What does vsop mean on a brandy bottle

Only about three percent of brandy is actually consumed in France. The rest is exported. Around the Web, find out more about how brandy is aged, its medicinal uses, along with brandy cocktails, history, and a bit of brandy trivia Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac - The home page of the Cognac region, available in French and in English, provides a history of cognac, lots of nice graphs to explain vintages and names, a glossary and more will give you a good understanding of the drink, how to taste it, serve it and appreciate it.

The cognac cocktail of the week gives recipes for mixing for those who prefer not to drink it neat. About French Brandy - A very nice history and regional guide to brandy supplemented by reviews of Armagnac, Cognac, Calvados, Grappa, Eau de Vie and other brandy varieties.

Also provides recipes for 3 brandy based drinks: Sidecar, Stinger and Brandy Alexander. Beverage Testing Institute's site is a treasure trove of alcohol related information and has a shop for picking up what they've picked out. Visit the myths section for medicinal remedies based on brandy It's understandable that the pain would be duller! A nice section on how brandy is made in the What is Brandy section and many other good sections. Skip the order online section unless you are able to phone a South African cellar.

MAIN Wine Brandy Brandy is distilled wine - wine with most of the water removed - which changes the taste and makes the alcohol content higher. However, this category has become a favorite with mixologists as a potent element of a cognac cocktail. This makes cognacs from this category a really versatile addition to any good liquor collection. So what does XO mean for Cognac?

Even though the youngest blend in an XO Cognac can be as young as ten years, a XO usually has an average age of between 15 and 20 years, sometimes older. So how old is a Cognac XO officially? As of , the Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac BNIC increased the minimum XO cognac age for the youngest eau-de-vie from six to ten years, in an effort to improve the quality of the spirit across the board.

So what does XO cognac taste like? The time spent in the barrels can influence the cognac significantly, and an exceptional XO will be rich and luxurious with warm spice, toffee, chocolate, nuts and dried fruit. There are many exceptional XO Cognacs for you to try, and we recommend that you taste as many as possible. But in the case of an XXO, the minimum length of aging to qualify is 14 years.

This makes an XXO cognac the oldest official rating a cognac can hold. Of course, there are other commonly used expressions that describe cognacs that have been aged well beyond these 14 years. However, these are not official categories. So not matter how old a cognac might be, it falls into the XXO category. In fact, before the landmark ruling brought about by Hennessy and other cognac producers, any cognac that had been aged for more than six years was counted as an XO, even if it was more than a century old!

P which requires eaux-de-vie to be aged for a minimum of four years. However, a V. P Cognac may be referred to as a Napoleon if it has been aged for more than six years. Find out more about Napoleon in our sensational interview with him. It is of course recommended to try the favorite of the man himself and taste Courvoisier Napoleon Cognac. Due to the sparsity of the older eaux-de-vie, the amount of bottles produced is limited and obviously higher in price.

Officially it is classified in the XO age denomination, but it is used for cognacs that have an average age of 30 years and above. Just like an XO, the youngest eau-de-vie in an Extra cognac must have been aged for a minimum of 10 years, however an Extra cognac will have been aged for well over the minimum requirement. A Camus Extra Cognac is an excellent choice if you fancy trying this category. Technically it describes one particular blend or batch.

It is especially used in the Champagne classification, not so much in cognac. When it appears on a cognac bottle, it usually means the producer wants to give it a special name instead of using the age categories VSOP and XO. It might refer to a limited amount of a certain blend. This classification refers to a cognac that has been aged for a minimum of two years. Cognac starts life as a white wine and then it goes through a double distillation process followed by periods of ageing in oak barrels.

Some of the colour and distinct taste comes from the oak used. It is a process that has been handed down through families creating a liquor that is famous around the world. The brandy must have been aged for a minimum of 3 years in oak barrels before it can be officially sold as a Cognac. During this aging process, the distilled liquid is known as the eau-de-vie.

The longer the Cognac is left to age, the more the colour will darken, so younger Cognacs will generally have a lighter tone compared to the older versions. Armagnac is a brandy that has been legally made in the Armagnac region in Gascony, and Calvados is made using apples and pears in the Normandy and Brittany area of France.

The lettering given to the different Cognacs acts as a guide to the age of the brandy :. We have listed here the legal Cognac grades for each of the classifications used, but in reality, many producers age their Cognacs for a lot longer than the minimum.

Producers have their own traditions and processes that give their Cognac its distinctive flavour, colour and quality.