The Grand Tour of the Charentes

Stay details, 9 days and 8 nights

What you will see

• The Château de Cognac, the Valois fortress where François 1^er was born in 1494, now home to the Baron Otard and d’Ussé cognacs, with its vaulted cellars built inside the castle itself
• A château in Charente whose 220-meter façade, never completed, is the longest in Europe after Versailles. The rooms are empty,The rooms are empty, the ambition intact
• Two family estates in the Grande Champagne cru, the first growth of the vineyard, opening for your group alone: the vines, the Charente still, the cellars, then the estate’s own cognacs and Pineau des Charentes, all from its single vineyard
• La Compagnie de Bouteville: vinegars and balsamics aged in casks that once held cognac, tasted with oysters and a Charente board. A Michelin Green Guide favourite
• A trading house specialist since the 18th century in Grande Champagne cognacs: a session reserved for your group featuring aged cognacs and gourmet pairings, two hours
• Another small trading house founded in Cognac in 1905 by a Norwegian and family-owned ever since: a privatised visit of the cellars and of the Chai des Initiés
• A cooperage: the split stave, three years of open-air seasoning, bending over the fire, then the toasting, the moment the cooper decides the colour and the taste. This is the visit that explains all the others
• A sturgeon farm set on the waters of the Charente, its ponds, its maturing work and a comparative tasting of two caviars
• A full day in Marennes-Oléron: the marshes with a naturalist guide, an oyster hut and refining in the claires, the Château de la Gataudière, then Brouage, a citadel commissioned by Richelieu in the middle of the marshes, where Samuel de Champlain was born
• Talmont-sur-Gironde, a fortified town founded in 1284 on a cliff above the estuary, listed among the Most Beautiful Villages of France, its Romanesque church at the edge of the drop and its lanes of hollyhocks
• The workshop of one of the last French craftsmen still making terrestrial globes by hand on a private visit
• The Charente valley travelled twice, on an off-road electric scooter along the vineyard tracks, then by canoe from Jarnac

A stay that works for everyone

Of the twenty experiences in the programme, fourteen are lived entirely without a drop of alcohol. Each of the six tasting moments has its own version, named, described and served as such: reading the vaults and the angels’ share at the castle, the olfactory trail of old cognacs at Delamain, the walk from the rootstock to the still at the grower’s estate, the oyster bed plate in the hut, the orchard pairings at table on the sixth evening, and the cellar nose at the trading house. Nobody spends nine days waiting for the others.

Where you will stay

One hotel for all eight nights. Hôtel François Premier, four stars, place François 1^er, in the centre of Cognac: heated indoor pool, hammam, fitness room, garden, cocktail bar and restaurant. Everything is within walking distance in the evening. This hotel or one of equivalent standing, subject to availability on your dates.

Where you will eat

Eight lunches and three dinners are included. Lunch on the sixth day is taken at Le Coude à Coude, in Jarnac-Champagne, Maître Restaurateur and a Bib Gourmand in the 2026 Michelin Guide. The farewell dinner is held at La Ribaudière, in Bourg-Charente, a Michelin-starred table set on the bank of the river.

Between the two, what may well remain the real memory of the trip: on the sixth evening, dinner is served inside a family distillery, among the stills, paired with the estate’s cognacs and Pineaux. This evening is sold through no public channel.

The pace of the stay

Two to four experiences a day, five free evenings, no change of hotel. The off-road scooter takes ten minutes to master and is open from fourteen years old, and the canoe descent is supervised: no particular fitness is required, and both activities have an alternative in poor weather.