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Abstract
The history of grappa has its roots in the metaphysical alchemic search for the quintessential classical element along with earth, fire, water, and air. The Greeks called such element aether, or pure, fresh air, and it was believed to be the material of the region of the universe where the gods lived. It was the product of distillation, mostly from wine. When Italian distillers turned their attention to the less valuable pomace, or the skins, seeds, and other residues left after the grapes are crushed for wine, grappa was born. Using data which was collected during fieldwork in northern Italy and from private and public archival documents, published works, and selected secondary data, the paper follows the social, cultural, and economic journey of grappa from its remote and still obscure birth to the long, modest identification as the laborer's alcoholic staple, to the present times, when grappa is experiencing a new and trendy socioeconomic success as national patrimony. Paralleling other typical regional products, the paper reveals how the socioeconomic and geographic evolution of grappa can be linked to the growth of consumerist forms of identity-production of vernacular products in globalizing markets.
Notes
1. I would like to thank one of the anonymous reviewers for pointing out the potential connection existing between the Latin term aqua vitae and the term uisce beatha, the original Celtic name for whiskey, since both distilled spirits share their etymological origin in the quest for the water of life.
2. After all, Behrendt and Behrendt (Citation2000) point out, Arabs are responsible for coining the word al-khul, the root of today's alcohol.
3. Other contributors were also practitioners living in—or traveling through—Muslim countries. In particular, Mahdihassan (Citation1988) indicates Egypt's Alexandria as the place where an advanced form of alchemy originally arose from Greek culture.
4. The main purpose was not that of creating gold from much less precious metals, but instead that of distilling aurum potabile (drinkable gold). Such gold was to be used for medical purposes and could not be the gold found in nature. Instead, it must be obtained via alchemic processes. For this, it was called lapis philosophorum, or the philosophers’ stone (Palmero Citation1999).
5. In the first treatise dedicated to the aqua vitis—Libellus de acqua ardent—published in Ferrara, Italy, in 1484, renowned physician Michele Savonarola explains its quintessential property with the following words (Belloni Citation1953, p. 47): “Non adopera chomo aqua, con ciò sia cossa che arde; ne adopera chomo terra, con ciò sia cossa che potentemente rescaldi. Nè a l'aere compare se po, el quale tosto se corrompe e marcia […] ma questa [the aqua vitis] non leçiermente se putrefa e corompe, ma le cosse de la putrefazione defende” (It does not behave like water, in fact it burns; it does not behave like soil, in fact it gets you warm. It cannot be compared to the air either, since air is corruptible and decays…instead the aqua vitis does not decay nor putrefy even slightly, but it protects things from decomposing. Translation by the author).
6. Vite is also the Italian word for screw.
7. Among the physicians, monks, physicists, astrologists, and magicians practicing distillation, we find Leonardo da Vinci and also the French apothecary Michel de Nostredame, better known today by his Latin name: Nostradamus (Lo Russo 2008, p. 24).
8. Indeed, before this discovery, it was believed that a widespread consumption of wine-derived spirits did not start before the late 1500s or even 1600s, when most dominant families started including a personal distillery in their palaces (Grieco and Sandri Citation1999).
9. As of June 2010, the law imposed 800.1 euros of tax for every 100 liters of ethylic alcohol produced.
10. For instance, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNhLpIFKYJs and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c15CUsw1EFY.
11. Behrendt and Behrendt (Citation2000) list 11 regions where grappa is produced today: Piedmont, Trentino, South Tyrol, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Tuscany, Umbria, The Marches, Campania, Basilicata, Sardinia, and Sicily (). Surprisingly, the northern region of Lombardy is not listed in the book despite the fact that, in 1879, 106 distilleries were already active in the city of Brescia alone (Lucia 2009).
12. Their rough estimated annual value is close to 600 million euros in 2006 (Redazione Grappa Time 2009b).
13. Because of special legal circumstances, home production of grappa is already legal in two northern regions: Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Veneto.
14. In 1995, the still active bill of parliament DDL 504 established a maximum of 3 years in jail and a minimum of 15 million liras in fines (more or less 5,000 US dollars of today) for grappa bootleggers.