Brandy

Local regulations split brandy into three named types, and the label has to say which one you are holding. Potstill brandy is distilled entirely in copper pot stills and matured in oak for a minimum number of years. Blended brandy carries a legally set minimum proportion of potstill spirit, with unmatured wine spirit making up the rest, which is why it tastes lighter and mixes more readily. Vintage brandy sits between the two. None of these are marketing words. They are defined in law, so the front label is doing more work than it appears to be.

The towns inland from the Cape Fold mountains, Worcester, Robertson and Montagu among them, sit in a hot dry basin that suits high-yielding white grapes. Colombard and Chenin Blanc grown there make thin, high-acid wine that is poor drinking and excellent distilling material. The cellars followed the fruit, and a signposted brandy route now runs through the same valley.

Any spirit distilled from fermented fruit can be called a brandy, and most of the famous names are regional versions working to their own rulebooks. Cognac and Armagnac come from two neighbouring parts of France and taste nothing alike, because the rules behind them differ as much as the landscapes do. Brandy de Jerez is matured in a Spanish solera of sherry casks. Pisco comes from Peru and Chile, and the Peruvian style may not be aged in wood at all. South African potstill belongs in that company, working to its own rules rather than borrowed ones.

A tulip glass or a small wine glass gathers the aroma better than a wide balloon does. Potstill brandy is usually taken neat at room temperature, sometimes with a few drops of water to loosen it up. Blended brandy was built for mixing, and brandy and cola is the standard South African serve. Ice is fine. Warming the glass over a flame is the one thing to avoid, since it drives off the aromatics you paid for.

Spirits do not turn the way wine does, so it will not go off on you. The aroma does flatten once a bottle drops below half, so keep it upright, sealed and out of the sun.

Cognac is a brandy, but the reverse does not hold. It comes from one delimited area of western France, made to appellation rules, and a brandy made the same way anywhere else may not use the name.