Zanin is a well-known grappa producer in the Veneto region of Italy. In addition to a wide selection of different grappas, they also have other alcohols in production, mainly liqueurs but also gin, rum and a few barrels of brandy. Straveccio is a brandy matured for five years in a French oak barrel. Zanin does not invest much in the production or marketing of the Stravecchio brand, as it is not even mentioned on the company’s own website. But in addition to the 5-year-olds, they also have 6- and 10-year-old versions in production. Stravecchio is sold in the Baltic countries by the Rimi grocery stores; a 50 cl bottle costs € 13.

I feel from Stravecchio that the manufacturer has more experience in making grappa. It doesn’t reminds traditional brandy very much. The nose is light and quite alcoholic. Nuts, vanilla, dried fruit and chocolate. The taste is light and quite soft. A little fruit, a bitter aroma of wood, blackberry or some other berry, milk chocolate and honey. Clearly drier than brandy in general. Also, the color is only light brown, so I could assume that only a little of sugar coloring has been added. Stravecchio is some kind of mixture of brandy and grappa. Maybe if grappa is mixed with wine distillate and is aged for five years in oak, it could taste something like this. The aroma of grappa is however very thin on it. Stravecchio is rather lame. It has more taste of barrel maturation than the wine distillate itself. Neat, it is quite bland and does not work well even in drinks. The light taste disappears if it is mixed with juice for example.

73/100