Pre-Phylloxera Cognac

Cognacs from the late nineteenth century are completely different from those produced afterwards. Phylloxera, an insect, wiped out 85% of France’s grape vines, cognacs used a wide range of native varieties, such as Montils, sémillon, folle blanche, and colombard. The plague reached France in 1865. In the cognac region the first vineyards were not affected until 1872. Notably 1869, 1871, 1874 and 1875 were particularly good years with very high yields. In 1877 there were still 283,000 hectares of vineyard in the cognac region, in 1893 only 41,000 remained In the end the solution they came up with was to graft the wine plants onto American rootstocks that were resistant. But it took years before it came to that.