Stop me if you knew this already. But it seems to me that the traditional brandy balloon is a terrible way to enjoy Cognac.
Bear with me while I quote from Wikipedia about the design of that glass: "The large surface area of the contained liquid helps evaporate it, the narrow top traps the aroma inside the glass, while the rounded bottom allows the glass to be cupped in the hand, thus warming the liquor."
We don't have any brandy balloons at home, so we have mostly enjoyed sipping our Cognac from a lowball glass (next to the bottle in the picture above). But I recently had the thought that a Nebbiolo glass (the next glass to the right) is a similar shape to a brandy balloon, so used one of them to enjoy one of life's great pleasures, the Heritage Cognac from Conte et Filles.
If the goal of a brandy balloon is to trap as much alcohol vapour as possible and guide it directly into one's nostrils, then mission accomplished. It was not a pleasant experience. All of the subtle complexity I knew was there somewhere was totally overpowered. On the palate it was as wonderful as ever, but it was difficult to recover from the initial assault.
Determined to enjoy the remainder of the Heritage, I searched the glassware cabinet for whatever was most opposite the Nebbiolo glass and landed on a tear drop shaped Champagne glass (the glass second from right in the photo).
The transformation was instant. Once again, a sniff in the glass was greeted with the aromas I remembered from previous experiences. Before the glass was finished, I'd gone down several google rabbit holes and had a few specialist tulip shaped Cognac glasses (the glass on the far right of the photo) on the way.
A taste test was required (though for this task, we used the excellent, but slightly more affordable, 10 y.o. from Conte et Filles). The specialist Cognac glass was the clear winner. On reflection, I should have known. My favourite photo of Anne-Laure and Blandine Conte doing some quality testing (see below) has a tulip shaped Cognac glass as the focus of the whole shot...
Lowball: relative to the other glasses, there was much less pronounced aroma intensity (of alcohol or flavours). The simpler oak aromas like vanilla were clear.
Nebbiolo glass: Massive alcohol. Unable to smell anything else.
Cognac tulip: Detectable alcohol but not burning. Complex aromas of walnuts, candied fruit, spice etc. A perfect balance.
Champagne tear drop: More complexity on the nose than the lowball, but a clear step down from the Cognac tulip.
