Marquis de Montesquiou is an armagnac brand owned by Pernod Ricard. It is their smallest production facility of all their brands, according to cellarmaster Eric Durand. The brand was created after WWII.
Eau De Vie
They do not own vineyards nor a winery: they purchase eau de vie (distilled grape brandy) and produce armagnac with it.
The eau de vie they buy is primarily from the Bas Armagnac region, but they do buy some from the Tenareze which Durand says adds structure and freshness. They buy primarily from 10 producers, a little bit more from others.
The grape varietals they use are:
50% Baco "for the flesh"
40% Ugni Blanc "for the skeleton"
10% Folle Blanche "for the spirit"
They buy only eau de vie distilled in the traditional continuous armagnac still. They have contracts with several distillers.
Aging and Blending
We visited the warehouse, named the Cathedral for obvious reasons. It holds 1000 barrels. It was built in 1975, and it looks it.
They age only in local Gascon oak in 400 liter barrels. They buy 20-50 barrels per year- not a lot! Some of the eau de vie is aged in the producers cellars – this is because some of those are more humid than this drier one. It is moved to this warehouse later.
Durand says if you add water to dilute armagnac all at once it's called "breaking" the armagnac. Instead they dilute slowly 3-4 times over the course of aging. Durand says when you add water little by little it increases fatty acid sedimentation, which is apparently a good thing during aging. (They will come out just before bottling as they chill filter.)
The VS and VSOP have color added, the rest do not.
The VSOP is aged 8-20 years
The XO is aged 20-40 years
The 1989 vintage is 100% folle blanche grapes from the Bas Armagnac region. It's bottled cask strength at 42.1% ABV
Cuvee D'Artagnan includes some vintages from 1896, 1929, and the youngest armagnac in the blend is from 1974.
If cognac is tequila, armagnac is mezcal: Smaller, wilder, and more rustic. I covered the history and production of armagnac in yesterday's post.
In this post I'll cover some of the differences between these two French grape brandies. One difference I forgot to mention below is that they're produced in different parts of France!
Armagnac
Cognac
Four primary grape varieties
One primary grape variety (ugni blanc)
Usually distilled once in a continuous still.
Distilled twice in pot stills.
Features vintages as well as blends
Features more blends, few vintages
Is consumed more locally
Is more an export product
VS = 1 year minimum
VS = 2 years minimum
Often ages in local Gason oak barrels
Ages in Limousin/Troncais oak barrels
Often distilled to lower proof ~57%
Distilled higher ~70%
Grapes cost the same price whether from Bas Armagnac or Tenareze
Grande Champagne grapes way more expensive than from other regions
More sandy soils in region
More chalky soils in region
Allows for an unaged product "Blanche De Armagnac"
Technically, no unaged variant permitted
Beyond production differences, the two aged brandies taste significantly different.
In my opinion, cognac tends to have a very sturdy but subtle backbone of aged grapes, while the aromas are are often delicate, ethereal, and floral.
Armagnac I think of as "foresty," meaning there are often flavors I associate with the forest floor: wood, mushrooms, herbs, dirt. Mmm, dirt.
The oldest document of armagnac production is from 1310, making armagnac over 700 years old and 150 years older than cognac.
In 1879, phylloxera hit the region and destroyed half the vineyards. It wasn't worse because the Bas Armagnac region has sandy soils and the phylloxera mites didn't thrive in it.
1936 the AOC was created and in 1941 the BNIA, the Armagnac Bureau, was created.
In 2005, armagnac laws changed to allow blanche de armagnac – unaged armagnac
Armagnac Region
Armagnac is produced in the Gascony region of France, south of Cognac and more inland. They produce a lot of wonderful delicacies in the region and also foie gras that is the product of animal torture. In addition to grapes, they grow a lot of corn, which is used to force feed ducks.
The region has its own microclimate with the Pyranees mountains on one side and pine forests on the other to block winds.
There are three terroirs/appellations in the region. These are often found on the bottle labels. Hardly any armagnac is produced in the Haut Armagnac – only 1%.
