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In the Winter garden

The Winter Garden of the Château de Bagnolet has always been a symbol of the Hennessy family’s globetrotting spirit.

A Winter Garden at Chateau Bagnolet

Built in 1876 to mark the baptism of Richard Hennessy, the enchanting Winter Garden at the Château de Bagnolet, the historic Hennessy family estate in Cognac, in 2018 received an extensive two-year refurbishment.

Metalworkers, stonemasons, landscape artists, and a network of master artisans and artists helped to restore the metal and glass structure to its former glory. In so doing, they safeguarded the transmission of traditional savoir-faire while injecting the site with a fresh aesthetic, making it a unique space for entertaining special guests all year round.

Reflected in the mirrored walls, “Green Waves”, a hand-laid mosaic marble floor designed by the artist Mathilde Jonquière, pays tribute to the surrounding landscape and the nearby Charente Rivier that carried the Maison’s precious barrels to maritime trading posts. The work’s swirling formations are composed of 250,000 tiny green tiles in gradated shades and alternating matte and polished surfaces.

Bordering the light-filled space, a selection of over 200 rare species of Mediterranean plant from across the five continents, curated by the landscape gardener Claire Munier, brings a note of lush exoticism to the scene, paying tribute to the Maison’s spirit of conquest and its visitors from all over the world.

Hennessy’s Winter Garden

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Hennessy’s Winter Garden
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Hennessy’s Winter Garden

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Hennessy’s Winter Garden
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Hennessy’s Winter Garden

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Hennessy’s Winter Garden
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Hennessy’s Winter Garden

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Hennessy’s Winter Garden
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Hennessy’s Winter Garden

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Hennessy’s Winter Garden
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Hennessy’s Winter Garden

Confident and assertive, this exceptional blend is made from some of the scarcest eaux-de-vie in Hennessy's reserves, carefully selected and preserved in The Founder's Cellar on the family estate.

For this reason, Richard Hennessy cognac has been crafted in an extremely limited quantity: 12 tierçons, a historic barrel handcrafted in French oak by generations of cooper masters at Hennessy's own tonnellerie, or barrel-making workshop.

In a meeting of visionary minds, Richard Hennessy's monumental legacy finds a contemporary incarnation in a bold, architectural, and graceful decanter in Baccarat crystal, as well as ritual accessories (glasses, a fusil, and a tray) designed by the world-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind.

A masterpiece for a masterpiece, this aesthetically striking decanter is an art object in its own right that brilliantly expresses the character of Richard Hennessy and the cognac he inspired: it is visionary, complex, and unapologetically intense.

For Richard Hennessy, Daniel Libeskind immersed himself in the richness of history and dedication to craft to design a bottle that is as visionary as the man who inspired it. To capture the founder's spirit, he started with a classic cognac bottle shape, imbuing the geometric, crystalline forms of Baccarat crystal with soft, organic curves that bring new energy and complexity to the cognac it contains.

The result is at once intuitive and unexpected: a monumental tribute to a pioneer.