At the Ideal Wine Company we
bring you a whole host of exclusive, vintage wines for your collection, however
wine isn’t the only type of alcohol we have to offer you. We specialise in
luxury drinks; in providing you with vintage bottles of wine, whiskey, brandy
and other spirits, which are hard to find on the market and really add some
value to your collection. One of these is Cognac, one of the most famous luxury
brandies in existence. A favourite with collectors and drinkers alike, Cognac
has built up a reputation over the years for its rich taste and decadent image.
A variety of brandy, the drink is
actually named after the French town of Cognac; the drink is produced in the
wine growing region around the town in the French Departments of Charente and
Charente-Maritime. Like many drinks that originate in the French nation and
have grown to have a lasting reputation, the history of Cognac is a long one,
over four centuries long in fact. Wine producing in the region goes all the way
back to the Roman era and even before the ‘invention’ of Cognac, the region was
known for the quality of the drink it produced.
The invention of the drink came
in the 17th Century, when Dutch traders realised that if they first
distilled the wine they exported from the region, and stored it on oak caskets,
it took up less space, allowing them to export more, and improve with age. They
called this product ‘burnt’ wine or ‘brandewijn’ which is where the name brandy
originates. From here producers in the area saw the value of the drink and
developed the double distillation technique that wold prove critical to the
modern brandy making process.
In time this technique, as well
as the oak preservation technique made the drink unique to the town, which is
how Cognac as we know it gradually came into being, however it wasn’t until
1909 that this would be enshrined in official decree; Cognac became an
exclusive brand, unique to the town. The process was completed in 1936, when it
was awarded its own Appellation
d’origine contrôlée or AOC, which legally denotes an area in which a particular
product can be made.
The Appellation d’origine controlee
protects the name Cognac, imposing certain rules and restrictions about which
drink can bear the iconic name; it’s similar to the way the name ‘Champagne’ is
protected. Cognac has grown to be a drink of elegance and class, and we have
several delicious Cognac’s for you. We have the Remy Martin XO Champagne
Cognac, priced from £110.40, we have the Delamain Pale and Dry XO Grande
Champagne Cognac, priced from £110.40 and we have Claude Thorin VR Cognac,
priced from £76.80.
