Brandy identity

Ever heard of a single-vineyard Cognac? You will.

Uncorked by David Marglin

Click here for a rundown of wine tastings, dinners, and events.

Sometimes a writer will describe a wine so well it takes your breath (and your own words) away. Alexis Lichine, one of the greats, penned the following paean to brandy in his seminal book, Wines of France:

"Brandies are perhaps the most wonderful spirits ever devised by the genius of man. The wonder of their excellence is known around the world. A fine old brandy has become a symbol of the richness of civilized living, and its powers of resuscitation have been lauded for centuries. The drinking of a glass of fine brandy is one of life's great luxuries. Time makes brandy, man can only help."

Brandy has fallen somewhat out of favor in recent years, overshadowed by that other notable distilled spirit favored by many wine lovers, Scotch. Unlike Scotch, brandy is made from distilled wine -- usually wine made from ugni blanc grapes, but sometimes from folle blanche or from colombard.

The finest brandies are those made in the French region of Cognac, and they can be as pleasurable to taste as wine. The mechanics of tasting Cognac, however, are quite different from those of tasting wine. With wine, you smell it first, but that only whets your tongue's appetite: tasting it in your mouth is the main event. With Cognac, smelling it in those lovely balloon glasses -- they're called snifters for a reason -- is really the prime thrill. You will not be rewarded by holding the liquid in your mouth, as you do with wine; the alcohol content is high enough to burn your taste buds. Rather, let the Cognac gently roll down your throat, bask in its pleasing aftertastes, and mingle those aftertastes with a sniff or two of the liquid swirling in your glass.

The Cognac business, deeply steeped in tradition, is now in the midst of a shift. For years, the four big producers -- Cognac-Martell, Hennessy, Courvoisier, and Rémy Martin -- have blended their Cognac into distinctive house styles; their party line was that Cognac had to be blended from dozens of different wines in order to attain the complexity to which discerning palates had become accustomed. But recently, brandy and Cognac producers have been reaching back to earlier traditions and, as with Scotch, releasing single-distillery, single-vintage, and even single-vineyard brandies that combine complexity with focused flavors, making them highly sought after (and highly marketable). With these drinks, the emphasis shifts away from the blending process to how the brandy was distilled.

Let's talk distillation, then. The origins of brandy are commercial. The Cognac region, right on France's coast and highly trafficked by ships picking up salt, sold a lot of wine. People learned that you could charge more, and the wine would be preserved better, if it was distilled, and the best method was to distill the wine twice, getting the alcohol content up to 70 percent. (By the time it is bottled, some of the alcohol has evaporated, leaving most Cognacs about 40 percent alcohol.) The distillation took place at a very high heat, usually in big pots -- which are still used today in Cognac, although there is some experimentation with newer methods. Indeed, the origin of the term brandy is the German word branntwein -- literally, "burnt wine." Sailors loved brandy because you could carry less and it would last longer, with its flavor better preserved against the ravages of different temperatures and being sloshed about at sea.

Blended Cognac is divided into several classes, distinguished mainly by the age of the different brandies that go into the blend. The classes, moving up, are VS (Very Superior), VSOP (Very Superior Old Pale), XO (Extraordinary), and, finally, the really high-end house blends, such as Rémy Martin's Louis XIII, which sells around town for about 100 bucks a glass. I'm not so snobby about most wines, but below the XO, I don't really enjoy any of the major Cognacs -- I find them too harsh. (My own celebratory Cognac of choice is Triomphe, a high-end Cognac made by Hine.)

Nowadays, though, there are so many choices -- both of blended brandies, for around 10 to 15 bucks a glass (usually a two-ounce pour), and of the single-distillery brandies that are fueling the new interest in this drink. Hennessy, for instance, sells three single-distillery Cognacs: Le Peu, Camp Romain, and Izambard, all around $50 a bottle. (The differences between them are mainly a matter of distillation technique and the quality of the vineyard.) In addition to Hennessy, Louis Royer makes a handful of single-district, single-distillery Cognacs, the most expensive of which is about $70. And, since 1996, Gabriel & Andreu has produced four single-district, single-distillery, single-vineyard Cognacs, all of which are complex, deep, and flavorful.

Finally, American brandies have made some real strides, and I'm not talking about Ernest & Julio Gallo's generic brandy. Although American brandies cannot legally be called Cognac, they are approaching the level of the great Cognacs, and they are often from a single vineyard -- and almost always from a single distillery. Germain-Robin and St. George are two of America's best brandies; Germain-Robin's low-end version, which can be found in stores for about $30, is called Fine and contains brandies up to five years old. The next level up is the XO, which contains brandies that are at least 13 years old and costs around $100 a bottle. Jepson makes a Mendocino County brandy, a seven-to-eight-year-old blend labeled "rare" ($34), and a 13-to-14-year-old Signature Reserve ($100). Both are made from colombard grapes grown on the Jepson Estate, along the Russian River. The Signature is hard to find, but the "rare" is less so.

Buying bottles of Cognac can be an expensive habit, so I've refrained from reviewing them specifically. One exception, however, is a half-bottle (375 ml) of Pierre Ferrand Grande Champagne Cognac, called Selection des Anges, which sells for about $40 at many liquor stores. It has a slight hazelnut aroma, with plenty of caramel and dried-apricot flavors, and it goes down exceptionally smooth. Beyond that, you'll want to ask your sommelier, or just try a few to find what you like.

David Marglin can be reached at wine[a]phx.com.

---

The Uncorked archive

---