Dudognon Folle Blanche

To say Gerald and Claudine Buraud of Dudognon are youthful is understatement. Both are in their sixties but move like a man and woman in their twenties or early thirties wearing unconvincing gray wigs. Claudine is the matriarch and won a gold medal with her legendary father Raymond in 1990 before taking over the operation with her husband. Gerald is small and confident like a rooster in a black turtleneck and tells one of my favorite Cognac stories, of the time one of the large houses rejected their distillate because it smelled of sulfur. This strategy is common according to a number of small producers we’ve met. The large house will manufacture a reason the brandy is inferior so they can reject it on a down year or negotiate a more favorable price. Full of Gallic pride, the next year Gerald sent a sample bottle he’d saturated with sulfur, causing it to smell worse than old, deviled eggs. Telling the story, Gerald laughs and shrugs with his lower lip thrust out, very French, and conti