Bas-Armagnac
Tenareze
Haut-Armagnac
Ten grape varietals are allowed to be used in armagnac, but in reality people only use the first four:
Ugni Blanc 55%
Baco (aka Baco 22A) 35%
Folle Blanche 5%
Colombard 5%
Plant de Graisse
Meslier St François
Clairette de Gascogne
Jurançon blanc
Mauzac Blanc
Mauzac Rosé
Baco is a hybrid grape and was going to be disallowed in armagnac (I believe this was due to an EU law), but they decided it would be allowed only for distillation, not table wine so it remains.
Folle Blanche was the main pre-phylloxera grape.
Distillation and Aging
Grapes are harvested in the fall and the wine is distilled throughout the winter. All distillation must be finished by March 31.
As with cognac, the ideal grapes are low in alcohol and high in acid so that their flavors will compound through distillation and the wine is less likely to spoil in the weeks or months between harvest and distillation. (No sulfur is added to preserve the wine.)
The wine is distilled on the lees, but only on the fine lees so it doesn't gunk up the stills.
95% of armagnac is distilled in an Alambic Armagnacais, a small, sometimes mobile, continuous column still. The mobile stills have names, and producers will request the same stills each year. 25% of stills are wood-fired; the rest are gas.
The rest is distilled in pot stills, usually the typical cognac stills. Only 3 producers use pot stills.
This video does a good job at showing how armagnac flows through the continuous still. The good stuff begins at 1:30.
The plates inside the stills have what the bourbon distillers call "bubble caps" in different shapes – spiders, mushrooms, centipedes, or little houses.
In the continuous still, the vapor and wine are in contact with each other. This isn't the case in pot stills. There are no heads and tails cuts in continuous stills.
The maximum number of plates allowed by law is 15. Some distillers use as few as 3 plates, but the average is probably 5-8 plates.
Aging Armagnac
Armagnac is aged in large 400 liter French oak barrels. Many barrels are made from the local Gascon oak aka Black Oak. This wood has wide grains and most of it is given a medium-heavy toast.
Limousin and other French oak barrels with narrow grains are also used. I'm not sure of the ratio of local to non-local barrels.
As with cognac, armagnac typically goes into new barrels for 6 months to 2 years of its life, then is transferred to used/older barrels so that the wood won't dominate the flavor.
Armagnac producers make a point of aerating their brandy while it ages, typically when mixing a bunch of barrels together and redistributing it. Typically when they move the brandy around in the aging warehouses they don't roll barrels – they pump out the brandy and pump it into other barrels.
Different grape varietals are often aged separately.
Minimum Aging Laws for Armagnac
VS: 1 year
VSOP: 4 years
NAPOLEON: 6 years
XO: 6 years
20 years 20 years
Vintage: Single Harvest from the year on the label (minimum 10 years old)
Blanche de armagnac is unaged armagnac, but it is rested a minimum of three months in non-reactive containers, typically stainless steel. Once a batch has been declared that it will be blanche de armagnac, if it sits in tanks but doesn't sell they're not allowed to then age it in wood.
In fact this is the same with all armagnac: for each season the growers must declare which parcels will be for wine, blanche de armagnac, and armagnac.
Additives in Armagnac
Typical additives in armagnac include coloring caramel (8-10 g/l is typical), sugar, and boise. The latter is wood flavoring to immitate age. The BNIA says it's not commonly used in armagnac, but they would.
Those three additives combine to form the "obscuration rate." A company can measure the "gross" ABV, which is the number that goes on the bottle as measured by a hydrometer. The "real" ABV is measured in a laboratory, usually by redistillation. The difference between the "real" and "gross" ABV must be less than 4%. So rather than having a legal limit on sugar or caramel or boise, they have a limit on the total additives using the obscuration rate measurement. The BNIA representatives says it's rare that the obscuration rate is more than 2%.
Last year I visited Limoncello di Capri located on the island of Capri south of Naples in Italy. The liqueur is assembled on the island from ingredients produced on the mainland, including the lemon peels. These come from the Sorrento area nearby.
