Cognac
Cognac is grape brandy named after the region in which it is made, in an around the town of Cognac in the southwest of France. Cognac is predominantly made from three types of grapes — ugni blanc, folle blanche, and colombard, with other grape varietals showing up in the mix. They are vinified into a thin wine, then distilled twice in copper pot stills to make brandy. This brandy must by law then be aged in French oak barrels for at least two years. Brandy of this minimum age can be labeled VS in quality. After four years it can be called VSOP, and after ten years (a recent extension of time), it becomes XO. Many highly prized cognacs are much older than this — and they carry some incredibly high price tags.
Top Cognac Posts:
What’s the Difference Between Cognac and Armagnac?
Bache-Gabrielsen American Oak Cognac
Courvoisier VS, VSOP, and XO Cognac
Remy Martin 1738 Accord Royal Cognac
We’ve been mega-fans of the Camus line of Cognac — currently rare in the U.S. but popular around the world (check out duty-free for some amazing deals on the stuff, btw) — for quite a while, and now the distillery is releasing a new expression to top its already high-end XO bottling: Camus Extra Elegance.…
All brands must expand, and Courvoisier has been on a tear lately. First Courvoisier Rose, now C by Courvoisier. Unlike the Rose, C is a full Cognac, blended from spirits produced from grapes from 50 winegrowers in the Fin Bois Cru, a somewhat lesser Cognac region surrounding Grand Champagne and Petite Champagne. That’s understandable: There…
Cognac Ferrand’s latest release says, “Out with the old, in with the… old?” Designed with the help of cocktail wunderkind David Wondrich, Ferrand’s 1840 Original Formula is a “Revival” Cognac, blended and aged in an attempt to emulate what a 19th century style spirit might have tasted like — hence the name. Wondrich and Ferrand’s…
WhiskyFest remains the whiskey enthusiast’s festival to beat. With hundreds of whiskeys, it is a mad dash for all sorts of great stuff — if only you can find it in the scattered auditorium and muscle your way to the front of the line. Don’t worry, you can do it, and even though the 2011…
Flavored cognac is not exactly a big market, but let’s run with it (particularly since a reader requested coverage of this very spirit): A. Hardy blends authentic, French, 8-year old Hardy VSOP Cognac with natural vanilla (plus caramel color) to come up with, well, a vanilla-flavored Cognac. Bottled at 80 proof, if nothing else it…
A rose wine: Sure. But how does one make a rose brandy? By blending cognac with red wine, that’s how. Courvoisier calls this a “Cognac Innovation,” and that’s an understatement. Adding wine to cognac — something I didn’t previously think was possible but which, in retrospect, makes plenty of sense on its merits — creates an…
I regret to inform the reader that Remy Martin’s new Cognac, 1738 Accord Royal, is not 273 years old. It is rather a new blend of some 240 eaux de vie, 65% Grande Champagne and 35% Petite Champagne grapes, aged between 4 and 20 years in Limousin oak barrels. The name derives from a 1731…
Fussigny Cognac has been made since 1814 but it’s been absent from the U.S. for years, lacking an importer. Now Castle Brands has picked it up and is bringing Fussigny back to the states. We tried two of the three main expressions that this independent Cognac house is offering here. (Tragically our XO sample broke…
Hardly a household name in America, Emperor’s is slowly stretching its legs into our shores. We had a chance to try the company’s Giorgio G XO cognac, a 35-year-old blend of over 70 eaux de vie from Grande Champagne. The results are a success. A tabby orange spirit, Giorgio G XO is lush with orange…
Despite the Snoop Dogg endorsement (or, perhaps, because of it), the VSOP expression of Landy’s cognac is pretty pedestrian stuff. Harshly earthly and woody on the nose, it tastes strongly of apple with a finish that veers toward bitter. The finish is on the hard side, a reminder that this cognac is awfully young. (The…