I recently read a tasting note concerning an armagnac that noted how well it held up after being opened. So a couple of questions.
My understanding is that with armagnac/cognac etc., it does not matter if the bottle has been opened or not. I.e. it does not change in the bottle after opening the way wine does. Is that correct?
I recently picked up a 1989 armagnac that noted on the back that it was bottled in 2017. Does it matter when an armagnac is bottled? I am wondering if the later bottlings have been aged in cask up until that point, or is this just a way to control inventory (and perhaps price) by holding back some and releasing them more slowly into the market? (Of course, both suppositions could be true, but I am more interested in the first – i.e. does the taste of the armagnac change based upon when it is bottled?)
If it is sealed, you can keep it practically indefinitely as long as the cork or closure is checked or changed every 5 or 10 years. If you have opened it, it is best to keep it for 1 to 2 years maximum, otherwise the oxidation, although low, due to air entering the bottle, can change the taste.
Most armagnac does not stay in barrel 18 years like yours. A lot of the older vintages were bottled long ago. It’s been 20 years since I was really drinking armagnac, but I don’t recall the bottling dates being listed that often.
+1 Except that I don’t think it’s oxidation; I think it’s the loss of aroma through evaporation of the volatile compounds, particularly as you get toward the end of a bottle. That’s true with all brandies and whiskies. Since aroma is what really make armagnac, they definitely suffer when they’ve been open too long.
I used to think that spirits kept essentially for ever once opened, but then I tasted the last sip from a bottle of single malt next to a fresh bottle, and it was a big difference. This is true of any fine spirit, I think.
Long ageing in oak barrels softens the taste and causes the development of more complex flavours and a brown colour. Ageing in the barrel removes a part of the alcohol and water by evaporation (known as part des anges—“angels’ tribute” or “angels’ share”) and allows more complex aromatic compounds to appear by oxidation, which further modifies the flavour… When the Armagnac is considered as matured, it is transferred to large glass bottles (called “Dame Jeanne”) for storage. …
Armagnac is sold under several classifications, mostly referring to the age of the constituent brandies. Armagnac is allowed to be sold under vintages. When Armagnacs of different ages have been blended, the age on the bottle refers to the youngest component. A three-star, or VS, Armagnac is a mix of several Armagnacs that have seen at least two years of ageing in wood. For VSOP, the ageing is at least three years, and for XO, at least ten. Hors d’âge means the youngest component in the blend is at least ten years old. Older and better Armagnacs are often sold as vintages, with the bottles containing Armagnac from a single year, the year being noted on the bottle.
So, with the caveat that I am ITB when it comes to Cognac…
If a Cognac (not sure this is true for Armagnac but suspect it is the same) claims 25 YO, then the youngest spirit in the blend needs to be 25YO (technically 25 years from the April following harvest).
Vintage dated cognac (which is much rarer) must come from that vintage and be sealed by the BNIC until it is bottled. So per the example above if a cognac has a 1989 vintage and 2017 bottling date, then, yes, it was harvested in 1989, distilled either in late 1989 or early 1990, and aged in cask until bottling in 2017.
Thanks to John, Clayton, and others – this has been extremely helpful so far! Clayton’s explanation with cognac makes sense to me, which means that later releases of the same vintage will be different (unlike wine). Maybe better?
Clayton is talking about cognac, which is a different drink (double-distilled, different region) with different rules. If an armagnac says it spent 25 years in cask, then it did. And the VS, VSOP, XO categories are based on the time in wood.
But apart from those categories, the time in cask typically is not featured prominently, if at all, on armagnac labels. It’s rare to find one labeled “12 years” as you do with scotch.
Many vintage bottlings do now list the bottling date, but I think that was rare when I was buying them in the 1990s. So if you see, say, a 1979 today, you won’t necessarily know how much time it spent in wood.
Technically, the bottling date could be from large glass containers as well as from cask. It would yield very different results. I think this is probably rare, however, since producers are generally using their spirits in glass more for blending than bottling.
Correct, I was speaking about Cognac (full disclosure: I work for Beam Suntory, which owns Courvoisier Cognac).
A few other notes on Cognac:
It is rarely bottled with an age statement (but can be). When bottled with an age statement, the age reflects the age of the youngest eau du vie in the blend.
It is typically bottled as VS, VSOP, Naploeon and XO (with mandated minimum ages of 2, 4, 6 and 10 respectively).
It is rarely (much more rarely) vintage dated (but can be). To do so the aging spirit is sealed with wax by the BNIC.
It is rarely (but can be) bottled at cask strength.
Aging typically takes place in French oak barrels (mix of used and new), but at high ages (~40 years+) it does get transferred into glass demi johns to preserve the quality of the liquid.
For Armagnac, the age statement also reflects the youngest EdV in the blend. The rules for the age abbreviations are indeed slightly different than in Cognac, but not much. Any specific age statement, say 12 or 30 YO will refer to the youngest spirit in the blend. So, if your Armagnac says 25 years old, the youngest will be 25 years old.
It is also correct, that producers - both in Cognac and Armagnac - can fill an old cask into a glass demi john, and this further resting in glass causes no extra evolution for the spirit. This complicates things a bit when understanding the age, because the bottling date will refer to the date of bottling, not the date of transfer to the demi john. However, I believe most quality producers only do this when the cask is fully developed or risks dropping below the required 40% abv, and the casks will thus be very old. So, as a general rule, I think with most Armagnacs at age 30 or below, one can safely assume ageing in cask for the full period.
Example: I know of a Cognac producer, whose vintage 1914 was transferred to demi john in 1989. Any bottle of this bottled after 1989, will thus taste more or less the same.
