A taster’s memories

According to you, what are the conditions required to train as a professional tasting?

You can’t claim to know your stuff if you don’t taste a lot and regularly. Over my career, I tasted about fifty samples every weekday morning at 11.30am, surrounded by the tasting committee. We were always seated at exactly the same places in the same office.

It is effectively necessary to do it on a daily basis and in an unchanged context: same place, same people, same time. Tasting is all the more difficult where cognac is concerned, because unlike wine, the degree of alcohol dilutes one’ perception.

And above all, it is essential that someone be there to guide you at all times.

What is the role of this guide?

First and foremost, they teach you the practical side of things. It is a very quick passage: within a few months you know how much to take, when to take it and how to spit it out… But above all, they are the person who helps you to distinguish what is important, different, interesting… This is the most difficult thing to learn and requires a teacher.

What defines a good taster?

You can only be a good taster once you have educated your memory. It is a long and difficult process. I can only talk about what I know, but as far as Hennessy cognac is concerned, it takes ten years to build a memory. Ten years for someone with a lot of talent!

(Picture credit: Alfredo Piola.)

Why does it take ten years?

This is the minimum time needed to educate one’s memory.

Memory is made up of two elements: perception and memorisation. Little by little, you create your frame of reference, you organise your memory. And it is only after ten years that you are able to refer to the right part of the memory, the part that you are trying to call upon. This is not specific to alcohol tasting: I had the opportunity to discuss this subject with Jean-Paul Guerlain, who also considers that a perfumer’s nose needs ten years to build its memory.

What image could you use to represent your memory?

It’s like a library in which you accumulate references. Tasting after tasting, you count up thousands of them. In the long run, you can associate a perception with a reference. It’s a bit like saying to yourself “I’m tasting something I’ve already encountered, and that I’ve classified on shelf 10, cabinet 5”.

How do you use these references?

At Hennessy, tasting is not about recognising or labelling smells or tastes, but about identifying the best eaux-de-vie. What counts in selecting eaux-de-vie is being able to detect their potential. Cognac does not become better with age, it needs to be good from the start! Considering this prerequisite, it is necessary to know how to orientate a batch of eau-de-vie in order to develop all of its capacities and to know when and how to use it.

This is the role of the taster. He must be able to detect the potential of an eau-de-vie: can it age for five years, ten years, or more? How will it express all its qualities? Which one has a superior dimension that will allow us to take it further?

(Picture credit: Alfredo Piola.)

You were also a blender

Blending is the ultimate ambition.

The master blender is responsible for preserving the taste and quality of the House. Every time you drink an XO Hennessy you must find the same taste, regardless of the year in which it was produced. And this is true for all top quality cognacs. From the eaux-de-vie in stock, the blender must therefore know how to use their memory so as to create the right blends. This is what I am most proud of in my career, even more so than having created exceptional limited series.

How do you explain this feeling?

It’s been a real pleasure for me to have produced, over time, millions of cases, all of equal quality (and what quality!).

It’s a real achievement to produce such incredible volumes year after year, all with a consistent taste and with no vintage effect. This demonstrates the ability I mentioned earlier to discern the potential of the eaux-de-vie and to know how to orient them in the right way at the right time: which cask, which cellar, and for how long… This is what has made my job so exciting.

(Picture credit: Hennessy.)