Jean Martell

Jean Martell (1694–1753) founded the French cognac distillery Martell. The company is based in the department of Charente and is nearly three centuries old – one of the oldest in France.

For the Swedish Olympic rower, see Jean-Henrik Martell.

Biography
Maison Martell, in Cognac in Charente (France) (registered, 1995). The building in the middle of a square courtyard was the home of Jean Martell. This and the surrounding buildings were built in 1850 by the architect Eugène Demangeat.

Son of Thomas and Martha Martell Héraud, Jean Martell was born in 1694 in the parish of St Brelade, on the Island of Jersey where the family of merchants had settled in the 11th century. After working in Guernsey, he founded his trading house of spirits in 1715 at Gatebourse[1] in Cognac, France,[2] where he joined forces with a merchant from Bordeaux, Jean Hot. Originally they bought casks of cognac and wine for export to the Channel Islands and Europe.[3] The company went bankrupt and then was revived. From 1721 Martell was exporting more than 200,000 litres of cognac to England,[1] with the Duke of Orléans his most prestigious client, soon followed by George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.

In 1726, he married Jeanne Brunet, daughter of a Cognac merchant, then in 1737, married his second wife, Rachel Lallemand, who was from a family of traders in Charente. At this time, he bought land along the Charente river where he developed his company.[3] Martell sold wines and spirits to the countries of northern Europe (England, the Netherlands, Germany) and to the colonies of North America. In 1869, his descendants, who took over and expanded the Martell business, established branches in the English factories of Hong Kong and Canton.

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gollark: And controversial stuff has never arisen from discussing something else?
gollark: The idea of a "ControversialEsolangs" for that probably wouldn't work well for various reasons, including the difficulty of moving active conversations, cognitive overhead of switching and lots of overhead deciding when to switch, a smaller set of people there even if they could otherwise participate interestingly, and somewhat more difficult-to-express issues like, er, selection effects.

See also

References
  1. "Profile: The House of Martell". Luxury Insider. 16 November 2011.
  2. "300 Years of History". www.martell.com. Pernod-Ricard.
  3. "Martell Cognac". Difford's Guide. 30 August 2011.

Bibliography
  • Les Traces de la Nouvelle-France : au Québec et en Poitou-Charentes, by Marc St-Hilaire, Presses de l'Université Laval, 2008
  • La Naissance d'une dynastie du cognac Richard Hennessy 1727 - 1800, by Monique Le Tac
  • Le Choix de Cognac: l'établissement des négociants irlandais en eau-de-vie au XVIIIe siècle, by Louis Cullen
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