Pregaming at the Cognac House

Saturday was "Patrimoine" day in France, all over France. I'm still not sure how to translate "Patrimoine", but I guess a good translation is "Heritage" day. A practical translation is "Everything's Free."Museums, aquariums, zoos; everything that is owned publicly is free. Many of the private attractions are free as well, which brings us to Cognac on Saturday morning.

Our friend Lauren works in one of the Cognac houses (Remy Martin) and we would head there after lunch, but first we were stopping off the Martell house, founded in 1715 by Jean Martell. We did not tour the actual production facility, but rather a special tourist edition, complete with animatronic boat, giving the whole place a strong Pirates of the Caribbean (CaRIBbean... CaribBEan...?) vibe. The tour was in French, and I learned quite a bit of Cognac-specific vocabulary. At the end of the tour, we were treated to a Cognac tasting (for FREE!), and then we left, with me somewhat disheartened that I never thought of anything smooth to say to our tour guide, whom I thought looked a little bit like Natalie Portman.

After lunch at a kebab in town, we clowned-carred our way to the one of the Remy Martin houses in the back of Lauren's company car. It was one of two houses in Cognac, and one that they had purchased in the 60's in order to accommodate their own vineyards, and though it was only about a half-century old, the buildings already looked ancient due to the layer, on every wall, of a kind of mushroom that thrives on the "angel's share" (evaporated Cognac) from the production houses.

No one else had booked a free English speaking tour (their loss), so Lee, Laura, and I had a private tour with Lauren who - rather sportingly - put on her best tour-guide voice while I did my best to derail her by indignantly demanding a new guide when she said she was American. Like a pro, she ignored me when I did this, and we learned quite a bit about cognac, and about Cognac. (By the way, following up a French tour with an English tour is not a bad way to nail down your vocabulary.)

At the end, we had another tasting - cocktails(!) in celebration of Patrimoine day - and then they called us a taxi. The cab driver was friendly, and we chatted a bit about Cognac ("nice to visit, but a terrible city in which to live"). Oh well. I fell asleep on my cushion bed on the floor almost as soon as we got back to Lauren's house, and awoke a few hours later ready to go again. That evening, we had pizza at a local shop, and the owner sat with us and chatted for a while about his difficulties drumming up business in Cognac. Finally, we wound up back at Lauren's, where we played "Circle of Death." (Jack Rule number 3: You must replace the word "Turn" with "Merkin"... don't ask.)

Finally, to bed, again.