The Brandy Bottle
You may or may not have tasted what’s inside the bottle, but you can learn a lot from the information on the outside – if you know what it means. What it's made from, where it's produced, how old it is and other useful tidbits are all on the label, just not very clearly – that would be too easy.
What follows is a guide to help you understand what is on the shelves, what the basic flavor profiles and styles of each category is and figure out the minimum age, geography and style of Brandy’s that one would come across in most wine and spirit shops. We’ll start with the brandy bottle. Other spirits have different rules, so we’ll focus on one type for this article.
It seems that every country in the world produces some type of brandy – for this article we’re sticking to distilled grapes aged in some kind of wood. We’ll leave other fruit distillate or eau de vie for another time. Some are certainly more well know than others – the most famous being Cognac. Many countries produce quite a bit of the spirit, but only occupy a small space on the shelves.
Each category has interesting example within each, some can be a great value compared to its more expensive French counterpart and we’ll go into more detail in future articles.
Some of the major brandy categories/countries out therE:
- Cognac
- Armagnac
- Spanish Brandy
- Armenian Brandy
- American Brandy
- Greek Brandy – Metaxa if first to mind, it is a blend of wine and botanicals, but probably belongs in a brandy discussion more than a liquer.
- Italian Brandy
- South African Brandy
- German Brandy - In the United States, Asbach Uralt is one of the most commonly available
Peru and Chile also make an unaged brandy called Pisco, but for this discussion, we’ll stick with the stuff that has seen some barrel age – brown spirits.
Although these letter designations apply to Armagnac, it is not uncommon to see vintage dated bottles.
Cognac– all Cognac is brandy, but not all brandy is Cognac. Cognac is produced using pot stills and the clear twice distilled wine gets its color from spending years in oak barrels. There are five districts where cognac is produced (in order of most desirable to less) Grand Champagne, Petite Champagne, Borderies, Fin Bois, Bois Ordinaires. A blend of Grand and petit Champagne is classified as “fine champagne”. Only two types of French oak may be used to mature the spirit Limousin and Troncais.
Armagnac – often seen as Cognac’s more rustic cousin, while it shares some similarities, there are some defining differences. It undergoes a single distillation and is aged in Limousin or Monlezun oak. There are three growing zones: Haut-Armagnac, Tenareze and Bas-Armagnac.
The aging designations are pretty straight forward and indicate the youngest spirit blended in.
Spanish Brandy or Brandy de Jerez: Mostly produced in the Sherry Triangle which is the town of Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlucar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Sanata Maria. The area does not matter a whole lot – it is not featured on the label and one area is not thought to produce a better brandy than another, unlike the regions of Cognac. Producers typically utilize the solera system which is the process of transferring brandy from one cask to the next, usually younger to older, giving the producer a consistent product and giving the product its unique character. They are aged in a variety of ex-sherry casks that contained a variety of wines from the dry “fino” to the very sweet “Pedro Ximenez, the styles can vary widely like the barrels used to age them from dry to sweet. See our gallery with some interesting Spanish Brandies.
Armenian Brandy’s claim to fame is that it was a favorite of Winston Churchill’s after it was given to him by Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference in 1945 and that every year thereafter cases of the spirit were sent to him. The accuracy of the story is debatable, but it is used often and we’ll let the historians fight it out. Sometimes packaged in different shaped bottles like a shoe, horse, fish, boar or swan, put your money towards the contents in the bottle and stick with a more traditional bottle to start with.
Not broken up into distinct regions, most of the grapes used to make the spirit are grown in the Ararat Valley. Double distilled and aged in oak, the flavor profile is different depending on the age of the spirit, but it is typically heavier and spicier than Cognac . It is a very significant part of the Russian brandy market and in the USA is a favorite among Armenians and Russians that live here.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union until the late 1990’s, Armenian Brandy had fallen on hard times with the collapse of its export markets and aging facilities, quality suffered. In 1998, Pernod Ricard bought the Yerevan Brandy Company, makers of Ararat Brandy, and the category as a whole seems to have benefited.
Armenian Brandy’s age is usually indicated by the number of stars on the bottle. For example 5 stars (*****) = 5 years
American Brandy- Produced mostly in California they vary widely in price. Regulation of the product is not very strict, so there is not a lot to learn from the label. Less expensive brandies such as E&J and Paul Masson do offer some value in the price category and producers such as Germain-Robin and Clear Creek making smaller production, high quality but also higher price offerings.
American brandy often carries an age indicator similar to Cognac such a s VS. VSOP and XO, however there is no legal meaning given to these designations for US brandy and do not really tell you much. Anything less than 2-years old must be labeled “immature”, but that is as far as the regs go.
Tasting is usually the best way to decide if what's inside the bottle is worth the price, but if you can't try what's inside, learn everything you can from the outside.