The Sorrento region has a long history with citrus. During the Greek/Roman period there were lemon trees planted for their beauty in the area. In the 17th century Jesuits started cultivating lemons to use as disinfectant against cholera. The beginning of the 19th Century saw the use of the pergola system I'll talk about in a minute.
Limone di Sorrento IGP – Lemon Laws
The lemons here as well as the limoncello are IGP products – Protected Geographic Indication like AOC or DOC. The IGP are includes both Sorrento and Capri. Here are some of the IGP Limone di Sorrento laws I was able to pick up:
Lemons must be covered in winter (see below).
Only natural fertilizer can be used.
They must be grown within the region
There are further regulations for limoncello below
The name for the lemons of the region is Ovale de Sorrento. The fruits take about one year to grow, though the tree flowers 3-4 times annually and they harvest fruit several times as well. The soil is volcanic and helps produce less acidic lemons than in other areas, but these lemons require special care to thrive in this region at all. We visited a lemon grove called Il Giardino di Vigliano.
*Note that somehow I destroyed all my pictures from this trip, so these photos come from Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing.
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
The lemon trees/branches are grafted onto wild orange tree rootstock. Those roots are bigger and hardier and live longer (200 years) than typical lemon trees, so they extend the life of the lemon trees.
Some of the trees have wild orange roots and base of the trunk, followed by a grafted regular (not wild) orange trunk, and then lemon branches grafted onto that (like some sort of citrus turduckin). They can only graft during April and May, and have only a 60-70% success rate in grafting, so this is not easy to accomplish.
Photo: Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
In the winter, the region cools down and gets windy, so they use the pergola system to protect the trees. Chestnut wood pieces make an awning structure over the top of the trees, and in the winter nylon netting or pagliarelle is spread across the top.
Pagliarelle (which sounds like "pie-a-rella") is just an old covering made from small wood slats. Both these coverings keep the temperature more stable in the cold months. In the photo below, the little houses actually hold the wooden slats which can be spread out over the pergola.
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Northern Lemons vs. Southern Lemons
I previously visited another limoncello facility south of this area along the Amalfi Coast, and was surprised to see how different the lemons are grown while not being very far apart. Read about my visit with Pallini Limoncello here.
Those lemons are of the variety sfusato. The trees grow on terraced cliffs and the branches are supported by a pergola. (In Sorrento the pergola just holds up the roof.) Those lemons also grow faster and larger, have less essential oil in their peels, and are more acidic, according to my hosts.
Harvesting and Peeling Lemons for Limoncello di Capri
Limoncello di Capri purchases from about 30 different growers. They do not own the orchards but they employ 2 people whose job is to check on the quality of the lemons from the trees through the bottling process.
This is all tracked, so that the company could look at a bottle's serial number and tell you where the lemons came from used in it.
The lemons are hand-harvested and transported to the processing facility. Then they are soaked, then sprayed and brushed/polished.
Next they go into the peeling machine. Eighty Five percent of the lemon – all the fruit part – is discarded as they only want the peel.
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
The peelers at this facility are adapted cantaloupe peelers that can peel lemons 4 at a time. Here it is at regular speed:
And in slow-motion:
The peeled lemons are put into plastic bags, vacuum sealed to remove air, and frozen in 6 pound bags. They are frozen because they will be used to make limoncello year-round, while the lemon harvesting is only for part of the year.
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Limoncello Laws
There are IGP laws for IGP Limone di Sorrento limoncellos, which can be produced in Sorrento and on Capri.
It must be produced, peeled, and bottled within the IGP
No colorant is allowed and no chemicals can be used in the processing
They must have a minimum of 250 grams of lemon per liter. (Limoncello di Capri uses 330 g/l in their formula.)
That number is the quantity of whole lemons used. So, since Limoncello di Capri uses 15% of the lemon (the peel), that means there are 330 x .15 = 49.5 grams per liter of lemon peels used.
Life Gives You Too Many Lemons
With 85% of each lemon discarded, I asked about any recycling/reuse. They said that some lemons are in fact juiced. Some of the lemons are composted, some are disposed of as industrial waste, and the city uses some as a disinfectant in its water treatment program.
