Spirit Log: Bepi Tosolini's Grappa di Chardonnay and Grappa di Moscato

As the Maxentia began to dwindle and my Amazon Prime trial approached expiration, I decided to think about getting some fresh white grappa in and came across three half-price products from Bepi Tosolini, a producer from the Udine region, north east of Venice. £13 they were for 50cl, boasting 40 ABVs.

I forget what my reasoning was at the time, but I went for the Grappa di Chardonnay, only to toss and turn all night (not really) and go back the next day to get the Grappa di Moscato too. They were half price, and that meant they cost about the same as a crap bottle of vodka. I’d have been mad not to get more than one. But I wasn’t mad enough to get all three. Anyway, this would be the ideal time to see how the same product, based on different grape varieties, could vary.

They come unboxed in identical slender bottles with long necks and simple labels. The moscato has a blue label and the chardonnay – what would you call that? – greenish?

On to the tasting. In the interest of direct comparability I opened both at the same time and alternated a couple of sniffs/sips of each, comparing also with the Maxentia.

The Moscato has a sharp nose and is fully flavoured with floral, Turkish delight tones. In comparison with my incumbent white grappa, Maxentia, the Maxentia is much fresher, deeper and richer nose-wise. In terms of taste, the Maxentia is less immediate, but subtler and more complex. The fumes are much better – evoking the fermenting vats, and therefore a quality that the Moscato lacks.

In comparison to the Moscato, the Chardonnay is musky, though there is a touch of marzipan on the nose and the finish is overly bitter.

I then went on to compare the Chardonnay to the Paganini, and have been surprised to find the Paganini performing much better than previously. Bepi Tosolini’s product has a much better nose – far more representative of the smell of marc – but Paganini has a fuller flavour that I hadn’t noticed before.

Overall then, I have to say I’m disappointed with these two grappas. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected much for the price. I was hoping for two bottles that would entice me back time and again, but these just aren’t refined enough, and there’s no way I’d be using them to introduce novices to the world of grappa. They would just give an impression of weird vodka. In all fairness, they are a little bit better than that… but not much.

My preference was  for the moscato, but I tended to alternate them from one day to the next, finally putting the Chardonnay into my new bar optics because I thought grappa would be a ridiculously cool thing to have in there. I don’t know if direct sunlight had a positive effect, but as summer approached, the sun would beam through our kitchen doors and on to the optics for a while, and this coincided with my enjoying the Chardonnay very much as the bottle came to its end.

Sadly though,  I can’t recommend these two products, and even more sadly, this will be the last you’ll be hearing from me about grappa for a while. Nevertheless, we are returning to Italy at the end of next month, and a lot of grappa will be bought and consumed. It’ll just be a few months before my writing catches up with it. Keep coming back though. There are plenty of booze related adventures still to come.

Berlinsterdam Booty part 5: Grappa Paganini

Though I procured and opened this one before the various Garda Grappas that you read about the other week, my impressions of the Paganini were influenced by the delights of that region, so it made sense to blog about those first. Here then, is what I think now:

Purchased for under 5 euros in a Berlin supermarket, this 40% white grappa (of undisclosed geographical origin) is presented in an intriguing and impressive 50cl bulb-shaped bottle with a long neck and rubbery stopper – which would count for something, but that’s pretty standard with grappa; the only grappa I’ve come across so far that has had a screwcap was the Julia Superiore.

I decided to try the hand rub test on this one, that had been suggested to me by our guide at the SanLeonardo estate. He said it was a good way to evaluate the quality of grappa – if you rub it on your hands and smell only alcohol, it’s poor. If you can smell the marc, then you have something good. Next, slap yourself for wasting it on your hands instead of drinking it (another good way of evaluating quality). Anyway, the hand rub test revealed just alcohol – so it seemed likely to remain as a sub-standard last resort until all my good grappas had gone.

Returning to more traditional tasting methods, I found on the nose that the Paganini was rough and minty. On the palate I thought it was burny and dry, evoking liquorice and a hint of rubber.

 In a surprise twist though, it performed particularly well when I had a cold, and was drinking it because I didn’t want to waste anything good. There was lots of initial flavour on this occasion that made me open to a re-evaluation, though ultimately I have to stand by my original impressions.

Conclusion

The aromas of the fermenting vats that have proved so prevalent in the products reviewed in last week’s post are notable here by an almost complete absence. If there is anything of that ilk, it is the barest trace elements only. It makes you wonder what could have been done differently to produce this gulf in quality; poor grapes? the marc not fresh enough? something on the distilling end? I probably don’t know enough at this stage, but the overall effect is not unlike that of drinking an inexpensive (but inoffensive) vodka.

At  5 euros for 50cl then, you have to say it’s excellent value, but at £14.50 in the UK, it’s a different story. This isn’t one to give your friends as an introduction to the delights of grappa. They are liable to be left with an impression of weird vodka. So just keep this one for when money’s tight and you’re not heading to Italy any time soon. Even then, you should probably wait till money’s a bit less tight and get something else. And then just head to Italy anyway.

