I bucatini leggerissimi e il pomodoro perfettamente saporito oggi a mezzogiorno presso Sotto a Los Angeles.
Venitemi a trovare stasera al ristorante!
Bucatini al pomodoro fatti in casa @SottoLA
February 8, 2012
2 Comments | 
de cibo, de urbe angelorum | Tagged: bucatini, pomodoro, Sotto | 
Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
Best white from Puglia? Fatalone’s Gioia del Colle Greco Spinomarino
January 23, 2012
The first and only time I met young winemaker Pasquale Petrera at the Radici Wines festival in Puglia, June 2011, I was immediately impressed by his belief in Natural winemaking (chemical-free farming and native yeast) and by what a simpatico and easygoing guy he was. I knew the wines and I was thrilled to taste with him: as the leading historical estate (some say it was an atavic of his who first bottled 100% Primitivo) in the only hilly appellation of the otherwise flat Apulian peninsula, there are many who would argue that his Fatalone Primitivo is one of the best if not the best from the region.
In the meantime, we’ve featured the wines on my list at Sotto in Los Angeles and they are a favorite of both the staff and the patrons (especially the riserva).
On the occasion of this post dedicated to his Greco (below), I couldn’t resist translating the following passage from his website:
- We consider the vine to be on the same level as a human being. And we give the vine all the best things that we could desire ourselves. Attention and care by the constant, loving presence of the human hand and respect for true artisanal tradition; a cool and comfortable, sound-proofed space with climate control; tranquility and harmony through the playback of classical music enhanced with the sounds of nature, intended to encourage micro-oxygenation and the micro-flora activity present in our natural wine – a living being, sensitive to musical therapy. This is the key to our success.
It never ceases to amaze me how Natural winemakers rely on humankind technology to cull the precious liquid from our fruity counterparts. I hope that — at least — he’s playing vinyl as opposed to digital records for his wines… But, hey, it’s definitely working for him… and for me…
Tracie P and I recently opened a bottle of his Greco Spinomarino, named after the Spinomarino “village road” where (I’m assuming) it’s grown.
The wine was bright and fresh, although gently oxidative in style, a balance of intense salty minerality and white and stone fruit flavor with a kiss of citrus. We loved it… probably the best white wine I’ve ever tasted from Puglia… The last glass, consumed the next night, was even better, richer in body and augmented by a gentle nutty note. And it weighs in for less than $20. Our kinda wine…
In other news…
4 Comments | de vino | Tagged: Fatalone, Greco, Petrera, Primitivo, Sotto, Spinomarino | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
The best restaurant in LA @SottoLA (and yes, another baby photo)
December 19, 2011I just couldn’t resist sharing this photo of our “little connoisseur”…
*****
2011 has been such an amazing year for us. And among the many “firsts” in this Parzen vintage, I wrote my first wine list for Sotto in Los Angeles.
Learning that the restaurant had been named “best new restaurant of 2011″ by Los Angeles Magazine on Friday was the icing on the sweetest cake.
It’s been such a rewarding experience to be part of the restaurant’s talented team and I can’t conceal my pride in the all-Southern-Italian wine list that we put together there.
Here’s a post on Sotto from June of this year… I can’t wait for Georgia to try Chefs Zach and Steve’s Neapolitan pizza (see my note at the end)…
Chefs Steve and Zach literally combed the Malibu foothills foraging for wild fennel flowers — finocchietto — to complete their pasta con le sarde, traditional Sicilian noodles with sardines, pine nuts, raisins, and — de rigeuer — finocchietto.
The occasion was a wine dinner at Sotto in Los Angeles in honor of my good friend Giampaolo Venica who wrote on the Twitter today What a great pasta with sarde last night @sottoLA, probably best ever had.”
Tracie P and I simply adore Giampaolo and Chiara, who are celebrating their first wedding anniversary on Sunday! Mazel tov! :) Photo by Alfonso, who also joined us.
Things behind the bar were getting steamy last night. Amazing cocktails…
I just had to ask the parents of these happy children for permission to snap their photo. Pizza is a wonderfully universal dish, isn’t it? Who doesn’t like pizza?
Now that Tracie P and I are expecting, I find myself thinking all the time about nutrition and Baby P. It was great to see these super polite kids enjoying the wholesome Neapolitan stuff!
1 Comment | de cibo, de urbe angelorum, de vino | Tagged: best restaurant, Los Angeles Magazine, Sotto, Steve Samson, Zach Pollack | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
Amarophilia across the USA…
December 1, 2011
Above: Fernet Branca shakerato, the way I drink it.
