Grappa

Grappa ( the or the, plural: grappa, plural in Italian: grappa ) is a native of Italy or Italian-speaking Switzerland grape marc. This is from the fermented alcoholic pomace wine making, the marc is distilled. Grappa has a minimum alcohol content of 37.5 percent by volume. The maximum content is usually 60 percent by volume, but may also exceed 70 percent by volume.

History

Around the 11th century, with the beginning of the Crusades, brought scholars distillation technique to Italy (see rakija ), where it spread particularly through the intervention of the Jesuits ( religious foundation 1540). In the same time also the first documents in which the distillation of wine is described as submitted. Grappa is first mentioned by name in 1451: A Piedmontese notary bequeathed to his descendants, inter alia, a basement with a distillation plant and larger quantities of aquavit or grape.

After the formation of an Italian national consciousness Grappa became a national drink of the new state. Italian soldiers of the First World War were given daily rations of grappa with the intention to mitigate the horrors of war. However, his reputation as a drink of poor farmers lost the Grappa only when he was in the middle of the 20th century, earning the attention and recognition by gourmets for technical optimization of the distillation process and spread over the entire world.