Béatrice Cointreau

Smell is the most neglected sense - but not for Béatrice Cointreau, managing director of the Pierre Frapin Estate (Cognac Frapin and Champagne Gosset). What she remembers best of her childhood in Cognac is the heady smells : leather, dried wood, candied fruit, Limousin oak, damp earth, cut grass, and especially the ample floral notes of the eau-de-vie Folle Blanche, dating from 1870 and stored in the family cellar called « Paradis ». It made sense to her, then, to create a perfume that evokes the scents of her childhood, and to call it 1270 after the date that her family put down roots in the Cognac region. « I wanted to reproduce the elegance of our cognacs », she says, « praised by so many friends who, when smelling them, fall under the charm of their finesse and splendid aromatic palette... Without a doubt, 1270 is a perfume for the hedonists among us. »
The perfume 1270 is available by mail order on the site www.champagne-gosset.com

How do you recognise a hedonist ?

It’s simply someone who takes pleasure in living and in living well according to his or her own criteria. It’s the art of taking time, devoting time to the pleasure of living. Hedonism is always linked to the five senses. For some people, one of these senses will dominate. Champagne is the most hedonistic thing I’ve found because it offers everything : the sound of the bubbles, colour, textures, taste and aroma.

How do you cultivate your own hedonism ?

I cultivate it in a convivial setting, because for me it’s not something I can cultivate on my own. I come from a family where there were seven children and 25 grand-children, and I have three children, so I’ve never in my life sat down to a meal or opened a bottle on my own. Hedonism is something that I can envisage only in the context of sharing and conviviality, enrichment and exchange.
I grew up on a family that was very traditional and very big, and the place where there was always someone was the kitchen. I nourished myself physically but also with all the smells. It was a warm place in winter and very convivial, and there was also the pleasure of seeing the big table, which was nicely set with a beautiful tablecloth.

Who is your model of hedonism ?

I have to admit that I don’t really have a model for hedonism, nor for anything else. It’s something that you build on every day, like a couple. The important thing is to be attentive ; you have to be aware of each fragile moment. What I experienced during my childhood in Cognac, I try to recreate with my children. I’m lucky enough to have children who like cooking and going to sophisticated restaurants. I realise that from the beginning they had their own tastes.

Describe your ideal hedonistic day.

I get up, the weather is beautiful, there is an aroma of grass that’s a little bit dried and of dew in the garden. I ride my horse through the vines ; there are notes of vine flowers and also the smell of animals and leather. I take the tractor to cut some hay, which creates very pleasant dried floral notes. We have a picnic at a table near the river with simple things, like raw, salted tomato and a cooked dish to follow, and there is the roasted smell from the wood fire. Once it’s finished, we go and pick strawberries and raspberries directly from the plants. We lie down on the grass and it’s already four or five o’clock. We’d finish with a glass of Cognac and a cigar. Of course, I could also have told you of a winter day in front of the fire !

What is the most hedonistic place you have every visited ?

It’s the place where I’m surrounded by the people I love !
One of the most memorable moments from my travels was a meal at El Bulli, in Spain, where the chef Ferran Adrià has a style all his own which is difficult to describe. We had a meal of 35 « bites » and the chef apologised for not having any pasta or rice for the children. I reassured him that they are used to eating in restaurants. When he asked us during the meal what we thought of his cooking, my son Max, who was eight years old at the time, said, « it’s not cooking, we’re in a dream world. » He expressed exactly what I would have liked to have had the presence of mind to say.

Can you recommend...

A hedonistic book ?

Smell, by the Indian author Radhika Jha. I love her way of describing smells.

A hedonistic music ?

Bolero’s Ravel, because in the end this is what we look for in a meal. It starts out simple and soft and builds to a crescendo. But this question is difficult. To choose means to renunciate, and renunciation isn’t hedonistic !

A hedonistic object ?

Sculpture, because it has many dimensions - visual art, but also touch, the texture of bronze or terracotta.

A hedonistic flower ?

A bouquet of flowers that gives off different notes, or vine flower.