My colleague at Sotto in Los Angeles, mixologist Julian Cox, got a nice shout out from wine writer Ray Isle in an article on amaro in this month’s issue of Food & Wine. Julian’s amaro list at the restaurant features around 20 labels on any given day.
There’s no two ways about it: amarophilia (amaro fever? amaro mania?) is one of the new waves in mixology these days.
When I traveled to Friuli in October with a troika of über-hip mixologists, the barpeople wanted to duck into every wine shop they could in the hope of discovering a label unknown to Americans.
Above: That’s super cool Sam Ross of Milk & Honey (NYC) fame with the fabu Nonino sisters, an image I snapped on our trip to Friuli. He uses Nonino’s amaro in his cocktail, “the Paper Plane.”
When Ray — a friend and colleague from my NYC days — called to interview me for the article, we talked about the differences in the way that amaro is perceived and applied in the U.S. and Italy, historically and currently.
I recalled a Neapolitan-American friend of mine, Giovanni, now in his 50s, whose mother used to give him an espresso spiked with a shot of Fernet Branca and an egg yolk every morning before school.
There was a time when Italians used amaro as a tonic. And today, even though it’s no longer applied as a household remedy, Italians still serve it as a digestive. At any given bar or restaurant, you might find 3 or 4 different labels but no one would ever think of offering guests an amaro list (with 20 labels!) or using amaro as an ingredient in a cocktail.
Another expression of that great misunderstanding otherwise known as the Atlantic Ocean…
7 Comments | de arte miscendi spiritus destillatos, de vino | Tagged: Julian Cox, Nonino, Ray Isle, Sam Ross, Sotto | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
Alice Feiring in Austin Sunday & Monday
October 21, 2011
It seems like a lifetime ago that Tracie P and I met Alice on our first trip to Europe together. Tracie P and I were in Paris to play with Nous Non Plus and Alice was there to write a piece on Natural wine and our paths happily crossed.
I’ve known Alice for more than 10 years and she’s one of our dearest, dearest friends. A big sister, a mentor, and one of the most fun people to be around on this planet, no matter what mischief we’re up to.
Alice has a new book, Naked Wine: Letting Grapes Do What Comes Naturally, and she’s coming to Austin for a few readings: Sunday at Whole Foods Market on Lamar and Monday at Vino Vino. Both events are being presented by the Wine and Food Foundation of Texas.
Tracie P and I will be at both events, of course, and I hope you can join us to hear Alice read from her new book and taste some Natural wines with us.
Beyond our deep friendship, I support Alice in her cause to spread the word about Natural wine not just because I enjoy Natural wines but because I believe that Natural wines and the people who make them (and drink them) can save the world from the ills of our increasingly industrialized food chain.
In other news…
I’m making one last trip before Baby P arrives: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings of next week, I’ll be pouring wine on the floor at Sotto in Los Angeles where I’ve curated the wine list this year.
We’ll be debuting one last flight of wines for the fall before I take a break for daddy duty, including one of the best wines I’ve tasted this year… More on that later…
Thanks for reading and stay tuned!
2 Comments | de austinopoli, de cibo, de urbe angelorum, de vino | Tagged: Alice Feiring, Sotto | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
My first wine list gets the thumbs up from LA Times
June 30, 2011
Photo by Ricardo DeAratanha, Los Angeles Times.
You can imagine that it gave me great joy to read that restaurant reviewer S. Irene Virbila gave my first wine list the thumbs up in today’s LA Times review of Sotto in Los Angeles.
9 Comments | de vino, de vinographia, nugellae | Tagged: LA Times, Sotto, Virbila | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
Sotto’s pasta con le sarde stopped the show last night
June 23, 2011
Chefs Steve and Zach literally combed the Malibu foothills foraging for wild fennel flowers — finocchietto — to complete their pasta con le sarde, traditional Sicilian noodles with sardines, pine nuts, raisins, and — de rigeuer — finocchietto.
The occasion was a wine dinner at Sotto in Los Angeles in honor of my good friend Giampaolo Venica who wrote on the Twitter today What a great pasta with sarde last night @sottoLA, probably best ever had.”
Tracie P and I simply adore Giampaolo and Chiara, who are celebrating their first wedding anniversary on Sunday! Mazel tov! :) Photo by Alfonso, who also joined us.
Things behind the bar were getting steamy last night. Amazing cocktails…
I just had to ask the parents of these happy children for permission to snap their photo. Pizza is a wonderfully universal dish, isn’t it? Who doesn’t like pizza?
Now that Tracie P and I are expecting, I find myself thinking all the time about nutrition and Baby P. It was great to see these super polite kids enjoying the wholesome Neapolitan stuff!
