I just had to share these photos that I snapped yesterday for my friend and client Tony in Houston.
That plate of Umbrian black truffles was destined for a private party at the restaurant Tony’s last night.
Click the images for high res versions.
After our weekly meeting, Tony treated me to his housemade tagliolini tossed with sautéed eggplant and zucchine and then topped with shaved truffles.
Life could be worse, couldn’t it? ;)
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de cibo | Tagged: black truffles, Tony Vallone, Tony's, Umbria | 
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Posted by Do Bianchi
Curating Tony’s website and serving as his media director has its perks. This dinner, in August, was one of them. It’s a tough job but someone has to do it!
From the department of “dreams do come true”…
When we sat down for dinner last week, Tony Vallone looked across the table at me and matter-of-factly said, “I have some special wines picked out for you tonight. I know you’re going to like them.” He wasn’t kidding.
I’ve been curating his blog since October 2010 and our weekly meeting has evolved into a familial kibitz where we talk about everything under the sun, alternating between English and Italian. (Long before Tracie P and I announced that we were pregnant, Tony had intuited that we were with child. “I can read it on your face,” he told me. And, all along, Tony said it was going to be a girl. He was right.)
The occasion for our dinner was an interview with one of the top wine writers in the country and Tony had asked me to join them.
After an aperitif of light, bright Colle Massari Montecucco Vermentino, the first wine in the flight was 1998 Barolo by Bartolo Mascarello (above).
I’ve tasted this wine on a number of occasions and it’s extremely tight right now, favoring its tannin and jealously guarding its fruit.
But when the server arrived with a porcini risotto topped with Umbrian truffles shaved tableside, the wine started to open up and its delicate menthol note began to give way to wild berry fruit tempered by mushrooms and earth. The acidity in this wine was singing and I couldn’t help but be reminded of Angelo Gaja’s antithetical comparison of Cabernet Sauvignon and Nebbiolo. Cabernet Sauvignon is like John Wayne, I once heard Gaja say: he who stands in the center of the room and cannot help but be noticed. Nebbiolo is like Marcello Mastroianni: he enters the room and stands quietly in the corner, waiting for you to approach him. (There’s a punchline that cannot be repeated in polite company.)
The acidity in the 98 Amarone della Valpolicella Classico was equally vibrant and its melody played a counterpoint against the delicately marbled fat of a Kobi fillet. While I’m sure that the 98 Quintarelli has many, many years ahead of it, this wine is in a moment of grace. Generous fruit set against rich structure and mouthfeel. Here, I couldn’t help be reminded of Cassiodorus’s description of Acinaticum: “On the palate, it swells up in such a way that you say it was a meaty liquid, a beverage to be eaten rather than drunk.” In this wine, meaty ripe and overripe red fruit alternated with savory flavors. An unforgettable wine in one of the most remarkable moments of its life.
And dulcis in fundo, Tony had selected a wine that he had seen me covet. A few months ago, a collector and frequent guest of Tony’s poured me a taste of the rare 1990 Quintarelli Bandito (I wrote about it here). Knowing that I longed to “drink” this wine in the context of a meal, he surprised us at the end with a 375ml bottle. This wine — last bottled by Quintarelli for the 1990 vintage — is one of the greatest expressions of Garganega I’ve ever tasted: rocks and fruit, minerality and stone and white stone fruit, dancing around a “nervy backbone of acidity” as the Italian say.
This was paired with some housemade zeppole and a dose of playful nostalgia.
Carissimo Tony, ti ringrazio di cuore per questi vini straordinari!
1 Comment | de vino, de vinographia | Tagged: Dale Robertson, Mascarello, Quintarelli, Tony Vallone | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
I had fun this morning with my Houston Press post, writing about my favorite breakfast — my take on California-style huevos rancheros — and wine for breakfast (in this case, Moscato d’Asti). Here’s the link…
And, hey, it’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it… Here are a few recent posts I did for my friend Tony (above with screenwriter and winemaker Robert Kamen): an interview with Maximilian Riedel (where he discusses the art of decanting Champagne) and notes from the Kamen dinner at Tony’s this weekend.
