Expert: Paul Wagner - 5/28/2007

Question
I received a bottle of Salignac Napoleon Cognac as a gift and I can not seem to date, or find a value for it. Perhaps you can help? It cam in a light brown cardboard box with a gold foil type exterior. From top to bottom the box reads: SALIGNAC, Tres Vieille Fine Cognac, NAPOLEON. There is a large gold colored eagle logo on the front of the box. The box is a little beat up inicating that it may have been around for a while. The bottle is frosted green glass 700ml. There is a golden wax seal on the front of the bottle that reads Reserve DE L'AIGLON. The lable reads L.de Salignac NAPOLEON COGNAC. Product of France. 40% alc/vol. Might you have any info? Thanks.  

Answer
Hi Kevin

Salignac is not a producer, but a town in the Cognac region.  But the cooperative there may have made this bottle.  The Tres Vielle Fine translates to "very old fine" cognac--a good level of quality, but certainly not comparable to VSOP, for example. And Napoleon does not have any particular meaning in Cognac, other than being one of the better bottlings from any producer.  The Aigle/ Aiglon was the imperial symbol of Napoleon--the Imperial Eagle--so this producer really pulled out all of the stops in their marketing efforts.  

So when you add all of that together, you have a reasonably nice bottle of Cognac worth something between $35 and $50, in my estimation. Distilled spirits don't improve with age in the bottle ( only in the barrel ) so this one is neither better nor worse than when it was first bottled.  The bad news is that it hasn't increased in value much.  The good news is that it is still just as good as it was when it went into the bottle.  

Hope that helps.,

Paul Wagner