VS, VSOP and XO: What the Letters on Cognac Actually Mean
VS, VSOP and XO are not quality grades. They are age minimums. Each one tells you how long the youngest spirit in the blend sat in oak before it went in the bottle, and nothing else. That is the whole system, and once you know it the cognac shelf stops being intimidating.
Here is what each set of letters means, what it costs, and which one is worth buying for what.
The letters, decoded
| On the label | Stands for | Youngest spirit in the blend |
|---|---|---|
| VS | Very Special | At least 2 years |
| VSOP | Very Superior Old Pale | At least 4 years |
| Napoléon | Nothing. It is a marketing name that became a legal tier | At least 6 years |
| XO | Extra Old | At least 10 years |
| XXO | Extra Extra Old | At least 14 years |
| Hors d'Age | Beyond age | Officially XO, in practice much older |
Two things people get wrong about that table. First, it is the youngest component that sets the label. A VSOP can and usually does contain spirit far older than four years, it just cannot contain anything younger. Second, XO used to mean six years. It was raised to ten in 2018, and XXO was created at the same time, so an old XO bottle and a new one are not the same promise.
The letters are English on a French product because the British ran the cognac export trade in the nineteenth century. That is the entire reason.
Cognac and brandy are not the same word
Brandy is any spirit distilled from fruit. Cognac is brandy from one region of western France, made from white grapes, distilled twice in copper pot stills, and aged in French oak. All cognac is brandy. Almost no brandy is cognac. It is the same relationship as bourbon and whiskey.
Armagnac, from further south, is the other famous French one, distilled once through a column still, which leaves it rougher and more characterful. Spanish brandy is aged in old sherry casks and comes out sweeter. And then there are the fruit brandies, which have nothing to do with grapes at all, and which are far more familiar on a Jewish table than any cognac.
What Grande Champagne means, and it is not champagne
The cognac region is divided into six crus, and the word champagne here means chalky open country, not sparkling wine. It has nothing to do with the drink from Reims.
Grande Champagne is the first cru, the most chalky soil and the most prized. Petite Champagne is next, then Borderies, then Fins Bois, Bons Bois and Bois Ordinaires. If a bottle says Fine Champagne, it is a blend of the top two with at least half from Grande Champagne.
Lautrec VS Grande Champagne at $38.99 is one hundred percent first-cru fruit at a VS price, which is unusual. The Lautrec VSOP Grande Champagne at $53.99 is the same source with more years on it.
The kosher part
The three names everybody knows are Hennessy, Rémy Martin and Courvoisier, and none of them is the answer here. What is on the kosher shelf instead is a set of houses that are less famous and, bottle for bottle, frequently better value.
Godet has been making cognac since 1588. Louis Royer and Deau both run a full ladder from VS to XO. Nearly all of them are Kosher for Passover as well, which matters more for brandy than for most spirits, since a grape base is exactly what you want on Pesach. Kosher for Passover spirits has the wider picture.
The ladder, with prices
| Tier | Bottles | Where the money lands |
|---|---|---|
| VS | Ashkelon VS $29.99, Godet VS Classique $34.99, Lautrec VS $38.99 | $30 to $60 |
| VSOP | Stock 84 VSOP $19.99, Godet VSOP $53.99, Louis Royer VSOP $69.99 | $20 to $80 |
| Napoléon | Deau Napoléon Cigar Blend $129.99 | $100 to $150 |
| XO | Deau XO $179.99, Louis Royer XO $179.99, Psagot XO Brandy $249.99 | $180 and up |
The jump from VS to VSOP is the one worth paying for. The jump from VSOP to XO doubles or triples the price for a difference most people only notice when they are paying attention on purpose. If you are buying one bottle for the house, buy a VSOP.
Which one for which job
For mixing, or for a sidecar, or for cognac and ginger, buy VS. Anything older is wasted the moment it meets citrus. Godet Saint Louis at $19.99 is the honest mixing bottle.
For the cabinet, buy VSOP. It is old enough to sip and cheap enough to pour freely. Godet VSOP at $53.99 is the one we point people at most often.
For a gift or a Yom Tov table, buy XO. Deau XO is ten to fifteen year old Petite Champagne and Fins Bois out of Limousin oak, and it looks like what it costs. The best wine to bring as a gift covers the wider question of what actually lands.
Drink it out of a snifter or a small tulip glass, at room temperature, no ice. Cognac is the one brown spirit that genuinely opens up if you let it sit in the glass for a few minutes.
The fruit brandies, which are the real Jewish tradition
Long before anyone on a Jewish table was drinking cognac, they were drinking slivovitz. Plum brandy, clear, dry, strong, and on the table at every Purim and every Pesach in central Europe for centuries. R. Jelinek Slivovitz 5 Year at $29.99 is the real thing, from Moravia.
Boukha Bokobsa at $32.99 is the North African equivalent, a Tunisian fig eau-de-vie made by the same family since 1880, and it carries the same weight in Sephardi homes that slivovitz carries in Ashkenazi ones. Bohemian Apricot at $32.99 is the softer cousin, and Georgian chacha at $42.99 is grape pomace brandy, the Georgian answer to grappa.
Then there is Carmel 777 at $49.99, which is not cognac, does not pretend to be, and is on more Israeli shelves than every cognac in this article combined.
The short version
The letters are age floors, set by the youngest spirit in the blend. VS is two years and belongs in a cocktail. VSOP is four and is the bottle to own. XO is ten and is a gift. Grande Champagne is a soil type, not a sparkling wine. And the kosher shelf runs the whole ladder, mostly Kosher for Passover, from thirty dollars to two hundred and fifty. Start on the brandy and cognac shelf and work up.
