Grappa face-off

Following the Friday night on which I did a comparative tasting of my 5 whiskies, I decided on the Saturday to do something similar with the two grappas that I had in. You’ve met one of them before – Grappa Julia Superiore(38% ABV) – here and here, but the other was a new acquisition that I haven’t told you about yet – Domenis Blanc e Neri (40% ABV), that I picked up from Carrington’s in Didsbury.

It was two days before Christmas, and we were over that end of town getting some supplies, and putting together a Christmas hamper for some very good friends of ours. I decided it would be a good opportunity to invest in a new bottle of grappa.

They only had two in stock, which I have to admit surprised and disappointed me somewhat, since it suggests I may have to order online in future. One was the Domenis Storica that is already a favourite of mine (that you can read a little about here and here), so I had to go for the other – Blanc e Neri. It was a couple of pounds cheaper than the Storica, and the bottle was 20ml bigger. This would also prove to be the first aged grappa I’d bought (not including the one I got long ago from Vom Fass, because I can’t remember any details about that one…), at 18 months. Considering it is aged and there’s more of it, I don’t know why it works out to be less expensive than the Storica – hopefully it’s not because it’s not as good, but rather is reflective of the staggering 10% difference in ABV – Storica being a heroic 50%.

I don’t know whether it was just because it was Christmas, or maybe people don’t often spend around £50 for a bottle of grappa for themselves, but the lady in Carrington’s seemed to assume I was making this purchase as a gift, but no; it was for me – I seriously don’t actually know anyone else who likes grappa. The same thing happened when I went in there to buy my El Jimador tequila. I don’t think I mentioned it in my earlier post on that, but the same lady assumed I was buying it to share with friends. No, I said, It’s for me – well; I might let some friends try it… but mostly it was for me. And if it was to be shared with friends, it was only so they could see how interesting and refined I am.

In the picture there, you can see the two grappas in their glasses. Obviously there’s some difference there, with the Domenis Blanc e Nero having taken on a luscious golden colour, while Julia – as standard - is translucent. And so, on to the nosing and tasting…

Now, in my Budget Brands: Tesco Grappa post, I admitted to being quite impressed with Grappa Julia Superiore. It remains the only grappa I’ve ever seen in a UK supermarket, and at £13 a bottle it’s a fraction of the cost you’d pay for other grappas. The only disappointment is the unremarkable and discouraging 38% ABV.

However, when compared side by side with a more premium brand, Julia’s failings are all too apparent – because this Domenis Blanc e Neri is an absolute de-light. Really; some of the flavours I was getting from this glass brought to mind a very classy single malt whisky, of the kind that has been finished in a sherry cask. It was sweet but not too sweet, a little salty, with a very nice tongue burn, and only a little bitter on the finish. Very classy indeed. I’m only an enthusiastic novice, but I feel pretty confident when I say that. Just thinking about it now makes me want another glass, and in fact, of all the spirits I have at the time of writing, this is probably now my favourite. I can taste it right now, just thinking about it. And you know; I like whisky, and keep several in stock, so that my favourite spirit from my cupboard isn’t on of them: that’s saying something.

My original intention when buying grappas was to just get the cheapest available, and while this was the cheapest available, it is already entering the premium spirits category as far as I’m concerned (shall we set the threshold at £50 for now?), so I guess that puts that idea to rest. I can see that The Whisky Exchange has a few more varieties for less than £30, but at least five of them are the same brand as each other, just based on different grape varieties, so that’s not necessarily ideal.

In conclusion then, let’s not take anything away from Julia. If you want a bottle of grappa without much outlay, and you’ve got a decent sized Tesco nearby, it is going to do the job – as long as you don’t try it alongside something special. That’s pretty good. If, on the other hand, you’ve got £50 spare, and you can justify spending it on some fancy booze for yourself, I find it hard to believe you could be disappointed with Domenis Blanc e Neri. I think the bitterness on the finish does put it slightly behind the Storica in terms of overall quality, but it has enough going for it to earn a hearty recommendation from me.

Grappa is a criminally underrated spirit, here in the UK. I think it’s about time you made the effort and gave it a go. You listening? I’m going to make it my mission to put grappa on the UK map. I don’t know how – perhaps by mentioning it a lot – but hopefully we can get some more brands in supermarkets before too long. Is that a bad thing, mind? All the specialist off licenses are already going out of business round here, so maybe we shouldn’t be neglecting them in favour of the convenience of evil multinational supermarkets (not naming any names). Yeah! Nevertheless, get out there and get some frickin grappa.