Assembling the Limoncello on the Island of Capri
Capri is an island a short ferry ride from the town of Sorrento. It is full of windy roads and tall cliffs, which means there are great views from nearly everywhere on the island.
If I understood correctly, not only is Limoncello di Capri the only commercial limoncello made on the island, it is the only production facility of any kind on the island.
It was also the first brand to use and trademark the name "limoncello" meaning "little lemon", but plenty of other people used the term. The Italian Supreme Court ruled that limoncello was a generic name in 2002, so they got a bit stiffed on that one.
The lemon peels are removed from their vacuum-sealed bags and added to 2000 liter tanks of 96% ABV grain alcohol. The lemon peels are infused for 5 days in the alcohol, and by the end the mixture is down to 87% ABV. They use lemon peels collected at different parts of the season to control for natural variation.
The lemon peels are then filtered out and sugar and water is added. The final sugar content is 240 grams per liter.
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
They bottle the product at 32 percent alcohol, which they say is slightly higher than other brands because the product is all natural and more alcohol is needed as a preservative. (They also say that only 20% of limoncellos are made with only lemons- the rest have flavorings and colorings.)
The bottled limoncello is then shipped out. They bottle on the island in the mornings and ship out the limoncello in the afternoons. Because the island only has small roads, their van can only take one palette of limoncello at a time. The driver loads up 7 palettes per day.
In bad weather, they can't get supplies in or limoncello off the island, so production goes on hold.
They produce 800,000 bottles per year at this tiny facility.
A Model of Inefficiency
It doesn't take an efficiency expert to see that this is a crazy system: Bottles, alcohol, sugar , and lemon peels are shipped over from the mainland, mixed together, then sent back to the mainland. It would make a lot more sense to do this all on the mainland, but they're sticking with the brand's heritage and producing on the island.
The brand history dates back to the 1800s, when hotel owner Vincenza Canale would prepare the drink for hotel guests. There were traditions of making homemade lemon liqueur but according to the brand nobody thought to commercialize it until much later. (As far as I can tell, commercial limoncello only began in the 1980s.)
The brand Limoncello di Capri was not launched until 1988 by the descendants of Vincenza.
We visited the little hotel where the brand was founded, Casa Mariantonia, which was apparently only the second hotel built on the island. There is still a lemon grove in the yard, where we had drinks.
I think of bottles of spirits with strong regional connections as postcards of flavor. Limoncello di Capri will always remind me of the sunny island where it's made.
In the fall of 2014 I had a really terrific visit to the distilleries for Molinari Sambuca and Limoncello di Capri, both located south of Rome in Italy.
History Lesson
Molinari Sambuca is an anise liqueur originally created in Civitavecchia, a port city north of Rome. Much like Schiedam in the Netherlands where the spices that came on ships ended up in local spirits (juniper for genever and other ingredients for liqueurs in that case), star anise reaching Civitavecchia wound up in in local spirits and gave birth to the category of sambuca.
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Molinari was not the first brand of sambuca on the market- that honor belongs to Luigi Manzi and his Sambuca Manzi going back to 1851; also in Civitavecchia.
However it was Molinari Sambuca, created by Angelo Molinary in 1945, that became world famous (and is still the best-selling sambuca in the world). During the "La Dolce Vita" era in Italy the brand purchased TV ads and it became the second-best selling spirit in Italy after Aperol.
Today there are two Molinari distilleries. One is still in Civitavecchia (though they say the facility is now more for administration and a small production line) and the other is Colfelice, about a 1 hour drive south of Rome, where they make the majority of the product.
The company is still run by family members. Only one person per generation knows the exact recipe for Molinari, but after one of them was kidnapped and held for ransom many years ago they decided that they should also keep a copy in a vault.
Making Molinari
The primarily flavor of Molinari comes from star anise that is imported from southeast China. To prepare it, the fruits are harvested, the seeds are blanched to stabilize them, they are then partially crushed and essential oils are extracted through water distillation. I believe this all happens in China, though some refinement of the essential oils may occur locally. Most of the essential oil from star anise comes from the seeds.
*Note: I somehow lost most of my photos from the trip so I'm using those of Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing.
