It wasn’t easy and frankly, I’m not sure how I survived the harrowing ordeal: please click here to read my “notes from the road” (PDF), tales from my Aspen trip published this month in The Tasting Panel.
I met restaurateur Brian Duncan in New York last year but I had never heard him speak. He really brought the house down with his “Wines that Love Food” seminar. And 1988 Massolino Barolo Margheria? Simply and awesomely unforgettable…
Yo JP
Check out these canederli, consumed at 3251 m atop “piz boa” high above Corvara!
A presto
DL
If anyone would appreciate the attached photo of truly ridiculously good AA porcini, it’d be you — last night we had these bitches every which way!!!!
Canederli (knödel in German) are bread dumplings, typically stuffed with speck, traditionally served in South Tyrol.
Fungi porcini (Boletus edulis) or swine mushrooms are so-called because in antiquity they were not prized as they are today.
David Lynch is one of our country’s top sommeliers and wine writers and just one of the nicest (and funniest) folks I know in this dog-eat-dog business. His intro to Italian wine seminar is one of the most popular at the Aspen Food & Wine Classic. Check out this preview of David’s new book, The Wine Snob’s Dictionary (Random House, October 2008). Whatever David is pouring, hey, I’m drinking…
Above: Brigitte Bardot probably wouldn’t approve but Céline Dijon posed with the prosciutti at my friend Marco Fantinel’s prosciuttificio in San Daniele del Friuli.
My trotter shots may not be as hot as the one posted the other day by Alice, the pork Picassos often published by Winnie, the ones found in harangues on ham by Eric, or the onslaught of slaughtered swine over at the amazing blog Culatello. But I can’t resist publishing these photos, taken in April when our band Nous Non Plus stopped for a visit at my friend Marco Fantinel’s prosciuttificio, Testa e Molinaro in San Daniele del Friuli, on our way back into Italy following our Slovenian appearances.
Not as sweet as its cousin down in Parma or as smoky as the Speck found in South Tyrol, Prosciutto di San Daniele has a distinctive slightly more piquant flavor that sets it apart in the pork realm and it is distinguished by the presence of the bone and hoof, traditionally not removed in San Daniele. Of all of Italy’s cured pig thighs (remember Prosciutto di Carpegna and Prosciutto Toscano, and there are many others as well), Prosciutto di San Daniele is arguably the most terroir-driven of the bunch. As for all prosciutti, naturally occurring enzymes “ferment” the pig thigh from within, trigged by changes in temperature. But in the case of Prosciutto di San Daniele, gentle sea breeze from the nearby Adriatic will cause the flavor profile of the prosciutto to vary with each “vintage,” making it more sweet or spicy depending on the timing of warmer and cooler weather. Pig thighs, salt, and terroir: these are the only three ingredients in Prosciutto di San Daniele, according to the lab-coat technicians who oversee the wondrous transformation of pig flesh into delicate prosciutto.
Above: Salting the pig thighs with coarse salt.
Above: The different aging rooms at the prosciuttificio simulate the changes in the seasons but the last phase of the process requires the naturally occurring breeze. The technicians literally open the windows and let Nature do her work.
Above: Following our visit to the prosciuttificio, Marco treated the band to lunch, including an obligatory antipasto of perfectly sliced Prosciutto di San Daniele.
Above: The show stopper at lunch was gnocchi dressed in Montasio cheese and prosciutto, served in a nest of fried Montasio (a frico) and paired with Marco’s excellent Tazzelenghe, an indigenous grape of Friuli — tannic, powerful, and fantastic with the rich dish.
The tales of my April Italy/Slovenia trip have been interrupted by other pressing posts. Here’s a short photo essay of gig day in Ljubljana where we played one of our most fun shows ever to an adoring crowd.
Ljubljana is a beautiful city and the people are very friendly there.
It seemed that everywhere we went, they were expecting us with open arms.
We ate goulash in a medieval re-enactment restaurant that had been recommended to us. It looked really touristy but the food was actually very good. Goulash is not a very sexy dish to photograph but it was delicious and warmed our bellies on this rainy April day.
The girls autographed copies of our CD for fans who had won a radio contest to get their pictures taken with us. They also won a Nokia phone, courtesy of Mobitel, the Slovenian cellphone company that used our track Lawnmower Boy in a TV commercial.
They looped the commercial on the flat-screens at the club (click image to view, in case you’ve not seen it and are so inclined).
The changing face of Europe: the check-point is no longer manned at the border crossing. We headed back to Italy the next day.
