Grappa Tasting (October 22, 2021)
This is our 1st Grappa Tasting. We decided to do Grappa, since we haven’t done it before! Although it’s all from Italy, it seems to be quite a diverse category of liquor, there is even a ‘white’ Grappa. The bottles in question were;
| TT Label | Description | Country | Proof | Rating | Price (CAD$) |
| H | Bottega Gianduia (Chocolate Grappa cream) | Italy | 34 | 7.9 | $22.00 |
| B | Bottega Grappa Fume | Italy | 76 | 4.3 | $36.50 |
| F | Zenato Grappa Di Amarone | Italy | 90 | 5.9 | $73.00 |
| D | De Nigri Graspa dei Amighi | Italy | 84 | 5.2 | $63.75 |
| C | Bianca Da Ponte (White Grappa) | Italy | 80 | 6.7 | $53.00 |
| A | Villa de Varda Grappa Prosecco Riserva | Italy | 80 | 6.1 | $67.50 |
| E | Antinori Grappa Tignanello | Italy | 84 | 6.3 | $77.50 |
| G | Poli Cleopatra Moscato Oro | Italy | 80 | 5.9 | $76.00 |
We had 9 voting participants in Zoom, but I made another 4 tasting sets, for those who decided not to participate in the Zoom. Grappa was interesting, it was the first tasting we did ‘chilled’. I have to say, I set the order of the Grappa, sipping them at room temperature, and I enjoyed them farrrrrrr better when ‘chilled’. Some of vials weren’t so ‘blind’ due to the coloring of the grappa, whether due to aging or the type of grapes, but we had enough different colors that it only limited it to 3-4 in each color grouping. Some were a light yellow, up to a dark orange, and 3 were clear, and of course the chocolate one was a give away.
We, as a group, seem to like sweet, the Grappa cream got the highest rating (Jenn, Tara and Stacie weren’t at this one, so the token cream didn’t get any failing grades). We don’t seem to like ‘smoked’ Grappa. ‘E’ and ‘F’ are the ‘classic’ Grappa’s, in my opinion, the rest had some sort of variant, or difference, only Nicole and Bradley seem to really like the ‘classic’ Grappas the best. As a group we liked the ‘white’ Grappa the best, made from the remnants of white wine, vs the far more common (default, and assumed) red wine Grappa. So if we do another Grappa tasting, I’ll have to find more ‘white’ Grappas. (Good luck with that, it was hard to find the only one I did find…even that one isn’t available at LCBO anymore.)
Many of the Grappa bottles are 500ml, when you look at the prices you might say, not bad, but realize they’re mostly only 2/3rds sized bottles.
I’m not sure if, as a group, we like Grappa, since the winner had a rating of under 7 on average. But hey, we are open minded, we are trying many different spirits. We are going through all the categories of spirits that we can find, except scotch, beer and wine, since there are enough tastings on those categories of liquor/spirits.
The Winners!
1st Place (6.7, $53)
2nd Place (6.3, $77)
3rd Place (6.1, $67)
The next tasting is Amaro, it will be in November
The Survey Results
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | |
| Wayne | 6 | 6 | 8 | 8 | 9 | 8 | 6 | 7 |
| Nicole B | 4 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 5 | 10 |
| Bradley | 4 | 6 | 7 | 2 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 10 |
| Chris B | 7 | 6 | 8 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 8 | 10 |
| Stephanie | 7 | 5 | 8 | 7 | 8 | 5 | 7 | 8 |
| Tim | 6 | 4 | 8 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 9 |
| Neil | 7 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| Jerry Z | 7 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 9 |
| Marcia | 7 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 9 |
| Total | 55 | 39 | 60 | 47 | 57 | 53 | 53 | 71 |
| Avg | 6.11 | 4.33 | 6.67 | 5.22 | 6.33 | 5.89 | 5.89 | 7.89 |
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