Some things in life just go well together. Tango and Cash. Champagne and caviar. Rémy Martin and the Cannes Film Festival.
The luxury cognac has sponsored Cannes for the past 15 years, and you can see why the association endures. Both offer a bit of old-school glamour, the kind of heritage that money can’t buy. Both celebrate quality and craft. The region of Cognac may be an eight-hour drive from the French Riviera but they share a common spirit. (Quite literally since 2003.)
Founded in 1939 – although World War Two meant an immediate hiatus until 1946 – Cannes is one of the world’s oldest film and most prestigious festivals; and Rémy Martin predates it by more than 200 years. Mr Martin set up his cognac trading house in 1724, which makes it precisely half a century older than the United States of America.
Fifteen years may be a drop in the ocean for Rémy, but the house will nevertheless release a limited-edition bottle commemorating Cannes 2018. The cognac itself is an XO (extra old) blend with a specially designed casing that echoes the glamour of the festival.
If you walk into a bar and you see XO on a shelf, you know that that place is going to be good.
Rémy Martin ambassador Jack Charlton explained what makes the XO blend so celebrated.
“I think it's the culmination of nine generations of love and care, and the transmission of knowledge. When I look at something like Remy Martin XO, it's more like a stewardship – it's the cellar master's duty to be able to pass it onto the next generation. That attention to detail is one of the reasons that we've been around 300 years.
“The XO is very iconic, it's a symbol of quality. If you walk into a bar and you see it on a shelf, you know that that place is going to be good. It's like a royal warrant, so to speak.
Everything that we do, even producing the cognacs, it all echoes into our partnerships as well. We're very, very careful about the partnerships that we do, but if we do them, we do them properly.”
A mantra worth toasting. You know what with.
