Selvapiana Chianti Rufina good to the last drop
MAN, I love this wine! Look at the color (no Photoshopping here, just a raw photo snapped with a white backdrop). THAT’s the color of Sangiovese.
I paired last night with a thinly cut, bone-in pork chop, slowly roasted Yukon Golds, dripping in extra-virgin olive oil, on the side. It was a beautiful thing…
98.9% natural? Either you is or either you ain’t
When I saw this claim, “98.9% natural,” on a bottle of baby liquid bath soap, I couldn’t help but think of the 1955 single by one of my favorite R&B singers Big Joe Turner: “Lipstick, Powder, and Paint” written by Jesse Stone, who also wrote “Shake Rattle & Roll” (also recorded for the first time by Big Joe Turner).
The song is about a transgender person: lipstick, powder, and paint/either you is or either you ain’t.
It’s kind of like being pregnant: you can’t be a little bit pregnant.
I think that one of the reasons why the expression natural wine stirs such controversy and can evoke such vitriol is how the precious word natural is so often abused in marketing today.
Why I went to Italy & why I still go back (thank you Sir Roy)
Above: Sir Roy Strong was the person who suggested I go to Italy and study Italian (image via the London Evening Standard).
Samantha’s heart-wrenching post this morning, “In the name of the father,” got me thinking of my own fatherless teenage years and a man who played a very important — however brief — role in my life, Sir Roy Strong.
People often ask me why I’ve devoted my life to the study of Italian language, history, and culture (before enogastronomy, I spent nearly more than ten years studying Italian prosody, narrative, and cinema, and lived and worked in Italy for most of that time).
The answer is Sir Roy.
Hey lady that ain’t Champagne in my glass! @EatingOurWords
How this shitty wine made it into my glass was the subject of my post for the Houston Press today.
Abbott and Costello couldn’t have written it better.
Fabrizio Bindocci re-elected Brunello consortium president
I just received a press release issued by the Brunello di Montalcino bottlers association announcing that my friend Fabrizio Bindocci (above) has been re-elected as the body’s president.
I’ve had the great fortune to interview (and dine with) Fabrizio on many occasions and I have great admiration for him and his devotion to traditional-style Brunello di Montalcino.
According to the statement, he was elected unanimously by the body’s technical advisory board.
In my view, his stewardship of the appellation has delivered renewed confidence, cohesion, and stability to the growers and bottlers he represents.
And while other events on the ground in Montalcino may have drawn more attention in the last six months, his work in asking the Italian agriculture ministry to clarify its position on emergency irrigation has been invaluable — in my view — for the appellation.
It’s just one of the many things he’s done, without fanfare or pomposity, to ensure a better and brighter future for Brunello di Montalcino and the people who make it. And that’s a good thing for the rest of us Brunello lovers as well.
Congratulations, Fabrizio!
Italian celebrity Joe Bastianich calls Italian diners “idiots”
Above: Joe Bastianich is an even bigger celebrity in Italy than in the U.S.
One of the first things that Lidia Bastianich told me when she cooked lunch for me and a group of wine bloggers at the family’s farmhouse in Friuli was how her son Joe has eclipsed her fame in Italy.
“We were in Piazza San Marco [in Venice] and a group of teenagers came up to us and wanted Joe’s autograph — not mine,” she said.
As a star of one of Italy’s most popular TV shows (“Master Chef”), Joe has achieved a level of celebrity in Italy that few in the U.S. are aware of.
His name was hurled across the Italophone enogastronomic blogosphere this week when, in a video interview posted online by the national daily newspaper Corriere della Sera, he called Italian diners “idiotic,” using the Italian term deficiente.
@GiampaoloVenica this wine makes us very happy #CollioTime #Bromance
Above: Just look at the beautiful copper color of that wine! Wine’s visual beauty is one of the great pleasures of oenophilia.
These days, my days are INSANE. With only three or four weeks left in our pregnancy, Tracie P needs as much down time as possible and I’m picking up as much slack as possible.
I’m up every morning by 4:30 a.m. and in bed every night by 10 p.m.
And with more clients than ever and two Texas clients who are opening new restaurants in the fall, every moment not devoted to shopping, cooking, cleaning, changing a diaper, or playing with our sweet Georgia P is devoted to writing, writing, writing — creating media for our clients.