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
There are other secret ingredients in Molinari. (Wikipedia notes that licorice and elderflowers are often found in sambuca but I'm not sure what's in this one.)
The sugar used for Molinari is non-GMO sugar derived from sugar beets. They say it has a high solubility which makes it good for use in liquids.
The base alcohol is distilled from wheat (they purchase, rather than distill it). Often that wheat is grown in France but it is distilled in Italy.
To make Molinari they combine demineralized water at 60-75 degrees Celsius with sugar so that it dissolves. They wait for it to cool then add 96% ABV alcohol and essential oils.
The mixture rests for 5 days in large tanks. It is then filtered with a 3 micron cellulose filter at room temperature. (Chill-filtering sambuca would cause the louche effect and remove many of those essential oils they just added.)
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Photo: Stephanie Fray of Conundrum Marketing
Molinari Caffe
Molinari Caffe has been made since 2003 but it was just reintroduced to the US market this winter.
It is made primarily with two kinds of coffee: Aribica (from the Domonican Republic/Java region) and Robusta from Africa. The coffee is roasted in Italy before making the liqueur here at the distillery. It is not just a coffee liqueur – the base Molinari Sambuca is there as well so it's a coffee-anise liqueur.
The color comes in part from burnt caramel. My hosts tell me that if you use burnt caramel for coloring you don't need to declare it on the label per EU rules, but other caramel coloring does need to be declared.
(a) Sambuca is a colourless aniseed-flavoured liqueur:
(i) containing distillates of anise (Pimpinella anisum L.), star anise (Illicium verum L.) or other aromatic herbs,
(ii) with a minimum sugar content of 350 grams per litre expressed as invert sugar,
(iii) with a natural anethole content of not less than 1 gram and not more than 2 grams per litre.
(b) The minimum alcoholic strength by volume of sambuca shall be 38 %. L 39/42 EN Official Journal of the European Union 13.2.2008
(c) The rules on flavouring substances and preparations for liqueurs laid down under category 32 apply to sambuca.
(d) The sales denomination may be supplemented by the term ‘liqueur’.
Note that the regulations define sambuca as 'colourless' but there are red and green and black ones on the market at least in the UK. Not sure how that's allowed.
One Quick Recipe
Molinari has hired the talented Gegam Kazarian to develop cocktails with the brand. We tried several of them at a tasting at the cocktail bar Barnum Cafe in Rome. The Cucumis Collins was my favorite of the bunch.
Cucumis Collins By Gegam Kazarian
60 ml Molinari Extra 30 ml Lemon Juice 60 ml Sparkling Water 60 g Fresh Cucumber Cherry tomato Lemon Peel
Muddle the cucumber in a cocktail shaker then add liquid ingredients except sparkling water. Shake with ice and strain into collins glass. Add sparkling water and garnish with lemon peel, and cherry tomato, and a thin slice of cucumber.
Last fall I visited the growing, drying, and production facilities for Ancho Reyes chile liqueur near Puebla, Mexico. I learned a lot about chiles.
We flew into the city of Puebla, and the chiles are grown not far away in San Martín Texmelucan de Labastida.
Ancho chiles are the dried version of poblano peppers, much like chipotles are dried jalapenos.
Poblanos: The Reaping
We visited a field where the chiles for Ancho Reyes were being harvested. These fields are 2000 meters above sea level in a volcanic valley. Water comes down from nearby volcanoes and makes the fields very wet . We had to travel standing in the back of a big truck to get through all the mud on the roads. The water is good, because poblano chiles require lots of it.
In March and April the seeds are germinated and planted. They are delicate plants and require lots of care. The plants are supported by lines of string, so that they won't fall in the mud when the heavy peppers grow on them. It takes about 6 months before harvest.
Poblano chiles are harvested one time per year. The first ones harvested are sold as fresh green chiles.
Chiles that will become dried anchos are left on the vine longer than the ones harvested for fresh poblanos. Leaving them longer on the field concentrates flavors and sugars.
