The Auswine Forum

Can anyone suggest a good place in Brisbane to buy vintage french Cognac ? My weapon of choice is Delamain.

I can't see any cognac on Gavin's website, so you could always try spiritsoffrance.com.au (the sales side of Cerbaco?) for an online shop. Dan Murphy's has a couple of interesting ones online - but most are at silly prices. Oak Barrel have a couple, but you really need to look to overseas (whiskey exchange?) for some real variety. I think the market over here doesn't bear all that much variety.

But if you find anywhere, let me know, please? Currently enjoying St Agnes XO from McLaren Vale - a steal compared to similar priced Cognac or Armangac.

Thanks for that. My initial interest was peaked through bidding on a bottle at auction, however I had little idea of value and my bids petered out quickly with exponential price rises. Unfortunately I realise now that it sold for a song. Since that time have become well acquainted with a number of UK based sellers including Whiskey Exchange, however I figure I probably need to do the trip there to pick it up ... had heard about the St Agnes but have never tried ... sounds like it needs to be added to my "to do" list.

Hi Mark

Why not come to an offline? If you bring some cognac I am sure no one will object.

Cheers

Michael

It's probably my filthy cigar habit that combines with the cognac that people most object to !

With the St Agnes, for $100 you get a brandy that's certainly the best for the price, bar none (IMO). 'Tis a blend, to be sure, with the youngest being around 20 and the oldest in the 50 range. From talking to them when I was there, I think the same blender has been working at Angoves for over 20 years and he's getting to taste the stuff he put down (which he's happy about).

Looks like you have to go to the 30 year show reserve for any aged quality. The 7 yo XO just doesn't cut it against the alternatives in imports.
St Agnes is pot stilled rather than column stilled and so is most comparable to cognac (pot double stilled) rather than armangac (which is column stilled and single stilled).
It is predominantly of basic still feedstock of Colombard grape vartietal.

use the google tool, there's a quiet few over-priced Aussie online sellers, I am more into Armagnac than Cognac. Got quiet few Armagnac's in my collection, picked up couple nice '28, '38, & '48 vintages when I was in France two years ago. Just don't ask me the duty tax I had to pay when I arrived back here....grrr!

I will start by saying I know next to nothing about cognac, however, for something completely off the map a couple of independent scotch bottlers do french cognacs. I can't comment on how they measure up, but I do trust Graham - the odd whisky coy. Automatic discount once you sign in:

http://www.theoddwhiskycoy.com.au/catal ... ata=cognac

I just reread the initial post and realised I wasn't sure exactly what you are after.

Cognac is no longer allowed to be bottled as a single vintage - it used to be that there were occasional vintage Cognacs (something about shipped to UK before blending and bottling and bottled in the UK). So any single vintages are increasing rare and expensive at auction.

Cognac like Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, etc is a designated region protected by law and must come from France

If you want vintage brandy Armangac still bottles vintages as well as blends of years.

As epr David J - if by "Vintage" you mean "Top Quality", the Wine Emporium usually stocks Cognacs to XO level and beyond, as well as single vintage Armagnacs - I have bought both from them before.

Cheers

Andrew

What remains available is 'early landed' Cognac which is labelled with a single year. Hine still release a
Cognac designated on this manner. Not cheap.

I guess I was thinking "vintage = youngest eaux de vie used in the blend", as I've never actually seen a cognac with a single year on the label. Mostly, you'd find that a cognac has been blended from different distillations (e.g. 1900's to 1930's, or 1840's to 1900's, or 1963 to 1993) and then barrelled again to mix and age. You can generally get some good ones from the smaller cognac producers at lesser prices than some of the larger (gangsta rapper favoured) producers. Moyet do a fine line on older bottlings if you can ever find one. And there's a few others around. But I guess I'm not as much into them as the single malts.

As a great man once told me "so many fine wines, so few liver cells".

Thanks all for your tips and posts.

I ended up with 3 bottles, all blends ;
"Bulk produced" XO Hennesey
"Small family" XO Jean Luc Pasquet Grand Champagne
Janneau Tres Vieille Reserve Grand Armangac (35 year)

The current bottle levels in order per above are ;
Glass or two gone
Around 1/3 gone
>50% gone

Looks like I'm more an Armangac guy than a Cognac guy.

8 of my 15 cigar pack are also gone :S

Choosing cognacs/armagnacs is fairly straight forward. XO Hennessy was the brew that initiated me into cognac and it's still my favourite cognac of that richer orange peel christmas pud style. Jean Luc Pasquet is what I moved to. It's lighter, just as interesting but significantly cheaper. The Armagnac I fall back on is Compte Lemaestre 1975 - although I assume the vintage has now changed.

Malts are a different conversation altogether. Irrespective of region or price, they are all interesting. It's lucky that I have an industrial strength liver.