Blimey, I almost forgot my weekly update! So, I'm afraid that will be all you'll hear from me for about 3 weeks because the missus and I are off to Vietnam. I'm definitely looking forward to picking up some duty free and seeking out some Mekong Whisky, so there should be plenty to tell you about when I get back. Try not to miss me too much. I'll try to tweet from time to time, so you can try following me there, if you like.

Ok, keep your lives booze-fuelled, and I'll see you when I get back. That is all.

732 Words on Tequila, and then a few more

I’ve been amazed at the things I’ve learned (and found interesting) since applying myself to writing a blog about booze and, more importantly, taking an active interest in experimenting and investigating the delights it can bring. The most recent thing I have become interested in is tequila. I know, I’ve written posts on tequila before here, here and even here, but it has come to my notice that frankly, I have barely even scratched the surface because tequila is surprisingly underappreciated here in the UK.

this tequila wears a sombrero

It started innocuously enough; I thought that since I’d offloaded the last dregs of my Jose Cuervo Gold recently, I could see my way to getting a new bottle. The only brands you ever see in supermarkets are Jose Cuervo and Sierra, so I took a look at The Whisky Exchange, and found that there is actually a whole smorgasbord of different brands available – many for under £20 (plus P&P).

It was time to start working my way through. I had learned some time in the past that tequila is made by fermenting sugars found in the blue agave plant that grows above a certain altitude in Mexico (1500m), and then distilling the resulting wort twice (and sometimes a third time).

Ok, that’s not that interesting. In fact, a ten years younger me would have said, “boor-ring!”, like I did at that party 10 years ago when someone started telling me that whisky gets its colour from the barrels it is aged in. Actually, I didn’t say that out loud, I just found it really boring. No, what’s interesting to me is that cheaper tequilas like your standard Jose Cuervos only use 51% agave, and the rest of their spirit is distilled from cheaper things like molasses. I decided that it would be interesting to see what the real thing tasted like, so this time I would be more discerning, and get something that was 100% agave. To make choosing easier, I’d get the cheapest thing I could find that was 100% agave. All I needed was an excuse to get to a proper booze shop.

And that chance came one Saturday when frankly, I wasn’t feeling on top of the world, and the wife and I had a few jobs to do. I needed some cheering up, and decided we’d call off at Carrington’s in Didsbury on our way to one of our errands in Stretford.

Unfortunately, Carrington’s is more of a wine shop really, but they are still better stocked with spirits than any of your supermarkets. It’s a shame though, that they keep them all out of reach, behind the counter. I approached, and making plain my requirements found they had three bottles that fit the bill. I’d allocated myself a budget of £30 on this occasion, so that eliminated the first one that came in at £38, leaving two at around £25. One was 10p cheaper than the other, but that one was also 2% lighter in alcohol at 38%, so I went for the slightly dearer one until… I noticed that one was only 50cl against the cheaper one’s 70cl. I could have stood there all day, wondering what to do, so I reverted back to my original plan. The extra 20cl made the cheaper tequila significantly cheaper, so that would be my winner. And the winner was… el Jimador – named after the people who cultivate, select and pick the blue agave plants it is made with. To be fair, the other bottle was far more attractive but rules is rules.

£25 is a bit more than I’d been expecting to pay, given the prices at The Whisky Exchange but remember, you have to add £5.49 P&P to the £19.95 that they charge for this particular brand, so it only cost me a matter of pence more.

It was to be a while before I would crack it open as, being a little under the weather, I knew I wouldn’t be able to taste it - I’d been using the preceding evenings to lighten the load of my slightly less premium spirits. Still, the next weekend would be something to look forward to, since I decided I’d crack it open at the poker night that accompanied this year’s end of year golf tournament.

And you can read about that next week.

Before that, it’s the weekend. Tonight I’ll be staying in with the missus, having a drink and watching telly like we do every night, but this time we’re calling it a date, so that makes it special. We’re just excited for the weekend, so that’s fine. Tomorrow on the other hand, is the latest in the long line of pub crawls that could almost make the basis of a flimsy bestselling novel, or a romantic comedy starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Matthew McConaughey, if pub crawls were romantic. They aren’t; they're about a group of lads getting drunk and talking shit, so if you only see one movie this year, it isn’t going to be that one.  Why do so many movie trailers start with, “This year…”?

