Our Third Week in Italy

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Thursday, September 13

Margaret Here. We arrived at the restaurant a few minutes before nine, and Lina was already outside waiting for us. Clearly, excitement was on her face. We were still not sure why. The drive to Schiavon took close to an hour. Traffic was heavy, but Mike managed to keep his cool and not let lane-shifters and speeders bug him too much.

The distillery name is Poli and it is a family-owned business since 1898. Upon entering the showroom, we thought for sure that we were in for something special. And we were not disappointed.

I have always said that everything in life is about timing. And our timing today could not have been better. This is the time of year when the grapes are mature and distilleries are their busiest. And today it happened that two of the four owners/siblings (brothers Andrea and Jacopo) were hosting several of their customers and distributors, teaching them how Poli processes the grapes into grappa by having them help (free labor). You must, must see the photos. Our guide Iva, was a bit shy about taking us too close to the owners’ group, but Jacopo stopped and chatted with us for several minutes, asking about us and talking about the distillery process. At one point, Andrea stopped working to say Ciao and asked us how we identified ourselves as being from Chicago, “Chicago-ans” like people from Miami were “Miami-ans”. We were shown the entire process and taken into the cellar where the grappa is stored in barrels. Some of the barrels come from the U.S., but most are from France. They are all handmade and each is used for about ten years. Iva took us to the tasting room where we were able to taste all of the different flavors of grappa and liquors.

Lina did not join the tour because her back was hurting and she’d done it before. Because we spent so much time watching the distilling and chatting, our tour took over two hours, but Lina did not seem to mind. She said “I’ve been shopping.” And shopping she did. Eight cases. So, then we realized that this was a business trip, stocking up the restaurant bar. Clever lady 😊

Mike and I did buy three bottles: a Bassano 24 Carati Oro grappa 40% alcohol; a Miele liquor (honey) 35% alcohol; and an Elisir Limone 27% alcohol. We only purchased the one official grappa. The others, while based on the grappa, do not officially meet the standards for being labeled as such. There are literally more than a dozen variations of grappa quality and ages. Of those that we tasted, the Bassano was the most appealing to us.

Hungry, we stopped at a local restaurant for a light lunch of salad and gnocchi. It was clearly a family-owned restaurant, with bisnonna, nonna and momma in charge and a toddler acting as if she too owned the place.

The ride home was uneventful and this evening Mike and I taking it easy thinking about what tomorrow will bring.

Mike here. Margaret and I love to learn about commercial processes, factories and behind the scenes tours. Today’s distillery experience was unexpected and totally fun. My personal knowledge of distilling comes from watching movies of white lightning with a still and a condensing coil. This was much more complicated. The raw material called “grape mark” is the residual from local wine pressing and is composed of grape skins and seeds. Most of their grape mark comes from local grapes. The large vertical stills are filled with 4 baskets each containing a 4 layers of mark. Steam is introduced at the bottom and the mix cooks for 3 hours. During the 3 hours the alcohols and water exit from the top and are first passed through the round Lego looking flange. This separates out the heavier water/steam from the lighter alcohols. Then the extracted alcohol mix is passed through coil in a cold-water kettle to cool. Here comes the really interesting part, the cooled mix is not yet safe for human consumption. The 400 kilos of each cooled mix are separated into just 15 liters of grappa stock. They describe this process as separating the “heart” (the 15 grappa eligible liters) from the “head” and “tail” of the mix. The “head” contains methanol and cannot be consumed. Poli says home-made grappa is dangerous to consume since it does not separate out the methanol and other by products. The “heart” is the grappa base and is passed through official Customs counters and the distillery is taxed 4 Euros per liter. The grappa base is not yet in compliance with the official Grappa standards for alcohol %. The base is stored in barrels for at least one year in a locked room with an official Customs lock (no key, the lock is disassembled for opening) After that additional aging and blending are at the discretion of the distillery as long as they meet the legal definitions for Grappa.

We saw a short video on the effect the distillery had on the extremely small town and its workers over the years. Our female guide pointed to the 3 generations of male owner’s photographs on the wall in their Italian army uniforms and minimized their importance to the survival of the distillery. When they and the rest of the men vanished from the distillery for military service, it was the women who literally kept the fires burning and doors open. The expansive cellars with all those barrels was originally a secret small cellar accessed by a hidden trap door and a ladder to keep the grappa safe from raids by thirsty German soldiers.

Poli recommended a local trattoria, Due Ponti, for lunch and it was very good. But if you should follow our steps to the restaurant be sure to use the excellent bathrooms at Poli first. Margaret was not impressed by the restaurant toilet, just a hole in the floor not even a squatty potty.

We thought we were doing a favor for Lina in letting her talk us into going to the distillery, but we were the recipients of one of those wow travel moments that make it all worthwhile.