COMPANY PROFILE

How two men out in the middle of Mendocino nowhere
created the finest product that ever passed through a still

In the summer of 1981, I stopped along Highway 101 north of San Francisco to pick up a pair of vacationing hitch-hikers. The man came from a family that had produced cognac since 1782. The firm had recently been taken over by giant Martell. Hubert Germain-Robin told me a sad tale: ancient hand-methods of distillation were disappearing as the huge firms that dominate production applied “improved” high-volume production methods to an ancient industry. Hubert yearned to find a way to use what he had learned growing up, secrets of distillation handed from master to apprentice for centuries.

The next summer, Hubert found an antique still in an abandoned cognac distillery, had it refitted, and shipped it to my Mendocino County ranch, in the northern part of California’s fabled wine country. We built a modest redwood shed, and in it we made an historic discovery. We decided to experiment with premium wines, instead of the thin acidic wines - not fit for the table - that are used to make Cognac. The very first time that brandy distilled from pinot noir flowed from the still, Hubert put his nose in the sampling glass, took a long sniff, turned to me, and said, “this is the finest I have ever seen”.

Hubert uses hand methods to distill these higher-quality, more flavorful wines. He gets brandies which are richly flavored yet remain delicate and subtle. Best of all, the flavors are cleaner and more authentic because they come from the original grapes, without needing the oakiness and caramel that European producers add to make up for their harsher and more neutral grapes. Hubert’s brandies are very pure, without any unpleasant alcoholic roughness. People often tell us that they never enjoyed brandy/cognac/armagnac before they tried Germain-Robin, a tribute to the purity, delicacy, and outstanding flavor of which we are so proud.

Ansley Coale, jr. / president/co-founder