Discovering Grappa

The Nardini bodega in Bassano del Grappa.

Robin Saikia, author of Blue Guide Italy Food Companion, gets to grips with Grappa in its Veneto heartland.

Bassano del Grappa is a city in the Veneto, some fifty miles out of Venice and home to two of Italy's finest Grappa distilleries, Poli and Nardini. Grappa is an acquired taste and this is probably one of the best places in the world to set about acquiring it. A day trip to Bassano yields cultural as well as alcoholic rewards (it was the birthplace of the artist Jacopo Bassano) and is easily reached from Charming Hotels locations in the region, the Hotel Excelsior, the Hotel Villa Franceschi, the Hotel Villa Cipriani and the Hotel Villa Michelangelo.

Grappa is a spirit distilled from pomace, the pressed skins and seeds of grapes left over after wine making. Like wine and oil, it exists in countless regional variants, all of them distinctive. There is a broad spectrum of quality too. Many wineries simply deliver their pomace to a central distillery and receive grappa in return, unimpeachably processed but often unremarkable in taste. A few manufacturers follow traditional artisanal methods, producing grappa that is accorded the same status as single-malt whiskies are in Britain, the USA and Japan. There is much gimmickry – oddly-shaped bottles, exotic flavours – but there is, nevertheless, excellent grappa to be discovered throughout Italy. A selection of different grappas is best tasted with an accompaniment of salted pistachio nuts and rusks spread with acacia-blossom honey, ideally topped with a flake of mature Montasio or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. These restore and stimulate the palate in preparation for each new taste. A bussul (boo-sool) is the traditional shot-glass used for quaffing grappa, the quartino (kwar-tee-noh) the jug or flask ordered in the old days in rural osterie by thirsty carters, lumberjacks, blacksmiths and farmhands.