Here’s a little photo essay of Sunday night 2004 Chablis by La Chablisienne and sunset and then 2001 Les Méjeans Cornas by Jean-Luc Colombo and camaronillas at Bahia Don Bravo in Bird Rock. Salvador and Roberto have been really cool about letting me bring my own wine and the other night they turned me on to a dish I’ve never had there: camaronillas — grilled corn tortillas wrapped around jumbo shrimp and then deep fried. The camaronillas are then dressed with shredded cabbage, lettuce, fresh salsa, shredded cheese, and a light mayonnaise sauce. Salvador explained that camaronillas is a cognate of camarones (shrimp) and quesadilla (a tortilla stuffed with cheese). Salvador said that it’s a specialty of his home state Guerrero.
Bahia was packed when we got there so we walked down to Calumet Park, broke out our stemware and 2004 Chablis by Chablisienne and watched the sunset.
The point you see in the distance is Bird Rock, the surf break that gives Bird Rock its name.
We shared a glass of 2001 Les Méjeans Cornas by Jean-Luc Colombo with this foxy lady.
Camaronillas are my new favorite dish at Bahia and they paired well with the rich Cornas. The mouthfeel of the fried shrimp, in particular, went well with the meatiness of the excellent wine.
I love Dora: she’s the chef at Bahia. She’s not there every night, but, man, when she is, look out!
This morning Mrs. Yetty Sani (below) brought super tasty homemade Indonesian martabak to my niece Amalia’s 6th birthday party in the Muirlands (La Jolla). They’re stuffed with beef (halal) and egg, seasoned with red pepper, nutmeg, and salt. Man, that stuff is good…
Above: Jean-Luc Retard (aka Dan Crane) and Céline Dijon (aka Verena Wiesendanger) relax after mixing the first track from our new album.
Nous Non Plus celebrated the mix of the first track from our new album (work-in-progress title Ménagerie), “Bollinger,” with a bottle of the eponymously named Bollinger (NV, Special Cuvée) that I had picked up earlier in the day at my favorite Southland wine store, Wine House (great Italian selection, a really cool enomatic tasting room, and an excellent cheese monger as well).
We’re such fans of Bollinger that we were inspired to write a song (about some lovers who love the wine). Bollinger will also make another appearance in one of our more sexy tracks (but you’ll have to wait until we disgorge the album to hear it…).
Above: It’s quite a scene at Colorado Wine Company’s Friday night tastings in Eagle Rock.
After we finished tweaking the track and listening with our friend, engineer, and fellow wine lover Bryan Cook at Juice Monster studios in Eagle Rock, we headed over to Colorado Wine Company for their Friday night wine tasting. When I asked the dude at the register what the theme was, he said “After a while, we just ran out of ideas so there really is no theme” to the flight of wines they serve. This week’s tasting was dubbed “Under the Covers” because “we’re playing only cover songs” on the house stereo, he told me. It’s quite a scene (read “singles”) over there at Colorado Wine Company and for $15 you get 5 generous pours — nothing to write home about but it helps to “break the ice.”
My night ended with mezze lune ravioli stuffed with eggplant and scamorza over at what’s become my LA late-night hangout, Mozza, where I believe they serve until about 10 or so. GM David turned me on to a wine I’ve never tasted before (and imported to the U.S. for the first time only recently), 2006 Sella Coste della Sesia DOC Rosato “Majoli,” 100% Nebbiolo rosé, fresh and bright with a perfect touch of tannic structure, a great pairing for the flavors of my ravioli.
Life could be worse…
Do Bianchi adds a new category: de urbe angelorum. Here beginneth a cycle of posts on the City of Angeles. And what better way to begin than a post on Osteria Angelini and Chef Gino Angelini, who couldn’t have found a better city to call his home…
Above: like me, this old Rolls has seen better days but still retains its dignity in the City of Angels.
Alduous Huxley, Thomas Mann, Raymond Bradbury — they’ve lived in Los Angeles. But perhaps no great writer is more closely associated with Lotusland than Raymond Chandler and his alter ego Philip Marlowe:
We crossed La Cienega and went into the curve of the Strip. The Dancers was a blaze of light. The terrace was packed. The parking lot was like ants on a piece of overripe fruit.
