YEARS AGO, UPON returning from France, Steve Martin quipped, “It’s like those French have a different word for everything!” There are two notable exceptions: Champagne and Cognac. Ces deux mots are truly universal.
Both Champagne and Cognac denote regions in France, as well as the namesake wines (one bubbly, the other distilled) that come from their respective Appellations d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC). Curiously, both pair perfectly pair with cigares. (That’s yet another linguistic exception, though the spelling differs ever so slightly.)
While I’ve been known to enjoy a glass of fizz on the right occasion, I enjoy les eaux-de-vie charentaises on most every occasion—no special circumstance required. This leads me to a legendary epicurean pairing: Cognac and cigars, two remarkable and traditional handcrafted luxuries seemingly made for each other.
Another quotation? Yes, I’m afraid so; they’re handy. This one by the legendary Anonymous: “[Smoking] a good cigar is like tasting a good wine: You smell it, you taste it, you look at it, you feel it—you can even hear it. It satisfies all the senses.”
Make no mistake, XO and Hors d’Age Cognac is a bonne une eau-de-vie de vin produite dans la région de Cognac. It’s distilled from a low-sugar, high-acidity, low-alcohol white wine (8.5 to 9 percent alcohol by volume) from one of six grape varietals: typically Ugni Blanc and Colombard, but Folle Blanche, Montils, Sémillon and Folignan can be used as well.
The wine from whence Cognac is derived is double-distilled less than a week after fermentation in remarkably sculptural copper stills in the méthode charentaise, then aged in cellars, damp and dry alike, for years—two years at minimum, though I wouldn’t recommend imbibing that expression. Most are aged for decades. A young XO is required to be no fewer than 10 years old. (The first year isn’t counted; it’s considered “year zero.” So really, 11 years—it starts to get good by its second decade.)
In some instances, Cognac is removed from the oak barrels and casks and stored in glass demijohns (a.k.a. dame-Jeanne), traditionally wrapped in straw, for a century or even longer. Once it’s out of oak, the magic of wood, air and time is halted. The eau-de-vie will not continue to age, but it will remain chemically inert when stored in a demijohn. The certain duration of both aging and storing of Cognac makes it a unique gastronomic indulgence. Then there are the quality and flavor profile—the characteristics that make it peerless.
What about its best friend cigars? We’re getting there … PART TWO.
photo portrait by Mitchell Vito Helson
