Cognac Park VS Carte Blanche: Two Crus, Two Kinds of Oak

We already pour Cognac Park's Borderies Mizunara, the French brandy finished in Japanese oak. Carte Blanche is the house's VS, and it is a much better introduction to how cognac is actually built.

Distillerie Tessendier

Cognac Park comes from Distillerie Tessendier in Jarnac, a family estate founded in 1880 by Gaston Tessendier.

Jarnac sits on the Charente river, and it is one of the two towns, along with Cognac itself, that the whole region organizes around.

The Crus

Cognac is divided into six growing areas, called crus, and the divisions are based on soil rather than politics.

Grande Champagne and Petite Champagne have chalky soil that produces eaux-de-vie built for very long aging, floral and slow to develop.

Borderies is the smallest cru, with clay and flint, and it produces rounder, nuttier, more floral spirit that matures faster. That is the cru behind the Mizunara bottle.

Fins Bois is the largest, with heavier clay, and produces fruit-forward eaux-de-vie that come round early.

Carte Blanche is built from 100% Ugni Blanc grown in Fins Bois and Petite Champagne, blended in equal parts. Fins Bois brings the early fruit, Petite Champagne brings the structure. Half and half is an unusually clean statement of intent.

Ugni Blanc

Nearly all cognac is made from this one grape, and the reason is counterintuitive: it makes bad wine.

Ugni Blanc produces wine that is thin, low in alcohol and very high in acid, which is unpleasant to drink and excellent to distill. High acidity protects the wine from spoiling before it reaches the still, and low alcohol means more volume has to be distilled, concentrating aromatics.

The base wine for cognac is genuinely not something anyone would order.

The Wood

Double distilled in Tessendier's Charentais copper pot stills, then aged in two stages.

First, six months in new, lightly toasted French oak. New oak gives colour, vanilla and tannin quickly, and six months is short on purpose. Longer and the wood would take over.

Then three to six years in used casks. Used oak contributes very little flavor of its own, and its job is slow oxidation, letting the spirit soften and integrate without adding more wood.

This two-stage approach is the standard cognac method and it explains why cognac rarely tastes as oaky as a comparable whisky. The wood is a seasoning step, not the main event.

What It Tastes Like

Vibrant and fresh, with white flowers, pear and a hint of vanilla, finishing clean and bright. The fruit is what a VS should deliver, and there is more of it here than the price suggests.

How to Drink It

Neat in a tulip glass, on the rocks, or in a cocktail. Tessendier says all three, and a VS is genuinely built for mixing in a way an older cognac is not.

Pair It With

Tuna tataki with ponzu, scallop sashimi, delicate raw preparations. The brightness works next to clean seafood.

Try It at Juraku

Cognac Park Carte Blanche is on the bar at Izakaya Juraku, Lower East Side, alongside the Borderies Mizunara. Check the current menu or ask us what is open.