Cognac_directory_FINAL

simply more complex, and therefore it is more interesting
to age them longer,’ said Robert Leauté and indeed Rémy
makes an excellent VS from the outer reaches of the
Petite Champagne. Impressions of the aroma and taste
of Champagne cognacs revert to the vine, to the flowers
and twigs as well as the fruit of the grape, resulting in
the preservation, in a uniquely concentrated form, of the
natural qualities of the raw materials: nature transformed
by man.
Not all cognacs, even from the Grande Champagne, have
the capacity to age so vigorously and gracefully. Although
the growers now all know how to distil good cognac, some
of them are still careless. The Station Viticole imposes some
form of discipline, since all the cognacs have to be sampled
(‘given the agrément’) before they can be sold to the public,
and this eliminates the worst brandies. Yet, broadly speaking,
the buyer has very little legal protection. The producers are not
allowed to give the exact age of their brandies and until 2016
the minimum age even for XO brandies is six after which they
will have to be at least ten years old. Moreover, there are plenty
of inferior, well-aged cognacs on sale, for any unscrupulous
blender can fabricate a ‘venerable’ Grande Champagne cognac
with some undrinkable, albeit genuinely aged, cognac plus
generous doses of additives – sugar, caramel and the mysterious
boisé (see box overleaf) – to increase the apparent age of the
blend’s taste. The reputation of the firm selling the cognac
remains a better guarantee of quality than the legal description.
House style starts with the cognac itself, for there is a
marked contrast between firms which rely primarily on
the spirit and those, notably Martell and Delamain, which
concentrate on the effects of the wood – Alain Braastad, the
former chairman of Delamain says bluntly that the newly
distilled cognac accounts for a mere 25 per cent of the quality
of the final product. By contrast Laurent Robin of Louis
Royer, ‘not wanting to rely on the wood and the progress of
ageing for the quality of the result,’ is ‘looking for the richest
possible raw material’. However, this need not be related
to the wine. When he was at Frapin, Olivier Paultes found
that richer more aromatic wines did not necessarily produce
richer and more complex brandies than more neutral ones.
BOISÉ: COGNAC’S SECRET
INGREDIENT
No one talks much, if at all, about boisé yet it is employed
by many, if not most, producers. It is made by boiling
chips of oak for as long and as often as is required to
produce a thick, brown liquid which can add woodiness
to the brandy and increase its apparent age. It thus
provides a shortcut for those wanting to add a touch
of new wood to their cognacs – and an alternative to
buying new casks which now cost up to £500 each,
which equates to over a pound per bottle of cognac.
Factors in their search for their own style inevitably
include not only the source of the brandy but also the
type of oak and the age of the casks. A high proportion of
Rémy Martin’s cognacs are destined for VSOP brandies, to
be sold within six, or at the most ten, years of distillation,
so it is looking for a type of wood which will speed the
maturation process and, naturally, uses Limousin oak.
Martell uses Troncais because it is looking for precisely the
opposite qualities: the wood has less tannin and is denser
and therefore less porous, so ageing is slower and less wood