven viticultrices (women who worked in the
viticulture) formed an association CastelTonic to promote Cognac,
Pineau des Charentes and the region. Their base of operation is Châteauneuf sur
Charente. Since their inception, the Magnificent Seven ( Frédèrique, Christine, 2
Dominiques, Cathy, Martine and Sonia), were actively promoting products in Limoges,
City of Cognac, Angouleme, Paris and Parthenay. And now, they plan to do the same in 51
other towns with the name of Châteauneuf. The first will be Châteauneuf sur Loire in
June 2000. |
| 21/02/00 |
Some 500 members of the Distillers
Association (Bouilleurs de Cru) in the Cognac region,
led by its co-founder Pascal Millasseau, have had it enough. When the BNIC
proposed to them to sell Cognac at F15 per glass at the upcoming Salon de
l'Agricilture in Paris to pay for their presence, they rightfully explained that
they are distillers not barmen, and that it is not legal for them to sell anything under
their Association charter. It must be noted that at no other Bouilleurs de Cru or CastelTonic
(another association that broke ranks with the BNIC) exhibits were there any sales of
Cognac. BNIC, at their own promotion at Gastronomade'99 in Angouleme, offered free drinks.
This sudden fiscal prudence by the BNIC is contrary to their mindless investments in many
promotion campaigns, Thriller Film Festival being one, for example. It may have to do,
however, with the recent audit of the BNIC Communication Department.
Torula News wrote many a times of a complete disarray at the BNIC; statistics for 1999 are
late (i.e. Champagne industry already published them - 327 million
bottles sold; a 11.8% increase in foreign sales), promotions of Cognac are inept and lots
of money is being spend internally on services that should be outsourced (i.e. computing,
Station Viticole, tastings). This latest spat with the Bouilleurs de Cru is yet another
example of bad PR and inept handling of the situation. It appears that the current
President of the BNIC, himself a distiller, has become a virtual prisoner of the BNIC
bureaucrats. Where is the energy, the ideas and forthright thinking of fourteen months ago
shared in an interview with Torula News a day
after his election? Will this be a proverbial straw that broke camel's back and the Cognac
industry will unite and clean the house at the BNIC? (Sud-Ouest19/02/00,
Torula News) |
| 18/02/00 |
A quick follow up to our 8 March story on the
state of wines and brandy in South Africa. EU (European Union) Ministers
proposed to South Africa a 5-year transition period to stop using several spirit names
like grappa and ouzo, on South African produced liquor.
South African government has not respond it to this proposal. It is worth noting that
South African distillers no longer produce ouzo and they do barely 30,000 bottles of
grappa a year. Ah, the politics! (IHT15/02/00) |
| 18/02/00 |
LuxuryFinder.com is a portal web site to luxury items and that, of course, includes Cognac.
If it was not for Morrel of New York, Cognac would be there only as a
part of recipe and a journalistic musings. They also launched a Luxury Calendar
recently, making our Cognac 2000 Calendar even more relevant.
