Our philosophy

In the distillery of Angera, only traditional and natural methods are applied. They have been handed down over time and partially innovated. Only high quality materials are used and the distillation in discontinuous steam alembic still, with manual cut heads and tails at controlled temperatures, is a guarantee for a slow and progressive success. A large part of the pomace used to produce grappas and distillates comes from the territory: Nebbiolo, Barbera, Vespolina, Croatina, Uva Rara, Bussanello, Merlot and Chardonnay grapes grown on the so-called “Ronchi”. Other pomaces are selected in Piedmont and come, for instance, from the territory around S.S.Belbo, Canelli, Ovada, in the Oltrepo Pavese and around the Lake Garda.

Our method

Pomace is put in the boiler in which steam is insufflated at around 100° C and low pressure (ca. 0.4 bar). Coming into contact with pomace, steam is enriched with alcohol and flavours and through the pipes, it flows at the base of the distillation column, made of several copper plates/layers which separate and concentrate the alcohol and non-alcohol vapours.

When reaching specific temperatures during the process, alcohol vapours flow into a closed circuit cooling tower, thus becoming an alcoholic liquid full of pleasant and unpleasant flavours and scents. The first distilled part, the so-called “head”, is eliminated, because it contains many bad and dangerous alcohols, such as methanol, higher alcohols, aldehydes etc. The following part, the “heart”, contains noble and aromatic alcohols, all the esters that are kept and will become, after proper checks, the “Grappa”. The final distilled part, the tail, flowing out with a low alcohol content (under 55/60 % alcohol) is not kept, but put back into circulation, in the next distillation level.