Grande Champagne is the first of the six crus of Cognac, a zone of some 34,700 hectares in the Charente centred on Segonzac, of which only about a sixth is planted with vines for brandy. The name has nothing to do with the sparkling wine region: champagne here is the old French word for open chalk country, which is exactly what it is, a soft white Campanian chalk that holds water and forces the roots deep.

That soil gives thin, sharply acidic wine from Ugni Blanc, which is useless to drink and ideal to distil. Double distilled in the Charentais pot still, the spirit is light, floral and slow to mature, and it is generally agreed to produce the finest and longest lived cognacs: fifty years in oak is not unusual for the best of it. A blend of Grande and Petite Champagne, with at least half from the former, may be sold as Fine Champagne.