Michel Couvreur was a Belgian-born fine wine broker who moved from Burgundy to Scotland in the 1960s to learn about Scotch production. He became an expert on cereals, heirloom grains, and tracking down old, rare, expensive sherry butts in Spain. He moved back to Burgundy in the ‘70s. The region standing midway between the Andalusian vineyards and the Scottish Highlands, it was logistically easier to get the extremely rare old Pedro Ximenez and Palomino casks, as well as Vin Jaune feuillettes from the neighboring Jura wine region.
Couvreur was an interesting character and would have crazy ideas! He also had various passions and one of them was engineering underground tunnels. He called the same company that built the famous Mont Blanc tunnel to create an underground labyrinth under the nearby limestone hills. The maze is still used today to age all of Couvreur’s production. These single malts, while not technically Scotch, soon became the thing of legends.
Michel passed away in August 2013. He shared many of his secrets with his wife, Marthe, and daughter, Alexandra, as well as his long-time employee and confident, Jean-Arnaud Frantzen, and his son-in-law, Cyril Deschamps. They are now entrusted to carry on the legacy of the true “Last of the Mohicans” of artisanal Scotch whisky. The name remains and new expressions are being released every year. Early 2022, Couvreur built a new storage / production facility in the Village of Bouze-les-Beaune. The team has already started distilling their own spirits from local biodynamically grown terroir driven barley. The current production is about 60,000 allocated bottles sold to private collectors and Michelin star restaurants around the world.
