It was 1885 when a man called Francesco Trussoni came up with the idea to make the first single grape grappa in history, in a town called Gallo d’Alba. Being in the heart of Barolo country this was of course a Grappa di Barolo. In 1922 the distillery was taken over by Mario Montanaro and his wife Angela Trussoni who, together with their son Giuseppe Montanaro, perfected the grappa production process in the years that followed. Since this distillery is only a few kilometres away from our hilltop, I decided that it was time to go and have a look and learn more about this local specialty. Together with the Drover and his Dad, who both like a good glass of whiskey and know a fair bit about the whiskey distilling process, I went on a grappa adventure in the area.
Visiting a grappa distillery was a first for me. So far I have never really enjoyed the taste of grappa so much. Maybe because I had not developed the right taste for it yet, or because I had never tried a really good one? Whatever it was, I was very curious and interested to see the production process and taste the result of Montanaro’s yearlong experience. The young lady that welcomed us in the shop took us to the back to show the distillery. Here she explained that Mario Montanaro makes various single grape grappa’s and a grappa of a mix of different grape varieties. Between September and December the wineries in the area bring the ‘leftovers’ of their grapes to the distillery, after having crushed and pressed them for winemaking. From the end of September until March Montanaro is in full swing to distil he vinacce, the grape ‘leftovers’.