Leave a Comment » | de cibo, de urbe angelorum, de vino | Tagged: Sotto, Venica | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
Taste with me tomorrow and next Wednesday…
June 14, 2011
Taste with me tomorrow evening at Ciao Bello in Houston, where I’ll be leading a tasting of Italian wines together with Chef Bobby Matos who will be preparing pasta table-side and sharing Italian cooking tips with guests. Should be a super fun event and evening…
Next Wednesday, I’ll be presenting one of my best friends in Italian winemaking today and producer of some of my favorite wines, Giampaolo Venica, who will be leading a wine dinner featuring five of his wines (including his Magliocco from Calabria and four of his family’s legendary white wines from Friuli) at Sotto in Los Angeles.
Hope to see you there!
1 Comment | de cibo, de vino, de vinographia | Tagged: Ciao Bello, Giampaolo Venica, Houston, Los Angeles, Sotto | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
Good things we ate and drank at Sotto in LA
May 12, 2011
The Neapolitan pizza at Sotto is imho one of the best in the U.S. today. Just had to share this photo of chef and pizzaiolo Zach Pollack and his bubby.
Panelle (Sicilian chickpea fritters).
Griddle-fired sardines with Sicilian winter citrus salad, shaved fennel, crushed olive-pistachio vinaigrette.
Grilled mackerel in scapece with cauliflower, cured lemons, pesto pantesco (Pantelleria’s tomato and basil relish for fish).
Grilled pork meatballs. I believe that chef Steve Samson’s extraordinary talent in all things pork-related is owed to his Bolognese origins (he and I have been friends for more than 20 years, stretching back to our college days in Italy).
This was one Tracie P’s favorites and mine, too. Ciceri e Tria, chick peas and long noodles, a classic dish of Apulia. Chef Zach strays from tradition here by deliciously folding in baccalà, adding another layer of flavor and texture.
Squid ink (long-noodle) fusilli with pistachios, bottarga, and mint. This dish is a true show stopper. Extremely difficult to photograph well and utterly delectable.
One of my privileges as wine director is that I get to put some of my favorite wines on the list! The 2006 skin-contact, wild fermented, unfiltered, and impeccably Natural 100% Vermentino by Dettori continues to “astound” me (to borrow Saignée’s tasting note). Alessandro Dettori wrote me earlier this year explaining that one of the things that makes this vintage stand out is the fact that he chose not to destem and he macerated for two days with the stems as well as the skins. The wine is gorgeously fresh and bright and its balance of fruit and minerality is stunning. And… It makes you poop good the next day… No joke… I LOVE LOVE LOVE this wine.
Devil’s Gulch fennel-crusted pork porterhouse with green tomato mostarda.
Are those some good-looking cannoli or what???!!!
In case you haven’t heard, I curate the list at Sotto and work the floor there a few nights each month. The list is devoted exclusively to southern Italian wine, with a short appendix of rigorously Natural California producers (chemical-free farming, wild fermentation). My next visit is scheduled for June 21 and 22. Hope to see you there!
3 Comments | de cibo, de urbe angelorum, de vino | Tagged: Dettori, Sotto, Steve Samson, Zach Pollack | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
98 Paolo Bea Sagrantino: HOLY SHIT!
May 5, 2011
One of the great things about the nights I work the floor at Sotto in Los Angeles (where I author the wine list) is the wines that collectors share with me (Sotto charges $18 for corkage).
And as much as I was digging the Cos 2008 Nero di Lupo last night (100% Nero d’Avola by one of the great Natural wine producers of Europe, recently added to my list), who could turn down a glass of 1998 Sagrantino by Paolo Bea???!!
HOLY SHIT!
I’ve asked Giampiero Bea what he thinks about the aging potential of his wines. Regrettably, he hasn’t kept a library of old vintages and you rarely come across older bottlings. When I asked him about it a few years ago, he told me that, frankly, he doesn’t know how the wines will hold up.
Dan Fredman, wine industry PR guru who generously shared this wine with me, and I agreed that this wine has many years ahead of it. The tannin has mellowed but is still very much present in the wine. The fruit was ripe red with earthy undertones, the acidity still very much alive and nervy, as the Italians would say. Fanfriggintastic wine… THANK YOU DAN! You rock — literally and figuratively…
We had an amazing dinner rush last night at Sotto and the glitterati were out in full force (who knew that rockstars dig rosé from Negroamaro?). Thank you to everyone who has come out to support me and my friends there. We’re having a great time…
I’ll be there again tonight: please come and see me and I’ll pour you a glass of wonderful…
11 Comments | de urbe angelorum, de vino | Tagged: Dan Fredman, Paolo Bea, Sagrantino, Sotto | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