The Luxury Finder is worth a visit. |
| 18/02/00 |
The "electronic" ink barely dried up (see our story of
yesterday - The Ides of March repeat in Cognac) when the career bureaucrats of the
Cognac, Pineau des Charentes and Vin de Pays Charentais
industry went on the offensive defending their failed programs. The same people who
significantly contributed to declining sales of Cognac over the past 10 years, declining
product quality and ill conceived marketing and promotional campaigns (from CognacTonic,
Cognac Cocktails to Pineau at the sea). The all day conference (2 March) on the state of Cognac
region industry, has been wrestled from the initiators (the new generation of
producers and educators); Didier Roy, Pierre Forgeron (La Nuit du Cognac)
and François Mery (Young Viticulteurs Association) by Claire
Coates (BNIC), Christophe Thomas (Pineau des Charentes association) and Jean-Jacques
Häusselman (Vin de Pays Charentais association). And there are others. The most
amazing of it all, is that the participants will be exposed to listen to experiences of Vin
de Pays de l'Herault; neither the biggest nor the most successful of the French
wine regions. To top it all, we read a press report that BNIC is declining to control
Cognac quality and is delegating it to another bureaucracy called INAO
under Michel Pelletier presidency. When you fail, you pass the back or so it seems. And,
of course, there are others who want to create more beaurocracies. So, the search for a
true leader to unite various Cognac producers and groups in the Cognac
region continues, while the consumer (the frequently forgotten buyer of the product) is
being offered poor quality product. (Sud-Ouest17/02/00, Torula
News) |
| 17'02/00 |
The whispers in the Cognac industry
are getting louder: "Ignore them", "They are irrelevant", "Time
has come to replace them", "They take big chunk of our money (cotisation - a
form of tax) and waste on travel, Film Festival and other nonsense" and so on. This
talk is, of course, about the BNIC (The Association representing Cognac
industry). Cognac producers are whispering while some of them are
aggressively searching for ways and means to promote Cognac, too change
the situation To top it all off, here comes a courageous initiative from Didier Roy (IREO
- a rural agriculture education Institute) who together with others is organizing a full
day session on the state of Cognac on 2nd March. The BNIC plans for the
Alambic-Expo at the Waterloo Station in London at the end of May
and the same at the Union Station in Washington, D.C., USA in mid-June,
though both are very good ideas, they are too little, too late to generate any
confidence among the majority of the Cognac producers. As the Julius Caesar was to say to
Brutus: "Ete contra me, Brutus?". |
| 17/02/00 |
From a reader in Massachusetts, USA comes a tip about an interesting article on Cognac marketing. It
appeared in the online version of Massachusetts Beverage
Business, in January 2000. |
| 16/02/00 |
Go to Cognac Hennessy official web site,
play the search for Cognac bottle and win. Torula News played and
"won" 1935 Cognac Hennessy bottle. Cognac Hennessy web site
with its search for the bottle, the Cognac François Voyer web site's "gift of Cognac soil" and Les Cognac
Ragnaud-Sabourin web site's quarterly award for the
best story about their Cognac are just among a few innovative Cognac web sites. For
example, Cognac A. de Fussigny
Internet strategy is a 3 pronged attack; establish a home web site, drive the web traffic
to it from other
web sites and get e-sales from a renown e-commerce brand name site. Imaginative Internet
marketing at its best! |
| 15/02/00 |
La Maison de Whisky in Paris, a few
meters from the Elysée Palace offers, yes you guessed right, Cognac; Léopold Gourmel
(several qualities), Lheraud (several qualities), Hennessy VSOP, Martell
VSOP, Rémy Martin VSOP, Otard XO and our Guide to Cognac. Like any good
business they know that Cognac sells in the whisky shop, on their web
site and through their mail order. |
| 15/02/00 |
Seagram Co., parent of Cognac Martell,
has posted an annual profit of $522 million benefiting mostly from cost-cutting in its
music division and higher theme-park revenue. (IHT11/02/00) |
| 14/02/00 |
In a strange effort to further confuse Cognac
consumer, Cognac producers and large supermarkets in the Cognac
region have created a mind boggling situation where a top priced range bottle of VS
(F149.95) or VSOP (F299.95) is more expansive
than the lowest priced range XO (147.52). In Sweden,
we noticed a similar trend where the difference between lowest priced VSOP
(SEK280) and XO (SEK294) is narrowing. At least the USA
market is holding prices that reflect differences between the 3 basic Cognac qualities.
Furthermore, Torula News has learned that some Cognac producers plan to offer XO at prices
of F110 to F125 in France. No wonder, Cognac is not selling well in France but why to do
the same in foreign markets where Cognac is selling well? For more on our quarterly prices
tracking click here. |
| 14/02/00 |
In a first in many months, if not years, Cognac
Martell is showing signs of dusting the cob webs and joining the present. Modern
and dynamic are 2 words selected by Martell to pave the way to the consumers hearts with
their VS (to be experienced with Coca Cola, Perrier, Limonade or Ginger
Ale as the promotion suggests), Noblige and Cordon Bleu.
