The Rault Family Is Making Organic Cognacs at The Distillerie du Peyrat

By Chilled Magazine

The  Distillerie du Peyrat  has distilled Cognacs for several decades but the family has been present as distillers in the Charentes region since 1705.

Around thirty years ago, after having distilled Cognac for bigger, well-known brands, the owner, Jean-François Rault, decided to produce and market his own Cognac with a rather unique specialization in the Cognac area: the production of organic Cognacs. 

 

Distillerie du Peyrat now produces exclusively 100% organic Cognacs. Located in a small village 10km East of Cognac on the banks of a river, du Peyrat produces, distills, and ages their eaux de vie with the respect of the environment and the intense expression of the terroir.  

 


 

 

About the product 

Location of the vineyard is in the Fins Bois delimited area of production, just a few kilometers away from the delimited Grande Champagne area, also known as the first cru. 

 

We recently had a chance to catch up with Antoine Rault, who works with his brother and father to run the du Peyrat distillery and ask him about the family’s commitment to sustainability. 

 

Talk to us about your brand’s culture of sustainability. 

Mitigating the impact of our activities on the environment, local wildlife and biodiversity is at the heart of our approach. Distillerie du Peyrat is a 100% organic brand, meaning that we only source grapes from organically grown vineyards - ruling out synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides from the production process - to create our cognacs. These grapes either come from our own vineyards – 30 HA of Ugni Blanc in the Fins Bois region – or from our network of local partner winegrowers, all involved in Organic agriculture.In addition to that, we promote cover crops in the vineyards and the planting of endemic tree hays to support wildlife and biodiversity. On another note, we have laid out 300 square meters of solar panels on the roofs of our premises, producing up to 35,000 Kwh of electricity a year. 

 

Why is this important? 

We are well aware of the pressure that human activities exert on both climate and biodiversity . Even more so because we – as winegrowers – are directly and increasingly affected by extreme weather episodes (hail, frosts, drought etc.) and soil artificialization. Nature is essentially the number 1 resource for us – its preservation should be our top concern to make sure that there is a future for our activity and for the generations of winegrowers to come. 

Spirits brands are beginning to find consumers more environmentally conscious. What can you tell us about this development?  

It seems that there is a general tendency for consumers to be more attentive about the origin of a product and more aware of the ways it is actually conceived. Consumers also increasingly share their opinion, voice their concerns through social networks which create a direct communication platform with brands. We do think this is really positive as consumers are a driving force to challenge producers’ practices, but also to promote innovation and diversity in categories of existing products. 

 

Where do you see your brand’s commitment to sustainability headed in the future?  

Distilling Cognac involves relying on fossil energies to heat our Charentais Pot stills, but also electricity to cool water down.  In the future, we are looking to invest in alternatives to reduce our dependency to these energies, while continuing the tradition of Cognac making. We also want to work on reducing the footprint of all elements composing the packaging of our Cognac bottles with our supplying partners. 

 

What would you like bartenders to know about your brand? 

Behind the Cognac brand, Distillerie du Peyrat is also a family project and has been so for 5 generations. Talking about sustainability, we still own/operate our vineyards, the distillery and aging cellars ourselves to this day. So In a sense, you can look at our cognacs as a testimony of our family passion and savoir-faire! We really hope you enjoy them.

 

 

 

 

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