In 1820 Jean Buton – master distiller in the imperial house of Napoleon I – left France to settle in Italy, in Bologna, where he founded Italy’s first steam distillery. In 1939 Buton Cognac, the company’s flagship distillate, became Vecchia Romagna: the wine distillate with the unmistakable triangular bottle. A unique brandy, the result of the traditional Vecchia Romagna Method, which consists of three basic steps:

The first is distinguished by the combination of two different distillation techniques. The first is the discontinuous one in which the wine is cooked for 8-10 hours in Charentais-type stills. During this stage the heads and tails of the distillate are expertly cut off, collecting in the cask only the “heart” of each crush, a prized concentration of all the aromas and scents of the wine of origin. The second is the continuous one, also known as the “column process,” which involves no interruptions in processing and allows a high alcohol content to be reached in a short time. The protagonist of this last phase is steam, which distributes heat evenly and gives purity and roundness to the distillate.

Aging takes place in two types of wooden barrels of different capacities: the first are the barriques (400lt), small French oak barrels where the distillate rests for at least a year in close contact with the wood acquiring an intense aroma and a very slight vanilla scent. The next passage takes place in large barrels (4000-5000lt) made of Slavonian oak where, thanks to a slower exchange with the wood, the distillate retains all the qualities of the wine of origin becoming elegant and enveloping.

The final step is blending: the aged distillates are selected and combined with each other by skilled hands, in a delicate game of balances, to keep the sensory characteristics of Vecchia Romagna unchanged over time. The crucial step in this phase is marriage, a moment when the selected brandies are combined inside large vats where they are left to rest, for at least three months, before bottling in the iconic triangular bottle.