Apologies for the lateness of this post. We've been having a new kitchen installed, and a lot of the paraphernalia was blocking access to the computer, so I'm afraid it's just had to wait. We're about done now though, and on the verge of installing the bar optics that I'm very excited about. Posting should be more regular from now on. 

Berlinsterdam part 2: Spirits

Following on from last week’s visit to Berlin and Amsterdam, here’s part two, focussing this time on spirits…

Amsterdam  

Jenever (pronounced “Geneva”, like the Swiss city) is the original juniper flavoured spirit that, one way or another, evolved into what we know today as gin. I can’t really remember how I found out about it now, but what started out as a vague plan to pick some up turned into an intention to incorporate jenever into the trip as, a few days prior to departure, an episode of Coach Trip involved a visit to a distillery in Rotterdam. You’ll know if you’ve visited these pages before that I’m not a massive fan of gin, but spirits are spirits and booze tourism is booze tourism so it would be rude not to delve.

Our Top Ten guide book was good enough to include an entry on Wynand-Fockink: a distillery in the heart of Amsterdam that incorporates a bar and a shop, but only does tours on Saturday afternoons which was when we flew in.

Bols Zeer Oude

Before getting chance to visit the WF shop, I picked up Bols Zeer Oude Genever in a liquor store close to our hotel for 11 euros 50 (you can pick up a litre of it at Master of Malt for just over £30). I’m not sure why some of these products are spelled with a G and some with a J, but I don’t think we can question Bols here since they are the oldest distillery brand in the world, and produced the first genever . It’s hard to say whether that is this one since, apparently Bols began distilling genever in 1664, but introduced a new recipe in 1820 which is considered the authentic flavour of genever. I don’t know, sometimes I can’t make head or tail of all this stuff I find on the internet. Maybe if I read everything properly instead of doing that F-reading thing that everyone does on the internet, and means that none of you will actually read this post… I’m going to have to start planning strategically around that one day.

There were other brands available, but they were generally 35% ABV or even less, so I selected the strongest examples available – or so I thought, the internet says this is 35%... I had thought it was more, but can’t prove that just now. There are versions from the 70s and 80s at 39% and 37.5%, but I doubt mine was one of those.

Contained in a clay bottle, Bols Zeer Oude is apparently best drunk refrigerated, but the fridge in our hotel room was very small and already had to contain 6 cans of Grolsch and 2 desserts. The Bols never made it into the fridge before it had been consumed.

I enjoyed drinking the jenever before going out in the evenings, but I didn’t notice the gin-like element until it was pointed out to me. This element that I consider to stand out in the flavour of gin – which I assume must be the juniper - is more mellow and muted in the Bols – making it easier for me to appreciate.

Wynand-Fockink Rogge

Here is some more detailed information about Bols that you might find interesting.

When we did make it to the Wynand-Fockink shop one afternoon, I was able to try a few of the varieties – one that was aged for three years and is said to be close to bourbon in character and a couple of others I forget now – but the one I chose to take home was Rogge, which means rye. I’ve since learned online that they do a cask strength version. If I’d been informed of that at the time, that would certainly have been the one I would have gone for. 50cl of the standard variety cost somewhere around 18 euros. Read a little more about the Wynand-Fockink Rogge at some undetermined time in the future (in a month or two, probably).

Berlin

The experience of my last booze tourism adventure (Orlando), in which I’d relied on chance to find liquor stores had convinced me that a bit of research would be necessary on arrival in Berlin. We passed a couple of stores that looked like they held potential early on in the trip, but on close inspection, they just turned out to be newsagents with large and visible selections of beer and wine – so not necessarily the kind of place you want to focus your spirit purchasing energies on. I did a little online searching then, and found this site, which lists all the notable stores in the Berlin area – and it turned out that one was just down the street from our Schoneberg apartment.

 

First though, I scheduled a visit to Absinth Depot. Actually, that’s not strictly true. I first scheduled a visit to Whatever Spirituosen, which is on Torstrasse in central Berlin and is supposed to be open from 1pm to 1am if a standard listing on Google is to be believed, but that certainly didn’t turn out to be the case when we visited. Absinth Depot is a short walk from there though, so that’s where we went next.

It’s good to have a bit of knowledge about products before you walk into a store like this because then you can immediately convince the proprietor you’re not an idiot – which they seem to respect. Here’s another idiot to treat with disdain, can quickly change to this person actually wants to spend some money. I was able to give some specific characteristics that I was looking for, and a few samples were quickly produced. Brenda commented on the cloudiness, and that gave me the opportunity to show that I knew that that was known as the louche.

