Germain-Robin

[RickBin389]

I continue to be impressed with the surprising quality of these brandies from California......Has anyone else had the opportunity to taste these brandies against the much more expensive cognacs???

[Jason]

The reason these are so good is that they are made from real grapes, not ugni blanc. Also the GR stuff has no caramel coloring or oak flavors. The laws for Cognac are very lax and rubber stamped to accomodate the big 4 producers. There is good stuff made, but its all outside of these 4 and only represents 4% of production. While everyone else is focusing on quality, Cognac has been sleeping.This is why they now have a 5-7 year supply in some houses. (Normal is 2-3)
Hennesey Martini's anyone?
We are now just starting to see single district bottlings and other distinctive things that the single malts pioneered. They also got double hit when Japan lost its penchant for Cognac and switched to Reds.