Michelin starred restaurant La Ribaudière, Moulin à Blé & le Chai de Hennessy – Road Trip in France #23

The luxurious experiences continue because the Cognac region is particularly suitable for them. After having eaten too well in the Périgord, one thinks that one should surely try one of the starred restaurants in the region. And then, due to lack of time, we delay the moment and end up booking a starred restaurant near Cognac.

Note: this blog article is part of the “Road Trip in France” made in August 2020. To read the previous parts, click here : #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, #18, #19, #20, #21 and #22

Part 1: Travel Diary
Part 2: Practical Tips

Part 1: Travel Diary

Michelin-starred restaurant: La Ribaudière

We both opted for the “Discovery” menu (114€/person). I put the menu here with my comments

• The aperitif starts well with a little foie gras, truffles and caviar.
• The appetizer of the day: melon purée with a small piece of ham, it’s super fresh and original.
• The corks of marinated raw langoustines, fresh seaweed condiment, sparkling tiger’s milk, young caviar from Gensac-la-Pallue: this is the best dish I have ever tasted in my life. The langoustines are prepared sashimi style, it’s so good that I almost had tears in my eyes. As in “Ratatouille”, when it’s delicious, it looks like there’s a firework in my head, well that’s exactly it! There is a little Asian inspiration here, between the coriander, the rather acidic sauce and the raw scampi. I’m able to come back here just for this dish
• The stew of fresh frogs’ legs and “petits gris” snails cooked with our chardonnay, flat parsley oil: because of pesticides, we have almost no more wild frogs. Fresh frog legs are as rare and expensive as other luxury ingredients. Here, the legs are worked so that we only get the meat (and not the bone), and the snails are so, but so unctuous that we wouldn’t have guessed that they were snails. An extremely surprising dish, I would say the most innovative of this menu. It is also one of the dishes that the Michelin guide recommends in this restaurant
• Blue lobster cooked in a wood oven, grilled pencil leeks, coral butter with old cognac: perfectly executed, but nothing innovative
• The fillet of Limousin beef cooked in a sautoir, sparkling Pamplie butter in the early morning, aestivum truffles in a crust: perfect cooking, the meat is of excellent quality, it doesn’t equal Japanese or Argentinean beef, but we didn’t need to salt and pepper the meat, it was perfect like that. A big piece of summer truffle is stuffed in a kind of cake? It’s a pity because the truffle as it is would have given more flavor, especially since at the base, the summer truffle has less taste than the winter one
• The cart of matured cheeses and farm goats from the region: just look at the photo of the cart to understand how delighted JB was to see it
• The cognac of the terroir in the barrel “signature dessert”: a pleasure for the eyes, incredible technicality. The concept is to recreate a small parcel of the region, so that one has the impression of being in the vines. The container is made of wood, reminiscent of the wood of cognac barrels. A grape recreated thanks to molecular cuisine, the inside of which is filled with cognac. The grape leaf is created from whatever ingredient, and finally, the “earth” is made of grated chocolate. The whole is very fine.
• As for me, I opted for La mousse soufflée au chocolat Grand Cru, chocolate croutons with fleur de sel from the Ile de Ré: it’s very good, but a bit too much in quantity.

I think this is only the second time we go to a starred restaurant (the first one being near Trans sur Erdre), and I must admit that this one is much more than the other one.

The star is well deserved because everything is excellent, I would have given 2 Michelin stars ahaha. It’s an explosion of flavor every time. We were afraid that we wouldn’t be able to finish everything, given the number of dishes, but everything has been studied so that there is enough to taste well, but not so much that we can finish the whole menu without messing up and without having our bellies exploding. Really, if you’re passing by, I recommend it with your eyes closed.

La Ribaudière, a la carte & menus : https://laribaudiere.com/carte-menus-restaurant-la-ribaudiere.php

On the other hand, there is a small detail: as we are in nature, there are a lot of insects. The restaurant uses large spots of light to attract them and keep them away from the tables, but don’t be surprised to see them. There were no mosquitoes (fortunately), but a few flies anyway.

Wheat Mill in Aujac

Our beautiful Airbnb is located in Aujac. The owners, Jacques and Mireille, are also globe trotters. They are used to backpacking and planning their trip on site. We have a lot of destinations in common. They know a little more about Africa than we do, and their house is full of travel souvenirs, it feels like home 😀 The room is also very spacious, with jacuzzi, Italian shower, and a beautiful garden, with a small Burmese hut built by Jacques.

The particularity of this Airbnb is its location: just above a canal that feeds a wheat mill, which has been restored by our owner Jacques. Jacques bought the family mill and renovated it with the help of local carpenters. Today, the mill is 100% functional and some farmers still bring wheat to it to make flour. After a good organic breakfast – with products from the vegetable garden, we were treated to a private tour of the mill.

Jacques turns the mill before our astonished eyes and shows us the mechanisms.

I didn’t know it but you can still find organic flour made by hand with wheat mills. The advantage of a wheat mill is that the flour is more nutritious and digestible because the mill preserves the wheat germ and part of the bran => flour that is more nutritious and less concentrated in gluten. Then, the flour passes through the sieve, a kind of drum with more or less large holes. This is how we obtain flour for dessert, or flour for bread… (more or less fine).

If you don’t spend the night in Airbnb, you can still visit the mill.

Guided tours on reservation: 06 50 71 59 87 (groups from 10)

Before leaving, knowing that I really liked her sorrel jam, Mireille runs after me to offer me a jar of the said jam, homemade. It’s so cute!

