How old is vsop

The French drink as much Scotch as they produce Cognac nearly 12 million cases. According to Master Blender Laurent Robin of Louis Royer , 50 years is the average lifespan of a copper pot still due to acidity and heat.

Coloring can legally be added to Cognacs to ensure consistency. Getty All featured products are independently selected by our editorial team or contributors. For information on visiting Hennessy click here. Skip to content. Buy Hennessy Cognac Privilege V. Cognac Hennessy is the largest cognac house in the world. P Privilege We tasted Hennessy V. Privilege neat in a cognac snifter. Here is our review. Price Privilege is the highest priced of the big four cognac houses V.

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. 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. As long as the minimum requirement is reached, and it is made in the official region, the brandy can legally bear the esteemed Cognac name.