How do you drink grappa?

A tulip glass with a bowl and a narrow opening works best, because the aroma gathers without the alcohol hitting your nose straight away.

Fill the glass to halfway up the bowl, no further. In an overfilled glass a spirit mainly gives off alcohol and little aroma.

A cognac glass is too wide and a straight shot glass holds nothing. For aged grappa the glass may be slightly roomier than for a clear one.

The Italian tasting association ANAG recommends 15 to 18 degrees for young grappa and about 20 degrees for aged grappa and riserva.

Pouring from the freezer works against you: cold silences the aroma, and with grappa the aroma is the largest part of what you taste.

If the bottle is kept in a cool cellar, let the glass warm up in your hand for a few minutes. For a riserva, ordinary room temperature is enough.

Grappa is usually drunk neat, after the meal, in small sips.

In Italy the little glass after coffee is called ammazzacaffè. If the grappa goes into the coffee instead, that is called caffè corretto.

Grappa also goes into cocktails and the kitchen, for example in tiramisu or to deglaze a pan. For a cocktail you usually take a clear grappa, because wood overpowers the other ingredients.

A clear grappa mainly shows the grape variety, while an aged grappa also gets the colour and wood notes of the cask.

On the label you can recognise the aged versions by invecchiata or vecchia, meaning at least twelve months in untreated wood, and by riserva or stravecchia from eighteen months.

Many houses distil by grape variety. A grappa di Moscato, di Chardonnay or di Nebbiolo tells you on the label which pomace it comes from.

Start with the youngest and lightest grappa and work up to the oldest and heaviest, otherwise the wood overpowers everything that follows.

Have a sip of water between two glasses. Smell with the glass at a distance from your nose; sticking your nose into the glass mainly gives you alcohol vapour.

Three to four grappas in an evening is enough to taste the differences. More glasses give less distinction, not more.