Sommeliers Cognac XO

The old cognac balloon glass is dead! In 1988, Hennessy's chief taster Yann Fillioux collaborated with Georg Riedel to develop a cognac glass. During blind tastings of various glass shapes, traditional balloon glasses of different sizes fell short. It became clear that the popular balloon glasses have too large an evaporation surface, which overemphasizes the alcohol and its sharpness.

"I'm not surprised at all," says Yann Fillioux, "for years we have been using a narrow, small-volume glass for internal tastings at Hennessy."

The conclusion of the blind tasting at Riedel: In the second round, the top qualities of Hennessy XO and Paradis were tasted.

The newly defined glass shape for V.S.O.P. showed insufficient intensity in the aroma test. This can be explained by the fact that mature cognacs lose their strictness with increasing age. We were looking for a shape that concentrates the aromas.