THE HOUSE OF DELAMAIN

"The Delamain's, a Jarnac firm and family, are Protestants. Originally from Saintonge, one member of the family travelled to London in 1625 as chef-de-suite to Henrietta-Maria, bride of Charles I. Deciding to stay in a country more hospitable than his own to his religion, Nicholas Delamain was knighted in 1639, and settled in Ireland as a Protestant landowner, and one of the Farmers-General of Ireland. One descendant was the Dublin potter, Henry Delamain, who was granted £ 100 by the Irish Parliament in 1753 for having been the first to fire delftware with coals, 'as well as was ever done with turf and wood.' ("The Irish Georgian Group put on a splendid exhibition of his work at Castletown House, near Dublin, in 1971").

Since this work was published, some of Henry Delamain's finest delftware has been illustrated in a series of stamps issued by the Republic of Ireland. Henry's nephew James, son of the constable of Dublin Castle, returned in 1759 to the land of his forefathers and entered the Cognac trade. In 1762, James became a partner of his father-in-law, Isaac Ranson, head of a well-established Jarnac firm that had been shipping Cognac to Ireland and Holland since 1725.

After the upheavals of the Revolution and Empire, the Restoration (1815) marked the take-off of the Cognac trade. With his Roullet cousins, James's grandson Henry Delamain founded in 1824 the house of Roullet and Delamain, which stayed in business under this name for four generations. In 1920, the Delamain family was left as sole owner, and the firm's name was changed to Delamain & Co.

Thus, the origins of the house of Delamain can be traced back to the very beginning of the Cognac trade, and make the firm one of the oldest names in the business.

Thanks to this long family tradition, the Delamain’s have successfully established and maintained a mutually trusting relationship with the grower-distillers of the region. This has enabled the firm to obtain brandies from the best sources, i.e. in the choice "Grande Champagne" district, which alone can provide a quality that meets Delamain's exacting standards.

The very distinctive character of the house of Delamain never fails to surprise those visitors to Jarnac who expect to find the firm installed on spacious and luxurious premises similar to those of other famous Cognac houses. The Delamain’s prefer a more intimate setting. Their small offices are tucked away in a narrow, secluded street. Only a nameplate on the plain door of its elegant façade distinguishes the Delamain townhouse from the adjoining buildings. The back windows look out on an exquisite bower that seems to have preserved the secrets of all the children and adolescents who ever played there. The tastefully decorated interior, filled with memorabilia accumulated by successive generations, is an expression of the family spirit. This is not the place for flashy modern design. The offices are still those of the counting-house of old -and the sheen on the furniture is that of passing years.

Above all else, the Delamain’s are humanists. They consider trade to be no more than a means of satisfying their aesthetic needs, to which, like all good Charentais, they attach the highest importance.

Among the firm's more recent directors, Jacques Delamain was a pioneer in France of modern ornithology and nature studies. He wrote several celebrated books on bird life, one of which won a prize from the Académie Française. His son Jean, a botanist, was one of the leading authorities on the wild orchids of Europe: some rare hybrids bear his name. Robert, one of Jacques' two brothers, displayed his deep knowledge of the Cognac region and its past in L'Histoire du Cognac (1935), now a standard reference work for Cognac-lovers and specialists. Jacques' other brother, Maurice, owned and managed the Stock publishing house in Paris in partnership with the writer Jacques Chardonne.

The Delamain brothers' loyal friends included many other writers, artists and intellectuals.

The Delamain’s have always abided by the simple principle that loyalty and a personal signature on a work are part of the natural order of things. Their ambition is not to please at any price: they are happy enough -if one may say so -in the knowledge that their taste and their personal notion of Cognac's clarity of expression are recognized and intensely appreciated by the world's finest connoisseurs. Their sole concern is to live up to these standards and remain true to their ideal. The firm's directors have always personally supervised the key stages in Cognac-making: purchasing brandies, maturing, blending, and proof-reduction. This explains why the product's character is so remarkably consistent, and why its uniqueness can be unfailingly reproduced year after year despite the ever-changing nature of the ingredients.

Today, Patrick Peyrelongue and Charles Braastad, whose grandmother where Delamain, run the firm in accordance with these same family principles. Steeped in this family heritage, they are pursuing the goal defined several generations ago: that of achieving Cognac's noblest expression.