Looking back on the best meals of 2012 (a mnemonic indulgence to which I treat myself every year between the Christmas holiday and New Year’s Eve), I can’t help but think about how the standouts were marked as much by the people with whom I shared them as much as the foods we ate and the wines we drank. Isn’t that what it’s all about?
That’s Georgia P, above, eating her first pizza (homemade, by Tracie P, of course), a few nights before Christmas. Whether Parisi eggs and birth-year Barolo or mushroom and peperoni pizza, 2012 delivered some of the most memorable meals of my lifetime. Buona lettura e buon appetito!
Best Meals 2012: Osteria Le Logge (Siena, March).
Alfonso and I met up in Siena yesterday afternoon and joined good friends Laura and Francesco at Laura’s restaurant Osteria Le Logge for dinner.
As I prepare to head up to Friuli today, there’s not enough time to post properly on the brilliant meal and stunning flight of wines. But here’s a “taste” of the “intellectual provocation”… THANK YOU, again, dear friends, Laura and Francesco, for opening your hearts to two weary Americans traveling along the wine trail in Italy…
Atlantic croaker sausage with mineral-water-macerated lettuces sous-vide
veal tongue Carpaccio in salsa verde
vitello tonnato with seaweed and ポン酢醤油 (ponzu jōyu)
Parisi egg with potato foam and marzolino truffles
fusilli with chicken livers and eggplant
Marcarini 1967 Barolo Brunate
Do Bianchi 
I have more Marcarini Brunate in my cellar than any other single wine, but none as far back as the ’67…How was it? That was still in the Cogno era. My collection starts in the 80’s. Has much changed in your opinion?
May I enter in Marcarini question?
I am not so deep in Marcarini Brunate but I remember a 1982 very similar to this 1967. in the 90s something changed a little bit, the style and some warmer vintages made the wine a bit less austere than it was. Recently, I had a 2004 and a 2006 very good but so young that they cannot be compared.
Perhaps that change was when Cogno left. Does anyone know what vintage was his last?
may be this helps http://soyouwanttobeasommelier.blogspot.it/2012/05/visit-to-old-cellar-at-marcarini.html
http://charlesscicolone.wordpress.com/category/cogno-marcarini/ as well
the ultimate:
Click to access feb0811.pdf
Francesco, Levi and Charles are two of my favorite people on the Italian wine scene in New York. I would love for you to meet them some day. Might even be worth a trip to the city just for that… :)
yeah, that definitely was one of the best for me too. Really enjoyed meeting Francesco B.
thanks, Jar
Coming up to Friuli uh? You can’t stay away from this marvellous land uh? Friuli is waiting for ya.