Grappa season: how to choose, chill and pour Italy's pomace spirit
The new pomace is in the stills. Here is how to pick a good grappa, serve it at the right temperature, and drink it the Italian way: neat, in your coffee or shaken into a sour.
Two weeks after we picked the last of my grapes, the skins, seeds and stalks left in the press were still sitting in a tub by the cellar door, smelling of jam and yeast. In Piedmont that heap has a future. Every autumn the distilleries fire up their stills for the new pomace, and the year's grappa starts its life the same week the wine does.
Grappa has a reputation as the firewater your uncle poured after a wedding lunch. Some of it still is. A good one tastes of the grape it came from: Moscato smells of orange blossom, Nebbiolo of roses and dried cherries, Barbera of plums. On a cold Friday at the end of October, with the stove lit, it is the drink I reach for.
What grappa actually is
Grappa is distilled from pomace, the solid leftovers of winemaking, not from wine. That is why it carries so much of the grape's character, and why a careless one can taste harsh. The name is protected across the EU: a spirit sold as grappa must be made in Italy (or Italian-speaking Switzerland or San Marino) from Italian pomace, and bottled at 37.5% alcohol or more. Most sit around 40 to 45%.
- Giovane or bianca: young and unaged, clear as water, all fruit and flowers.
- Affinata: rested in wood for a short time, softer and slightly coloured.
- Invecchiata: aged in wood for at least 12 months.
- Stravecchia or riserva: aged for at least 18 months, golden, closer to a brandy.
- Monovitigno: made from a single grape variety, often named on the bottle. The best place to start.
How to choose a bottle
Pick by grape first. If you love Barolo, try a Nebbiolo grappa. If you like sweet, perfumed whites, go for Moscato. Young grappas show the grape most clearly, so I buy those for drinking slowly after supper and keep one aged bottle for the nights that call for something rounder. Smell before you buy if a bar or tasting lets you: a good grappa smells of fruit, and a poor one smells of solvent and burns the nose.
How to serve it
- Glass: a small tulip glass. A wide brandy balloon throws the alcohol straight at your nose and hides the fruit.
- Temperature: young grappa cool, around 8 to 10°C, so a short spell in the fridge. Aged grappa at cellar temperature, around 15 to 18°C. Never from the freezer: the cold kills the aroma.
- Measure: about 3 cl. It is a spirit for sipping, not a shot to throw back.
- Storage: keep the bottle upright, sealed and out of the light. Unlike wine it will not improve or spoil once open, but the perfume of a young grappa fades after some months.
Bella's tip: Warm the glass in your hand for a minute before you sip, and let the first breath of alcohol pass. Then smell again. The fruit comes through on the second go.
Three ways I drink it
The caffè corretto is the bar classic: an espresso "corrected" with a splash of grappa, usually stirred with a little sugar. In the Veneto and Friuli they do the resentin, which means "little rinse": you finish your sugared espresso, pour a few drops of grappa into the warm cup, swirl it round to pick up the last of the coffee and sugar, and drink it in one go. My nonna in Milan did exactly this at the end of Sunday lunch and called it good manners towards the cup.
For a cocktail, use a young grappa the way you would use pisco or a light brandy in a sour: 5 cl grappa, 2.5 cl fresh lemon juice, 1.5 cl simple syrup, and an egg white if you like the foam. Dry shake, shake hard with ice, strain. A Moscato grappa with honey syrup instead of sugar is lovely with the last pears of the season. The same balance works in my spiced pear sour: swap the spirit for grappa and keep everything else.
Recipe: spiced pear and rosemary sour
Guide: sours balance
Grappa also belongs in the kitchen. A spoonful in the syrup for poached pears, a splash over raisins before they go into a cake, or a little in the pan with sautéed apples. Cook it for a minute or two so the alcohol mellows.
Recipe: red wine poached pears
A word on making your own
I make wine, but I do not distil, and neither should you. Home distillation is illegal without a licence in both Italy and Sweden, and a badly run still can concentrate methanol, which is poisonous. What you can do at home is infuse: drop a few juniper berries, a strip of lemon peel or a sprig of rue into a bought bottle and leave it a couple of weeks. That is how half the farmhouses round here flavour theirs.
Good grappa is the grape's last word, after the wine has had its say.
So this weekend, finish supper with a small cool glass, and keep the espresso cup for a resentin. Salute.
