Comet year 1811

[Ton]

Op de wijnproeverij kwam het gesprek op het jaar 1811, dat bekend staat als een uitzonderlijk jaar. Dit wordt vaak toegeschreven aan een grote komeet die dat jaar aan de hemel verscheen. Dit was niet de Halley Komeet, maar een komeet die geen eigennaam heeft en als C1811 F1 wordt aangeduid. Deze komeet werd als eerste ontdekt door Honoré Flaugergues en wordt soms ook naar hem genoemd.
Er ontstond nogal wat discussie of zo'n komeet invloed kan hebben op de kwaliteit van cognac. Ik heb twee artikele gevonden die ik voldoende interessant vond om te vermelden. De belangwekkendste passages heb ik hier gekopieerd.

Eén artikel is van Wikipedia, waaruit ik hier twee passages heb gekopieerd http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_vintages:

Comet vintages are years during which an astronomical event, involving generally a "Great Comet", occurs prior to harvest. Throughout the history of wine, winemakers have attributed successful vintages and ideal weather conditions to the unexplained effects caused by the comets. Some of the most heralded vintages in the last couple of centuries—such as the 1811, 1826, 1839, 1845, 1852, 1858, 1861, 1985 & 1989 vintages—have coincided with a notable appearance of a comet. The term "comet wine" is sometimes used in the wine world to describe a wine of exceptional quality in reference to the high reputation that comet vintages have. The 1811 comet vintage, coinciding with the appearance of the Great Comet of 1811, is perhaps the most famous. The 1811 Château d'Yquem has exhibited what wine experts like Robert Parker have described as exceptional longevity with Parker scoring the wine a perfect 100 points when tasted in 1996. The 1811 vintage of Veuve Clicquot is theorized to have been the first truly "modern" Champagne due to the advancements in the méthode champenoise which Veuve Clicquot pioneered through the technique of remuage.

The 1811 comet vintage has had the most lasting notoriety. The comet that year was the Flaugergues comet, named after Honoré Flaugergues who first spotted the comet in March. The comet was visible for most of the growing season, which saw optimal conditions for many of the world's major growing regions, but particularly for France. After a string of bad vintages at the start of the 19th century, the 1811 vintage was a reversal of fortune in regions like Bordeaux, Cognac, Champagne and Sauternes. For Cognac, the vintage was considered one of the greatest in history, with many producers today including images of stars on their labels as an homage to the 1811 vintage. Notable wines from this include the 1811 Château d'Yquem, which received a perfect 100-point wine rating by wine critic Robert Parker at a 1996 tasting over one hundred and eighty years after it was bottled.In Germany, the 1811 vintage was so successful that producers along the Rhine would label their wines as "comet hock".



Het andere artikel vond ik op Finest & Rarest Vintage Spirits (http://www.finestandrarest.com/cognac.html)

Stars found on cognac labels came from a superstitious shipper of brandy who put a star on his bottles to pay homage to the great "Comet" vintage of 1811, one of the best ever for cognac. Today, French law states that three-star cognac, the youngest, must be aged for a minimum of 18 months.

The 1811 vintage
1811 was regarded at the time as the greatest vintage in living memory, and is now universally held to be the
finest vintage of the 19th century throughout the vineyards of Western Europe. A long hot summer and a warm dry autumn meant an abundant harvest of perfectly ripe grapes, from Bordeaux to Burgundy, from the Rheingau to the vineyards of Tokaji. In Cognac, the folle blanche reached an unequalled level of perfection, and the distillers knew that they were dealing with a once in a lifetime harvest. In the same year, Napoleon himself visited the region, and was presented with a barrel of cognac as a gift for his young son. Many ascribed the extraordinary weather to the remarkable astronomical event that had dominated the year - The Great Comet.
The comet was visible by astronomers for 17 months, but for two months - September and October 1811, exactly the time grapes were harvested - it was clearly visible to the naked eye, illuminating the night sky with a coma that at one point exceeded the diameter of the sun. It was taken as sign of supernatural blessing on the harvest, which henceforth was known as "The Comet Vintage".

1811 cognac
The exceptional quality of 1811 cognac was recognised immediately, and the leading producers marked the vintage either with the date on the bottle, or, more unusually, with a picture of the comet forever associated with the vintage. The date "1811" or the star (as the comet symbol soon became) were regarded as signs of infallible quality, and the leading producers were not slow to exploit this. By the late nineteenth century there were a plethora of "1811 Cognacs". Some of these still survive today, and most are very fine, but perhaps some
should correctly be regarded as tributes to the vintage of 1811, rather than as the actual product of the year - producers simply used the designation "1811" as a way of signifying their very best and oldest blend, regardless of the actual composition of the brandies. In the 1930's and 1959's unscrupulous producers mainly in the US re-bottled many ordinary brandies under faked "1811" labels - these are easy to recognise, but still turn up every year on auction and can fool the unwary.

Contemporary bottlings of the 1811 vintage can be recognised first and foremost by the characteristics of the glass bottle itself, which must clearly date from the 1820's or 1830's, when this cognac was originally bottled. They are extraordinarily rare.

Het gebruik van sterren als kwaliteitsaanduiding is als eerste vanaf 1865 door Auguste Hennessy in gebruik genomen. Het is niet helemaal duidelijk hoe hij op het idee is gekomen. Ik heb daar meerdere verhalen over gelezen.

[Hans]

Mooi Ton, is dat ook weer helder. Wel handig, zo'n huis-historicus.

[wouter]

Thanks voor de info!

Zie ook: http://www.cognacreview.nl/1811-een-bij ... gnac-jaar/ ik heb er ooit een post aan gewaagd...