All There Is To Know about the Drying Game
Around a bend on a small street in the town of San Martín Texmelucan de Labastida, you come across a cement fence with cacti on the top in place of barbed wire. Behind it are guard dogs; a double-incentive not to hop over the top.
Inside is what looks like the foundation for a large building not yet started – a big patch of dirt, but it has been combed up to wide plateaus with narrow ditches dug through every ten feet or so. On top of those raised beds are zillions of drying poblano peppers in a limited rainbow of colors from red to brown, some still with their green stems sticking out.
Beneath the peppers are what looks like a hay mat (actually small encino oak), which allows air to flow around the peppers as they dry.
The chiles dry for between 15 and 30 days here, being flipped over every 3 days or so. The drying process both concentrates the flavor and sugar in the chiles, makes them shelf stable, and gives them more flavor complexity according to our hosts.
Not all chiles you'll find in stores are dried this way – many now come from China, where they are dried in ovens.
The Blend Of It All
The recipe for Ancho Reyes is "inspired by" a recipe from 1927.
The actual recipe is:
90% Ancho chile peppers
10% Guajilla and Pacilla peppers
A small amount of secret ingredients
Alcohol – 55% ABV cane syrup from Veracruz, Mexico
Sugar syrup, also from Mexico
Guajilla peppers are hot and spicy, while pacilla are more earthy. Dried chiles come into the production facility in big bags.
The chiles are cut up with scissors. Some but not all of the seeds are discarded to get the right amount of heat in the final product.
Then the pieces of chli are infused into 1000 liter tanks of alcohol. About four of those huge bags go into each 1000L tank. They are stirred once per week and infuse for around 6 months.
Each of the three chile varieties are infused separately, then the product is blended at the end along with sugar. When they blend, there is no set amount of sugar – they match it to the heat of the product each time.
All the color of Ancho Reyes comes from the chiles; none is added.
You may recall from a billion years ago I found a clear ice maker that works similarly to the directional freezing/Igloo cooler method. It was the Polar Ice Tray and I wrote about it here.
Now the same company has launched a clear ice ball maker and they sent me one to test out. So that's what I did.
Long story short: It worked great on my first trial, but not every time.
The Polar Ice Tray works just like the directional freezing method of making clear ice balls (read about that here or all the ice experiments on Alcademics here): The container is insulated on all sides but the top is not. The ice freezes from top-down, pushing trapped air and impurities downward.
What this product does is offer an easy way to get the water into the molds and the balls out afterward. It's shaped like a little tug boat.
The outer blue container is just softish foam. Inside there is a top and bottom half of the ball mold (this model comes with animal shapes that are pressed into the top), and a bottom water receptacle.
The bottom half is perforated so the cloudy part is pushed into the receptacle. To use it, you fill water in the little spout and then let it freeze for a day. Here it is after freezing.
The cloudy part of the ice is on the bottom.
Now for the big reveal.
It is super easy and the spheres are nice when they come out perfectly. It may be more space efficient than the insulated mug method for two spheres, depending on whether your freezer offers more horizontal or vertical space.
However, on subsequent uses, I've found the tray can separate during freezing, spilling water out the sides and making incomplete ice balls – only partial spheres because the water has leaked out the sides. So you need to make an effort to get a really good seal on the different parts that fit together. I tried and still failed twice.
So far I've used the tray 10 times and 7 of those times it worked and 3 times it failed. (For the record the insulated mug method has never failed me.) If I discover a good way to ensure a seal I'll update this post.
The tray is a bit pricey at $55 plus postage, but I spare no expense for ice! You can buy them on the Polar Ice Tray website.
I visited a bunch of cognac houses in the fall of 2014, and spent nearly a whole day with Cognac Hine at their vineyards, winery, distillery, and blending house.
I didn't realize that there are 250 or so cognac houses, so my visit to less than 20 of them is small potatoes. The big potatoes belong to Hennessy, which makes 42% of all cognac. They, plus the other 3 of the Big Four houses, create 80% of cognac sold. Hine does about 1 percent of Hennessy's volume.
The Vineyards
Hine owns 70 hectares under vine in Grande Champagne but don't grow all of their own grapes – they produce about 25% of their own needs.
