When talking about fake cognac, we actually need to distinguish between the cognacs that simply do not have the right to be called cognac because they do not meet the legal requirements of the appellation controlée and the real counterfeits.

The infringement of the appellation controlée.

Cognac is a generic name. In French it is called an appellation and the French have been doing their best for many years now to protect their generic names. For this they have the appellation controlée, which is a law. A large range of products are protected by this appellation controlée. The best known appellations are perhaps the wines, cheeses and, of course, cognac.
For example, it is not the intention to call a wine that is not made in the Bordeaux region “bordeaux”. And the same applies to cognac. A brandy may only be called cognac if it has been produced in the cognac region according to the requirements of the production method.
Yet, in foreign shops or on the Internet, you often come across cognacs that are not produced in the cognac region. The best-known are the Italian cognac, the Spanish cognac, the Armenian cognac and the Russian cognac.

As early as in 1891, international agreements were made at the Madrid Conference. These were called the Madrid Agreement of 1891 and were revised in 1900, in 1911 and in The Hague in 1925. Initially, only a handful of countries wanted to sign this agreement, but nowadays more than a hundred countries have signed. As of 1989, a protocol has been added. There are only a handful of countries of any importance that have not yet signed. To name a few: Argentina, Iraq, Yemen, Morocco, Nigeria, Uzbekistan and Belarus. Only very recently have Canada (2019), the USA (2013) and Afghanistan (2018) signed.

Signing this agreement is one thing, complying with it is another. For example, Armenia signed in 1991, but bottles of cognac still appear years later. Nowadays, most Armenian bottles have Armenian brandy neatly written on them.
And Italy, which signed as early as 1894, has been producing Italian cognacs for many decades.
Other important countries that still make ‘cognacs’ are Russia and the countries that formerly belonged to Russia.
But not only abroad. Cognacs that did not originate from the region were also made in France itself. Almost every wine region had its ‘cognacs’. However, this practice was quickly ended with the introduction of the appellation controlée. Dutch and Belgian cognacs were, however, still made well into the 20th century. Somewhere during the Interbellum, this came to an end.

To illustrate the infringements on the appellation controlée, I have made some pages with falsifications.

The real fake cognacs

There are several ways to cheat with cognac. You can refill already emptied cognac bottles and recork and recapsule them. You can also take any other bottle and stick a cognac label on it and fill the bottle with cheap cognac. Or even with tea! There are plenty of old labels for sale on the Internet. Another commonly used method is to add a neck label to a cognac bottle with a year on it. In this way, it has suddenly become a very expensive vintage cognac.

Sometimes interesting-looking decanters are filled with a cheap cognac, a beautiful label is then specially made for it and also a certificate of authenticity. A wooden case with the brand name completes the package. These are very difficult to prove as falsifications. You need the knowledge of the brand for it. So for brands like for instance Martell, you really have to turn to the parent company Pernod-Ricard and then you need good connections to get them to give an opinion on a particular bottle.

I have prepared a page with fraudulous bottles and also a page with highly suspicious bottles.