Nonino IL Pirus Williams (700 ml)

When Orazio Nonino founded the distillery in Percoto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia in 1897, grappa was a farmhand's rough spirit — a category Nonino would spend the next century systematically dismantling. Il Pirus Williams is a Monovitigno® grappa distilled from 100% Williams pear pomace, processed under the house's defining discipline: fresh pomace arrives at the Percoto distillery and enters fermentation within one hour of pressing, with no freezing, no silo storage, and no delay that would allow aromatic degradation.

Distillation takes place in handcrafted copper steam discontinuous (bain-marie) stills — the same batch-by-batch apparatus Benito Nonino designed to allow precise head-and-tail cuts impossible in continuous column distillation. This slow, attentive separation is what preserves the volatile esters that define Williams pear: the bright, almost aldehydic top note that collapses under industrial heat. The result is an unaged or lightly rested expression bottled without color additives.

What is categorically unusual here is the raw material itself: Williams pear is a fruit pomace grappa, not a grape pomace, placing Il Pirus Williams at the outer edge of the IGP grappa category — a deliberate transgression that mirrors Nonino's 1973 Picolit breakthrough in spirit, if not in law. NV by nature; drink now for maximum aromatic lift.