France is the planet of cognac. Even the French King Francois I was born in Cognac. He placed basis for the cognac business using for this Charente River. Reforms in the trade were his basic reforms. Today the river is principally used for the boating. The Cognac town is really about of cognac. Cognac Guided tours, Cognac tasting tours, an opportunity to shop are available at Hennessy, Remy Martin, Camus, Martell, Larsen, Otard.

The Hennessy trip is all round the best with the little boat ride in the middle. With Hennessy you could do a more comprehensive tasting taking in better quality cognac at a higher cost. This needed to be pre-booked. Is available as French as English tours.

The Remy Martin tour (a short way out of Cognac) is also pretty good with the train ride making things easy on your legs - it is very professional, a bit too professional if anything. Is available as French as English tours.

The Otard tour was not bad, the Chateau is very pretty.

The Courvoissier tour is in Jarnac and has a small Napoleon memorabilia museum, but is otherwise small and not so pretty.

If you have limited time, I believe the Hennessy tour or the Remy Martin tour are the most interesting and well done.

If you are prepared to drive a bit, there is a smaller cognac house to go to which is owned by Lambert freres. It isn't a fancy touristy place like the above tours, but a fairly basic working cognac house. The quality of the cognac compared to the price is very good. But what makes it is the tour round the factory by Lambert whose English is very good and sense of humor is even better. It is a fair drive on from Angouleme.

Be sure not to be in a hurry to drink the wonderful Cognac you just poured.  You must wait just a bit.