Trésor Fédéral
Trésor Fédéral VSOP is an entry-level Moldovan grape brandy that has only recently appeared in the U.S. market. It isn’t widely known among brandy enthusiasts, and there is relatively little publicly available information compared with established brandy names like St-Rémy, Torres, or a slew of Cognac producers. Here’s what I pieced together from importer information, retailers, and Moldovan brandy traditions.
One of the bottle’s strongest selling points is that its made in Moldova, one of Europe’s oldest wine-producing countries. Winemaking dates back there roughly 5,000 years. The country has over 100,000 hectares [247,000 acres] of vineyards and a climate remarkably similar to Bordeaux. Many excellent Eastern European brandies come from Moldova, although they are much less famous than Cognac or Armagnac.
Unfortunately, about the only production detail I could unearth is that the brandy is distilled from white wine and/ or white grapes and then oak aged.
And, it’s important to know that unlike Cognac, where VSOP is a legally protected age designation requiring the youngest spirit to be at least four years old, the term is not necessarily regulated the same way for brandies made outside the Cognac appellation. Trésor Fédéral uses the VSOP designation, but the producer has not published detailed aging specifications, making it essentially useless.
Trésor Fédéral VSOP Brandy
This tipple is a rather pale amber in the glass. The nose carries aromas of fresh grapes and vanilla. On the palate, it is surprisingly smooth but distinctly sweet, manifested in caramel, vanilla, some soft oak, and a bit o’ honey. Frankly, it is too sweet for me to drink neat. I intend to use it in place of Christian Brothers in my Good Cheap Brandy recipe, or in cocktails such as a Brandy Old Fashioned, Sidecar, or Brandy Alexander. The ABV is 40%.
Listen to my podcast about brandy, Cognac, and Armagnac here.
A note about brandy vs. Cognac: brandy is a liquor distilled from wine and aged in wood. (Brandy can be made from fruits other than grapes as well, but that’s a story for another time.) Cognac is brandy that specifically comes from the town of Cognac and the delimited surrounding areas in western France. (The one which has the most favorable soil and geographical conditions is Grande Champagne.) So, all Cognacs are brandy, but not all brandies are Cognac. For more detail on Cognac, click here.
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