About Passito Wine at Sparkling Stemware
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"Passito" Style Wines – Passito translated into English would mean "withered" or "faded". Making wine from dried, withered grapes can be traced back to ancient Greece as we can see in the writings of Homer, who must have been a "wine guy" based on his knowledge of the islands' sweet wines. An early Greek tradition was to dry the grapes directly on the vine, usually by twisting the bunches as to cut off the sap, aiding the further drying from the sun. Writers in ancient Rome, like Pliny the Elder himself, wrote specifically about the technique of using interior rafters to hang and dry the grapes.
Passito style wines, also referred to as recioto or appassimento (the actual process of drying), are quite simply the following of Greek and Roman traditions with very little procedural change. The finished wine is not always a highly cloying wine as the lengths of shriveling, the grape's acidity and aging processes vary greatly. Throughout Italy you will find "passito" wines made by either drying the grapes on bamboo mats or by hanging them in a structure's rafters before being pressed. Traditionally the local breezes through open-air structures added to the mystique of drying these bunches but today, using humidity controlled air flow within sealed environments is the norm. Look for Italy's famous "passito" wines by region: Tuscany's Vin Santo, the Veneto's Amarone, Aleatico d'Elba from the island of Elba, and the aforementioned "Sforzato" from the Valtellina.
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