Cognac tasting at Hennessy

Also as a micro-shareholder of LVMH, we are entitled to a free tour of the Hennessy cellars, including a tasting. All you have to do is make a reservation over the phone and show your shareholder card at the time of the visit. My father likes hard liquor and there are always bottles of Hennessy, Johnny-Walker, etc. at the house… And I recently discovered that cognac was French, and moreover, made from wine.

I admit that we passed near Cognac just for Hennessy (otherwise we would have continued straight on to Tours) and it was really worth it. LVMH has many brands, but Hennessy manages to be one of the 3 brands in the group’s name: Louis Vuitton Moët-Hennessy, so Hennesssy must be a very special brand. Hennessy has more than 50% of the world cognac market share, but strangely enough, cognac is consumed more abroad than in France.

We got lost in Cognac because we didn’t put the right place on Google Maps. In fact, you have to go along the quay and aim for “Visite Cognac, les visites Hennessy”. There are many free parking spaces for 1h30, the duration of the visit. In summer, the visit is enhanced by a small boat cruise, just to cross the river, as the cellars are on the other side of the store.

The cellars are called “chai” because they are near the “quai”. The cellars are close to the river Charente to benefit from the wetter conditions. I didn’t take a picture of the first part of the visit, but I want you to know that we were very impressed by the means we put in place. There are several interactive panels, the guide presses a button and the different lights come on. This allows us to understand the cognac making process in a playful way. Contrary to the champagne cellars, where everything is explained without any diagram and the tourists come out confused. No, here, on the contrary, we understand too well, there are even videos.

To make cognac, it’s very simple: you need wine.

• The wine is gently heated to condense it.
• We obtain the brouillis, fruit of the 1st distillation
• We remove the beginning and the end of the scramble, to keep only the middle
• It is distilled a second time. This second distillation step results in a much higher alcohol content.
• It takes about 12 kg of grapes to produce 1 liter of eau-de-vie

• The brandy must then be put in hand-made oak barrels for many years to gain in taste. This is where the color and taste of the cognac comes from.
• The quality of the cognac depends on the quality of the cask: from the selection of the wood to the assembly of the barrel, nothing should be left to chance
• Like a perfume, the Maîtres-Assembleurs mix different cognacs from different barrels and years. Then, it is mixed with the cognac of the year before.
• In this way, Hennessy cognac will keep a constant taste from one year to the next, because it is based on the results of several years’ harvests, several vineyards, etc., and it is the result of a long and varied process

The House of Hennessy’s reserve is one of the largest collections of eaux-de-vie in the world, thanks to its history dating back more than 200 years. More than 350,000 barrels are stored in 65 cellars.

At Hennessy, a long-standing tradition consists of congratulating young apprentices who are installing barrels for the first time in an impeccable row. Their colleagues decorate their rows with fresh flowers, which dry as the blend ages. The barrels must be in impeccable condition, any modifications or repairs made to the barrel are carefully noted.

In a safe corner of the cellar, we see the Jeanne ladies dating from 18xx. The eau de vie kept in barrels continues to evolve. When it is felt that it no longer needs to evolve, it is transferred to the glass dame-Jeanne. Thus, it no longer evolves, and can be used for exceptional cognac blends. Your cognac, sold in glass bottles, no longer evolves, unlike wine. So the best thing to do, according to our guide, is to drink it and not to store it for years 😀 The same advice applies to champagne, because the layer of yeast that makes the taste of champagne evolve has been removed once the bottle is sold to you in the store.

We take the boat back to cross the river and the most awaited moment of the morning comes: the tasting of two types of cognac: Hennessy VS (Very Special) and Hennessy VSOP (Very Superior Old Pale). Our guide is really great. He usually travels and has to find Hennessy distributors around the world. But “thanks” to Covid, he is with us today and is very happy to make the French discover cognac. His job is to create a network of distributors, but also to educate: how to drink cognac, how to appreciate cognac. And this is exactly what he has done with us.

Not only did he teach us the art of tasting: first touch with his tongue, wet the mouth to better welcome the cognac, then real tasting…

…but in addition, he taught us what to order, when to order… with ice or without ice + a recipe for a cognac cocktail to redo at home. I don’t drink, but just for the explanations alone, it makes me want to order a Hennessy VS as an ahaha aperitif from now on. You can sense that he is passionate about his job, that he truly loves the Hennessy house, its history and its products.

What I find really nice is that they thought of the people who can’t drink alcohol, already by asking the question before the visit and then serving me a very good grape juice. It’s a special attention, to be welcomed. Because we don’t only come for the tasting, but also for the know-how.

Of the 3 cellar visits (of champagne and cognac) this summer, the visit to Hennessy exceeded all my expectations. On the one hand, thanks to the large resources put in place, but above all thanks to the guide, who was passionate and exciting, who managed to pass on to us his passion for cognac. In the boutique, you will find several exceptional creations, including a bottle (far right) at 25,000€. The shape of the bottles at Hennessy is also very special and completely distinguishes it from other brands.

Our next article, it’s this way

Part 2: Practical Tips

Useful links

• 4 weeks Road Trip in France by car: program & detailed plans here
• These points of interest are part of the +800 tourist places in France that we recommend. To access free Google Maps of the 800 places in question, click here
• More info about our car rental at Leclerc (5€/day + 8cts km) here

Budget

• 1* Michelin restaurant La Ribaudière in Bourg-Charente: Discovery” menu + drink (soft) 120€/person. There are menus from 55€/person too
• Airbnb with the visit of the family mill in Aujac: 58€/night, breakfast included: https: //www.airbnb.fr/rooms/2640576
• Visit Hennessy Signature in Cognac : 20€/person Languages: French, English, Spanish, German, Chinese, Russian, Total duration: 1h30
• The visit is free if you are an LVMH shareholder (more info)