text by Daween Maan
Renaud Fillioux de Gironde, Hennessy’s eighth-generation master blender
“There’s no tasting when I’m travelling,” says Renaud Fillioux de Gironde. He is halfway through a trip through Southeast Asia that halts a vital part of Hennessy’s operations. As Master Blender for the famed cognac maison, nothing goes into a bottle without his stamp of approval, so unsurprisingly 24-hours is all he can spare in Kuala Lumpur.
Every weekday at 11am, for an hour to two, Renaud leads his tasting committee of six people through a sampling of sixty to seventy eaux-de-vie as part of their selection process; various criteria are considered and only the best are picked. This dedication to routine isn’t just part of a KPI checklist, it is quite literally about securing his family’s legacy.
Renaud is the eighth generation of the Fillioux family to hold the prestigious title for Hennessy, tracing all the way back to its foundation. Despite the continuous lineage, he divulges that it isn’t always the plan, but that one way or another, every Fillioux Master Blender has found their own way back to the grapes in Cognac.
A son of grape growers and cognac distillers, Renaud recalls Hennessy being woven through his childhood – from learning the aroma of the distilleries as a youngling looking for his mother, to rushing through the vines of the vineyards where his family toiled, to dinners with his great uncle Maurice, the sixth generation Fillioux Master Blender, where conversations of work and leisure intertwined.
Hennessy Paradis
“Of course, I knew about Hennessy,” he reminisces. “But when you join the company, you see it differently. You see how rigorous and precise everything is, also how difficult it is, but it has to be if you want to stay as the best.”
After venturing out to receive an education and work outside the family business, Renaud returned to join the tasting committee in 2002 under the tutelage of his uncle Yann Fillioux, his predecessor, whom he describes as “a man of high expectations and few words.”
“Whenever he does say something, it means a lot,” says Renaud. “But it doesn’t always mean exactly what you hear from a normal ear. If he says, ‘it’s OK’ he means it’s good, but if he says, ‘it’s not bad’ he means it is very good,” he laughs.
Renaud Fillioux de Gironde
In 2017, Renaud officially took over the title his uncle had held since 1966. Now twenty-two years in the business with seven years into his role, he admits that in its purest form, his responsibility remains the same – to make sure they put the perfect liquid in the bottle.
In its more mechanical form, Renaud’s job involves understanding and overseeing every element of making Hennessy cognac—from grape growing season to distillation months to all year-round blending—in a constant annual cycle that he categorises as short-term planning. His long-term planning on the other hand, can go from long to really really long.
“Everything is about preparing for tomorrow,” he explains. “If today I blend some cognac, it is because my predecessor, my ancestor, has done the hard work of selecting the eaux-de-vie and I’m doing the job of blending. So, it is about creating the best cognac today and making sure that we will be able to do at least as good in the future. And if you want to do that, you have to understand that the cognac and Hennesy is bigger than you.”
But giving credence to the old Yiddish saying “man plans, god laughs”, Renaud reveals that nothing ever really goes to plan, and that a big part of his job is adapting and adjusting when said plans fail, especially if they were set in motion decades before him. The challenge of adapting, however, isn’t limited to just carrying his predecessor’s torches, Renaud divulges that he is witnessing how climate change is affecting their current work.
Hennessy Paradis
“We talk about global warming; things are not consistent from year to year,” he says. “The major effect we see is that the harvesting time of the grapes is becoming earlier. When I was a kid, harvest used to be mid to end October, now we harvest in mid-September. So, we are adapting, but also trying to improve. We are improving our techniques, technology and science.”
Like the cognac he produces, Renaud has to carefully balance everything in a fine flute- shaped glass—the Hennessy standard in the modern era, the commercial requirements in a global environment, and his family’s legacy of quality over two centuries since it was set — and it all has to pass the taste test.
Speaking of which, I enquire how one, say a frequent drinker and occasional writer might get on the Hennessy tasting committee.
“Whatever your background, the important thing is to be passionate about cognac and quality,” he reveals. “For the first ten years of your career we will teach you how to taste, that is the only way to learn, so you must be patient. It is important that you have the right personality and share the right values.”
With himself as number 8, I ask Renaud if he has any plans or hopes for Fillioux Master Blender number 9. With a sincere laugh he says “No. I don’t want to put pressure on anyone because this is something that must come from the heart. Again, it’s about passion, and if there’s people in the family who have that passion, then why not?”
Patrick Madendjian, Managing Director of Moet Hennessy Diageo for Malaysia and Singapore & Renaud Fillioux de Gironde
“He’s still got many years left,” chimes in Patrick Madendjian with a smile, “thirty years at least.”
The Managing Director of Moet Hennessy Diageo for Malaysia and Singapore has been listening to every word and is quick to add in his own excitement for everything Hennessy.
“It’s good to have Renaud here to meet the people who drink Hennessy cognac because it’s been exciting to see the rate of growth that we’re able to sustain. It’s all a tribute to the work that everyone has done in the last 18 months. There have been challenges of course, especially global challenges, but we want people and the trade to have the same kind of faith and excitement as we do.”
“I don’t travel a lot,” admits Renaud to the both of us, “but I enjoy it when I get to. It’s also important for me to not just stay in Cognac but to travel and meet people who love Hennessy, talk to them and gain inspiration on what to do tomorrow.”
“That’s the good thing with Hennessy,” remarks the Master Blender. “It’s always a new adventure.
