Pour blind
Five unmarked glasses arrive at the table. No labels, no bottles in sight, no price tags to bias the room.
AI-powered tasting appPrivate tastings · By invitation
A geeky blind tasting protocol for your palate.
Costa Tasting Protocol hosts private blind cognac tastings on the Costa del Sol. Five unlabelled pours, a guided scoring app in your hand, and an AI-generated personal palate profile — then we reveal what was really in the glass.
The evening
Three acts, one bottle you'll never forget.
Score in the app
Guests open the AI-guided tasting app on their phone and rate every pour on the classic 100-point cognac framework: nose, mouth, taste, finish, overall.
The reveal
At the end, each guest receives an AI-generated palate profile with personalized recommendations — then we reveal what was in every glass.
The scoring
A real critic's framework, in your pocket — then read by AI.
Guests score each pour on the same 100-point structure professional cognac reviewers use — with coaching text on every screen, so a first-timer and a collector can sit at the same table.
Once the final glass is scored, an AI reads every rating and aroma tag to build a personal palate profile with tailored recommendations — turning your notes into insight.
Nose
/25Array of smells · Intensity of smells · Balance of smells · Presence of ethanol
Mouth
/201st impression · Body · Texture · Alcohol level
Taste
/25Complexity of tastes · Distinctiveness of tastes · Intensity of tastes · Balance of tastes
Finish
/20Flavours · Length · Power / "smooth" · Balance
Overall Impression
/10Lasting impression
What's poured
Grande Champagne poise. Borderies flowers. A cask-strength lot nobody sees coming.
Every flight spans growth areas, ages and styles — from an honest VSOP to decades-old rancio. The order is chosen to mislead you, kindly.
Your host
From a blind tasting in Cognac to your table.
I’m Alexandru Harabagiu, a software engineer and technology executive who used to live in Cognac, France. After working for a cognac retailer there and experiencing my first blind tasting, I became fascinated by how much a single glass can reveal about a palate.
Costa Tasting Protocol is the engineered version of that evening: a guided social experience that turns your ratings into a personal palate profile, adds AI-driven analysis and recommendations for future pours, and ends with the reveal of what was really in the glass. It is designed to be a high-quality offline moment — real people, real glasses, real conversation.
Alexandru Harabagiu · Founder of Costa Tasting Protocol
The cellar behind the table
We know the region, house by house — and we can source almost anything in it.
Cognac is made in one small corner of France, across six crus, by everyone from the grandes maisons of Cognac and Jarnac to single-estate growers who bottle a few hundred litres a year. We buy from both. If it exists in the Charente, we can put it on your table.
- 380+
- Houses we can source
- 6
- Crus of Cognac
- 1715
- Oldest house we pour
- 50 yrs
- Oldest lots on request
Terroir
The six crus of Cognac.
The growing area sits in roughly concentric rings around the town of Cognac, from the chalky heart of Grande Champagne out to the coastal Bois. Every flight we pour is built to cross them, so the room can taste the difference between soils.
- 01
Grande Champagne
The premier cru. Chalky soils give the most refined, slowest-ageing cognacs.
- 02
Petite Champagne
Floral and elegant, a step behind Grande Champagne in structure.
- 03
Borderies
The smallest cru. Round and nutty, with a signature violet note.
- 04
Fins Bois
Supple and fruity, quick to charm and to mature.
- 05
Bons Bois
Coastal influence, rustic and fast-ageing.
- 06
Bois Ordinaires
The outer ring, near the Atlantic, lighter and earthy.
By style & age
VS to Hors d'Age, explained at the table.
A cognac's grade is set by the youngest eau-de-vie in the blend, and it is the biggest clue to style, character and price. Your host walks the room through it as the glasses land.
Value & mixing
VS
Min. 2 years
The youngest grade: bright, fruity and lively. The classic choice for cocktails and easy sipping.
Hennessy VS · Rémy Martin VS
The classic sipper
VSOP
Min. 4 years
Smooth, rounded and balanced. The everyday sipping cognac and the best place to start.
Rémy Martin VSOP · Martell VSOP
A step up
Napoléon
Min. 6 years
Richer and more structured than VSOP, a bridge towards the older grades.
Courvoisier Napoléon
Prestige
XO
Min. 10 years
Deep, complex and long. The flagship of most houses, made for slow sipping.
