Tatler+
The happily retired couple are avid connoisseurs of Louis XIII cognac, amassing a collection of ambrosias to chart their taste evolution through time
The embodiment of ancestral savoir-faire, each decanter of Louis XIII Cognac is the result of decades and centuries of foresight, the lifetime achievement of generations of cellar masters. Since its origins in 1874, each generation of cellar master has set aside the finest eau de vie as a legacy to his or her successors, who will continue to blend Louis XIII for the next century.
When current cellar master Baptiste Loiseau discovered a single tierçon of eau de vie hidden deep in the family reserves of the André Hériard Dubreuil (AHD) cellar—which is cooler, darker and damper than the other cellars—and decided that the precious liquid is exceptional enough to be bottled on its own as a special edition cognac, one can expect the Louis XIII Black Pearl AHD to be the ultimate expression of the mastery of terroir, craft and time.
Given its finite volume, the Louis XIII Black Pearl AHD is presented in a totally unprecedented 35 cl crystal decanter, with only 1498 bespoke Baccarat decanters of Cognac available worldwide. For avid Louis XIII cognac collectors Doreen and Elbert Pattijn, this was a limited edition decanter they absolutely had to get their hands on.
MEET DOREEN PATTIJN
Previously a banker from Dutch ING bank, the currently retired Doreen Pattijn recounts the couple’s fortuitous luck to secure a decanter of the previous edition from the Black Pearl Collection, “We started out procuring the Time collection but somehow missed the first Black Pearl edition before it got sold out here. Thankfully, when we were holidaying in France, we were near Cognac, so we went to the estate and managed to snag a decanter.”
She muses of the visit to the estate, “It’s beautiful and I think you really, further appreciate the cognac after learning about the heritage and the amount of meticulous thinking that has been put into the production of the liquid.”
They have a slightly different value of time in Europe, perhaps given its storied and long heritage; but many things are built to last or built to age over decades or centuries, like Louis XIII Cognac.