And so did her grandfather’s Picolit…
Together with grandma’s crostoli at the AMAZING Ronchi di Cialla…
So much to tell… so many flavors and aromas to convey… there will be time for that, too… but in the meantime, follow along at COF2011.com…
Category Archives: de vino
Magical tasting with Ronco del Gnemiz
Alfonso captured a magical moment yesterday at Ronco del Gnemiz with his Flip.
Serena and Christian have such an awesome record collection: we couldn’t resist asking them to pair their wines with some music (in this case Cassandra Wilson with the 2004 Chardonnay Sol in magnum).
Old Pinot Grigio, old Tocai Friulano, young Picolit
The younger bottlings of Picolit actually impressed me more than the older at our Butussi in situ tasting yesterday because, as the young Filippo Butussi explained, in the early 00s, his family moved away from a lighter style (for which not all the Picolit grapes were dried before vinification) opting for a richer, 80-100% dried-grape style.
But the wines that REALLY blew me away were these bottlings of 1996 and 2000 Pinot Grigio and 1999 Tocai Friulano. Pinot Grigio is SO misunderstood in the U.S., where we mostly know it as a light, inoffensive, anonymous white wine that arrives in marketing-driven packages.
These older bottlings were not intended for long-term aging, explained Filippo, but he wanted to show the COF2011 team how these grapes, when vinified correctly, retain their quality and actually develop more and more character. Man, the 1999 Tocai was fan-friggin-TASTIC, with the white fruit balanced by some grassy and nutty notes and beautifully balanced acidity and low alcohol.
Poetry in Friulian! Fantastic!
At last night’s COF2011 welcome dinner, Friulian journalist Adriano Del Fabro recited “Song of the Bells,” a poem in Friulian by Pier Paolo Pasolini and I read a translation by my friend, the great Italian translator Stephen Sartarelli.
Video by Nicolas Contenta.
I had written to Stephen last week asking him for permission to use one of his translations and he graciously and generously agreed.
I selected the poem especially because of the occasion — “strangers” coming to Friuli.
If poetry is the Devil’s wine, is wine the Devil’s poetry?
Love at first sight: the bloggers arrive in Friuli
Picked up the COF2011 blogging team yesterday at the Venice airport (after a teary goodbye to Tracie P). For the next five days, I’ll be acting as their interpreter and liaison as they taste wines produced in the Colli Orientali del Friuli (the Eastern Hills of Friuli) and meet winemakers and visit wineries.
It’s a great group of folks.
I’ll be posting my impressions of the trip here at Do Bianchi and I’ll be reposting my blogger colleagues’s posts over at our aggregate blog COF2011.com.
Buona lettura, ya’ll!
Un amico ritrovato
It was great to see Giovanni Arcari (left) and Franco Ziliani (right) last night in Valpolicella. They drove down from Brescia and Bergamo to visit with their friends from the U.S.
Italy recently adopted “zero tolerance” drunk driving legislation and enforcement. The legal limit is .015 g/dL, mass per volume of blood in the body. That means that just one glass of wine can put you over the legal limit! Compare with California where it’s .08! So Franco was their designated driver. Wine writers like Franco have be very careful: even when you spit and do not ingest any wine, the alcohol on your breath from tasting can deliver a false positive.
We all took it easy — especially since our host insisted on serving us barriqued Valpolicella… feh! — but it was great to see both of them and to spend some time with an amico ritrovato…
Quintarelli and an incredible day of tastings in Valpolicella
Our first tasting appointment yesterday was in the cellars of the legendary Valpolicella winery Quintarelli in Negrar. Amazing, on so many levels… simply stunning wines (you don’t need me to tell you that)… There will be a proper post dedicated to the illustrious flight of wines shared with Tracie P, Alfonso, and me (and you might be surprised by what I found out about the 1998 Alzero). But the 1997 Recioto della Valpolicella… wow… one of the greatest wines I have ever tasted…
Next came L’Arco, with owner Luca Fedrigo, who worked with winemaker Giuseppe Quintarelli in the latter’s cellar from the age of 17 to 27 before starting his own winery (he’s now 33). I met Luca in Austin in 2009 and was floored by the elegance and freshness of his wines. I believe that he is the best young winemaker in the appellation (by far) and his traditional-style wines — made proudly in the style of his mentor, aged in large cask — are phenomenal. They’re not easy to find in the U.S. but if you want to know what REAL Valpolicella wines taste like, seek them out…
Our last visit of the day was at Monte dei Ragni, where Zeno Zignoli (right) practices radical biodynamic and organic farming. Zeno is an “off the grid” character and winemaker. I met him thanks to the young Paduan student Andrea Fasolo (left) whom I met through blogging.