New logo and warmer colors are adding to the new image, as well. A welcome change which
was long overdue. |
| 14/02/00 |
From a Paris based trader, François de
Fonbelle, comes an interesting packaging for an XO in a wooden
cask of 70 cl called Tonneau en Bois. And it is refillable. This reminds
of Cognac René Roy 5l wooden cask offering of yester years. |
| 11/02/00 |
In a sign that the Cognac industry
is beginning to pay serious attention to the product quality, Torula News has learned that
a number of producers are adjusting their blending formulas at a cost of smaller profit
margins. Those changes are mostly applicable to XO and higher qualities. The Cognac
consumer is being heard! |
| 11/02/00 |
André Drobotoff is a French wine lover who after a career in the pharmaceutical industry
decided to learn Internet and devote his efforts to creating a wine related web site
called Eloge du Vin with links galore! |
| 10/02/00 |
When Torula News contacted the BNIC, recognizing their
rather delicate position on this subject, we had a very frank exchange of views and were
brought up-to-date. As the subject is rather sensitive because it involves infringement of
several points of law, both French and European, BNIC declined to issue any statement at
present. But they are on top of the
situation making every effort to protect Cognac industry and the basic
premise of the AOC principles. In the meantime, Glemorangie promises to make limited
number of bottles of Cognac Matured Malt available for sale on their web site in the next few weeks. |
| 10/02/00 |
From Manier-Lapostolle, famous makers of Grand Manier but
also known for Manier Cognacs comes the news of rejuvenation of their
image (new labels etc.) and introduction of a new beer called Madison. (Charente
Libre09/02/00) |
| 10/02/00 |
Results from the sold-out, final Cognac tasting in 1999 by
the Cognac Tasting Society of Lèopold Gourmel products
are now available. Click here. |
| 09/02/00 |
Europe has finally discovered e-commerce shopping with
Scandinavians and Germans taking most advantage of it. French, having an horror of parting
with private and personal information are, of course, lagging. Another barrier to
e-commerce shopping are absurdly high communication rates in Europe. Privatization or
semi-privatization (i.e. France Telecom) of phone monopolies is still slow to happen. And
there is a cultural things where Germans prefer to pay with check after the item has
arrived, Norway has no credit card culture, Southern Europe is barely connected and
comparative shopping is in some countries prohibited. But like everything good and simple,
on-line shopping is here to stay. One study predicts sales of $790 million during
past holiday season in Europe. By 2003, the study predicts a whopping $18 billion of goods
sold on-line in Europe. Although some European sites take a high intellectual position
like FNAC Direct (not storing what you bought so you will not get promos
on the subject) or BOL which hides book prices 2-3 clicks later, the
overall trend is clear - Europeans want to save money by shopping on Internet. The best
example is a Swedish site www.letsbuyit.com where
co-shopping is a hit. Just think when several customers can aggregate a purchase of Cognac
bottles so it comes to a pallet rather than 1-2 individual bottle shipments. For
this to happened Cognac producers will be forced to re-think their export
pricing to include Internet pricing. Some are already doing it. What drives people to shop
on Internet is time saving, competitive pricing and large volume of information available
that describes products they shop for. So it comes as a bit of surprise when a Swiss watch
maker Baume&Mercier is taking ads in the USA to stop people from
buying their watches on the Internet. It reflects reluctance of some luxury product makers
to part with any profit margin (as the online shopping brings prices down but increases
volume at a fraction of advertising costs) or as some suspect, it is a clever branding
campaign. NEC Research Institute and Inktomi Corp. have conducted Web
survey and published recently this staggering numbers. There are over 1 billion
web pages, more than 86% of all Web pages are in English and 2% are in French. (IHT24-26/12/99,24/01/00,
Torula News) |
| 08/01/00 |
When 80 million liters (about 21 million gallons) of white wine remains
unsold and unwanted in the markets, which is about 20% of the last years production, the
question being raised in South Africa is why? The farmers and the producers all agree on
the answer: "Who wants to drink plonk? "A lot of that wine is not very
drinkable". In short, the quality is the problem. And that is very similar to the
problems of Cognac, Pineau des Charentes and Vin du Pays Charentais
recent productions. In South Africa a ton of white white grapes dropped in price from $164
to $123 in 1999. Producers profits fell some 15%. Why it happened? The rush to plant cheap
wine grapes after world trade sanctions were lifted is being blamed for this situation. It
is not unlike the mad removal of cognac grape vineyards and replacing
them with wine grapes in the Cognac region. The demand for South
African brandy has not materialized as the quality was unacceptable. Now, South
African farmers are quickly shedding old habits of overproduction, ignorance of changing
tastes and poor quality. It is the consumer and market preferences that dictate quality.
