It is a late summer’s day in southwest France. We are in cognac country, approximately two hours northeast of Bordeaux. The hare-brown terroir that stretches as far as the eye can see is softly undulating and carpeted with green and gold-tipped vines, rich with fruit and ready to be picked.

Amid 300 hectares of such vines, just outside the village of Segonzac, sits the stately Château Fontpinot. This blanched, white- stone, 19th-century mansion is the family seat of the Frapins, who have lived and made wines and cognacs in the area since 1270. The bawdy writer François Rabelais (born 1494), the author of the giant saga Gargantua and Pantagruel, was the son of one Catherine Frapin. And in the 16th century another antecedent, Pierre Frapin, was apothecary to the king.

Talk in the château is not of the new vintage, however, but of the new range of five perfumes that sit in their squat bottles on the hall table, each emblazoned with the vintage pen-and-ink Frapin logo.

“Perfume is comparable to cognac in that it all comes down to the terroir [soil] and how you work on it,” says Jean Pierre Cointreau, the impeccably groomed descendant of the Frapin family (they married into the Cointreau dynasty). “It also has a lot to do with the senses: with flavours and with smell.”

Frapin isn’t the first brand to link beauty and viticulture. The Bordeaux-based skincare company Caudalie has its flagship spa set on a vineyard and also produces wines. The acclaimed Napa Valley winemaker Mondavi launched a skincare range, Davi, in 2004, and in 2007 Thierry Mugler collaborated with the cognac-maker Rémy Martin, ageing a batch of its Angel perfume in cognac barrels for 23 weeks to create a special limited edition.

“What is specific to Frapin is that we start from the land,” Cointreau continues. “There is nothing industrial in the process we use, especially in the art of blending. We are still artisans compared with the big industrial cognac companies.”

With cognac and perfume alike, the Frapins make small amounts with limited distribution (the prized 1270 Millésime Cognac costs €120 a bottle), similar to companies such as L’Artisan Parfumeur.

Olivier Paultes is a master blender who creates the double-distilled eau de vie with different tastes and aromas, much like a perfumer would do with ingredients. “As with perfume, you tend to have an idea about the flavour you want,” Paultes explains. “You have memories in your head of a lot of different tastes and smells.”

In the same way that a perfumer will be able to recall perhaps ten or so different lavenders, so Paultes, who has worked for Frapin since leaving college in the Eighties, has a mental library of the specific sensory characteristics of different distillations and vintages. He has a finely attuned palate. “You can smell a cognac in the morning and then smell it in the evening and it will not be the same,” he says.

We smell a vintage from 1870. It is possibly one of the most mellifluous, ambrosial, treacle puddings of a sensory delight that I have experienced. Paultes explains that it was this specific vintage that inspired the debut Frapin scent 1270, a Caramac delectation of candied fruits, burnt sugar and dry woods. It is as rounded and gustatory and honeyed as the cognac —comforting and cosseting, full-bodied and profound.Paultes consulted closely with the perfumer Jeanne-Marie Faugier, of Givaudan Roure, to create the Frapin fragrances, which, like the Frapin cognacs, were to be modest, intuitive artisanal endeavours.

Terre de Sarment is a broad depiction of the land of wine, the humid earth, the damp crunch of bark, sediment on the forest floor, with myrrh and orange flower and benzoin. Esprit de Fleurs is a caprice of woodland blossoms that is honed, concise, breezy and impressionistic rather than the usual conventionally pretty floral representation. Caravelle Épicée is based on the travelogue of exported cognac with coriander, nutmeg, spicy caramel and peppers. And Passion Boisée is a paean to the woods of the barrels and has a rambunctious, alcoholic, rounded heft.

As with cognac, Frapin makes specialist, nuanced and intricate perfumes that will please the connoisseur. There’s something defiantly uncommon about these scents — just like the family heritage.

There's an odd connection between champagne and tea, finds Kathleen Baird-Murray

It’s not only in Bordeaux that the worlds of perfume and wine are colliding. Over in Reims, Lyn Harris, the creator of the UK-based Miller Harris perfumery, is deep in conversation with Fred Panaiotis, the cellar master of Ruinart, one of the most exclusive champagne brands.

They are working together on a champagne tea menu for the elegant café at the back of Harris’s Mayfair shop, but for now there appears to be a bit of disagreement over flavours. Panaiotis is tasting liquid honey. “Or davana?” he suggests.

“But davana fruit has an awful top note,” Harris counters.

“Like cat’s pee,” Panaiotis agrees. “When you have a tiny bit, though, it’s perfect, like in a sauvignon blanc.”

Such language is often the subject of ridicule, but for Panaiotis it is essential, allowing him to fine-tune the selection of base wines when he’s creating the blends. So for a chardonnay he would look for a green, citrus note, such as lime, as the preferred blend for a Ruinart Blanc de Blancs, and for the Dom Ruinart, also a Blanc de Blancs, he would use a base with notes of bergamot, kumquat or candied orange peel.

“I wouldn’t be able to do anything without this ability,” Harris says. As a perfumer she has a heightened sense of smell — but learning a language to illustrate the notes goes hand in hand with an ability to create scents. “I need to be able to pick apart the constituent elements of a particular aroma,” she adds.

Are they surprised at how much the worlds of wine and fragrance collide?

“The parallels are astonishing but they make absolute sense,” Harris says. “Because of my training, I am very comfortable with talking about smells and about complex notes. That it is about wine, rather than fragrance, is almost immaterial.”

The Ruinart afternoon tea is available 3-5.30pm all month at Miller Harris, Bruton Street, London W1 (0844 561 0992; millerharris.com)

Parfums Frapin hosts an introduction to the fragrances on October 30, 6.30-7.30pm, Les Senteurs, 71 Elizabeth Street, London SW1. Tickets cost £20 (020-7730 2322; lessenteurs.com)

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