Grappa was considered as inferior rotgut for a long time – made of grape remains. Today the schnapps is recognized worldwide. In the Val the Cembra, with the family Pilzer, one of the best is made.
Pilzer looks out for the very best raw materials, saying “You cannot make a good grappa from poor grapes”. Another of Pilzer’s ‘secrets’ came from a visit to Scotland many years ago: “I saw that in the production of whisky, they dispensed with the ‘heads’ and ‘tails’ of the distillate, as these contained greater levels of unclean higher alcohols. Although this is not standard in the production of grappa, when we introduced it we found we produced a much cleaner grappa.”