Tastings are best conducted at 11am or at 5pm. At these times, before lunch and before dinner, the palate is free from residues of meals.

It is important to use the correct glasses for professional tastings as well as for personal enjoyment. A straight sherry tasting glass or a slightly tulip shaped spirit tasting glass (often referred to as a whisky tasting glass) is to be preferred. To be avoided is the brandy snifter which concentrates alcohol rather than aromas at the point where your nose is positioned.
 
It is essential to realise that Cognac is not wine. Although it has at one point been a wine and maintains many of the taste and smell characteristics, the distillation makes it a very different product and should therefore be treated differently when tasting.
 
Cognac is 40% alcohol and should therefore be treated differently from wine when tastings are conducted. It is important to tell the audience about this since most people do not know that there is a difference in the tasting technique.

Tasting a Grande Champagne Cognac is more akin to analysing a perfume than to analysing a wine. The delicacies and subtleties and the different levels of evaporation due to the different volatility of the various aromas mean that there are two noses rather than one (in the case of wine). The first one should be experienced without rotating the glass in order to capture the more volatile aromas and the second one after rotation.

For more information on tasting, please refer to the training manual which can be found in the downloads section.