Who’d have ever thought that you could make a living as a wine blogger?
Buona lettura e buon weekend, yall!
1 Comment | de cibo, de rebus californicis, de vino, de vinographia | Tagged: Max Riedel, Robert Kamen, Tony Vallone | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
Yesterday found me back in Houston where I had lunch with my friend and client Tony and Gaia Gaja.
To mark the occasion of her Houston, Texas visit, Gaia donned the cowgirl boots she had picked up on her previous visit (above). As the saying goes, you can take a girl out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the girl. After all, she does come from a town where they didn’t have running water until 1964.
As you can imagine, Tony pulled out all the stops for the luncheon: I’ve posted my complete notes on the meal and the wines over at his site here.
I wasn’t surprised by the Gaja 2007 Barbaresco: however strange (by virtue of the fact that there was no winter to speak of), the 2007 vintage was generous to Barbaresco and everything I’ve tasted so far has been great to phenomenal (remember when Tracie P and I tasted 2007 Asili and Santo Stefano with Bruno Giacosa?).
But it was Gaia’s family’s 2008 Barbaresco that really blew me away. In a challenging vintage, Gaja was blessed with very juicy, well ripened fruit. Green harvesting and southern exposure of their vineyards delivered mature grapes, said Gaja, and allowed them to pick before inclement weather arrived. The floral notes on the wine were fantastic and although still very young in its evolution, it had that zinging acidity and powerful tannin that makes Barbaresco such a unique appellation imho and one of my favorite wines in the world.
My favorite dish of the meal was the branzino and poached potato tartar topped with caviar and paired with the 2009 Gaia & Rey Chardonnay (a guilty pleasure, I must admit).
Click here for all of my notes, including the 2005 Sperss, and images of the dishes…
Thanks again, Tony and Gaia!
1 Comment | de cibo, de vino | Tagged: Barbaresco, Gaia Gaja, Sperss, Tony Vallone | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
From the department of “dreams do come true”…
When we sat down for dinner last week, Tony Vallone looked across the table at me and matter-of-factly said, “I have some special wines picked out for you tonight. I know you’re going to like them.” He wasn’t kidding.
I’ve been curating his blog since October 2010 and our weekly meeting has evolved into a familial kibitz where we talk about everything under the sun, alternating between English and Italian. (Long before Tracie P and I announced that we were pregnant, Tony had intuited that we were with child. “I can read it on your face,” he told me. And, all along, Tony said it was going to be a girl. He was right.)
The occasion for our dinner was an interview with one of the top wine writers in the country and Tony had asked me to join them.
After an aperitif of light, bright Colle Massari Montecucco Vermentino, the first wine in the flight was 1998 Barolo by Bartolo Mascarello (above).
I’ve tasted this wine on a number of occasions and it’s extremely tight right now, favoring its tannin and jealously guarding its fruit.
But when the server arrived with a porcini risotto topped with Umbrian truffles shaved tableside, the wine started to open up and its delicate menthol note began to give way to wild berry fruit tempered by mushrooms and earth. The acidity in this wine was singing and I couldn’t help but be reminded of Angelo Gaja’s antithetical comparison of Cabernet Sauvignon and Nebbiolo. Cabernet Sauvignon is like John Wayne, I once heard Gaja say: he who stands in the center of the room and cannot help but be noticed. Nebbiolo is like Marcello Mastroianni: he enters the room and stands quietly in the corner, waiting for you to approach him. (There’s a punchline that cannot be repeated in polite company.)
The acidity in the 98 Amarone della Valpolicella Classico was equally vibrant and its melody played a counterpoint against the delicately marbled fat of a Kobi fillet. While I’m sure that the 98 Quintarelli has many, many years ahead of it, this wine is in a moment of grace. Generous fruit set against rich structure and mouthfeel. Here, I couldn’t help be reminded of Cassiodorus’s description of Acinaticum: “On the palate, it swells up in such a way that you say it was a meaty liquid, a beverage to be eaten rather than drunk.” In this wine, meaty ripe and overripe red fruit alternated with savory flavors. An unforgettable wine in one of the most remarkable moments of its life.
