A CENTENARY HISTORY
It was the year 1850 and, according to a convention that was never formalized but increasingly shared, grappa celebrated its 449th birthday. Also in 1850, the fussy Weights and Measures Service of the Province of Ivrea drew up a list of users subject to periodic verification in which he registered, under number 53, Battista Revel Chion attributing to him the qualification of distiller as the main operator.
As the birth of grappa is certainly prior to 1451 - but this year is taken as an official data as there is a notarial document - so the Revel Chion distillery perhaps had the stills smoked long before, but the oldest document with a certain date is the one mentioned.
Another, younger, but no less important, dates back to 1901 when Bernardo Revel Chion, Giuseppe's son, received from the mayor of Chiaverano the policy relating to an increase in the deposit for the fiduciary warehouse attached to the distillery.
Appearance: Amber.
Sensations olfactory: Fine and with hints of fruit, it expresses a delicate note of tobacco and leather that identifies the great personality of the distillate.
The origin of the Revel Chion is however not very far from the foundation of the cooperation of spirits established in Piedmont at the beginning of the 18th century under the reign of Vittorio Amedeo II of Savoy. The proof is given by the summons of the current President of the distillery, Alessandro Revel Chion, born in the second half of the 18th century, as a holder of an alembic.
The Savoy Kingdom was an orderly state and, above all in terms of brandy, meticulously censored every production source, not without profit.
In Chiaverano alone, in that 1848 which passed from history to proverbial fame for the well-known socio-political upheavals, twenty stills were counted, which then rose to thirty-one in 1885.
They were certainly small and mostly on direct fire if, all together, they managed to give just two thousand liters of taxable brandy.
But they were the reflection of an important agricultural phenomenon that had changed the face of the area.
In fact, starting from 1700 in the Canavesano area, a conspicuous phenomenon was triggered that led the vineyard to steal the land from the centuries-old woods of the Serra d'Ivrea.
With enormous efforts, the slopes are terraced to make them more easily cultivable and the vine becomes the real wealth of the area.
As a demonstration of the fact, it is enough to consider the disciplinary rules that follow one another, almost without solution of continuity, to create a well-sanctioned warning to anyone who pays attention to the integrity of the vineyard, both from the structural point of view and from the stealer of the precious bunches of grapes.
And, as we know, where the vineyard is, the alembic also arrives to allow the alcoholic fraction present in the grape skins to be exhausted at the end of the alcoholic fermentation and the sediments left by the wine after decanting.
In the past centuries the stills worked perhaps more on the latter than on the marc: in fact, once the wine was separated, water was added to prepare the wine and therefore, not infrequently, they were so poor as not to deserve the use of wood needed for distillation.
As the vineyard grew, the farmer became a winegrower and then specialized, in some cases, in the art of racking.
The Revel Chion distillery is therefore born from the land and the work of seven generations who, without ever leaving Chiaverano, have gradually adapted the company to the needs of the moment without ever betraying the origins and traditions.
ERBALUCE
Albaluce, the nymph daughter of the sun and dawn, moved by the affection that the inhabitants of the area of Caluso, a town not far from Ivrea showed her, could not hold back the tears that, which fell on the calcareous soil, originated the vine named in his honor ERBALUCE. If the legend is pagan, sacred is the story that sees Sante Lancerio, cellarman of Pope Paul III Farnese, in the fabulous Renaissance period, singing the praises of Canavesano wines in which it is not difficult to see those deriving from Erbaluce whose bunches, such as said the Tedeschini, they light up in the sun with warm reflections of bright copper. The pomace, normally separated from the must, is very delicate to work in the grappery and requires great attention, both in the conservation phase and during distillation. Even those, even rarer, that derive from the preparation of the famous passito di Caluso are particularly sensitive to the passage in the alembic but, like everything precious, the efforts are really compensated by the result.
NEBBIOLO DI CAREMA
The other great vine that the Revel Chion Distillery uses, with the legend, did not have, compared to the Erbaluce, equal luck, but Sante Lancerio did not miss it when talking about the reds of the Ivrea area: it is the Nebbiolo from Carema, the last Canavesano municipality at the gates of the Aosta Valley. The vine, with span-long clusters made up of round berries with purple skin, resistant and tannic, so covered in wax as to appear clouded, keeps its history - and therefore its origins - unknown until 1300. But since then no one who has dealt with viticulture in Piedmont as well as outside the subalpine borders, he has been able to avoid mentioning it and weave its virtues. If its wines are great, the grappas deriving from the generous and long-lasting pomace that reach the still ready for distillation are incomparable.
HOW TO SERVE AND TASTE REVEL CHION GRAPPAS
We cannot afford homologation, we cannot promise to give you grappas that are always the same. From our ancestors we have learned to love nature, to love the diversity that it induces in things as a source of wealth.
We only ask our alembic to faithfully carry out, according to our commands, a bland selection of what nature has produced first on the rows and then in the cellar. This is why we ask you to taste our grappas carefully, evaluating the adamantine aspect in the white ones and the golden crystalline that distinguishes the aged ones. Appreciate the scent, sometimes a little rebellious, others more persuasive, but always full of a thousand refined notes that take you back to the autumn vineyards and to the boiling of the must that becomes wine.
Sip by squeezing the sip with your tongue to perceive the heat they immediately manifest and, in rapid succession, the rich aroma that invades the mouth and remains there for a long time. To do all this, use a crystal goblet or, at most, a thin glass, not too big, but not too small: 120 ml is the right size. A chalice, to have a stem that keeps the liquid away from your hand, enclosed in a tulip where the aromas play hide and seek on the liquid before reaching more concentrated - but not much - to your nose; crystal or sonic glass for consistency with the immateriality of what you are tasting.
And pay attention to the temperature: the brandies have known the rigors of fire and love the cool, sometimes the cold of the winters of our valleys.
To put it in degrees centigrade, no more than 18 for aged grappa, between 10 and 12 for young grappas.
In general, grappa loves to be sipped all alone, even if you are in good company, but if you want to accompany it with something from Chiaverano, to experience an unusual thrill, try marrying it with spicy tomino, preferably spread on bread and then liquefied. to the heat of the burning embers.
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