“Now we get characters like this Steelgrave owning restaurants. We get guys like that fat boy that bawled me out back there. We’ve got the big money, the sharp shooters, the percentage workers, the fast-dollar boys, the hoodlums out of New York and Chicago and Detroit — and Cleveland. We’ve got the flash restaurants and night clubs they run, and the hotels and apartment houses they own, and the grifters and con men and female bandits that live in them. The luxury trades, the pansy decorators, the Lesbian dress designers, the riffraff of a big hard-boiled city with no more personality than a paper cup. …
—Raymond Chandler, The Little Sister
Above: contributors to the Squires bulletin board would cringe. Open a 96 Giacosa Barolo Falletto Riserva at a puerile 12 years of age? Pshah, I say. This wine was fantastic, powerful, meaty, with earthy Langa flavors. It paired exquisitely with our seared wild boar loin (rare in the middle, see below).
Not so long ago, I was chastised by my lawyer, a Brit and wine lover, a friend who demands the truth and only the truth and pulls no punches (and a great litigator, I might add): “Stop complaining, you twit,” he said, “you’re poor and you still get to drink amazing wines!”
Case in point: the other night, I was treated to a bottle of 1996 Giacosa Barolo Falletto Riserva — one of Italy’s most coveted wines, in one of its greatest vintages — by Italian wine collector extraordinaire and fellow Nebbiolophile David Schachter (pictured above, with Chef Gino Angelini of Osteria Angelini on Beverly Boulevard in West Hollywood). David knows me through mutual friends and through Do Bianchi and we met a few months ago at Lou on Vine on the occasion Alice Feiring’s book reading.
David is a huge fan of the octopus and baby arugula antipasto at Angelini. It paired beautifully with a 2006 Venica & Venica Malvasia.
While Gino’s menu is primarily traditional Italian, he selected gnocchi with lobster — a very untraditional combination — as one of our primi: these were the best gnocchi I’ve had in a long time, delicate and light but consistent in mouthfeel. The tomato lobster sauce (more typically served over long noodles) was ethereal… We also enjoyed very traditional spaghetti alla chitarra topped with shaved black truffles and a gorgeous and decadent nido (pasta “nest”) with béchamel. David paired with a 2004 Giacosa Barbera Superiore (also splendid).
The seared wild boar loin and 1996 Barolo made for one of those sublime pairings: a seemingly divine confluence of aromas, flavors, and textures.
All the waitstaff at Angelini is Italian. Although the restaurant’s decor is humble Angelino trattoria chic and the prices are more than reasonable, Captain Gino Rindone performs four-star service nightly at Angelini: to see him debone a branzino tableside, you’d think you were at Da Vittorio in Bergamo.
Reader Christopher writes that “everyone calls Gino Rindone ‘Ginetto’ to distinguish him from Gino” Angelini.
All in all, I must say, my Angelino experience is off to an auspicious start… Not bad for a big hard-boiled city with no more personality than a paper cup. Stay tuned…
*****
“People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles.”
Less than Zero
—Bret Easton Ellis
As the years go by birthdays are less and less of a reason to celebrate and after last year’s (for July 14 marked the beginning of the revolution), I was more than a little apprehensive.
But hey, how does the song go?
I’ll get by with a little help from my friends…
My buddies (from left, Charlie George, Jon Erickson, and John Yelenosky) took me out for steak dinner last night in University City and some damage was done on this “old school” eve…
René et Vincent Dauvissat 2004 Chablis
One of my fav producers in Chablis, always shows great minerality.
López de Heredia 1997 Viña Tondonia Rosado
LdH is right up there with Produttori del Barbaresco as all-time favorite winery for me. This wine was fantastic in all of its oxidized glory.
Cantina dei Produttori Nebbiolo di Carema 1991 Carema
Jon found this amazing bottle in a collector’s cellar and snagged it for the dinner. We didn’t know what to expect but it was smokin’ good, with beautiful fruit and life in it. A great example of old Nebbiolo and excellent with my charred steak.
Château La Lagune (third growth) 1985
We ordered this from the list and had it decanted just before the steaks arrived (in my book of etiquette, you should always order something significant from the list when you bring your own wines). 1985 was not great but not a bad year for this wine and it showed powerfully for how old it was. It was beautiful to taste it as it died in the glass… (Yelenosky and I graduated from La Jolla High in 1985!)
Produttori del Barbaresco 1999 Barbaresco Ovello
In a recent thread on the subject of subjectivity in wine writing at Alder Yarrow’s Vinography, someone wrote that he refers to wines he likes as “George Clooney” wines. For me, Produttori is always The Fonz… heeey…
With a Little Help from My Friends
—Lennon & McCartney
What would think if I sang out of tune,
Would you stand up and walk out on me.
Lend me your ears and I’ll sing you a song,
And I’ll try not to sing out of key.
Oh I get by with a little help from my friends,
He gets high with a little help from his friends,
Oh I’m gonna try with a little help from my friends.
