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Botella de Carpano Punt e Mes
Rojo

Turín

Foto: Kenneth C. Zirkel — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Red · Medium-sweet

Carpano Punt e Mes

Carpano

Turín , Italia

Re-evaluation pending

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Overall impression

Punt e Mes — «a point of sweetness and half of bitterness» in Piedmontese dialect — was born on 19 April 1870 at the Carpano bottega in Turin, when a stockbroker asked for his usual vermouth with half a measure of bitter. The anecdote became legend: regulars ordered the drink by raising a thumb (a point) and tracing a line in the air (half a point). Today Fratelli Branca Distillerie makes it; it is one of the few commercial «vermouth with bitter» that survive and was chosen best semisweet vermouth in the world at the World Vermouth Awards 2020.

Nose and palate

Golden orange colour with topaz tones and vermilion nuances. Intense herbal aromas with black dahlia notes. Sweet entry with an intriguing orange accent; quinine bitterness then dominates before sweetness returns on the finish. More bitter than classic Carpano Rosso, with greater tension between sugar and quinine — why it shines in Mi-To and Manhattan when character is wanted without reaching for Fernet.

How to serve it

Neat with orange peel, in Punt e Mes Yes (half vermouth, half soda) or in Mi-To and Manhattan. The thumb-and-line gesture symbolises the nineteenth-century Turin aperitif.

Production context

Based on Italian white wines with wormwood and quinine. 16% vol., 75 cl. Carpano range: Antica Formula, Classico, Bianco and Dry.

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