And dulcis in fundo, Tony had selected a wine that he had seen me covet. A few months ago, a collector and frequent guest of Tony’s poured me a taste of the rare 1990 Quintarelli Bandito (I wrote about it here). Knowing that I longed to “drink” this wine in the context of a meal, he surprised us at the end with a 375ml bottle. This wine — last bottled by Quintarelli for the 1990 vintage — is one of the greatest expressions of Garganega I’ve ever tasted: rocks and fruit, minerality and stone and white stone fruit, dancing around a “nervy backbone of acidity” as the Italian say.
This was paired with some housemade zeppole and a dose of playful nostalgia.
Carissimo Tony, ti ringrazio di cuore per questi vini straordinari!
2 Comments | de cibo, de vino | Tagged: Houston, Tony Vallone, Tony's | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
Above: Fernet Branca shakerato at Tony’s in Houston.
Mama Judy flew into Houston yesterday and we’ll be celebrating the Passover tomorrow evening in Austin. And last night, the Branch, Levy, Kelly, and Parzen families gathered at Tony’s for una cena da leoni — an epic meal.
And after such a sumptuous and rich meal (see below), I must have a Fernet Branca — shakerato (chilled, shakered, and strained), the only way I drink it.
My relationship with the storied and celebrated digestivo stretches back to my earliest days as a copywriter in the early aughts back in NYC. My first gig was as editor of the Fernet Branca monthly newsletter.
At the time (before the tragedy of September 11, 2001), Fernet Branca had just reopened its bottling facility in TriBeCa. It was an amazing space: until the 1980s, when the US FDA blocked the import of Fernet Branca because it was still being sold as a drug (!), it was so popular in this country that the company continued to operate its 1930s-era bottling facility in lower Manhattan. When the US government blocked its sale, Fernet Branca hastily abandoned and boarded up the place, leaving the entire operation in place. In the late 90s, they decided to reopen it as the headquarters for a relaunch of the brand (which, by that time, was coming into the country legally, classified and regulated as a spirit).
The most amazing part of the facility was the counterfeit detection laboratory. The brand was so popular — before, during, and after Prohibition, when it was marketed as a “tonic” and regulated as a drug — that the company devoted significant resources to its anti-counterfeit operation. The laboratory — like a set from Young Frankenstein — was a museum of Fernet Branca imitators and pirates. Cobwebs and a patina of nearly two decades of dust. An amazing sight…
During my tenure as the editor of the Fernet Branca newsletter (which ended when the tragedy of 2001 reshaped the landscape of that neighborhood), I traveled twice to the Fernet Branca distillery in Milan and it was fascinating experience to learn the secrets and study the history of this brandy infused with mushrooms and herbs — the restaurant and bartending professional’s digestif of choice in this country (just ask any bartender).
Highlights from dinner…
Tony’s famous “Greenberg” salad. (I must confess that besides writing a hit song, I also aspire to having a salad named after me.)
Gnocchi “Primavera” with fiddlehead greens and Washington state ramps. Delicious…
Whole, salt-encrusted Gulf of Mexico red snapper, filleted tableside…
And then dressed in a reduction of guineafowl jus and Barolo… This dish wowed our table of ten…
Tracie P was truly aglow last night… more beautiful than ever… Mrs. and Rev. B drove in from Orange just to see everyone and break bread together (photo by cousin Dana).
Cousin Marty is now more than halfway through his treatment (very tough, as you can imagine, but he’s soldiering through it). He rallied to be with us last night. It just wouldn’t be a dinner at Tony’s without Marty: “If I’m going out to eat,” he exclaimed the day before with the panache that I love him for, “it’s going to be at Tony’s!”
A wonderful, wonderful, unforgettable night… a table of ten, celebrating the lives of our families, remembering how lucky we are to be here and to be together, and dreaming of the future… at the table of a great friend…
3 Comments | de cibo, de rebus familiari | Tagged: Fernet Branca, Tony Vallone, Tony's | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
Above: Sometimes a tortellino is just a tortellino. Other times, a tortellino can be downright concupiscent.