National wine cooperative, privatized now, buys much of its brandy from France. And much
of the farmers are back to re-planting red grapes, Merlot over Chardonnay! Here is a
perfect example giving hints on what needs to be done in the Cognac region;
privatize all cooperatives, improve product quality, eliminate artificial organization
like Champoco, Sica etc., pay attention to changing tastes of consumers, imrove the
quality. If South African wine and brandy industry can adjust in less than 2 years of its
crisis, why does Cognac (Pineau and wine) industry procrastinates over
some 4 to 5 years of their crisis? Where is the leadership? (IHT22-23/01/00,
Torula News) |
| 08/02/00 |
The black dressed man who started the tradition of leaving 3 red roses and a
bottle of Cognac at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe in
Baltimore, MD, USA each 19 January, in 1949, has died. He passed his secret annual visits
to his sons, who have maintained this tradition and continue with the same brand
of Cognac. The brand, of course, remains secret. (IHT20/01/00,Torula
News) |
| 07/02/00 |
Recent product inquiries at www.cognacnet.com
: Paillard Cognac Grande Champagne"Clos Del Aumonnerie" 1896
Reserve, where to buy Hine VSOP in the USA (a surprise inquiry), Alfred Rothschild Extra Rare Brandy, Cognac
Denis Mounie and Co. Grand Champagne, 1893. |
| 05/02/00 |
A long awaited Index to our Guide - Cognac, an
independent guide to the people, the product and the region is now available. Barnes&Noble
in New York sells the Guide through a special order department. Click here. |
| 04/02/00 |
Stubborn as they are, BNIC continues down the mindless path
of co-sponsoring Thriller Film Festival 2000 in Cognac (6-9/04/00).
See BNIC web site. Other co-sponsors are City of Cognac
and the regional government which, of course, are free to spend tax payers money as they
wish or until the next elections. BNIC, however, spends Cognac industry
money. The industry that is far from recovering from the recent crisis. And yet, the
leaders of the Cognac industry are allowing BNIC to continue this frivolous (estimate is
that less than 1000 visitors from outside of the region visited the Festival last year
comparing to some 5000+ during Blues Passion Festival) and irrelevant to Cognac activity.
After many years of putting this expensive show (this year it is estimated that BNIC will
spend about F11 million) consumption in France remains in low single digit percentage
points. The money spend on this Festival could be spend on advertising or retaining 10
laid off BNIC employees, for example. This weekend, BNIC and French Association of
Barmen are spending two days in Cognac to come up with an official cocktail of
the Festival. Why does the Cognac industry not react? The
answer in short is that it is divided, has no leadership, no overall game plan. And yet,
there are smart and capable people managing number of Cognac houses. A Cognac paradox? (Sud-Ouest
04/02/00, Torula News) |
| 04/02/00 |
Our recent story on Glenmorangie's Cognac Matured Malt created
considerable email traffic. We did call Glenmorangie who told us they are sold out of this
malt. We have tracked down a shop, The Vintage House in London (phone:44-171-437-2592),
that has a few bottles left at £129.95 plus shipping. |
| 02/02/00 |
In a recently published guide that rates the
popular and the premium spirits edited by Alan S. Dikty of the Beverage
Testing Institute of Chicago, USA titled "buying guide
to spirits" you may have difficulty finding Cognac.