Hennessy XO · Martell XO
Rare & collectible
XXO / Hors d'Age
14 years and beyond
The oldest blends and vintages: rare, age-worthy and collectible.
Louis XIII · Hennessy Paradis
The names you know
The great houses.
The grandes maisons that built the category — from the oldest house of all, founded in 1715, to the four names that between them account for roughly 90% of the world market.
Beyond the big names
And the growers most people never taste.
This is where a blind tasting gets interesting. Estate growers, éleveurs and single-cask bottlers whose best lots out-score bottles four times the price.
Sourcing
Name a bottle. We'll find it, or something better.
A house, or négociant, blends eaux-de-vie bought from many growers for a consistent signature. A grower distills only its own estate fruit, so the bottle reflects one family's land. We work with both, plus the independent bottlers who buy single casks and release them untouched.
Tell us a birth year, a cru, a budget or simply a mood, and we'll build the flight around it — and get every bottle guests fall for delivered afterwards.
Ask us to source a flightVintage & single cask
Dated lots and one-cask bottlings from Grosperrin, Raymond Ragnaud, Park and Lhéraud.
Organic & terroir
Jean-Luc Pasquet, Peyrat and Léopold Gourmel — low intervention, unmistakably of their place.
Craft & new wave
Bourgoin, Bache-Gabrielsen and Guy Pinard for the tables that want something unexpected.
Prestige decanters
Louis XIII, Hennessy Paradis, Hardy crystal and other collectibles, sourced to order.
Formats
Choose your room.
At home
6–12 guests · 2 hours
Your table, your people. We bring the glassware, the flight and the host.
Corporate
10–40 guests · 2.5 hours
A competitive blind tasting with a leaderboard — the room votes, one palate wins.
Milestone
4–8 guests · 3 hours
A rare-lot flight for birthdays, signings and anniversaries. Vintage bottlings on request.
Where we pour
Anywhere from Benalmádena to Sotogrande.
We travel the full stretch of the western Costa del Sol — villas, penthouses, yachts, private dining rooms and members' clubs. Tastings have already been held in La Zagaleta, La Reserva, Sierra Blanca, Finca Cortesín, Marbella, Puerto Banús, San Pedro de Alcántara, Estepona and Sotogrande.
Tastings held hereWithin our travel range
“There is no chance Alex is an IT guy — he's way too nice and far too much fun to have spent his life behind a screen.”
“Genuinely one of the most memorable evenings we've had on the coast. Nobody wanted the night to end.”
“I had no idea I had this taste. Turns out I've been ordering the wrong thing for fifteen years.”
“Amazing drinks, start to finish. Every pour was better than the one before it.”
“We couldn't believe the complexity of the taste, and the food pairings provided were on another level entirely.”
“Coming from the United States, this was a next-level European experience — nothing back home comes close to this.”
“Elegant, precise and still completely relaxed. Our guests are still talking about it.”
“Everyone was certain they'd picked the most expensive glass. Nobody had.”
In their words
What the room said.
Guests and venue partners stay anonymous — discretion is part of the service.
“I have tasted cognac for twenty years and still ranked the youngest glass first. Humbling, and the best conversation we've had at that table.”
“Our guests stayed two hours past the reservation. The scoring on the phone turned a dinner into a competition.”
“Held on the boat in Banús for eight people. Discreet, precise, no showmanship — exactly what the group wanted.”
“The palate profile at the end was uncannily accurate. I bought the bottle I'd scored highest and have re-ordered twice.”
“We ran it for a leadership offsite. Nobody looked at a laptop all evening — rare these days.”
“As a venue we've hosted plenty of tastings. This one had structure, and the guests left knowing something.”
Privacy & discretion
Every tasting is held in strict confidence.
We specialize in discreet, private tasting experiences for individuals, executive teams, and invitation-only events. Confidentiality, professionalism, and exceptional hospitality are at the core of every event.
Client privacy is respected at all times. We are happy to sign mutual confidentiality agreements for private individuals, executives, and public figures.
Private events onlyNDAs available on requestExecutive hospitality
Booking
Request a private tasting.
Tell us the date and the room. Sending the request opens WhatsApp with everything pre-filled — no email needed.
Prefer to write directly? WhatsApp +34 653 568 651