|
Detectives in Cognacby Norman Mark
I exclaim to my wife, "Looks like Gregory Peck will actually be there in person." Grace, ever the essence of savoir faire, quickly chucks me in the ribs. I glance up. Peck, looking dignified and terribly legendary, is standing less than three feet away. Peck smiles and nods. Fortunately, I had said nothing about the phony-looking whale in "Moby Dick."
Although well worth visiting at any time, Cognac arouses itself on two occasions each year--during the fall for the harvest of the grapes and for four days each spring for a film festival which celebrates detectives. During that festival, which is usually scheduled in April for the weekend after the American Oscars, almost everyone in town grabs their Instamatics, children and dogs, and goes batty for thriller movies. The Cognac Film Festival, one of over 170 festivals in film-mad France, becomes a unique and thoroughly charming experience. The festival, and the fall harvest time, can easily be booked through a Travel Agents International office. As actor Keith Carradine, who served as a judge one year, told me, "I never want to leave. This festival, this town, this entire experience has been perfect." A sculpture resembling a gigantic reel of film had been placed in the fountain at the center of town. One night, while bands at adjoining bistros dueled by covering either the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, Buster Keaton silent films were projected on the buildings surrounding the circle. Talk about a time warp. This same central roundabout has a statue of Francois the First who united France. He was born in 1494 in the Chateau de Cognac, an ancient structure now owned by Otard Cognac and an easy walk from the central roundabout. We visited and saw the magnificent vaults in the double central room. Prisoners from the French-Indian Wars in America were housed here. Their graffiti remains carved into the walls proving that many of man's bad habits are unchanged through the ages.
The next day I visited the smaller, but just as proud Brillet winery where I tasted their softly delicious 50- and 100-year old cognacs. I asked Jean-Louis Brillet, the ninth generation Brillet to run the enterprise, how it felt to open a 50-year old cask, which was a legacy from a great-grandfather he had never meet. He said it evoked an intense feeling of connections through the generations. Also just outside Cognac, we visited the Chateau du Fontpinot, owned by Max Cointreau, whose family produces the exquisite Cognac Frapin. Mr. and Mrs. Cointreau were living in another chateau up the road. That was when we learned what must be the essence of high style--owning not merely one beautiful chateau, but a guest chateau as well.
The concluding ceremonies at the festival were completed in less than 20 minutes--some three hours shorter than any Oscar telecast. In Cognac, they do understand the adage that "less is more." Then everyone raced out of the theater to dress for the formal, final gala in the Martell distilleries beneath the gleaming, distinctive goose-necked cognac stills. This charming film fest ended as I organized a circle of dancers and convinced the dignified former CEO of Hennessy to wiggle his bootie to "Sweet Home Chicago." What a night! What a Festival du Film Policier! Ah Cognac, tres charmante! All tours of distilleries can be arranged quite easily by either showing up or calling ahead. A few of the local phone numbers are: Brillet: (33) 5 45 97 05 06 Hennessy: (33) 5 45 35 72 72 Cognac Otard (Chateau de Cognac): (33) 5 45 82 40 00 Norman Mark, who could only say hors d'oeuvres, aurevoir and French fries before he went to France, can now say, "Cognac." His email address is: Normanmark@aol.com Photos courtesy of Festival du Film Policier |
|
TM
I'm standing in the midst
of mass confusion of Orly Airport near
Paris waiting chartered airplane to take me to the 14th annual Thriller Film
Festival of Cognac (Festival du Film
Policier). I look at the small printed
program for the four-day celebration of fine spirits and detective movies and I
see that there will be a "conference de presse de Gregory Peck."
The festival had
started. Cognac is a small town on the Charente River about 250 miles
southwest of Paris just north of the Bordeaux district. Since the 17th century, this picturesque,
ancient, perfectly French and decidedly sleepy village has been devoted to
taking the local, rather insipid wine and turning it into a double-distilled,
oak-barrel aged nectar. 
During the festival, I
alternated movie going with the free tours of the Hennessy, Remy-Martin,
Martell and other nearby distilleries where the twice-distilled wine is aged in
oak casks for up to half a century before it emerges as true cognac. At the ancient Martell chateau (and at every
other cognac distillery), I was told that the heady aroma pervading the old
walls came from evaporation that occurs during that lengthy process. My very French guide proudly informed me,
"That is the angel's share." 
Throughout the film festival,
there were events guaranteed to put foreign visitors into charm overload. One afternoon, amidst brass bands and
enthusiastic townspeople, the judges, Gregory Peck and various French celebrities
including pouting soap opera stars marched to the center of town to put their
hands in wet cement. On another
afternoon, everyone marched behind a band dressed like '30s gangsters to the
market where each kiosk was serving hors d'oeuvres, wine and cognac.