grappa

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Distillation plant for grappa
Grappa selection

Grappa ( the or the , plural: Grappas , plural in Italian Grappe ) is a pomace brandy originating from Italy or Italian Switzerland . This is distilled from the fermented alcohol-containing press residues from wine production , the pomace . Grappa has a minimum alcohol content of 37.5 percent by  volume . The maximum content is usually 60 percent by volume, but it can also exceed 70 percent by volume. The most popular grappas are made from the marc of red grapes. The wood of storage barrels can determine the color and taste / smell. Grappas from cherry wood barrels have a sweeter taste, those from oak barrels have a tart taste. A long storage in chestnut wood barrels brings a brownish color. Since the skins of white grapes still contain sugar, they are infused with must and fermented again. The resulting wine is then distilled. This is how grape brandies are made from white varieties.

history

Around the 11th century, with the beginning of the Crusades , scholars brought the distillation technique to Italy (see Rakija ), where it spread through the help of Jesuits (the order was founded in 1540). The first documents describing the distillation of wine also date from the same period. Grappa is first mentioned by name in 1451: A Piedmontese notary gave his descendants a. a. a cellar with a distillation plant and larger quantities of aquavit or grape .

After the development of an Italian national consciousness, grappa became a national drink of the new state. Italian soldiers of World War I were given grappa rations daily with the intention of alleviating the horrors of the war. However, the spirit only lost its reputation as a drink for poor farmers when, after technical optimization of the distillation process, it garnered the attention and recognition of gourmets in the middle of the 20th century and spread throughout the world.

Web links

Commons : Grappa  - Collection of Images
Wiktionary: Grappa  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. Spelling according to Duden
  2. ^ Peter Hahn: Lexicon of food law . 2nd edition, Behr's Verlag, 1998, p. 32. ISBN 978-3-86022-334-5 , online at Google Books
  3. Minimum alcohol content of spirits ( Memento of the original from October 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - The federal authority of the Swiss Confederation  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.admin.ch
  4. Waldemar Ternes , Alfred Täufel, Lieselotte Tunger, Martin Zobel (eds.): Food Lexicon . 4th, comprehensively revised edition. Behr, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-89947-165-2 .
  5. Jens Priewe: Wine - The new big school . Zabert Sandmann, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-89883-009-8 .