Grappa
Italian pomace brandy, distilled from the skins, seeds and stems left after winemaking. Once a rough farmhouse spirit and now, at its better end, a precise and aromatic one — grapey, floral and dry, with none of the sweetness the fruit suggests.
Quick Facts
Flavour Profile
Primary Flavours
Tasting Notes
Grape skin and white flowers over a dry, clean spirit heat, with a green herbal edge and no sweetness at all despite the fruit it comes from.
Storage & Handling
Upright, cool and dark, tightly sealed. It is a high-proof spirit and does not spoil, but the delicate floral aromatics that distinguish a good young grappa fade in a bottle left half-full for a year or more.
Usage
The base of the official Ve.N.To, where a smooth white grappa is shaken with lemon, honey and chamomile. Otherwise it is a digestivo, served cool but not cold in a small tulip glass, and it is the traditional correction in an espresso.
Made From What Is Left
Wine is pressed from grapes and what remains is pomace: skins, seeds, sometimes stems. Grappa is distilled from that.
It began as thrift. The pomace belonged to whoever had done the work, it still held sugar and character, and distilling it turned a by-product into something that kept through a winter. That origin is why grappa spent most of its history as a rough, cheap, farmhouse spirit, and why its reputation lagged so far behind what the category now produces.
What Changed
From the 1970s onward a handful of producers — Nonino foremost among them — began treating pomace the way a good distiller treats anything else.
That meant fresh pomace rather than pomace left to oxidise, single-variety distillation rather than whatever came off the presses, and careful cuts. The result is a category with a genuine top end: aromatic, precise, and expressive of the grape it came from in a way the old product never was. A Moscato grappa smells of Moscato. If your impression of grappa is of something harsh and industrial, it was formed on a spirit that good producers stopped making fifty years ago.
Against Brandy
Both are grape spirits and they are made from different parts of the grape, which is the whole difference.
Brandy and cognac are distilled from wine — the pressed juice, fermented. Grappa is distilled from what the press left behind, which is where the skins are, and the skins are where the aromatics live. The result is drier, more floral and more directly grapey, without the dried fruit and oak roundness that ageing gives a cognac. An aged grappa moves toward brandy territory; a white one is its own thing entirely.
In a Cocktail
Rarely used, and the official Ve.N.To makes the case that it should be more so.
At 45ml against lemon, honey and chamomile it behaves like a sour base with a floral top note nothing else supplies: not a vodka, which brings nothing, and not a brandy, which brings sweetness and oak. Use a smooth white grappa rather than an aged one, and avoid the cheapest bottle on the shelf — in a drink this short there are only four ingredients, and the spirit is three quarters of what you taste.
Top Tips
- Buy a modern one. Grappa’s reputation was earned decades ago by a different product.
- Serve it cool rather than iced: too cold and the aromatics disappear.
- A white grappa is the one for cocktails; the aged ones behave like brandy.
Common Questions
What is grappa made from?
Pomace: the grape skins, seeds and sometimes stems left after wine has been pressed. That is what separates it from brandy, which is distilled from the fermented juice itself, and it is why grappa is drier and more floral.
Is grappa the same as brandy?
No. Both are grape spirits, but brandy is distilled from wine and grappa from the pressed pomace. The skins carry most of the aromatics, so grappa is more floral and directly grapey, without the dried fruit and oak character ageing gives cognac.
Why does grappa have a bad reputation?
It was earned by a product that largely no longer exists. Grappa spent centuries as a rough farmhouse spirit made from oxidised pomace. From the 1970s producers began distilling fresh, single-variety pomace with proper cuts, and the modern category is a different proposition.
How should grappa be served?
Cool rather than cold, in a small tulip glass, as a digestivo. Over-chilling shuts down the floral aromatics that a good bottle is bought for. It is also the traditional addition to an espresso, taken either in the cup or alongside it.