Sunday,
September 30
Not Grandpapa's
Grappa - A Remarakable Transitition
from Rustic to Luvury
The
ANNOTICO Report
Grappa,
an Italian brandy made from the detritus of winemaking -- grape skins, seeds
and, once upon a time, stems, too -- long had a reputation as awful liquid
offal, a peasant staple cobbled together from leftover bits that nobody wanted.
But no more. Grappa makers began reinventing the whole concept
of the spirit in the early 1970s, turning it into a rare, artisanal
luxury, and the boutique grappas available in the
|
|
Not Grandpapa's GrappaThe Wall Street Journal By Eric Felton Grappa, an Italian brandy made
from the detritus of winemaking -- grape skins, seeds and, once upon a time,
stems, too -- long had a reputation as awful liquid offal, a peasant staple
cobbled together from leftover bits that nobody wanted. But no more. Grappa
makers began reinventing the whole concept of the spirit in the early 1970s,
turning it into a rare, artisanal luxury. The trend
was neither phony nor fleeting, and the boutique grappas
available in the Typical of the comments grappa provoked in the mid-20th century are Jane Nickerson's in the New York Times. In a roundup of brandies available in the city in 1955, she declared that grappa "is thriftily distilled" from "the residue in wine vats." The stuff sold at Gimbels, she wrote, "is coarse, earthy, a man's drink if ever there was one." Not only a man's drink, but if Ernest
Hemingway is to be believed, a seedy man's drink. Papa suggests that at
its best, grappa is a rustic, martial spirit -- stuff to drink just before battle.
But in the 1923 short story "Out of Season," grappa makes a
telling appearance as a cheap buzz. A young couple visiting Before showing up for an
afternoon with rod and reel, Peduzzi had already
managed to drink all the grappa that he could. But he's still thirsty.
Leading the couple through town..."Peduzzi
stopped and brought his empty grappa bottle from an inside pocket of his old
military coat. 'A little to drink, some What a remarkable
transformation grappa has undergone.
Not only is the good stuff extremely good, but at least in the None of the grappas
I bought were coarse, and several were truly fine. One of the first I tasted
was from the Nardini distillery, one of If for no other reason than that it is so darn expensive, don't waste Nonino grappa on coffee. In 1973, fourth-generation distiller Benito Nonino and his wife Giannola created what has since become the standard in luxury grappas -- a spirit made not from any and all the grapes at hand, but from an individual variety. The Noninos' first effort was with an obscure regional grape called picolit. It was such a sensation when it first appeared that now most first-rate grappa distillers focus on single-variety expressions -- and produce a staggering variety of those. The picolit remains one of the Noninos' signature grappas, and it comes in their impossibly delicate bottle -- a small sphere with a slender cylindrical neck. I was sure it was going to shatter in my hands as I worked to coax out the obdurate cork. The grappa inside is every bit as refined as the bottle -- though perhaps too refined. The Nonino is elegant to the point of austerity, ascetic in the extreme. Similarly subtle were grappas made by Inga from barolo grapes, and the Sarpa di Poli from merlot. Vodka drinkers looking to branch out should give them a try. The Poli was particularly ingratiating, light and limpid, with an elusive sweetness. It was also the best value of the tasting. But far and away, my favorites among the grappas I tried were those from the Marolo distillery. From the first moment of opening the bottles, a fresh, bold scent signaled that these grappas were in a style entirely different from that of their reserved cousins. I couldn't decide which I liked more, the Marolo made from moscato grapes, with its soft, caramel-rich feel in the mouth combined with the bright, clean taste of the fruit, or the brunello variety, round and grapey with a hint of port. These are exuberant grappas, flavorful, complex and delightful. These are not the sort of grappa with which poor old Peduzzi would have refilled his empty bottle in "Out of Season." It's worth noting, by the way, that Hemingway wrote to F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925 that the fiasco of a fishing trip had actually happened to his wife, Hadley, and himself. Hemingway wrote the story "right off on the typewriter without punctuation" and meant for it to be "tragic." He'd reported his drunken guide to the hotel owner, Hemingway confessed to Fitzgerald; fired, the man "hanged himself in the stable." That last bit the author left out of his short story. |
The
ANNOTICO Reports Can be Viewed (and are Archived) on:
Italia
Italia
Mia: http://www.ItaliaMia.com (3 years)
Annotico Email: annotico@earthlink.net