Contents
Recently turned out to be a guest, the owner is a terrible snob. He says – now I will treat you with expensive cognacs, my friends own steamboat factories and brought a limited edition.
I decided to show what a cool esthete he is! Well, I think, get out your bottles, now I will lay out the whole story for you on two fingers. More recently, I was closely involved in cognacs, and I learned something interesting about them.
By the way, my achievements will be of interest to everyone who has ever drunk cognac or wanted to buy it in a store.
Can cheap cognac be of high quality?
Yes, oddly enough, maybe. Somewhere I met statistics that the minimum cost of real cognac starts from 371 rubles per 0,5 liter, more or less worthy can already be bought for 500-700 rubles. But I’m not sure that it will be tasty or high-quality cognac.
The fact is that the taste and quality of cognac directly depends on the material and method of manufacture, and this is an expensive and long process. So it turns out that a three-year-old cognac is considered real, it can be inexpensive, but it is not tasty and not quite of high quality.
And even more so, it cannot be French with a big name! Only Russian, Armenian and Dagestan factories, where they use 100% cognac distillate from grape spirits (by the way, there are only a few such factories).
Is it possible to buy fake cognac in a store?
Quite, but in recent years the probability tends to zero. If this is a large chain store, there are practically no fakes in it. “Guilt” to everything is the EGAIS system, with the help of which, finally, outright falsification leaves our shelves.
When buying, traditionally look at:
- cost – it cannot be cheap for a good brand and a seasoned product;
- label – whether it is neatly pasted, whether the adhesive layer is uniform:
- small letters at the bottom of the label – what it is made of, are there any additives.
Important! Real cognac is made only from grape spirit, which is aged in oak or aluminum barrels with oak staves!
Most often, you will find not fake (for example, French, which is bottled near Mytishchi), but a low-quality drink that, by its origin, cannot bear the noble name of cognac (not from grape spirits). Experts call it a surrogate.
5 cognac brands that are better not to buy in the store
Again, this is just my opinion and my experience. If you like this cognac – great, I’m always glad when the buyer finds his product. However, I personally do not recommend buying some brands of skate in our stores.
My cognac anti-rating:
- “KD” (I believe, a cognac house) from the Aregak Brandy Factory LLC factory, Armenia, 421 rubles;
The worst cognac I’ve ever had
- “Five stars” from the “Wine and cognac plant” Rus “, Stavropol, Budennovsk, 219 rubles. for 0.25 l;
Although five stars, but the taste is just disgusting
- “Three Asterisks” (simple, right?) from the Russian Wine and Cognac Factory LLC, Stavropol Territory, Essentuki, 458 rubles;
I specially took off the color of cognac – a three-year-old cannot have such a rich dark, which means they added color
- “Chernomorsky 3 stars” from LLC “Rodnik and K”, Moscow region, Mytishchi – 479 rubles;
Terrible taste, those same bugs
- “Country of Stones”, Ararat factory, Armenia, 832 rubles.
Either a fake in the store, or the factory produces nonsense, although everything is ok with the label and description
Prices taken from one well-known online store to date, to be objective.
In general, I advise you to look not at the name, but at the manufacturer and its spirits. Ask the price in the store for a couple of options and read online about the factories: what material they work on, how long, how many comments on them. A good dozen factories will immediately disappear from you.
What should a good cognac taste like?
Bedbugs, mice, oak bark, insecticide – what kind of taste is not attributed to cognac! But, I assure you, all this is far from the truth.
The taste of a real good cognac cannot be described in one note, but it should definitely read:
- at the same time delicate refined taste and powerful, completely captivating attention;
- the desire to hold cognac in the mouth longer, to feel the change in taste;
- fruity notes, a little smell of rotten leaves and wet skin, a little smoke or spices, old mushrooms, musk – in general, nothing romantic and tasty!
By the way! Usually in cognac there are no more than ten notes, but even their tasters can hardly make out to the end!
Cognac should never have the taste of chocolate, vanilla, bright fruit or berry, sharply smoky and moss, as in whiskey. I advise you to set aside the glass if you come across cognac with an unusual taste or a note of something that is too pronounced – this is a 100% surrogate.
Well, how do you like the rating of cognacs? By the way, I laid that snob on both shoulder blades in the first round, he treated us to vanilla cognac!