When Baptiste Loiseau was appointed Cellar Master in 2014, he was, at the age of 34, one of the youngest ever. He was also succeeding Pierrette Trichet, the first woman to ever hold this position at a major cognac house. So while the main responsibility of the Cellar Master is to guard the house’s heritage, at Rémy Martin we have not been very conservative about whom we charge with this duty.
The position was established by Rémy Martin himself, and it commands huge respect to this day. On the one hand, that is because of the prerequisites. The Cellar Master has to possess a very special combination of skills: he is at once a studied viticulturist, an experienced winemaker, an expert blender, and a taster with a near-superhuman nose, with a little bit of the virtuoso composer and magician thrown in for good measure. He also has to be perfectionist, ambitious, and audacious while accepting that his spirit of innovation serves mainly the purpose of preservation.