Posting in a hurry today as I board a plane for Los Angeles where I’m working on a wine list for a new Italian restaurant there — a project I’m really excited about (more on that later).
In the meantime, I just had to share the above food porn, snapped recently at Tony’s in Houston. Tony, the Tony’s team, and I have been having a lot of fun with Tony’s blog.
And I’m thrilled to announce that they have asked me to teach a series of classes on Italian wine at Caffè Bello, the outfit’s location in “the Montrose,” Houston’s überhipster, artsy neighborhood.
The tastings/seminars should be a lot of fun and we’re launching Tuesday, March 29, with “Italian 101: major grapes, top regions.” (I haven’t finalized the syllabus but the weekly series will be similar to my “Italy: Birth of a Wine Nation” tastings.)
Gotta run… more later…
2 Comments | de cibo, de vino | Tagged: Houston, Tony Vallone, Tony's, wine education | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
There’s more to come… but first I just had to share this photo I snapped of Tracie P and Tony V, who was our host for the New Year’s eve holiday.
In our family as in his, we love to talk about food and when Tony V and Tracie P get together, I can guarantee that they will engage in finely calibrated discussions of how and when onion and garlic may be applied (never in tandem!) and how al dente al dente should be. The above photo is clear evidence of this phenomenon!
More on what we ate and drank later…
1 Comment | de cibo, de rebus familiari, de rebus italicis | Tagged: Tony Vallone, Tracie Parzen | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
Above: I love it when you drop in on someone and they just happen to be opening single-vineyard designated Produttori del Barbaresco!
Yesterday, while meeting with Tony in Houston, one of his clients asked me, “if you could only choose one Italian red wine to recommend for value and quality, what would it be?”
Anyone who follows our enological adventures knows that I didn’t skip a beat in answering Produttori del Barbaresco.
It’s a winery that truly speaks to me and Tracie P: its traditional-style bottlings of Nebbiolo — Langhe Nebbiolo, classic Barbaresco, and single-vineyard designated Barbaresco — are wonderful expressions of earth, fruit, and acidity. And thanks to the agricultural cooperative social experiment launched by a Barbaresco priest in the 19th century and carried forward into the 21st by winemaker Aldo Vacca and his team, the wines remain extraordinarily affordable. In our modest library of wines that we’re cellaring (appropriate for a couple with middle-class means), Produttori del Barbaresco is our flagship. A luxury wine even Gramsci would approve of!
Above: Winemaker Aldo Vacca vinified his crus separately in 2009, as he regularly does in vintages he deems good enough. Whether or not he will release it as a cru-designated wine is another question. I snapped this photo in March 2010 when I last visited the winery.
When I rolled into Houston town Tuesday night, early for a holiday cheer appointment with friend and blogger colleague, Food Princess, who now writes for the new Houston Chronicle aggregate lifestyle blog 29-95), I stopped by Backstreet Cafè to see if my friend, sommelier Sean Beck was around.
As it so happened, he just happened to be opening a bottle of Produttori del Barbaresco 2004 Barbaresco Montestefano to enjoy with friends. (I love it when that happens!)
After the classic Barbaresco (a cuvée sourced primarily from Ovello with fruit from crus as well), Montestefano and Rabajà are my favorite bottlings by Produttori del Barbaresco. They are among the most powerful and the richest in terms of their earthiness and savory flavors.
At 6 years out, the Montestefano is very, very young and has many, many years ahead of it. But its balance is already beginning to emerge, with the fruit still relatively muted. Back in April 2009, I asked Aldo if he would compare his 04 to the now legendary 1989 vintage. He said that yes, in fact, even though he had initially thought it more similar to 90 (in his early reports on the vintage), he agreed: 04 has that classic harmony that these wines can achieve in great vintages — earth, fruit, and bright acidity.