This year… Paul has planned a route along the canal that runs through Manchester, so that should be fun.

Whatever you’re up to, have a good one.

Booze Tourism Part 1: Venice

Popular Venetian souvenirs: glass, masks, pictures of canals. 

Venice – the most romantic city in the world. People love Venice, and for good reason: it’s great. I took Brenda there in June last year, and we spent the whole time wandering around in search of culinary delights, gifts, romantic photo opportunities, and… grappa.

Yes, grappa that I was first introduced to in York’s Vom Fass (http://www.vomfassuk.com/) store. Wikipedia has some interesting and in depth information (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grappa), but the gist of it is that grappa is made by distilling all the stuff that’s left over (skins, pulp, seeds, stem) from pressing grapes for wine, and it differs from brandy in that brandy is made by direct fermentation of pure grape juice.

I didn’t know anything of that at the time, but I do believe it was during this trip that I had the idea of becoming a booze tourist. It was as simple as that; ‘they make grappa in Italy, don’t they? I could get some of that’.

Since the whole idea occurred on holiday, I didn’t get time to do any research into brands or anything. So when it came to deciding which one to get, Brenda just asked a guy in the sports store where I was buying a Venezia football shirt. He seemed quite knowledgeable. Interesting technique though – don’t ask an expert, just ask anyone.

My starting criteria was that I wanted something traditional, but good. Our guy recommended Storica, and directed us to a place around the corner where we could get it.

As things transpired, they didn’t have it in the store. They had an alternative, but it wasn’t a traditional style. I can’t remember what was different about it, but I decided to leave it for the time being.

For the next couple of days we walked all over Venice, and tried every shop we could find from your off-licence type stores, down to every tiny grocery store and even the tourist gift shops. They all sell grappa of some kind, though none of them had Storica.

I found it eventually, and had to choose between three varieties. The shopkeeper was no help, as each time I found a slightly different way of asking which was the most traditional, he countered by listing the three types by name. So I went for this one:

Also on that holiday we found a wine shop where they keep the wine in giant barrels, and pour it into empty water bottles for you. We paid about 3 euros for a litre and a half of it. It was good stuff, too. As we were leaving, some American tourists who had been watching from outside asked us what the situation was. Soon a queue was forming outside that little shop.

As for the Storica; it became a firm favourite. It’s fragrant and sweet, and the liquid seems far more viscous than any other liquor I’ve experienced before, and at 50% alcohol, it’s nice and strong. Sadly, my bottle is long gone, and only one friend got to try it. Next time I go to Italy I’ll struggle to decide whether to buy that one again, or try a new grappa. Most likely though, I’ll spend far too much money getting both. 

If you’re planning a trip to Venice, keep an eye out for the discount wine shops, and definitely consider getting yourself some grappa. If you want to try it first you can get free samples of up to five varieties at Vom Fass. I have a small bottle of their grappa prosecco at the moment, which clocks in at only 40%, and is priced at £5.60 per 100ml. It’s not quite as nice as the Storica, but it’s still a special treat that I’ll be saving for more special occasions. As for the Storica, that’s available from The Whisky Exchange for £46.44 including delivery, and I also saw a bottle in the Didsbury branch of Carringtons for £42. I paid 32 euros so… I win.

One place we didn’t win was the “legendary” Harry’s Bar. Harry’s Bar is famous for inventing carpaccio and the Bellini cocktail, which is two parts sparkling wine and one part fresh peach puree. It is also famous because it was popular with Ernest Hemingway. It’s difficult to find and you can’t see out of the windows. I can’t speak for the food there, though I do know it’s very expensive. Some friends of ours went on their honeymoon, and spent £300 each (I think) on dinner. Brenda and I had to be a little more economical than that, but we’d been told we should go, so we just ordered a couple of Bellini’s. They didn’t even make them fresh – I saw the waiter pouring them out of a jug, readymade. And they were small. And they were 15 euros each. And they weren’t even that nice (that’s a matter of opinion, I suppose). I wouldn’t recommend it, anyway.

As ever, please feel free to leave a comment. If you’ve got any booze tourism recommendations or questions, I’d be glad to hear them. And don’t forget to look out for part 2 of this feature, which will focus on Spain.