Interview

Publisher’s introduction: In March, Camus, the world’s fifth-largest Cognac house, and the only major player still in family hands, unveiled a new, upscale brand platform and a range of ‘new-generation’ Cognacs.

The initiative is one of the most ambitious moves to ever come out of the Cognac sector. The house, now in its fifth generation under the leadership of Cyril Camus, has repositioned its entire Cognac portfolio.

The Moodie Davitt Report is exclusively tracking the project and the related promotional campaign.

The new-look, repositioned and upgraded line-up – featuring Very Special, VSOP and XO and a Camus Extra – was rolled out to travel retail in April, initially as an exclusive to China Duty Free Group and Lagardère Travel Retail across their individual and joint locations. It will then be introduced to global travel retail at the TFWA World Exhibition in Cannes this year.

In this special report, Martin Moodie speaks to Camus Wines and Spirits President Cyril Camus, who has led the company since 2003. He also meets Camus Chief Marketing Officer Jean-Dominique Andreu, who talks of an “entire repositioning” designed to create - and communicate - “the world’s highest-quality Cognac”.

Photo: © Nicolas Villion

Cyril Camus

“In terms of changing the actual liquid… from the wine grower’s perspective, or the Cognac maker’s perspective, the production timeline is such that you only really get one chance to make a big difference – and that is what this new line represents for me.” – Cyril Camus. Photo: © Nicolas Villion

Martin Moodie: Cyril, you’re the fifth-generation leader – which is remarkable in its own right – of a house with a history of over 155 years of Cognac making. Now you’re creating a whole new generation, as you’ve dubbed it, in a different sense. How big a move is this – for the house of Camus, but also for you as the flag-bearer for the generations that went before?

Cyril Camus: We’re really an exceptional player in the Cognac industry, in the sense that we’re both a wine grower and a trading house. And we’re very atypical in the sense that we started as a wine grower, as opposed to starting as a trading house. So, we’ve always had the two jobs… of being a grower and also being a merchant.

From a purely business perspective, as a leader you get to do a lot of different things over your career. You can make many bold moves; the company can see many changes, many evolutions or revolutions. That’s something we’ve done well at Camus – we’ve been good enough to reinvent ourselves as the markets evolved over time. If you’re the leader over 25 years, 30 years, whatever… you can do that many times. But in terms of changing the actual liquid… from the wine grower’s perspective, or the Cognac maker’s perspective, the production timeline is such that you only really get one chance to make a big difference – and that is what this new line represents for me.

This is the work that I’ve been doing since I took over the management of the company. All that work is coming to fruition now. Anything I do now is going to impact my children, not me. So this is my one big contribution to the company as a Cognac producer.

Intensely aromatic: The beauty and the bounty of Borderies.

That’s a big statement. Not just the presentation, not just the positioning, but the product itself – which you’re a real purist about. How big is that change?

It is actually a combination of many, many small changes; however, it’s not a revolution in Cognac making but in the actualisation of every little detail that we’ve added. We’ve literally looked at the vineyards and selected the plots of land; we’ve looked into the types of grapes that we put on those plots; and we’ve looked at how we harvest, how we ferment, how we distil, how we batch, how we move the liquid from one place to another.

All those details were with one single focus, which was to increase the aromatic intensity. The Cognac is still very much our style, because the raw material is still the same as it’s always been, still the same estate in Borderies, and we’re still working with the same growers. But by fine-tuning all those steps, all those details, we end up with the same style but much more intensely aromatic.

It’s like boosting a perfume, if you will. It’s still the same Cognac, just much more intense, much more distinctive. And, to me, that is really important. We’ve had great success doing single-cru Cognacs. Our Borderies single estate is a good example of that in the way it expresses particular terroirs.

But I think we were still not good enough at producing a blended Cognac that would be truly distinctive, truly different, unique. I think that’s what we’ve done here – we’ve focused on the aromas, on the intensity.

How much of a risk-versus-reward balancing act was going on in your mind when you said “Right, let’s push the button!”?

We’ve worked hard on all those improvements. They’re all minor improvements, which, added to each other, ended up being a great change – but by definition a change for the better. Our Cognac was already good; we just made it more intense. So I don’t see it as a risk. I see it more as me having taken advantage of the fact that we were under a single-ownership model. I didn’t have to explain to anyone the arbitrage we were making between immediate profits and investment in those changes in the quality of the Cognac.

I don’t think this would have been possible had there been more shareholders or more family members involved, because it has taken 15 years of continuous investment to improve the quality of something that was already good. I don’t think any other company would have allowed that to happen. And that, as I said, is not a risk; it is an opportunity that has been afforded to us by our ownership model.

Cyril Camus is the flagbearer for the generations passed – and those still to come.

I understand that the trade reaction has been very positive; but of course you also need a positive consumer reaction. How big a job do you think it’s going to be to inform and educate the consumer about this repositioning – which, of course, involves a higher price?