However young, with still attenuated fruit, the 04 Montestefano was brilliant on Tuesday night, very much in line with what I imagined it would be and brighter, in fact, that expected. Sean, next time you open a bottle, you know my number! Thanks again dude! You rock…
2 Comments | de vino | Tagged: 29-95, Houston Chronicle, Joanne Witt, Produttori del Barbaresco, Sean Beck, Tony Vallone | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
Within the gentle heart Love shelters him,
As birds within the green shade of the grove.
Before the gentle heart, in Nature’s scheme,
Love was not, nor the gentle heart ere Love.
(the incipit of “The Gentle Heart,” by Guido Guinizelli, 1230-76)
You can keep your DRC, your Bond, your Pétrus… No, those wines are not good enough and do not deserve to touch the lips of the one I love. No, their aromas and flavors are not worthy of her noble nostrils and chaste tastebuds.
No, when I dine with my wife, my signora, my lady, my dame, my donna, my domina… such wines will not suffice.
When I share a special repast with Tracie P, bring me Barolo by Bartolo Mascarello.
Many great wines have been opened, tasted, and drunk in 2010, but perhaps none thrilled us more than the Bartolo Mascarello 1995 Barolo that we shared on Saturday night at Tony’s in Houston. Over these last two years (my first two in Texas), Tony has become a friend and now a client (I write his blog). Over the weekend, he generously treated Tracie P and me to dinner in celebration of our first year as a married couple.
Sometimes a wine is only as good as the person you share it with… Tracie P had never tasted Bartolo Mascarello and it was high time that this travesty in the annals of enological history was rectififed!
Bartolo Mascarello is one of the great icons of Nebbiolo, a steadfast defender of traditional winemaking, producer of one of the greatest wines in the world, and more recently, a founder and promoter of the “real wine” movement in Italy. Like many of the great houses of Langa, the Mascarello legacy began with a grape broker, Bartolo’s father Giulio, who intimately knew the best growing sites for Nebbiolo, as his granddaughter Maria Teresa explained to me the first time I tasted with her at the winery in 2008. Today, their Barolo is still made from grapes grown in four vineyards purchased by Giulio: Canubbi, San Lorenzo, Rué, and Rocche. Extended submerged cap maceration and large-cask aging are still employed at the winery today, a tradition that now spans three generations.
The pairing of great Nebbiolo and shaved Alba white truffles is no cheap date but it’s one of those gastronomic experiences that will literally change your life (and when done correctly, is worth every single penny).
Tony had captain Vinny shave us truffles over a perfectly cooked white risotto by chef de cuisine Grant.
95 was a classic although not great vintage for this wine and at 15 years out, it was drinking stupendously. Bartolo Mascarello has all the hallmarks of great Barolo: the savory tar and earth flavors. But to my palate, its sottobosco flavors, notes of woodsy underbrush, are its signature. Gorgeous acidity and IMHO perfectly evolved tannin for this vintage, although this wine could certainly age for another decade or more.
Regrettably, B. Mascarello is tough to find in this country and Tony is the only restaurateur I know in Texas who features the wines on his list (in a mini-vertical no less!). Thanks to my line of work, I’ve been fortunate to taste a lot of B. Mascarello and I was thrilled to share this bottle with the love of my life.
What else did we eat?
We were disappointed that we missed Tony’s bollito misto (with bollito cart!), but he had reserved a poached capon studded with black truffles just for us. Utterly delicious…
And a night like that just couldn’t end without chef Grant’s soufflé, expertly sliced and served by captain Vinny.
What a night!
Some guys have all the luck and Nebbiolo and truffles are some girls’s best friends. I am one lucky dude to be married to one such lady.
Thanks again, Tony! That was one of the most memorable meals of our life together! We had a blast…
8 Comments | de vino | Tagged: 1995, Alba truffles, Barolo, Bartolo Mascarello, Tony Vallone, Tony's | Permalink
Posted by Do Bianchi
Click here to add a comment or query to my Italian Wine Terms Project.
The series of posts began with a post devoted to Italian winery designations. With your help, I hope to create a series of posts that will become a stand-alone glossary.
