LOUIS XIII Cellar Master Baptiste Loiseau on His Personal Journey on Creating Rare Cask 42.1

Passing through Hong Kong last month, LOUIS XIII Cellar Master Baptiste Loiseau joins Prestige to discuss his latest masterpiece: the Rare Cask 42.1.

This year, LOUIS XIII is commemorating its 150^th anniversary, and right at the center of these celebrations, glistening brilliantly under the spotlight is a Baccarat-crafted black glass decanter, holding within it an extraordinary eau-de-vie that makes up the Rare Cask 42.1 – but just how rare is it?

“It took me 10 years being the Cellar Master to find the Rare Cask 42.1,” says Baptiste Loiseau, who was passed the baton from predecessor Pierrette Trichet. “Only one tierçon was emptied for this release, and from that we created just 775 decanters of it.”  The idea of these Rare Casks, he tells me, comes from Trichet, who, despite LOUIS XIII’s century and a half of tradition, decided to trust her instincts and venture into unknown territory, refusing to let convention limit innovation.

“The mission of the Cellar Master since 1874 is to reproduce every year the same final blend with eaux-de-vie only from Grande Champagne, that are stored in the cellars,” Loiseau explains. “Every year, there’s a never-ending story of re-creation, but not of innovation. We focused on maintaining the consistency across generations. The first Cellar Master with the courage to release something in the style of LOUIS XIII but not the usual final blend is Trichet in 2009 with the first Rare Cask.

“In the making of LOUIS XIII, we have lots of different casks in the cellars, and every year we go to see how they’ve evolved and find the ones that have reached the potential to be blended with others to create that final blend. In 2006, Trichet found in the cellars some tierçons that had very special, singular characteristics, and so she decided instead of blending it with other casks, she’d highlight these singularities instead. That is the story of how Rare Casks came to be.”

With the knowledge of these tierçons bestowed upon him by Trichet, when the time came for Loiseau to take over, he nurtured these special casks over the years, until three years ago, he finally saw potential in one of them. Even then, it took him more than a year to be sure that the eau-de-vie was ready, concluding a decade-long search for the perfect drink.

“We are touching such a special eau-de-vie in the making of this Rare Cask that we can’t explain everything behind it,” Loiseau says. “I was not trying to analyse everything behind the samples I was blind tasting, and I wasn’t trying to figure out why one particular sample touched me more than the others. It’s a question of feelings and emotions that arise from tasting it, and not so much about the Science. When you are dealing with something that has been aged for decades and decades, Science is not the answer. It’s more like art.

“But that’s why it took me 10 years,” he continues. “So many people asked me when the next Rare Cask was coming, and I couldn’t give them an answer, because it’s not a precise Science. First, I must be touched emotionally by something I’ve tried, and that takes time to discover.”

And what were these emotions the Rare Cask 42.1 evoked in him? Its distinct lightness and freshness, coupled with floral aromas and a palette of exotic fruits, transported him back to his childhood. “It took me back to my grandfather’s garden where there were roses, lilacs and peonies,” he tells me. “But of course, it’s not just about the flowers – it reminds me of my grandfather, and that’s a very personal touch. I hope it also brings back some very fond memories for other people enjoying this too.”

With just 775 decanters across the globe, all produced from the same single tierçon, the Rare Cask 42.1 isn’t just a prized possession, but also an investment. But for Loiseau, who poured so much of himself into its creation, the question whether to consume it has only one answer:

“Yes, of course, open it. It’s to be enjoyed, and I selected this tierçon because I felt something special about it, so I hope people will also be touched when they discover the liquid itself. So my advice is to go for it!”