Meukow is a drink of the privileged. The distillery for this product is run by a family and hence Cognac Meukow is a modern family business. It is one of those famous cognac houses holding high stakes on the family business. In order to survive the stiff competition, the family came up with a brave wave of creating – Compagnie de
Guyenne (CDG). This happened in 1969. The idea was to have it as an umbrella company and Meukow is still a part of and it comprises of many small cognac houses which are in association with Meukow,
In 1862 Karl and August Meukow travelled to Charente in times of Russian Tsar. The purpose of this trip was to find Cognac from this region. It so happened, that in that particular year they established themselves there by founding the cognac house Meukow – and so there was no reason for them to return to Russia. Ever since, now meukow’s history is a strong family support which is successfully running the family business
The Matha distillery is located at Charente Maritime – a historical estate in Brugerolle. The CEO of this company is Philippe Coste and Claude Brugerolle, head of their sales department, assists him. The Black Panther which appears on the product’s bottle is their famous mascot, designed by Philippe’s dad – Michel Coste, in 1995. Other products like Armagnac, Vodka, Gin, Brandy, Rum, Whisky etc. are also covered by their staff which is about 82 people, who make an average turnover of 35 million – 50% of this being cognac.
The Meukow distillery represents the most technologically advanced products of cognac. This distillery in Matha is recently undergone renovation recently and has been raised to the most modern standards. The modernization plan had cost them approx 1.4million Euros. This includes the cost of the most awaited robot for the crating system.
They now have a spacious and absolutely new reception dock, which is capable of housing 18,000 hectoliters along with a newly constructed place to take care of the delivery as well as pick-up of their products. Close to this is their old bottling unit, which was fully restored in the year 2001. Their Six lines of production churn out roughly 13 million bottles in 2009. Currently, Meukow only lacks an automatic system to organize and move the crates around.
Talking of its History, comparatively, it has a very young history. It was christened under its present name in 1947 and holds a very important position in the world market even today. Initially,in 1847, Meukow’s site was a part of Brugerolle Cognac and in
1987 it became a part of CDG. Andre Brugerolle the CEO was an important politician and also a Mayor of Matha – 1958 to 1978. Having started from humble beginnings as a family, they had a sentimental attitude towards their work place. Instead of stocking their spirits in a high tech designed site of Cognac, they chose to use the Brugerolle site – as Phillippe Coste felt their soul was in Brugerolle.
Respecting their traditional and family attributes, they have also been very supportive locally by restoring in their own town, the old clock tower and also the family chapel. It would be the endeavor of the family to maintain the values of the generation and never let go off Cognac from the hands of their family. Symbolically, the next cognac after Meukow would be named “Esprit de Famille”.