Brandy
Brandy is the distillation of a naturally fermented wine—a
description as inadequate as the description of wine itself with which
we began this site. Fundamentally, the quality of a brandy depends on
the quality of the fermented wine that is put into the still, but the
differences between a cognac, made at Charante, in France, from the
Tolle blanche grape, and a brandy made on the River Murray, in
Australia, from the ubiquitous gordo blanco grape, are many indeed.
The first run of the pot-still, called the "heads", is taken off, for it
contains methanol which is poisonous. The last run of the still, called
the "tails", also is taken off and added to the next charge, leaving in
the middle the "hearts" of the still from which the brandy emerges
(after another, and sometimes a third distillation). There is no doubt
that this method, by which whisky also is made, produces very good
brandy, but there is equally no reason why a quite acceptable brandy
cannot be produced in a continuous still, provided it is taken off at
low enough strength to retain the necessary wine flavors.
The minimum legal strength of Australian brandies is 65 deg proof and
they must be aged, before sale, for not less than two years. Ageing is
done in wooden, usually oak, casks, and the brandy frequently is
flavored with vanilla and cane sugar and colored with caramel. Once the
brandy is put into bottle, it will not change. It follows therefore,
that a 100-year-old Napoleon brandy is only as good today as on the day
it was bottled, so there is no point in laying down a stock of brandy in
your cellar, for you will be using good money that would better be spent
on the purchase of dry wines that need bottle age.
 Them French appellation controlee decrees are very rigid and are dealt
with in more detail in a later chapter. It is sufficient here to say
that a brandy made anywhere else but in the Cognac district of France,
just to the north of Bordeaux, from the Tolle blanche grape, and by a
specified method of manufacture, is not a cognac. Cognac is not,
necessarily, the best brandy; it is simply the identification of a
particular product, made in a particular place by certain defined
methods of manufacture. Several Australian brandies are very good
indeed, having their own distinctive bouquet and flavor; but wherever
they originate, brandies are all made in the same way, that is, by
putting a naturally fermented white wine through a still, subjecting the
distillate to ageing in wood and then bottling it for sale.
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