What do I do when my love is away.
(Does it worry you to be alone)
How do I feel by the end of the day
(Are you sad because you’re on your own)
No, I get by with a little help from my friends,
Mmm I get high with a little help from my friends,
Mmm I’m gonna to try with a little help from my friends
Do you need anybody?
I need somebody to love.
Could it be anybody?
I want somebody to love.
Would you believe in a love at first sight?
Yes I’m certain that it happens all the time.
What do you see when you turn out the light?
I can’t tell you, but I know it’s mine.
Oh I get by with a little help from my friends,
Mmm I get high with a little help from my friends,
Oh I’m gonna try with a little help from my friends
Do you need anybody?
I need someone to love.
Could it be anybody?
I want somebody to love
Oh…
I get by with a little help from my friends,
I’m gonna try with a little help from my friends
I get high with a little help from my friends
Yes I get by with a little help from my friends,
with a little help from my friends
Post scriptum: my college-days friend Kim “Co” Roberson recently came down to visit me in San Diego and she noted, ruefully, that the “Beatles ruined us when we were kids,” making us believe that “love was the answer.” As freshpeople at UCLA, we used to love to sit and smoke cigarettes and sing Beatles songs all night. She’s right but I also know that “I’m gonna try with a little help from my friends…” The song never meant more to me.
Above: Lini Lambrusco “Labrusca” red paired well with the Jaynes Burger over the weekend at Jaynes Gastropub in San Diego.
It’s actually not sweet… It’s dry and earthly with just a flourish of sweetness… It’s meaty in the mouth and bright on the palate… it cuts through the fat of my cheeseburger like a gorgeous housewife in the Emilian countryside cuts through her pasta dough with a serrated raviolo wheel. Yes, it’s voluptuous and sexy. It’s Lini Lambrusco — one of those “I could drink this every day wines” over here at Do Bianchi.
It’s my obligation to reveal that when it comes to Lini, I’m biased: I had a hand in bringing Lini into this country and Alicia (left) and I became good friends when I worked (pre-mid-life-crisis) with the company that brings her wines in.
Alicia and I shared a truly magical mystery experience when I accompanied her to a radio appearance on the Leonard Lopate show (WNYC) and we ran into “Wonderful Tonight” Patti Boyd in the hallway of the studio. (My post on our encounter is the all-time most-viewed at Do Bianchi.)
Lambrusco remains a greatly misunderstood wine in this country. The association with cheap, sweet quaffing wines, so popular in the late 70s and early 80s, continues to pervade even the informed wine enthusiast’s perception.
In Emilia — one of Italy’s food meccas, rivaled only by Piedmont — farmers like to drink Lambrusco, too. But Lambrusco is not just a wine for field hands. In Modena, Reggio Emilia, and Parma, Lambrusco is served with Emilia’s finest dishes and no other wine pairs better with the region’s famed foods: Parmigiano Reggiano, Prosciutto di Parma, Culatello, Zampone, Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale (di Modena and di Reggio Emilia), Lasagne and Tagliatelle alla Bolognese, and on and on… In Emilia — one of Italy’s most affluent regions — everyone drinks Lambrusco at dinner, from the village barber to the Ferrari corporate executive (they say there are more Ferraris and pigs pro capite in Emilia than anywhere else in the world).
When I lived — many moons ago — in Modena, I once brought some friends a bottle of Brunello di Montalcino. Their response? “Please pass the Lambrusco.”
Which brings me to an important point about wine, wine writing, and wine appreciation: subjectivity is essential to wine appreciation. And I don’t just mean subjectivity as “consciousness of one’s perceived states” but rather in the (Jacques) Lacnian sense, whereby language (the sign or signifier) precedes meaning (signfication). But I’ll reserve that rigmarolery for another post. Just consider this: in Reggio Emilia, I would open a $20 (retail) bottle of 2007 Lini with my bollito misto as my ideal pairing; in Alba (if I could afford it), I’d open a $450 (retail) bottle of Giacosa Barolo Falletto Riserva (Red Label) 1996 with my bollito misto — also an ideal pairing. It’s all in the words of the subject as relates to the object and the other.
On the subject of subjectivity in wine writing, check out this interesting post at Alder Yarrow’s excellent blog Vinography.
In other news…
Today is Bastille Day, an important day for my (pseudo-French) band Nous Non Plus and a personal anniversary of sorts (last year I was in Burgundy on this date, whence my personal revolution began).
In other other news…
Just for kicks, check out this vintage Riunite commercial (which Dr. Vino pointed out to me a few years ago):
Do Bianchi 