Geographically, Armagnac appears for the first time in the middle of the tenth century. By the fifteenth century, the English kings had come and gone ...

Armagnac, as the locals invariably inform even the most casual visitor, is at once the oldest and youngest spirit in France. Oldest because it was ...

Appropriately, at Christmas we often visualise the elderly gentleman lowering his nose into a large balloon glass containing a brown liquid, presumably cognac. While endowing ...

During the late 19th century it became an aristocratic tradition to supply cognacs that had aged in damp cellars for many years, rather like those ...

Storing cognacs may sound a rather easy process of placing old barrels on their sides in cellars  (Chais), in neat rows and often about three ...

Cognac must be distilled between the range of 67–72 degrees and many producers will try and get it to the higher end of the range ...

The vast majority of distillers in the cognac region are bouilleurs de cru, distillers who grow their own grapes, rather than the bouilleurs de profession, ...

To visit the Charente in October is one of the most exciting periods of the whole of the Cognac season. There is a huge sense ...

Legally the Cognaçais can use a number of grape varieties, although the choice is largely theoretical. The Ugni Blanc accounts for over 90% of the ...

Finding a more suitable position to make cognac is impossible, since the combination of climate, soil and position creates that lovely French Term, “Terroir”, to ...