Cellarmaster Eric Forget says that in 2014 (I was there just before harvest) they expected to harvest grapes that would make 9.5% alcohol at about 3.4 pH. Just about all harvesting is mechanical in Cognac. Hine rents the picking machines and grape presses to make their portion of wine.
Forget says that vines in the region are typically sprayed to prevent mildew, and it is difficult to make organic wine in the region because of the humid weather. Near to harvest time, they can't spray anymore as that could get into the wine.
When the grape juice arrives at the winery, they start fermentation with dry yeast in stainless steel tanks at 17 degrees Celsius. They temperature control fermentation and storage because for cognac you can't add sulfur or anything else as a preservative while the wine waits to be distilled.
Distilling For Hine
The distillery we visited isn't owned by the brand, but they're independent distillers who make almost all of Hine's brandy. (Hine is only 10% of the distillery's business on the other hand.)
The wine that comes into the distillery is distilled up to 30% ABV after the first distillation. They do make a heads and tails cut after the first as well as the second distillation. The second distillation brings the spirit up to 70-72% ABV. Each distillation takes about 12 hours.
It takes approximately 10 liters of wine to produce 1 liter of spirit.
When a brand like Hine has wine distilled for them, they are able to specify certain distillation parameters. These may include whether or not to distill on the lees, that the heads cuts are 30 liters or whatever, how long the distillation time should be, the temperature of distillation, etc.
For Hine, they distill the wine on the lees, which are the bits of yeast and other bits left floating in the liquid after fermentation. Hine also specifies a smaller cut (meaning more heads in the spirit) but generally tells the distiller to do what they think is best.
I asked the distiller why a premium brand would direct the distillation of a smaller cut, which includes what we think of as more undesirable elements of the heads/tails into the spirit. He said that larger brands do larger cuts because its a 'safer' cut, but also probably results in less interesting brandy.
Aging Cognac at Hine
Forget says, "The philosophy of Hine is to use as little wood as possible," which means they're avoid woody flavors and wood influence. The use fine grain oak, and have their barrels toasted to a low level char.
They say that cognac won't improve in barrel after 50-60 years or so, and they'd transfer it to glass demijohns at that point.
Hine is a cognac that produces a lot of "Early Landed" cognacs, which are not aged in France but in England. By the way, I learned that the amazing grocery/liquor store in Sacramento, Corti Brothers, has a small specialty selection of early landed cognacs.
They also released a unique single-vintage, single-vineyard cognac called Domaines HINE Bonneuil 2005.
Anyway, this visit was my last cognac house for my 2014 trip, and a beautiful way to end it.
In 2014 I visited several cognac houses, and had the pleasure to spend several hours with Benedicte Hardy of Cognac Hardy in their aging and blending facilities.
We got really nerdy with specifics on aging cognac. But first, some background.
Hardy specializes in luxury cognacs, and in general is blended in an "approachable" and "feminine" style. It's a very large operation, with 20,000 barrels aging at their warehouses valued at more than 50 million dollars worth of booze.
It was Benedicte's father who made the company famous in recent years putting the emphasis on luxury. She herself has a law degree and is in charge of the US market, so there may be opportunities to meet with her at events in the States (and I'd highly recommend doing so if the occasion arises- she's a character).
A Cognac Maker, Not A Distiller
Hardy is not a cognac house that grows, ferments, and distills grapes, but they do work with a co-op of 200 growers.
The blender, Michael, buys spirit from Grande Champagne, Petite Champagne, Fin Bois, and Bon Bois. But he doesn't just purchase already-distilled wine, he goes to the distillery/wineries to taste before/after and helps direct the distillation if need be. He said that for example, if a wine is super aromatic he might instruct the distillery to distill on the lees, which will mark the spirit for longer aging.
Regardless, he tastes the new-make spirit after purchase and makes a determination on which product they're destined for – VSOP, XO, etc. He says that 90% of the time the initial determination is correct and they won't have to redirect it off its appointed path later on.
