A Singular Spirit

So far my health is holding to the extent that I haven’t yet needed to give my G.P. a bottle of scotch. Scotch is a wonderful thing – a warming, rich spirit with character and flavour, ever changing from distillery to distillery, from mountain to island. It takes a very good cognac to be better than a good scotch, so I believe. Until you get to the older and unfortunately more pricey cognacs they tend to taste weedy and thin. But once we’re into XO territory, I am quite prepared to change my spiritous allegiances, that is until somebody pops open a 40 year-old Macallan in front of my nose.

The Cognac area is certainly one of the very best of places to get lost in. Uncommonly picturesque, its richly verdant rolling hills and misty woods are punctuated with vineyards and pasture alike. Its villages are small and rustic, standing upon layers of history whose eroded shapes still retain a timeless presence. Ancient Moorish-like gates and Roman ruins remain as souvenirs of centuries of conquest, glory and decay.

Cognac is then very un-suited to its situation as the source of the world’s most glamorous and heavily-promoted spirit. Its slow earthy atmosphere is light years from the ritzy restaurants where thimblefuls of Remy Martin Louis XIII change hands for a small fortune. One trusts that the modern cocktail hysteria, which sees splashes of this fine spirit uncaringly mingled with pineapples, paw-paws and Coke will never invade the uncluttered lives of the inhabitants of Cognac and Jarnac.

A brandy par excellence, cognac is to grape spirit what Rolls Royce claims to be to motor cars. Brandy is distilled nearly wherever wine is made, but cognac only comes from Cognac, despite the efforts of generations of marketing pirates around the globe.

Although they’re a step or two removed from the final product, grape quality has everything to do with the standard and style of the Cognac ultimately found in the bottle. The grapes used themselves are largely ugni blanc, although residual plantings of the older historic varieties of folle blanche and columbard still remain.

However, it’s not so much the grape variety that’s important, it’s where it’s grown. Around the map of the town of Cognac, and almost situated in concentric circles in a target-like pattern, are rings delineating the different sub-regions of Cognac. Not surprisingly, those closest to Cognac itself are the areas regarded most highly.

La Grande Champagne is the name of the best region, found just to the south and east of Cognac. It produces the finest eaux-de-vie young spirit in Cognac – delicate, with extraordinary bouquet. These are the spirits which improve best with age, becoming rich and powerful with the passage of time. The best and richest of these spirits may take decades to reach their peak.

La Petite Champagne is the second region, half encircling La Grande Champagne to the south. The spirits made here show similar characters to La Grande Champagne, but just a little less pronounced. After around ten years they become beautifully flowery and fruity, before continuing to evolve for at least another thirty years.

Surprisingly, the word ‘Champagne’ has nothing to do with the sparkling wine of the same name. It derives from the French term for countryside, ‘campagne’ pronounced ‘campaign’, and is quite appropriate seeing that the ‘Champagne’ regions of Cognac are amongst the most beautiful of the entire French countryside.

The two top regions are characterised by a thin layer of topsoil and fragile, chalky subsoils where the vines take root. Grande Champagne soil has more chalk, is softer and more crumbly than that of Petite Champagne. The more chalk, the better the Cognac.

Of the other growths, the north-easterly Borderies district produces a spirit with a less refined taste. The Borderies are close to the centre of Cognac, but the soil surface is a thick mixture of clay and sand, and the chalk is too far from the vine roots. The spirits lack depth and richness, and develop to their peak much more quickly.

The other regions are further away from the centre: the Fins Bois, the Bons Bois and the Bois Ordinaires. Their spirits have less elegance still than the Borderies, and they are only included in cheaper Cognacs.

The two premium growths, La Grande Champagne and Petite Champagne, merit the appellation of ‘First Growth’. In addition to their superior soils, these two regions also have a climatic advantage over the others. Located in the heart of Cognac, they are protected from the extremes of the Atlantic climate to the west and the more continental climate to the east.

The top grade of Cognac is ‘Grande Fine Champagne Cognac’, which is entirely made from the Grande Champagne district. ‘Fine Champagne Cognac’, is achieved when the products of the two premium regions are blended, to contain at least 50 of Grande Champagne Cognac. ‘Petite Champagne Cognac’ is 1005 from the Petite Champagne district.

The benchmark cognac for most houses is their VSOP, which stands for Very Superior Old Pale. The law states that the youngest component of a VSOP cognac must be at least four years old, although many of the VSOP cognacs from the finer houses are considerably older than that, approaching ten or more years of age. Anyway, as I said earlier, I still find VSOPs inadequate next to a scotch of the same price. The next grade is Napoleon, of which the youngest cognac in its composition must have entered its seventh year.

There is no statutory requirement for those labelled XO, but these cognacs are likely to be a minimum of ten years old. The Hine Antique Tres Vielle Fine Champagne is one of my favourite XO cognacs. It’s worth mentioning here not just because it’s such a fine drink, but because it illustrates to a tee what a good cognac base can do if left in the casks for even more time. The colour deepens, the palate softens and the flavours become more complex and voluminous. Nowhere are these effects seen to greater degree than in the remarkable Remy Martin range from XO upwards to the incredible Louis XIII, whose age is a minimum of 50 years.


