Fight Night!: Sweet and Rosso Vermouths
Fight Night!, Spirits, Vermouth September 24th, 2007
Vermouth is, obviously, best known for its role in the quintessential cocktail, the Martini. However, as I explored classic cocktails and discovered what a prevalent role vermouth plays in so many vintage drinks I became more curious about what other charms this enigmatic liquid held. I also saw a very interesting piece on the Fine Living network (shut up, my wife has to have the TV on to go to sleep) where Cinzano Rosso vermouth was featured and how vermouth is appreciated as an apertif was heavily covered. Hmmmmm, while I’ve always been a, ‘as long as I have a white and a red, I’m good, right?’, kind of guy, this intrigued me. This interest led me to purchase a good number of apertifs and vermouths on my last outing to Denver liquor stores, but let’s get to what sweet vermouth entails and what qualifies an aromatized or “fortified” wine as vermouth first.
Antonio Benedetto Carpano developed the first vermouth in 1786 and named it vermouth in honor of a German wine using wormwood (‘Wermut’ am Deutsch) as a primary herbal. Initially, vermouth was developed as a means of flavoring wines of poor quality while also lending them a dubiously ascribed ‘medicinal effect’. As vermouth came into its own, both as an apertif and as a cocktail mixer, higher-quality vermouths were produced in all variations of dryness, sweetness, and character. In brief, though, white (or bianco) vermouth is called ‘French’ style vermouth and red (or rosso) vermouth is called ‘Italian’ style. As you would expect, both styles, red and white, are produced in both areas with little regard for consistency in herbs used, alcohol content, or character of dry and sweet between manufacturers.
It’s important to acknowledge vermouth vermouth as an aromatized, versus strictly fortified, wine product. Fortified wines, such as brandy or port, typically have alcohol added to increase their potency whereas an aromatized wine has often as many as 40 or so botanicals and herbals infused into the wine itself. The types of grapes used in the initial wine distillation also has a significant effect on the vermouth’s final flavor profile. In France, the primary grapes used in vermouth production are Picpoul and Clairette grapes varietals and in Italy the Trebbiano (Italy) and Parellada (Spain) grape varietals are frequently used. While nearly all vermouths begin their life as a white wine, sweet vermouths are sweetened with sugar and given their ruddish coloring through the addition of caramelized sugars.
In this tasting I’m looking at four vermouths; Noilly Prat Sweet Vermouth, a French version of sweet vermouth; Martini & Rossi Rosso (which also produces the Noilly Prat product), Cinzano Rosso, Carpano Punt e Mes (a drier product), and Carpano Antica. I tried each in the apertif style versus a cocktail to be sure I was getting the purist flavors from each product possible. Each was served in a highball glass full of ice with a lemon twist and a single stirring straw. This one was fun, folks.
Noilly Prat Original French Sweet Vermouth:
For the past 6 months or so Noilly Prat has been my sweet vermouth mixer of choice (and Martini & Rossi my dry) though I’d never tried it on-the-rocks as an apertif. Noilly Prat is a French product that is produced by the Martini & Rossi company (which is in-turn owned by Bacardi) which bills itself as ‘Original French Sweet’. I didn’t expect much out of this, to be honest, but it turned out to be quite nice and hold its own against the competition. It starts out very sweet with a gentle herbal backbone that doesn’t ever push itself to sickly-sweet territory and avoids that tongue-smacking quality of overly sweet products. It finished cleaner than I expected, and while not best-in-class, it surprises in all the right ways and is a good value at the price. You could do worse, much worse, as we’ll see.
Martini & Rossi Rosso:
This stuff is crap. And it means I’m going to have to change the dry vermouth I use in cocktails because I don’t trust a Martini & Rossi product to serve in drinks any longer. This starts out with a front-end of sickly-sweet sugary and one-dimensional flavoring and then proceeds to turn in a brackish mire of bad aftertaste. I was surprised at just how much this distinguished itself from the others in the group. I mean, yeah; it’s cheap, but does it have to show it off so poorly? Considering the price difference between Noilly Prat and Martini & Rossi is so marginal and that your getting at least a 4x higher-quality product in the Noilly Prat I’m surprised it remains a successful product. Remember that part earlier where vermouth was a method of taking poor quality wine and improving it? Martini & Rossi, keep working on it…seriously – this is shameful.
