🥃 Saba (sapa)

Saba, also called sapa, is a traditional sweet syrup of Emilia-Romagna made by cooking grape must slowly for a long time. The Emilia-Romagna Region lists "Saba dell'Emilia-Romagna, sapa" among its traditional agri-food products.

The regional record describes the syrup as amber to red, with an intense caramel smell and a honeyed, savoury, velvety taste. The grapes are pressed, and the must, generally from white grapes, is put in copper or steel vessels and heated until about two thirds of the liquid has evaporated. It is then decanted and kept in glass containers, where it can last several years.

The product is known across the whole region, in the provinces of Piacenza, Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Bologna, Forlì-Cesena, Ferrara, Ravenna and Rimini, and each area had variants tied to the products available. According to the record, it was made in farmhouses until the end of the 1950s. In the Emilian-Romagnol dialect it is called "saba", but it is also known as "sapa".

The record says that Columella and Pliny mention it, and that Vincenzo Tanara (1644) describes it as a substitute for honey, cooked down to two thirds. Pellegrino Artusi (1891) lists it among syrups; children mixed it with fresh snow in winter to make sorbets.

In the kitchen it flavours food and drinks. It replaces honey in the Bologna panone, and it is the base of savór, a jam of saba and fruit, mainly quinces and pears. Sabadoni, large elongated tortelloni, belong to the tradition of Romagna.