I want to switch gears quickly here if I may and go from southern Spain to the town of Cognac in central France. A recent business trip took me nearby and I couldn’t resist the urge to spend a day there, and tour the Hennessy cognac distillery located at the heart of the tiny town and right on the banks of the Charente river. I was surprised by how “off-the-beaten-path” the whole experience seemed, but must say that an absence of all the tourists probably did make the trip all the more enjoyable.

As you can imagine, there are vineyards everywhere around the town. It turns out that most quality Cognac is actually made primarily of grapes that are grown in three rather small areas of the town called Grande Champagne, Petite Champagne, and Borderies, though, in addition, it can technically also contain a certain percentage of grapes from three other areas called Fin Bois, Bon Bois, and Bois Ordinaries. Whatever the case, following the seasonal harvest, the grapes undergo fermentation separately by grape variety and area of origin. The three grape varieties that are grown the various areas within Cognac are called Ugni Blanc, Folle Blanche and Colombard.

The thin wine that is produced by the fermentation process then undergoes two serial distillations in very traditional copper alembics. The first of the two produces a rather weak spirit, called brouillis, that retains a lot of the original character of the grape. The brouillis is then returned to the boiler to undergo the second distillation which yields a target spirit of about 70% alcohol which is termed the eau de vie.

It takes a cellar master at this point, all of whom have long family histories in the trade, to make a critical decision: how to marry each batch of distillate with a particular oak barrel, pairing them according to the individual characteristics of both the oak, used to manufacture each hand-made barrel, and of the eau de vie, attempting to predict how they will evolve together during the aging process to bring out the very best of the eau de vie’s potential.

That task achieved, the aging process begins and continues somewhat endlessly. I say that because, although each eau de vie batch will be used, a bit at a time, for creating the various final cognac blends destined for the market, the remainder continues to age and evolve until it is all used up.

Some of the oldest batches we got to see at the cellar dated as far back as the mid 1800’s, and all have been used to some extent in the production of Hennessy’s line of cognacs.

For creating a cognac, the cellar master then simply creates a formula containing over a hundred different eau de vie batches from the cellar. He may experiment with different batches, blending them into a final tester in an attempt to create something new or, in the case of the most renowned cognacs, to capture the essence and spirit of a particular line with remarkable consistency. Cognac, then, is not really the product of a single distillation and aging, but a skillful blend of many carefully selected eau de vie batches of various vintages.

Having completed the walkthrough of the distillery, the cellar and the blending room, I couldn’t imagine why anybody would want to go through all that to produce liquor; but as I made my way to the sampling area I was sure glad I get to drink it!