Cinzano Rosso:
This, like the Noilly Prat, is a pleasant surprise. It’s a notch more dry than the Noilly Prat and provides a rich but not overwhelming flavor. For me, this is just about the perfect everyday sweet vermouth for mixing. It’s not something I’d go to for a straight apertif, primarily because I have other options, but if I were stuck with only readily available vermouths to choose from to do so, this would be it. This is an affordable and widely available option that gets best in class in that category1 . The Carpano products, as you’ll see, are superior, but aren’t had as easily. I appreciate Cinzano’s body, fullness of flavor, and balance, especially compared to Martini & Rossi.
Carpano Punt e Mes:
Punt e Mes has right around the same level of sweetness and body as the Cinzano Rosso with a slightly more woody taste and a blast more bitterness as it finishes. I’ve called this a ‘gateway Campari’ in the past for a reason. If you manage to slug this and avoid having it lie on your tongue overly long, you’ll have a tough time telling it apart from a simple sweet vermouth, aside from its slightly more woody nature (wormwood is prevalent in this). However, the longer it sits in the mouth and swills about the more pronounced the bitter tone becomes and it builds in complexity over time. Very good stuff and I think it makes a nice Campari replacement in a Negroni for those of us who have friends who won’t go within 20 yards of a Campari bottle.
Carpano Antica:
Carpano Antica is purportedly the ‘original’ Italian sweet vermouth as created by Anthony himself2 . Whether or not it’s the original recipe or not, this is not your Uncle Rico’s sweet vermouth, folks; this shit has a cork, a box, metal seal, the works. A lot of hoopla for an apertif that’s fairly difficult to find but not outrageously expensive. But how does it taste, you ask? It’s terribly good, and I use it strictly as an apertif. I’ve heard rumors of heathens mixing it in Negronis as the sweet vermouth component but I wouldn’t dare. It’s more dry than these other contenders but also more rich and flavorful. This pours an almost chocolate color and has the body of Guinness in its thickness and mouthfeel. Best of all, and the reason I find it such a fantastic apertif, it finishes clean as a whistle. All of the others leave some sort of finish lingering behind, from herbally sweet in the Cinzano to brackish horror in the Martini & Rossi, but the Antica just leaves the palate wanting more…of anything, just as an apertif should. If you can find this, grab a bottle, be sure to use a good stopper to recork it, and enjoy. And I’m sure I’ll break down and pour some of this heaven into a mixed drink, but not quite yet.
Noilly Prat Original French Sweet Rating:
Martini & Rossi Rosso Rating:
Cinzano Rosso Rating:
Carpano Punt e Mes Rating:
Carpano Antica Rating:
Some of you eagle-eyed viewers will notice a lack of Vya products here, which I understand to be fantastic. If you know of a distributor or agency through which I can acquire these, I’d love to have them to compare. Otherwise, I’m SOL in OK. Though if you’ve tried them I’d like to just hear your impressions as well.
For additional information and takes on Sweet Vermouth, visit these and other fine locations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermouth
http://thespiritworld.net/2007/06/04/vermouth/
http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=79770
http://marriedwithdinner.com/index.php?s=carpano
Wow, you don’t pull any punches!
As one of those heathens who happens to think a Sazerac Straight Rye Whiskey Manhattan made with the Carpano Antica is about as good as any cocktail gets, well, you’ll just have to try it for yourself some time and find out, before judging me.
HAHAH, actually, in full disclosure, I recently got my hands on Sazerac Rye at the same store where I bought the Carpano Antica, partly in preparation to make a world-class Sazerac. However, upon tasting the Carpano for this exercise I decided to hold off and enjoy it for its own sake. So, I was a bit heavy-handed in my consternation regarding its use in mixed drinks.
Once the bottle pushes towards the edge of going even a bit south from being opened, I’m going to mad on using it in mixed drinks. That M&R is still crap, though.
Gabriel — I need to quibble with you on a couple of details. First, Carpano neither invented nor named vermouth; people had been making the aromatized wine for decades. Carpano was just the first to make and market vermouth on a large scale.
And, there’s a difference between bianco and French-style vermouth — French vermouth is your typical extra-dry style, while bianco is actually a slightly sweet white vermouth that you hardly ever see used in cocktails (though Jim Meehan, formerly of Gramercy Tavern and now of PDT, I believe, has a nice little number with Plymouth gin and bianco vermouth — let me see if I can find that recipe somewhere).
I’m normally not a big fan of the Martini & Rossi vermouth, but with the reaction you had to the flavor I suspect you got a bottle that had been sitting on the shelf for a long time. I used to be a Cinzano man, and I really disdained the M&R product, then a little over a year ago I toured their facility, tried the fresh vermouth I found in cafes in Turin (where M&R is THE vermouth), and came away with a different attitude. Something a lot of people don’t realize (though I’m not saying you’re one of them) is that vermouth is a WINE, and should be treated as one — over time, its delicate character changes, especially once it’s opened, or if it’s been sitting on the shelf for years, maybe in direct sunlight or just below a heating vent. I’m still not a big M&R drinker, now that I’m hooked on the Antica, and the brighter flavors of Cinzano make it my house mixing vermouth, but I’ve come to appreciate the M&R much more than I did before.
