La Nauve: raise a glass to Cognac’s new retreat

What’s the buzz? In response to the finding that “80 per cent of tourist activity in France is concentrated on 20 per cent of our territory”, France’s minister for tourism, Olivia Grégoire, last month announced a €1mn campaign “to promote”, she told Le Figaro, “year-round off-the-beaten track tourism”.

With its celebrated distilleries, fortified medieval gates, admittedly dour castle (the birthplace, in 1494, of France’s great renaissance king François I) and narrow streets of half-timbered houses, Cognac might be just the sort of town the minister hopes visitors will be inspired to seek out. Especially now that there’s a superb hotel, La Nauve, on its western edge. Converted from a Belle Époque mansion and former distillery, it is surrounded by 4.5 hectares of grounds and newly planted gardens (give them time, and they should be glorious), alongside which flows the River Charente.

It’s the second hotel from the Almae Collection (the first, Armancette, is in Saint-Nicolas de Véroce near Chamonix; the next will be Palladio’s Villa Emo in Italy’s Veneto), founded by the private equity investor Vincent Gombault and his wife, Florence, initially to develop residences. Its mission is “to reflect and honour its unique location with a life-enriching focus on art, design, gastronomy and community” — which I’d say it achieves. 

Location, location, location La Nauve lies about an hour inland from the Atlantic coast, 106km south-east of La Rochelle airport; 128km north of Bordeaux; and 48km west of Angoulême, which has direct rail connections to Paris and where Wes Anderson filmed The French Dispatch. 

Checking in The main house was built in the 1870s, but though its ornate façade remains intact, its interior has been gutted to the rafters, its mighty oak trusses now exposed, and its interior almost entirely remodelled.

A statement bifurcated staircase carved from white Avy limestone and lit by light installations by Murano glassmaker Barovier & Toso now leads upstairs to eight spacious bedrooms. The priciest are the four at the front, but my favourite was no 1, which may be the smallest and at the back but has a spacious roof terrace with a colourful living wall and a hanging basket chair. There are four further rooms, two with terraces and private gardens, in the next-door Petit Chai (barrel warehouse), by the 10-metre swimming pool.

No expense has been spared in their décor. The floors are of end-grain oak with brass inlay to echo the slight iridescence of the polished plaster walls. And the curvaceous joinery is something to behold. All the doors and bedheads, which have integrated nightstands, are inlaid with marquetry in patterns inspired by the branches of the 150-year-old sequoia that dominates the main lawn, though they reminded me more of designs by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

The bathrooms are marble and onyx, and the push-button shower was miraculously user-friendly. If only the lighting hadn’t been so overthought, it might all have been perfect. There’s no need for a downlighter by the bathroom that stays on all night, nor a motion sensor that floods the loo with light whenever you open the door. (Nor quite so much flood-lighting of the façade.)

What to do? The hotel has an electric-powered boat on which you can spend a couple of hours exploring the Charente, which Henri IV, the first Bourbon monarch of France, judged the most beautiful waterway in his kingdom. At one point a water snake crossed our path, and we spotted four fat coypus making their way down the wooded bank to bathe.

Alternatively, it takes a little over half an hour to walk into central Cognac along a shaded riverside path that leads from the hotel’s dock. Or there are bikes (electric and push) by which to explore the surrounding vineyards.

Distillery tours and tastings are another option. The market is dominated by Maison Hennessy (the H in LVMH), founded in 1765 by an Irishman, Richard Hennessy, which offers a variety of experiences including what it calls an “immersive initiation”.

La Nauve, however, directs its guests to smaller independents such as Delamain in nearby Jarnac (where the house in which François Mitterrand was born is now a museum); and Hardy, 300 metres from the hotel and still in the hands of its founding family, one of whom lived at La Nauve till she sold it to Almae. There’s little to see, but the hour we spent with its present principal, Bénédicte Hardy, a direct descendant of the Londoner who established it in 1863, was both fascinating and hugely entertaining. 

What about the food? There is no menu at Notes, the gourmet restaurant to the left of the entrance in the main house. And the only choice is between four courses (€70) and seven, nine if you include the amuse-bouches and pre-dessert (€110). Thereafter you are in the hands of its chef, Anthony Carballo, who was apprenticed to Yannick Alléno at La Meurice and will surely become a legend in his own right. For his is an inventive menu that navigates a path between the classic (lamb with smoked aubergine, black-garlic purée and an anchovy jus) and the outlandish, in the way he messes with convention and juxtaposes flavours and textures.

The cheese course, for instance, consisted of a tart purée of rhubarb and strawberry pine (Microcachrys tetragona) topped with a disc of melted Vieux Rodez, a parmesan-like hard cheese from Aveyron. It was sublime. In other courses, he paired crab with anise and, separately, with caviar; pollock with a salty, fishy, citrusy “iodised” foam, hazelnuts and nasturtium leaves; and oak-smoked ice cream with poached lettuce hearts and peas, each shucked of its skin. From the aerated crackling we began with — the world’s poshest pork scratching — to the chocolate and buckwheat dessert, I loved every mouthful and suffered no sense of having overindulged afterwards.

In contrast, the Brasserie des Flâneurs, across the gravel in the former distillery, is an essay in simplicity, with a succinct menu — seared tuna, sirloin with béarnaise sauce, chicken cordon bleu (stuffed with cheese, wrapped in ham and deep fried). We enjoyed a sort of fish pie (€24), a little pot full of mussels and prawns on an earthy mushroom duxelle, blanketed in a sabayon sauce that was vibrantly green with herbs; and pig cheeks (€26) poached in Pineau des Charentes (cognac-fortified grape must and the local apéro of choice though surprisingly absent from the drinks menu), along with vegetables from the garden.

Side dishes aside, there is nothing for vegetarians. 

The damage Rates for a double room start at €294 per night (or from €369 in July and August). 

Elevator pitch Luxe, calme et volupté. As Charles Baudelaire put it in his poem L’Invitation au voyage: “There, all is order and beauty/Luxury, tranquillity and delight.” 

Claire Wrathall was a guest of La Nauve lanauve.com

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