Spirits for the Millennium

To celebrate the Millennium, you’re going to drink champagne. But to remember the event, savor a fine glass of cognac after your Millennium dinner. Here’s a guide to some of the best. There are basically four grades of cognac, priced from reasonable to stratospheric. The V. S. ($25) contains by law spirits aged at least two and one-half years, but less than four and one-half. Then comes the V. S. O. P. ($40), between four and one-half and six and one-half years. The X. O. (or Napoleon) ($80) has spirits aged a minimum of six and one-half years, and the better cognac houses age their X. O. blends for twenty. Special blends, sometimes with decanters, can cost hundreds of dollars. Are more expensive cognacs worth it? The older the spirit, the smoother and more memorable it will be. There is a great quality difference between an X. O. from a quality supplier, and a glass of V. S. cognac. Cognacs stop maturing when they are taken from their casks, by the way. They do not age in the bottle. Unlike armagnac, cognac is twice distilled (which armagnac lovers will cite as proof that their spirit has more flavor). It is the product of three rather mediocre white grapes, ugni blanc, and in lesser amounts, colombard and carte blanche. There are six crus. These are Grande Champagne, Petite Champagne, Borderies, Bons Bois, Fins Bois and Bois Ordinaires, grown in strictly delimited regions in the Charente region surrounding the town of Cognac. (The word champagne in this context has nothing to do with the province of Champagne or its bubbly product that you had the night before. It comes from the Latin for “plain,” which describes the flat area where these grapes are grown.) Grande Champagne spirit is light and has a nice bouquet, and requires long aging. The area for this spirit surrounds the town of Segonzac. Next, Petite Champagne is grown in a semicircle surrounding Grande Champagne. It also has a floral bouquet. Borderies is the smallest cru. It is for connoisseurs, smooth and fine, with a slight violet aroma and a somewhat nutty taste. The other three crus, Bons Bois, Fin Bois, and Bois Ordinaires, are found closer to the sea, and are faster maturing. They add body and flavor to the finer spirits in the blend. The closer to the sea, the rougher the spirit. By law “fine champagne cognac” is only made from Grande Champagne and Petite Champagne, with the former predominating. That sounds good, but it is not a guarantee of quality, of course. That depends upon the aging of the spirit. I would much rather have a forty year old Fin Bois than a V. S. fine champagne, and I suspect that you would as well. If you want to go local, sit at a Paris bar and order a “fine a l’eau.” What you will get is a very flavorful drink, rather like a single malt Scotch, and just possibly, reproving glances from friends who will tell you never to add water to cognac. A good place to enjoy this, by the way, is at Cognac itself. The town has a film noir festival each year in March or April, details and tickets available from the Cognac Chamber of Commerce. I have attended it twice, and it’s a great place to see films, enjoy good food and tours of cognac houses and rub elbows with film stars like Lauren Bacall and Michael York in a small town setting. There are new ideas in cognac production. Hine is now producing vintage year cognacs, an old custom but a departure from recent practice. It supposes that a blend from one year is better than a multiyear blend, a possibly risky premise in my view. Cognac L & L has issued five single crus, and this is a good way to get to taste the spirits unblended. Hennessey has carried this one step farther, with single blend cognacs (Le Peu, Camp Romain and Szambard). Let us know on the Discussion Boards how you like them. Hennessy has also issued a second Grande Champagne X. O. , matching its classic X. O. blend. I am looking forward to tasting Martell’s Borderies Cognac, which is now only available in England. I spoke as this little essay began of having a memorable cognac. I’ll mention three that I particularly enjoyed. Two were in the Hennessy “Paradis” cellar in Cognac, where the spirits are stored in casks, still maturing. I had a Borderies from 1888, nearly a century later. It was strong, smooth and full of flavor, a superb spirit. Then I tasted a Bons Bois from 1864. That was a revelation. Somehow all of its early roughness had gone, and what was left was a very tasty, mouth-filling cognac, the finest spirit I ever tasted. Its grapes were growing when Lincoln was President, and it was still living a century and a quarter later. I still remember it as the Lincoln Cognac, superb, and not containing a single drop of Champagne, Grande or Petite. I hope that someday you will taste its like. My third memorable cognac was enjoyed with French friends at their home in Dordogne. They said it was their last bottle of ’45, bottled to keep it from the enemy. That sounded reasonable, but the bottle was very old, and then I saw its date, 1870. The “enemy” concerned was the Prussian Army in 1870! I enjoyed a glass of this fine cognac, which was, of course, just 25 years old. But you knew that already. If you enjoyed this article, you’ll love our ongoing discussion of French Food and Wine! Bill Shepard learned to love the wines of France when he served as Consul General there. You can read more about his life as a consul in Can the U.S. Embassy Help in a Crisis? Copyright (c) 1999 Paris New Media, L.L.C.