Also, the Antica is my go-to vermouth for Manhattans; I need to decrease the amount of vermouth in the drink just slightly, but it gives a real whammo experience with a robust rye like Rittenhouse bonded. If you come across the Vya dry, you can make a blockbuster cocktail using equal parts Vya & Antica, with a dash or two of orange bitters. That’s the staple drink I make for my low-alcohol-tolerance mother-in-law.
Gabriel,
Great post. I personally prefer Noilly for my white vermouth (although my wife likes the Boissiere a lot too) and Cinzano for my “well” red–with Antica and Punt e Mes as my upmarket variants. Like Erik, I love the Antica in a Manhattan, although I think it’s too strong for a Negroni. (I still sometimes use it in a Negroni, but for that purpose I scale back the vermouth.)
For no good reason, I’ve yet to try the Vya products even though they’re readily available. Probably because I’m frequently stupid.
Thanks for the feedback and insight gentlemen! This post started out about vermouth at-large and that quickly got unwieldy and I settled on the Rosso/Red/Sweet style side of things. So, any omissions I made regarding Bianco/White/Dry style will, hopefully, be redressed at a later time.
GREAT personal history on your experience with M&R, Paul. I was seriously dismayed at the poor quality of what I had and, again, at the distinct difference between it and all the others. Which, as you mention, may very well be due to an overly aged bottle. The store from which I purchased it does tuck their vermouth area back in the nether regions. Good point on the Antica and Cinzano, ‘brighter’ is just about the perfect word to describe the Cinzano. Also, good clarification on vermouth’s beginnings. I obviously should have been more specific and stated he first ‘marketed aromatized wine under the name vermouth…’ instead of the overly broad ‘developed’, such are the pitfalls of being, well, me. That poster is still damned creepy though.
I’m obviously, after reading the eGullet forum I’ve linked to, and your fine recommendations, going to have to try the Carpano in a Manhattan. I’m far more excited about this than any rationale adult male should be.
Thanks again for the corrections and comments, guys, they’re great!
[...] lot of things that I had really wanted to find, such as Gallardo, Noily Prat Vermouth to replace my Martini and Rossi, half a dozen bottles of bitters and finally some Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur (thanks Torrance [...]
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i have a bottle of carpano vermouth i was reading all the info and my bottle never been opened the name on the bottle is G.B. carpano help
I’d like to second the suggestion that you had an uncharacteristically bad bottle of M&R. I just conducted a vermouth tasting using products purchased from a store with a high turnover and the Martini & Rossi showed very well. Not in the same league as the Antica Formula, but a different character altogether and not a flawed product IMHO.
Hmmm, the vermouth I’ll use can depend a lot on the base spirit in the cocktail I’m making, and yes I love cocktails with vermouth. For a “house” red vermouth, I prefer Ponti Rosso in rye and gin cocktails. It has both a spiciness to it and an herbaciousness that enhances those aspects already present in the gin or rye.
If I’m making a scotch based cocktail though, Martini & Rossi Rosso is by far the best to my taste. Cinzano is okay, but the Martini & Rossi seems to meld better with the scotch. Mind you, I tend to you use more strongly flavored blended scotches in my cocktails than most people do. I prefer Teacher’s Highland Cream over Famous Grouse because I like scotch to taste like scotch. Heck, I’ll even make a couple of coctails with Laphroig 10 year single malt now and again. (Not very often though, because when I have the Laphroig, I mostly really really want to drink it neat or over the rocks…).
Oh and I love my Punt e Mes in gin based cocktails. Adesso in Oakland, CA serves a cocktail called a Nerina, which uses Plymouth gin, Carpano Punt e Mes, and Meletti Amaro. A woundrous drink. Punt e Mes is also very lovely in brandy/cognac or rye based drinks. Manhattans, Gin & It’s, and Cremonas…
I haven’t had a chance to try Carpano Antica yet…
I did a sweet vermouth tasting much like yours. Actually, Stock brand performed very well, and it was the cheapest. M&R was a confirmed fresh sample and it was atrocious. Cinzano and the Carpano products were our favorites. Vya was too soupy and syrupy for my taste – like sloppy California table wine from the sierra foothills or Paso Robles, infused with even more stuff.
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