TESTING TIMES FOR COGNAC

Little changes on the surface at Cognac. The roofs are still covered with their soot-like fungus, the cellars are full of spiders and the countryside is as verdant and rustic as the day spirit was first distilled there about three hundred years ago. But behind the polished exteriors of the great marques and their globetrotting principals you can detect an air of justifiable concern.

Cognac, the spirit whose unchanging nature through the generations is a source of intense pride to those who make it, is keen to re-establish secure long term markets. Its consumption in traditional western markets has been battered by recession, tougher stances towards drink-driving and the overall increased levels of health awareness. In these countries, of which Australia is a small, but significant member, its promotion since earliest times as a digestif and as the ultimate in post-dinner drinking is today cognac’s greatest impediment.

Cognac’s main challenge is to re-establish itself as a beverage compatible with the sensitivities of the modern western lifestyle. Most of us only ever contemplate a cognac at the end of a meal or after it, just when some of us are beginning to show some concern at our blood alcohol levels or our activities the next morning. We tally up what we’ve just enjoyed and weigh that against the beckoning collection aboard the spirits trolley. Many of us would happily be tempted, but most of us butt out. For the houses in cognac, another sale just went begging.

It’s almost the opposite in the burgeoning, bustling new markets of the east, where spirits have long been part of the daily culture and the tiger economies churn out millionaires daily like the United States used to. Cognac does well in China, Japan and south-eastern Asia because it’s seen as the best of its kind, it’s extremely expensive and it’s an accepted drink at almost any time of the day.

Indeed the true to life stereotype of the modern cognac drinker would be an eastern, rather than a western male, dressed in a business suit. Forget the cigar-toting English gentleman donning smoking jacket and drinking slippers – there’s more cognac drunk around Chinese board tables than English club rooms these days.

The cognac houses are keen both to take advantage of new markets in South-East Asia and Eastern Europe and also to alter the image of the cognac drinker in their traditional markets, especially those in Europe. Indeed several producers are using the fact that cognac is consumed with more flexibility in other parts of the world as enticement to its traditional markets to reconsider cognac as a more versatile beverage.

Remy Australie’s Vincent Gere, recently returned from the 1995 Vinexpo, was surprised to see the number of young people ‘over the mental block’ that cognac was not simply a digestif, pleased to sample it on ice as a long drink. There is something of a resurgence to use younger cognac with water as an aperitif, a move sure to be encouraged by its makers who would be relieved to see its consumption before the advent of other alcoholic beverages such as wine around the meal situation.

I’m not the first to show some concern at the ‘watering down’ of quality cognac in this instance, but this is precisely how the cellarmasters in Cognac itself sample and blend their own material – reduced in strength to around 20 alcohol by volume. But the reality is that it is a long, hard process to re-educate cognac’s traditional markets to use different quality levels of cognac at different times of the day.

Personally, cognac needs around twelve to fifteen years of age before it begins to attain the quality for which it is sought after – about the same age as malt whisky reaches its apogee. Perhaps aware of the opportunties to expand their markets at cognac’s expense, the Scotch whisky producers are selling their wares at very competitive prices in western markets. In Australia Johnnie Walker Black Label is cheaper than many excellent VSOP cognacs. A principal of a major cognac house concedes that younger cognac is ‘not really a competitive product compared to some others you can find in the market’.

That’s precisely why it does so well in certain eastern markets. Amongst the affluent sectors of these fast-growing countries like China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, cognac is purchased because of its price and image. In a bid to reduce the Chinese sales of its flagship Louis XIII, Remy Martin increased its price there. They would have done better to reduce it, for sales growth continue unabated.

Wine is the potential threat to cognac’s seemingly limitless demand in these Asian regions. European and New World wine producers, of which Remy Martin is one, are gradually introducing wine to eastern markets like China, a percentage of which can only be expected to adopt the more conventional western practice of taking wine to the dining table. Where spirits presently dominate a Chinese banquet, wine is likely to follow. Perhaps not tomorrow, but one day soon…

All taken into account, the rock on which cognac’s present sales are based is eastern and under potential threat from wine. And the hard place against which cognac sales are slowly being ground down is back home in Europe. One can only hope they find a long-term answer soon.

The Cognac Label

Cognac

Brandy from wine produced in the legally delimited region of Cognac in southwestern France.

Three Star/VS

The youngest blend of cognac houses, which must have entered its third year in wood the minimum for all cognac. Usually sold between five to nine years old.

VSOP/VO

Meaning Very Superior Old Pale, this cognac must must have entered its fifth year in wood, although it is frequently sold in excess of ten.

Napoleon

A self-imposed non-regulatory standard which should must have entered its seventh year in wood. Some are sold between 15 and 25 years old.


Old Liqueur

Grande Reserve, Vieux, Extra Vielle, or XO – generally matured in wood for 20, 30 and 40 years or more.

Grande Fine Champagne Cognac

100 from the Grande Champagne the prime district.

Fine Champagne Cognac

50 minimum from the Grande Champagne prime district, 50 maximum from the Petite Champagne second ranking district.

Petite Fine Champagne Cognac

100 from the Petite Champagne second ranking district. Please login to post comment