Inside Hennessy | How Cognac is Made?

What is up guys? Julien Miquel here, back with another wine video. Not exactly a wine video. Indeed, I am in Cognac today. I'm going to visit some of the most famous of Cognac houses. And today, this morning, I'm visiting a unique, rare place in the world of spirits. I am at a distillery of Hennessy, in the heart of Cognac. I am going to witness how they distill the famous, super famous Hennessy Cognac. A rare, unique experience. I'm feeling so grateful, I'm feeling so thrilled and excited just right now. This is a rare moment, and I wanted to share it with you. Let's go. So here is one of three distilleries owned by Hennessy. It's a tiny, small distillery. There's about 10 stills here, they're copper stills. It's very artisanal, very handcrafted process. You can see here, the stills in which they distill the wine. Cognac is made of wine. And over there, there is an operating still. I'm going to show you where the eau de vie, the brandy comes out. It's a very special place around here. You have to feel the warmth of all those stills that are working. You have to feel the smell. It's a very unique experience to enter this place. It's in the heart of the vineyards. It's surrounded by the beautiful Cognac vineyards. We are mid-November. It's the beginning of the distillation process. We are in the middle of fall, so the leaves are yellow. It's a really excellent time to come here in Cognac and witness the distillation. So distillation goes from around early November to March. So winter may not be the best season to be in Cognac, to be outside and enjoy the sun and all of this. But the great thing is that you can be inside in a warm distillery like here, and you can experience the crafting, the process of heating the wine, distilling the wine, crafting this so special brandy that is Cognac. And especially here at NSE, where the experience is absolutely outstanding. I think we're going to go and try the Cognacs now. So that should be also very interesting. See you in a bit. So here I am tasting Cognac wine. This is the wine that is made in October. They harvest around the end of September. They ferment the wine in October. And this is what Cognac wine looks like. This is a eight to 10% alcohol wine. So it's a relatively low white wine. You can see that it's still on the lees, on the yeasts, and it's going to be distilled with the lees in it, which adds body complexity to the brandy. So let's have a sniff to this. It actually smells quite citrusy. There's a bit of grapefruit. There's a bit of lemon. Touches of butter from the yeast. And it's very, very acidic. Loads and loads of acidity. So here I'm lucky enough to be tasting what they call the Brouilly. This is the result of the first distillation of Cognac. Cognac knows two distillations, one after the other. After the first distillation, they get this juice that is about 30% alcohol and that they call the Brouilly. So if you come here for a special visit, the special premium VIP visit of Hennessy, you get to taste all these different products and you get to experience and sense the different phases of the elaboration of Cognac. And here, this is the result of the second fermentation. So this is pretty much the final product. This is what is going to be set into barrels for aging for years and years and years. This is about 70 plus percent alcohol. I've tried it a bit before. It's super, super strong. Oh God, this is so, so hot. It's super, super hot, but it's very delicate. It's very citrusy, lemony, apricot, extremely, extremely fruity, extremely pure. Wow, this is pretty much white Cognac at full strength, full proof. Something really rare to experience. It's so, so hot, but it's so, so good. Wow, so super interesting tasting with all the different components that make Cognac, all the different phases of elaboration. Simply just a wonderful, wonderful place. I'm feeling so, so lucky right at the moment. This is just such an incredible experience. I think the next phase is going back to the shop and going back to have a tasting of the finished products, the products that have aged and evolved for years and years and years in oak barrels. So let's go and check this out. Now we know a little bit more about how Cognac is made. Okay, so after crossing the river on a little cruise, very, very short cruise from where the Hennessy shop is, we're going back into the distillery and going to visit something really, really special called Le Paradis, Paradise. And that's where they age all the top spirits. So those barrels is part of where the Cognac Hennessy is aged, the smell here is absolutely incredible. It smells like oak, it smells like vanilla, it smells like caramel, it smells like alcohol, it smells like orange peel. So sweet, Christmas pudding, it's enchanting. The Paradis is where the very, very super, super old Eau de Vies, the super old brandies at Hennessy are kept. I'm going to show you a few examples. A brandy from 1800, 1877. There's a whole row of it, 1875. So this is a fantastic, fantastic place that is full of super old, century old brandies. There are barrels, there are some d'Amizans, just a crazy, fantastic place. I can't wait to taste the brandies. the most exciting, exciting part of the visit, I suppose, even though everything before was so amazing. I can't wait to taste the final product. Let's go.