La Malvasia (700 ml)

In 1973, Giannola Nonino and her husband Benito made a decision that rewrote Italian spirits law: separating individual grape pomaces and distilling each variety alone, beginning with the near-extinct Friulian Picolit. That act of defiance created the Monovitigno® category — and La Malvasia is its direct descendant. Percoto, in Pavia di Udine, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, is the production home: five artisanal sub-distilleries housing handcrafted copper steam discontinuous stills, the same batch-by-batch architecture Benito Nonino designed to preserve aromatic fidelity that column distillation destroys. The pomace arrives at the distillery within one hour of pressing, destalked and placed immediately into fermentation — white pomace held under vacuum in stainless-steel tanks at controlled temperature for up to 48 hours, residual wine-fermentation yeast driving conversion over approximately five days before distillation. Precise head-and-tail cuts are made on every batch; zero color additives are used across the entire range. What makes La Malvasia unusual is the variety itself: Malvasia's naturally high aromatic ester load — floral, stone-fruit, and waxy — survives pomace distillation in a way that neutral varieties cannot, producing a grappa that reads more like an eau-de-vie than a traditional marc. As a non-vintage expression, character reflects the house's consistent sourcing of fresh Friulian Malvasia pomace rather than any single harvest.