The liquor world is full of confusing labels, so much so that you may get a bit confused by those letters on the Cognac labels. You really can relate to this if you have ever wanted to make a liqour purchase and saw something like Hennessy V.S.O.P or Hennessy X.O and had to make your decision based on the price difference. Well we’re making things clear on what those terms stand for.
While there are numerous brandy categories out there, the two that dominates the market and you will most often stumble upon, are the ‘V.S.O.P.’ and ‘X.O’. So, what does those letters mean?
Firstly, It all has to do with aging – the time a specific spirit matures in a barrel. The letters on the bottle are basically a guide indicating the minimum years the youngest Cognac in the blend actually spent in the barrel. The aging reads as follows:
V.S.O.P.
‘V.S.O.P.’ stands for ‘Very Special Old Pale’ and it means that in that specific blend, the youngest Cognac is at least 4 years old (5 years old if we are talking about Armagnacs) even though often it’s much older than that. The ‘Old Pale’ comes from caramel coloring which is often used to color-correct the end product.
X.O.
‘X.O.’ means ‘Extra Old’ and as of April 2016, the minimum aging for the youngest Cognac or Armagnac in the blend is 10 years old (prior to that it was just 6 years which, to be honest, didn’t actually made a lot of sense).
Now that we’ve covered the two most popular categories let’s have a look on the others as well:
V.S. (Very Special): The youngest blended Cognac or Armagnac must be a minimum 2 years old.
Varietal: The Cognac or Armagnac is made with just one grape. The grape varietal should be included on the label.
V.O. (Very Old): The whole thing (not just the youngest spirit in the blend) has been aged for a minimum of 4 years.