What is essential to success these days is to tell a great story – to be able to explain what is happening, tell the story of the brand, tell the story of the product in a way that is compelling for consumers, and which justifies the price bump.

This is an area where we have done an incredible amount of work. In parallel to evolving our Cognac, we have also evolved the way we talk about it and the way we can explain to consumers what is different, and what difference it actually makes to them.

Cyril Camus on communicating a step-change in Cognac.

This is an area where we have done an incredible amount of work. In parallel to evolving our Cognac, we have also evolved the way we talk about it and the way we can explain to consumers what is different, and what difference it actually makes to them.

The background to this was when we started asking consumers, way back, about their definition of a good Cognac. That’s when we realised that it was always coming back to these notions of floral notes, fruity notes, and balance of the aroma. This is where we really worked on fine-tuning our Cognac, and that’s why we went the intensely aromatic route.

Now we have to explain to each consumer why having the more intensely aromatic Cognac will make it more enjoyable. The benefit to the consumer is very clear. The difficulty, as always with Cognac, is to explain how we got there – and explain it in a way that is simple and also very convincing and very transparent. With some of the literature we’ve been using we go really deep into the essence of Cognac. Where do the aromas come from in the Cognac, the fatty acids, the high levels of terpenols, and so on?

I believe we have found a pretty simple way of explaining this, of measuring it, of comparing it to the rest of the industry. This kind of transparency is key to us re-positioning the brand in the way we’re doing it. I believe that, with the communication we’re releasing now, we have the highest level of transparency of anybody in the industry. And I believe that this generation of consumers will react very positively to that.

Up close and personal with Cyril Camus: The signature on the bottle is a literal expression of the house’s family roots.

We hear so much about the craft spirit phenomenon and a couple of its traits ring true here – craft spirits are usually independent, often family-owned, very transparent about provenance, and so on. But with Cognac, and particularly with great Cognac, you were ‘craft’ long before the term was invented. Everything you’re telling me – in fact everything you’ve been doing for five generations – is about craft. But perhaps in the way you’re presenting your new generation, you’re just underlining that craft more than you have in the past.

Definitely so. We’ve taken a lot of the fluff away. We’ve taken a lot of the poetry away from product descriptors. We’ve focused on the reality of our Cognac-making process and on making it easier to understand the magic in the Cognac itself – the process, where it comes from, what it creates. So people can finally understand: Why does it smell so great? Why does it smell like this? Why does it taste like that? Why is it so smooth? And why do I not taste the bitterness of the oak?

We have managed to explain all that in a way that is very clear, very scientifically grounded, with no fluff. I think that with the consumers we have in front of us this is not only a unique approach, but it is the one that they are looking for: unadulterated truth, basically. We are showcasing the authenticity and the craftsmanship of the product without us adding anything that they really don’t need. We don’t need fluff around it.

This is not something new for us. We’ve done this with our cuvée products. It’s about explaining to people exactly what they have in the bottle. When what you have in the bottle is great and the way you made it is great, you don’t need to add anything else. You only need to talk about what you did. And that’s what we do.

Cyril Camus on an independent spirit in every sense.

Let’s close by talking about our audience: the travel retail audience. I doubt that any Cognac house has had a closer, more symbiotic relationship with duty free than Camus. The channel remains to this day a very important part of your business – dominant even. How important a role will duty free and travel retail play in this new era?

Duty free has always offered a great space to showcase brands to multiple cultures and multiple audiences. For us it’s a wonderful platform to spread our message and our story widely in a very short amount of time. That’s why having the product rolled out in travel retail is essential to the repositioning. And it is also one of the places where it’s easier to conduct tastings and get feedback from our consumers.

It’s a place where we’ve learned a lot about what we want with our products, and this is also where we first see the consumer reaction to it.

“I definitely have the most aromatic Cognac on the market; that we know, that we have measured.” – Cyril Camus. Photo: © Nicolas Villion

You’ve talked about being the number one in the world for high-quality Cognac. Have you got there?

Well, I definitely have the most aromatic Cognac on the market; that we know, that we have measured. We’ve been measuring that for a number of years. Our quality of the Cognac comes from the floral and the fruity, and the balance between those are good. Then, yes, we would tick those boxes in a better way than anyone else. So, yes, this is what I believe we’ve achieved over the past 15 years, and I am extremely proud of that.

By the way, is there a sixth generation coming along?

Yes! I’ve got a 20-year-old son, who’s studying at Stern Business School in New York right now, and I’ve got a 16-year-old. They’re both already pretty interested in the product. This is what I’m doing this for. I’m relieved and happy to see that the kids are looking forward to getting involved at some point. So there will be more good stuff to come in a few years!

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The Moodie Davitt eZine | Issue 259 | 15 April 2019