Cognac Le Temps Retrouvé, Lot No.46 - 1946, almost 80 year old cognac

6cl sample

Le Temps Retrouvé, Lot No46

Appelation Cognac Fins Bois Contrólée, Mis en bouteille par MTEI pour Passion for Whisky

70cl - 49,5% - bottled 2025 - one of 252 bottles


scores
serge valentin - 91 points

Le Temps Retrouvé ‘Lot 46’ (49.5%, Passion for Whisky, Fins Bois, 252 bottles, 2025)
Ugni blanc and colombard from a bouilleur de cru. Let us recall that a bouilleur de cru is an individual in France permitted to distil their own fruit harvest, usually tax-free, grapes included, as was the case here. They’re often confused with travelling distillers, by the way. And of course, Le Temps Retrouvé is the final volume of A la Recherche du Temps Perdu (In Search of Lost Time) by Marcel Proust. Colour: full gold. Nose: frankly, this is extremely close to the François Voyer, just a little less exuberant, and therefore a touch more austere, and thus slightly more elegant, but the molecules are very much the same, both in their individual quality and overall structure. Quite. Mouth: I wouldn’t want to give the impression I’m neglecting this baby – really, we’re closer to the Voyer than Jagger to Richards. Perhaps just a tad more earthy and rooty? Finish: the finish is a little more ‘different’, with a touch more resin, more dryness, as if the demijohn stage had been a bit shorter here and the wood ageing slightly longer. But perhaps that’s just the imagination wandering... Comments: 1946 also saw the invention of the first electronic digital computer, a device that would slowly lead humanity to barbarism and ultimately its downfall, according to what’s being muttered here and there lately. Hmm, not so sure about that... But let’s not descend into pub-level philosophising, what splendid cognacs these are.
SGP:661 - 91 points.