It is not in the Table of Contents. But it is there under the title of Brandy, Eau
de Vie, and Grappa and in the subsection on French
Brandies on page 24. The "great" promotional efforts by the BNIC
obviously missed Chicago or as our USA correspondent wrote: "Press dinners in Chicago
are not cool". For more click here. |
| 02/02/00 |
The imaginative and hard working importer for Cognac
Prunier in Germany, together with Robert Heymel of www.calvados.de have got Prunier to create a Cognac
especially for Internet sales and exclusively available
on www.calvados.de This Cognac is a 60 year old
"single vat" brut de fût Grande Champagne, limited to 100 bottles, each bottle
numbered with a certificate. The price is DM 309 (about F1000) plus shipping (e.g. DM20 to
France). To order, what probably is the first Cognac made for Internet sales, email contact@calvados.de Great idea, great initiative! |
| 01/02/00 |
Glenmorangie's Cognac Matured Malt is a limited
edition of 850 bottles at £85 per bottle scotch malt whisky that was matured in
Merrain oak casks used previously for Cognac for 14 years. This maturing in Cognac cask is
in addition to sherry, port and Madeira single malts wood finishes from
Glenmorangie. What will be the response of the Cognac
industry to the relentless and effective marketing superiority of Scotch whisky?
Is there a legal issue for the BNIC? It
makes Hennessy, with their Irish whisky, looking very good, indeed. (Drinks
International, 01/00, Torula News) |
| 01/02/00 |
RémyCointreau, parent of Rémy Martin,
confirmed Torula News reported results for the first nine months of their fiscal year. Led
by champagne increased sales, the Group reported much improved Cognac
results (+23.9%). Asian markets recovery and the strong USA market were the main
contributors. Now is the good time to keep cutting the costs as the investor confidence
has not fully returned. The stock is stuck in the E20-23 range on the Paris market. |
| 01/02/00 |
In October '98 during the famous viticulteurs siege of Cognac,
Jean-Claude Baudet was on his tractor on the outskirts of the town. A
female journalist speaking French asked for a ride and an interview. He obliged. A few
weeks later The New York Times published her report. Gary Klesch, an
American working in London read the article... and the rest is history. His company, KCP,
bought Cognac A. Hardy 16 months later. (L'Agriculture
Charentais 21/01/00, Torula News) |
| 01/02/00 |
7th Cognac Blues Passions Festival (27-30/07/00) that
has become the biggest such event in Europe under the guidance of Michel Rolland will
feature this year Ray Charles with Robert Lockwood, Chris Thomas, Rosie Ledet, Big Rude
Jake, Steve Bigman, Candy Kane and Cyndee Peters among others. And of course, Cognac! |
| 01/02/00 |
The French
tradition of sending New Year cards has come to an end. The best of this year was Jean-Pierre
Chevenement, Minister of Interior, iconoclastic official card. A colorful,
Rabelaisian French history presented as an allegory in this pop collage. Napoleon with
Joan d'Arc, Clemenceau, Gambetta, de Gaulle, Marianne and the Minister himself kicking
behinds of soccer player and profiteers. And that is one of the reasons that we love
France. (IHT13/01/00, Torula News) |
| 01/02/00 |
After
December '99 storm in the Cognac region, when we managed without water, phone/Internet
access and no electricity and still produced regular Torula News, the illness defeated us
in mid-January. We apologize. But now all is on track and the Torula News is returning
with regular updates. |