Aging Cognac Versus Other Spirits
Many of the world's spirits, including nearly all scotch whisky, rum, and tequila, age in ex-bourbon casks. The wood has had its influence on the bourbon and vice-versa. So the next time that barrel is used to age rum or whatever, it will not have the same amount of influence on the color and flavor of the next spirit.
In cognac and armagnac, on the other hand, they do not use ex-bourbon casks but new and used French oak barrels. The wood gives a lot of influence when it is first used, and in the case of French oak it brings in lots of tannins along with flavor.
So while bourbon ages only in new barrels for its entire life, cognac is usually aged only for a small amount of time in new barrels then it is transferred into older barrels for the rest of its life so that the wood doesn't take over. (One thing to note that in Cognac, a 'new' barrel means that it has been used for three years or less; it's doesn't necessarily mean brand new.)
In scotch whisky and rum and tequila, since they're using used barrels from the get-go, they don't have to worry so much about the over-oaking so they don't need to move the liquids around unless they feel like it.
Aging at Hardy
So that was a lot of lead-up. Here is how the VSOP is aged at Cognac Hardy.
The brandy is purchased at 70% ABV
It is reduced with water down to 55% and put in Small (220 liter), New barrels. (Note that a typical cognac barrels is 350 liters)
The barrels are divided up – some are put into dry cellars and others are put into humid cellars. The ratio is a house secret.
At 18 months the barrels are moved into Dry cellars
At 24 months, the cognac is reduced to 47% ABV and placed in Humid Cellars
After 5 years, the cognac is reduced to 43% ABV and placed back into Small barrels
After 8 years, the cognac is blended and reduced to 40%
After another 6 months marrying, it is bottled.
Notes About That:
At each barrel transfer stage, the cognac is taken out from individual barrels and put into a big vat before dilution, then redistributed to the next barrels. No wonder cognac is so pricey.
Humid cellars at Hardy have about a 3% annual angels' share, while dry ones have 6%.
For longer-aged XO cognac, they put it into barrels that have been toasted for longer so that these will continue to contribute their toasted effects to it
XO has the same reduction with water scheme as the VSOP, but the toasting is different. (Additionally it is made from brandy that was more distilled on the lees than the younger brandies.)
Chill filtration before bottling is at -7 degrees Celsius for 7 days before running it through the filter
The $64,000 Tasting
We were allowed to taste the highest of the high end Hardy cognacs bottled in Lalique decanters, which retail for $16,000 per bottle. They all come from the same stock of cognacs distilled in the 1920s-1940s, but are blended to bring out different aspects of each.
They are named for each of the four seasons, though currently only the spring (Le Printemps) is on the market. Summer launches in November 2015, and Fall and Winter will follow every 2 years from that.
It's weird and rather awesome to be able to taste a cognac that won't hit the market until 2019.
While in France last year, I had time for a quick unscheduled visit to the house of Deau Cognac.
Deau is located about 40 minutes from the town of Cognac, between the Fin Bois and Petite Champagne. They grow about 30 hectares of grapes, and buy wine from other growers (Fin Bois, Grande Champagne, and Petite Champagne) that they distill on-site.
The distillery itself is quite large, with 12 stills.
I met Véronique Bru Legaret, who along with her son heads up the company. They actually produce three cognac brands: Deau, Moisans, and Roland Bru (named for Véronique's father, who brought the company into the current era).
Previously they sold all their cognac to large brands (I think they no longer do), but now seem to be emphasizing their luxury products. New fancy, sail-shaped bottles have just hit the USA market recently further emphasizing their luxury positioning.
I quickly tasted through most of the Deau line, and here are my nonsensical-as-usual notes:
VS: Tight but good
VSOP: Smells more mature than the VSOP bottling would suggest; sweet cream.
Napoleaon: 7-8 years old. Sweet yellow raisins.
XO: Around 15 years old. Christmas spices including buttery cinnamon with a spicy/minty finish.
Black: Around 10 years old. Sweet and thin, meant for mixing.
Louis Memory: Supple, creamy, like a more mature version of the XO
L.V.O.: Stands for the French translation of "Life in Gold." Made from 1915, 1930, 1950 Grande Champagne cognacs. Banana, raisins, subtle and sandy.
