Turning “holy wine” into grappa at Francesco Poli

“Town” would be a big word for one-piazza Santa Massenza in Italy’s mountainous Trentino province.

Although a hydroelectric plant dominates the city’s entrance, most of Santa Massenza’s 100-plus population is in the wine business, in some shape or form, and named Poli, by one way or another.

Vino santo, Italy’s dessert wine, is the local specialty of this lower Alpine post. As part of the Valle dei Laghi, a series of three lakes roughly a half-hour’s drive from the city of Trento, Santa Massenza receives a sweep of crisp, dry air that wards off rot during the growing season and creates prime conditions for the lengthy grape-drying process that is a trademark of making vino santo.

Brothers Giovanni and Francesco Poli, both working under their own labels, and primarily with the valley’s native nosiola grape, are Santa Massenza’s top producers and the town’s unofficial mayors. Francesco, the younger brother by a year, is still spry at 80.

In addition to vino santo, both brothers also make a dry white wine from nosiola. The real standout in their two lineups, however, is the grappa di vino santo, which brings a devilish edge to Italy’s so-called “holy wine.”

Theories diverge on the origins of vino santo as a nickname. One popular school of thought connects the name to the wine’s unusual spring fermentation, which, coincidentally, often overlapped with Easter holidays, after months of dehydrating the grapes. Another camp holds that vino santo was thus anointed from being the once-preferred wine of priests for conducting Mass.

Either way, production of vino santo – alias vin santo in Tuscany ­– begins by setting aside the grapes for several months, six in total for Francesco’s harvest. As the berries shrivel away their water weight, their remaining sugar content becomes concentrated. In Trentino, this is traditionally done by spreading the grape bunches over trays. In Tuscany, where the local trebbiano and malvasia are used, grapes hang down from rafters like garlands. Other regions to make Italy’s classic dessert wine include Veneto and the Marche.

What makes Santa Massenza, and the rest of the Valle dei Laghi, a good home for vino santo is the region’s lack of humidity. Excessive moisture in the air would dampen the grapes’ ability to fully raisinate during passito, the Italian term for this drying method, during which the grapes are housed in a special attic called an appassitoio.

Francesco Poli has positioned his appassitoio to make the most of Santa Massenza’s natural air conditioning. Windows open to face the mountains to the north and the lake, bearing the town’s same name, to the south. A constant cross-breeze runs over the racks of nosiola bunches stacked 10 to 12 trays high.

Francesco offers a tour from his tasting room to the appassitoio with the help of his granddaughter Selia, who studies English at her high school in Trento. Selia is called into service as translator by her grandmother and Francesco’s wife of 52 years, Ivonne. The quintessential nonno and nonna, Francesco and Ivonne spent the better part of their day preparing the appassitoio for that Sunday’s festival, when they would host the town for the pressing of the now appropriately puckered grapes.

Next door to Francesco’s appassitoio is the distillery, where a portion of his vino santo becomes grappa, undergoing what is more or less a purification process.

Traditionally distilled from pomace, the pulpy, solid leftovers of winemaking, grappa underscores the waste-not, want-not mentality of agriculture. The high-octane stuff originated in northern Italy, where it used to be added as a shot to coffee, giving a warming jolt to those extra cold mornings.

As with other clear-spirts family members, such as vodka and gin, grappa is typically refined using a column still. In a nutshell, column stills clean away more of the flavors of the original fermented base – pomace, in grappa’s case. By contrast, a pot still, used in making Scotch and other whiskies, retains the profile of its initial base. Both stills work by adding a heat source that vaporizes the alcohol into steam that is then collected, cooled, and condensed back into a liquid, and now much more potent, form.

Column stills separate the alcohol vapors from other, denser molecules, which fall back to the bottom of the still, with a series of perforated plates. Through this filtration, only the purest elements reach the top and are gathered into the final production.

There is something befitting about “holy wine” being chosen to embark on this alchemistic pilgrimage.

With the wine transforming itself into a more refined state to become grappa, vino santo wears its title with new meaning in quiet Santa Massenza.