So last night, after I closed up shop at 6 p.m. (the conclusion of a workday that began at 5 a.m.), fed Georgia P the dinner I’d already prepared in the late afternoon (whole wheat quesadillas stuffed with refried beans and sautéed zucchine deglazed in white wine), cleaned her up and gave her her bath and got her ready for bed, tidied up her toys and made dinner (spaghetti with zucchine cooked with garlic, chili flakes, and white wine), a glass of friend Giampolo Venica’s Pinot Grigio tasted mighty good.
Above: Giampaolo visited with us here in Austin earlier this year when he came to town to pour his wines. I’m so thrilled that Venica is available again in Texas.
His wines are so beautiful, so focused and so fresh, so true to their appellation but so uniquely his… And his gorgeous ramato (copper-colored) Pinot Grigio has a gently note of salinity that reminds me of the Eocene seabed subsoils of his family’s estate, where apple orchards lie adjacent to vineyards, kissed by the Adriatic breeze and sheltered by the magnificent Alps.
But what makes this wine even more special to me is how much I admire Giampaolo, his convictions and his ethos, his love of literature and his social conscience. Even though we only see each other a few times a year (mostly at wine-related events), we share each other’s lives through social media and email. And for a brief moment yesterday evening, Giampaolo came into our home and shared his support through a refreshing glass of his delicious Pinot Grigio.
Thanks, Giampaolo, for the wine and for the friendship…
Best meals in Italy, Franciacorta dreaming of the Dispensa Pani e Vini
Above: Coppa cotta, “cooked coppa” at the Dispensa Pane e Vini in Franciacorta.
Whenever I lead a guided wine tasting, I make a point of asking the guests to consider what I believe is one of the most important elements in wine appreciation: how do you feel the day after you drink the wine?
I’m not talking about being hung over. We all know about the physical and emotional fallout of excessive alcohol consumption.
No, I’m talking about the role that wine plays in digestion.
Above: Fried coregone and coregone “ice cream,” made from Coregonus lavaretus, European white fish from Lake Iseo (Franciacorta).
We spend so much time talking about how wine tastes, the rarity and prestige of certain bottles, etc.
But we devote too little time — in my view — in reflecting on wine’s value as a nutrient and digestive.
Above: The “Milanese” antipasto is a panino stuffed with a mini cotoletta alla milanese. A schmear of potato purée is applied to the bun before the dish is plated.
Sadly, I believe that the western world’s fetishization of food creates a disconnect between the food we consume and our bodies (excuse the paronomasia).
Ask anyone who’s ever worked at one of our country’s temples to the fetishization of fine dining, Per Se: they’ll tell you that guests, especially elderly diners, often regurgitate at the dinner table.
Above: Pasta e fagioli. The health-enhancing properties of this dish were truly remarkable. I speak from personal experience.
And so with wine, so with the foods our family consumes. One of the most important ways we gauge the quality of meal is how we feel the next day.
On our last trip to Italy, I was so thrilled about taking Tracie P and Georgia P to Vittorio Fusari’s Dispensa Pani e Vini in Franciacorta that we booked a hotel down the road just so we could eat there at least twice before we headed to our final destination in the Veneto.
Above: Spaghetti with green beans. One of the things that was so remarkable about our visits was how Vittorio created dishes especially for Georgia P. She loved this.
Vittorio’s technique is astonishing and his work is renowned throughout Europe. But it’s his maniacal attention to the materia prima that makes his cooking a game-changer.
Although Tracie P has been avoided raw fish and uncooked cured meats during our pregnancy, she consumed both at the Dispensa (and we discussed our concern and our desire with Vittorio beforehand; he assured us that the provenance of the salmon and the prosciutto was impeccable).
As much as I enjoyed this meal — our first on our recent trip to Italy and one of the best — I was reminded of how good it was the next day when I visited the bathroom (and I apologize for the level of detail here but if you’ve read this far, I know you’re with me on this).
This was one of two meals authored by Vittorio during our day-and-a-half stay in Franciacorta. I’ll post about the others tomorrow.
Parzen family expansion update mommy & baby p 2013 doing great
Yesterday, we had our 35-week sonogram and our doctor is really pleased with how things are going. Mommy and baby, I am thrilled to report, are both doing well.
Technically, we have five weeks to go, although everyone (including mommy) believes that Baby P 2013 will arrive early (partly because second births generally come early; “your body already knows what to do,” said the doctor yesterday).
For a few moments during yesterday’s sonogram, you could see the baby’s face and her hair. The most amazing feeling in the world to see our new baby girl! :)
Do Bianchi 