The “three different faces” of Valpolicella winemaking formed a 180° arc and were all fascinating in their own right.
But the face that stole my heart yesterday was this one:
The new wave of Italian pizza at I Tigli in San Bonifacio
For dinner, we ended up at Angiolino’s brother-in-law Simone Padoan’s super hip pizzeria I Tigli in San Bonifacio (Verona), where the new wave of Italian pizza finds one of its epicenters.
The pizzas (which don’t resemble Neapolitan pizza) are served family-style in wedges. This was the most “classic”: mozzarella and tomato sauce.
Raw bream with puntarelle (Roman chicory) and pomegranate seeds.
Raw shrimp with artichoke and blood orange.
Battuta (steak tartare).
We drank this wonderful skin-contact Don Chisciotte 2007 Fiano, a wine I had read a lot about but had never had the chance to taste.
We’re headed out know to a busy day of tasting in Valpolicella and then dinner with Italy’s top wine blogger Mr. Franco Ziliani. Stay tuned… Gotta run!
A new friend in Angiolino Maule and the future of Natural wine in Italy
Have you ever tasted a wine that thrilled you so completely and moved you so deeply that you felt compelled, as if by some magnetic force of the earth, to seek out the winemaker and vineyards where it was grown?
After first tasting his wines last year, that’s how I felt about Angiolino Maule and La Biancara, his family’s estate.
Two weeks ago, I called Angiolino out of the blue and asked him if I could bring Tracie P and Alfonso to taste with him (Alfonso arrived yesterday in Italy for the COF2011 project.)
Even though he didn’t know me from Adamo, he agreed to let us come and taste. Before we knew it, there was a sympathia and it didn’t take long to discover that we have a very close and dear friend in common, Veneto jazz great Ruggero Robin.
Angiolino’s wines are simply stunning, literally mind-blowing… We toured his growing sites, tasted, and talked about his new university research projects and his quest to bring hard science into the fold of the Natural wine world. And he revealed some of his breakthroughs in vinification without the addition of sulfites (more on that later).
Although the village is dominated by industrial, commercial winemaking, some of the upper slopes of the township of Gambellara in the province of Vicenza (above) are still blessed by gorgeous vineyards alternated with untamed woods. One of the most intriguing landscapes of my beloved Veneto.
So much to tell, so much to share… but it will just have to wait as Tracie P, Alfonso, and I head out for another day of tasting…
The best restaurant in Italy? Le Calandre in Padua
It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments: for the one night where we hadn’t already planned where to eat, we dined at Le Calandre in Padua — a 3-star Michelin restaurant.
tagliolini di mozzarella
the texture of the julienned mozzarella released unexpected flavors from the plastic cheese
scampi tostati con “formaggio fresco” di latte di fave, radicchio di Treviso e mele
toasted langoustines with a “fresh cheese” of fava milk, radicchio trevigiano, and apples
battuta di carne cruda piemontese al tartufo nero
as instructed by our server, you wrapped the nuggets of raw beef in the shaved truffle, served on a piece of bark, and then dipped them in light beaten-egg sauce
cappelli liquidi di brodo d’oca all’arancia
these were cappelletti filled with an orange-goose broth, like soup dumplings
cannelloni croccanti di ricotta e mozzarella di bufala con passata di pomodoro
crunchy cannelloni filled with ricotta and buffalo mozzarella with tomato sauce
risotto di zafferano con polvere di liquirizia
saffron risotto with licorice dust
maialino di latte arrostito, salsa di senape e polvere di caffè
roast milk-weaned suckling pig, mustard sauce and coffee dust
proiezioni al cioccolato
dessert came with a mini-screening to complement the physical sensations
Many believe that Massimiliano Alajmo is the best chef in Italy today. He might very well be. Le Calandre was a fantastic experience… And for however experimental and avant-garde his cooking, the flavors were pure Italy… A stunning and thrilling evening, full of sensual surprises…
Nota bene: Le Calandre is not a cheap date (THANK YOU GOSSIP GIRL!). But you can order à la carte and there are a lot of very reasonably priced, wonderful wines on the list, like this Malvasia Secca dell’Emilia by Donati, one of my favorite producers. Natural and wonderfully stinky and crunchy, lees-aged, bottled fermented… Perfect with the wide range of flavors…
