Grappa Makes The Heart Grow Hotter

Grappa Makes The Heart Grow Hotter
Mark Morford

Who owns the rights to this most battery-acidy, oh-my-god-I-can't-believe-I-let-you-do-that-to-me-last-night, I-must've-been-so-drunk of dangerous libations?

(Associated Press)
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/a/2003/11/16/financial1335EST0003.DTL&nl=fix

GREVE IN CHIANTI, Italy (AP) -- Sneaked into an espresso at a cafe or sipped pure out on a cold trail in the Alps, grappa provides a throat-scorching and belly-warming jolt.

It's a booze born of the detritus of wine -- squashed grape skins. Yet grappa has risen to nobler status and, as often happens in the competitive world of food and drink, this has brought on a trademark fight.

Grappa's birthplace was Italy, but its popularity has led vintners in other countries, such as the United States and South Africa, to begin producing their own versions. The question is: Can any country except Italy make authentic grappa?

The head of Italy's National Grappa Institute insists it's "an exclusively Italian product," due to the grapes used, the technique, "the philosophy." The South African Grappa Producers Association chief calls it just another generic term: "What about pizza? Where do you draw the line?"

Grappling over grappa is one part of a major international battle over dinner, in which the world's most successful cook -- Europe -- is battling its most enthusiastic clients, who have turned into the competition.

From Champagne to Cognac to Parmesan, the Europeans are seeking to trademark their gastronomic heritage. But grappa is proving an interesting test case because the word itself is not tied to a particular place name.

The Bonollo distillery in Tuscany's Chianti wine region is piled high with heaps of crushed grapes, leaving the plant smelling as if it has been soaked in a robust red wine. Local wine-producers truck in their used grape skins, called "vinaccia," to be transformed into grappa.

Few around here say grappa is mere technology.

"I underline its Italian-ness," Bonollo sales manager Luigi Belentani says. "This Italian-ness is even in the name. 'Grappa' is an Italian name, not a name in any non-Italian language."

At the European Union headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, diplomats have worked on two ways to protect Italian grappa makers.

In August, the EU included seven types of grappa -- each tied to a different place in Italy -- on a list of 41 product names it wants to protect. The EU also argues the term "grappa" itself is a protected Italian product under a World Trade Organization agreement on intellectual property called TRIPS.

"This is already in the TRIPS agreement, which is obviously not followed, which is why we restate our case in this list," said EU spokesman Gregor Kreuzhuber. "The fact that grappa is an Italian product means that an expression like `Californian grappa' is not in line with the existing TRIPS agreement."

This interpretation is shared by Alessandro Francoli, president of Italy's National Grappa Institute, who also singles out American products. "I've tasted some Californian grappa and it's more like grape distillate, which isn't grappa," he says.

One American producer, Steve McCarthy of Clear Creek Distillery in Portland, Ore., says he's of two minds: He's a keen consumer of European products and wants to know he's buying legitimate goods; on the other hand, he thinks grappa is too general a term to be trademarked.

"It's awkward. My wife and I are in Italy at least once a year and love Italian wine and food and grappa," he says. "Our good Italian friends tend to get a little prickly about this issue. I guess I disagree. It's a type of product like brandy or eau de vie, not a place, and as such shouldn't be protected."

He also notes U.S. producers are not much of a challenge to Italy, putting out a tiny amount of grappa compared with Italian production. South African producers make the same point.

"We're not going to call it grappa and try to sell it as Italian. We're selling grappa as South African grappa," says Giorgio Dalla Cia, head of the South African Grappa Producers Association.

McCarthy says no one has tried to stop him making grappa yet. But South Africa's producers have already lost their battle. The South African government, in negotiating a trade agreement with the EU, agreed to stop using the term "grappa" by 2005.

Dalla Cia's group is considering legal action, but is also trying to invent a new name for the product, which it nonetheless insists is just plain "grappa."

So what is grappa?

The crystalline liquor is obtained by distilling vinaccia, a process in which the used grape skins are heated until they emit a potent vapor that is collected and then separated from impurities.

The product is around 40 percent alcohol content, and is ideally drunk chilled in a tulip-shaped glass. To connoisseurs, it offers both the essence of the grape used and of the wine those grapes produced, be it Barolo, Moscato or another.

Grappa's centuries-old history is not precisely known, likely because it was an overlooked poor-folk's booze. Even the origin of the word is unclear, perhaps deriving from "graspa," a dialect word for "wine stalk." It does not appear linked to the word for "grape," as an English-speaker might think.

Grappa sales by Italian makers total about $570 million a year, and overseas companies have revenues of less than 10 percent of that, Francoli said. Italy produces about 40 million bottles a year, while production in the United States and South Africa runs only in the thousands of bottles annually.

Given the slight competition, why can't overseas producers make grappa?

"Because Italy isn't there," Bonollo's Belentani says. "So, use vinaccia, do it in the Italian style if you want, but don't call it grappa."