Charente is an French departement which can found in the larger region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwest of France. Like most French departements its named after an river and its rural. The main agriculture products from this departement is pineau and cognac. Cognac is an town and an variety of brandy, because of appellation d'origine contrôlée it can only called cognac if its from here. Always made from white grapes and after two distillations, two years of aging on wood, blended with different ages that makes cognac. Famous brands are Courvoisier, Hennessy, Martell and Rémy Martin. Officially called Pineau des Charentes or simply pineau is an fortified wine an also appellation d'origine contrôlée, it comes from Charente and neighbouring departement Charente-Maritime. There are variants of white, red and rosé, made of grape juice, lightly fermented grapes and eau-de-vie (fruit brandy). All this is matured on oak wood for around two years, 8 month versions are also available. So lets take an look at the flag.
Actually its an flag-shape of the coat of arms and its an combination of two coat of arms of two old abolished French provinces. The upper half is the province of Orléanais and the current departement Charente was oddly not an part of it. Blue field with three fleur-de-lis which comes from the royal house of Capet, king Phillip VI created the dukedom of Orléanais for his youngest son Phillip. The white thing above the lilies is called an tournament collar, so his son know his plays in the picking order. An tournament collar is the barrier that seperated knights when they charge each other in jousting. The wavy white line represented the Charente river. The botten half is the province of Angoumois and Charente is almost corresponded with those borders of the old province. It is an slanted or oblique looking chessboard in the colors red and yellow. I don't found the meaning but it were the colors of the counts of Angoumois. Noticeable French with an busy coloring.
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