Message 11016 of 39188 in General Discussion

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Congratu-ma-lations!

> http://www.cognac.fr/web_bnic/pdf/Juridique/DEC83082.PDF

You both found the statute, and illustrated the source of the 
misunderstanding ;-)

I'd started to suspect what was really going on here, then a more specific 
search proved it...

COGNAC is restricted and legally required to match at least those ages.
BRANDY in general is not! Yet is uses those labels anyway for decoration.

> Cognac-like quality designations such as V.S.O.P. 
> and Napoleon are frequently used, but have no legal standing
http://www.guamdiner.com/library/beverages/BRT000/BRT034.html

Different counties seem to have whatever conditions they like. 
In France (according to at least three sources) it must be aged at least 3 
years to even be called Brandy, (which makes me wonder what the point of VS 
is) while in Spain :
>Basic Brandy de Jerez Solera must age for a minimum of six months
...And in Australasia it's apparently got to be at least 4 years just to be 
'brandy'. In the States, it's 2.

More contradictions:
http://www.cocktailtimes.com/history/brandy/
>V.O. indicates that the brandy was aged at least 4 years. V.S.O.P. means it?s 
>been aged for minimum of 8 years. Napoleon, Extra, Vieille Reserve all mean 
>minimum of 5 years of aging.

See what's going on here?

My original point "They don't actually mean anything" was just that with such 
a lot of contradictory usage going on, the brandy terms have nowhere near the 
strength of most of the other international liquor standards (like the 'gold' 
vs 'anjo' example). Yet, as you have shown, the cognac terms do.

Thanks for finding the cognac statute anyway! More than enough French there, 
but according to my complete lack of French, although it clearly set out the 
classes, and which is better or the same as which, I couldn't see
it actually define them in terms of years aging :-) . Must be in an appendix 
somewhere!

.dan.