Vino cotto

Vino cotto belongs to the peasant tradition of the Molise and of the central and southern Apennines, where must was boiled down after the vintage so that part of the harvest could be kept as a sweetening and a restorative through the winter. In Molise it is made in the household, by families who press their own grapes, and it is bound to the festive table and to the sweets of Christmas and carnival. The method rests on reduction of the must over fire, not on fermentation to dryness, which sets it apart from the wines of the region.

Vino cotto is a dark, sweet, syrupy wine made from the must of the vine, Vitis vinifera, reduced by prolonged boiling, often in a copper cauldron, to a fraction of its original volume. The concentrated must is then left to ferment slowly and to age in small wooden casks, where it takes on a deep amber to mahogany colour and a taste of cooked fruit, dried fig, raisin and caramel. It is used both as a liqueur-like wine, served in small measures, and as an ingredient to sweeten and moisten pastries and biscuits.

Vino cotto is taken with the dry sweets of the Molise table, such as biscuits, almond pastries, scaldatelli and cheeses of long maturation, and it is sometimes poured over or worked into doughs and fruit. Its sweetness and cooked-fruit depth meet the dryness and fat of pastry and the salt of aged pecorino, while its acidity, preserved through reduction, keeps the pairing from cloying. Served in small glasses at the end of the meal, it acts as a digestive as much as a dessert wine.