These shops seem to be set up to give recommendations – you can’t really see exactly what’s behind the counter, and a few samples are available already, so it makes me wonder – presumably there’s a lot of stuff he doesn’t recommend so, is there some stuff he doesn’t sell any of? Is there some stuff he deliberately doesn’t stock? Because if you’re not going to recommend it, you’re probably not going to sell it unless it has a reliable market share in spite of your own feelings about it.

After debating whether 45 euro was a reasonable amount to spend on a litre of absinthe that I was buying purely to dole out at parties, I selected Maldoror on taste, though all three I tried were pleasant with water, which was a surprise following the glass in a glass experiment I’d tried with my Grande Absenta. I won’t be able to comment definitively until I’ve delved a little into the bottle however.

Maldoror is a German product, but the very first example of a blended absinthe – blended from a Czech, a French and a Swiss absinthe. Colouration is natural, and it is recommended to be consumed with a little sugar and 2-5 measures of ice water.

It is rumoured among online absinthe aficionados that the Czech contingent is Bairnsfather, which is very bitter and for this reason, it should maybe be tried with ice.

A discussion online suggested that, in spite of its winning an award, the finish is overly bitter, though in my limited experience, all absinthe has a certain bitterness. It was suggested that this appears on the finish, so potentially after judges opinions had been decided. Nevertheless, I tried it in the shop and wasn’t complaining of any bitterness later that afternoon.

Before heading to the local special liquor store we made a final stop at the nearby Kaisers Supermarket to pick up treats for colleagues at work, where I found Grappa Paganini for a too good to refuse 5 euros. I’d never seen nor heard of it before, but my predilection for grappa wasn’t going to allow me to pass this one by. I actually found it later online and then in a Sainsburys store (Urmston, I believe) at £14.50. The only other thing I’ve been able to find out about it online was that someone had bought it purely to turn the bottle into a bong. You can see why, though they hadn’t commented on the product itself at that point.

Ardbeg wall

 

Given my earlier purchases that day, by the time we arrived at Finest Whisky I’d resolved not  to spend too much, having already massively overspent on the absinthe, but I did still need to pick up something distinctly german. It was almost a shame really because Finest Whisky really is a collection of some very fine whiskies, that it was a pleasure just to have a look at. There was even an Ardbeg wall (pictured), which represented the fact that the store had just been selected as the official Ardbeg supplier in Germany… or Berlin… or something. I forget, but it was impressive nonetheless.

I’d tried a few varieties of schnaps during the trip – none of which were anything like the peach Archers that everyone is no doubt familiar with – and thought something like that might end up being the way to go. But no, the proprietor directed me towards korn, which is like german vodka. I had tried a few as a chaser to my beers in the last few days, but I’d never heard of it before and didn’t really know what it was.

What I was directed to then was Berliner Brandstifter, which translates as arsonist. In general, korn is supposed to be less vigorously filtered than vodka, but this one has been filtered seven times, leading to the claim that it reduces (or even fully eradicates) the possibility of a hangover. I doubt I’ll ever get to substantiate that claim, but nevertheless there was enough about it to make me want to take it home.

Only 1000 bottles are produced each year and all bottles are hand filled and hand-numbered. It clinked with the grappa when we put it in our bag leading to a slightly awkward moment when it looked like we might’ve helped ourselves to something else from the shelves while the guy wasn’t looking, but we hadn’t. It had been a pleasant visit in all, and Finest Whisky is a shop I’d warmly recommend you visit if you happen to be visiting Berlin.

Duty Free

I turned down the opportunities to make purchases at either Manchester or Amsterdam’s Schiphol airports because, in the first instance I figured I pick something up for consumption during the holiday in the city of Amsterdam itself, and in the second because there just wasn’t anything that made my wishlist – though I was tempted to get some 60% dark rum, before ultimately deciding that was out of scope this time around.

In Berlin though, and despite pretty much feeling my booze budget had been [over]spent by that point (one bottle consumed, four further bottles collected), one of my targets had always been a German brandy, so at less that 10E for 50cl, I couldn’t really turn down the chance of one last purchase. And this is it, Asbach Urbrand. The fact it reaches a full 40% in strength also worked in its favour. I’ve since learned that it proved to be popular with British troops stationed in Germany, and who am I to argue with a recommendation of that kind?

Conclusion

I’ve had to ban myself from buying anymore spirits for the next 2 months as a result of this little adventure, but that’s ok because I currently have 8 unopened bottles and I think that’s enough anticipation to hold in reserve for the timebeing. The only question now is what will I open next? Who’d’ve thought German booze could be so interesting? I certainly never did.

Post-trip

I have since found that there are even brands of German whisky. I’m quite glad not to have known that at the time, as it means there would have been other spirit types I was inspired to try, but it’s certainly one to bear in mind for the next time, and we had such a nice time that I wouldn’t hesitate to visit again.

So thanks for sticking with me through this mammoth travelogue. I’ll be dipping into those various bottles in the coming months and the results will be vomited all over these pages, so check back if you’re interested.