I snapped this photos of a Picolit vine in Cialla yesterday.
“We’re 20 days ahead of the norm,” said Francesco Degano, Colli Orientali del Friuli Consortium technical adviser.
Much needed rain still hasn’t arrived (as of noon today) but is still expected…
From the department of “dreams do come true”…
Check out this post by Hawk Wakawaka on on our visit yesterday to Ronchi di Cialla, one of my all-time favorite wineries…
For this year’s COF2012 blogger project, we’re employing a “speed dating” format for the morning tastings so that more producers can have direct contact with the bloggers.
My highlight in this morning’s session was the 2011 (Tocai) Friulano by Jacùss. Even though the wine’s only been in bottle for a few days, I loved its classic, elegant aromatic character and its clean, super fresh nose. White and slightly under-ripe fruit in the mouth, zinging acidity, and delicate yet confident weight. #CouldDrinkThisWineEveryDay
“Friuli-Venezia Giulia to ration water,” read the headline of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia regional edition of the Italian national daily Il Messaggero on Saturday when I arrived in the region (see below).
“It hasn’t rained for months,” said winemaker Germano Zorzettig when he and I sat down to chat after the COF2012 bloggers went to bed last night (we’re all staying at his gorgeous Corte San Biagio agriturismo in Corno di Rosazza (province of Udine). “We haven’t seen anything like this in years.”
Rain is expected (and hoped for) here on Tuesday but the situation is weighing heavily on grape growers and winemakers here (and throughout Italy).
With the early arrival of warm temperatures, flowers are beginning to bloom and the vegetative cycle of the vines has already been set into motion. The current drought, combined with fears of an late spring frost that could stymie the vegetative cycle (with disastrous results), is causing a loss of sleep among the Friulian winery owners that we’ve spoken to so far.
Fingers crossed for rain on Tuesday! We’ll be here…
Click image below for PDF version.
The 2012 Colli Orientali Blogger Project has begun!
Please follow along over at the COF2012.com blog and/or keep up with updates by following #COF2012 over on the Twitter…
Got frico? Come and get it!
Valter Scarbolo makes wines in Grave and so there was no way for me to include him in the Colli Orientali del Friuli 2012 blogger project itinerary. But there was no way that I was coming to Friuli without spending an evening with him at his amazing Frasca. I’ll have to recount our conversation on Pinot Grigio and his 1995 trip — his first — to the U.S. in another post when I have more time. In the meantime, here’s what we ate…
As James Bond would say, “if it’s Prosciutto d’Osvaldo, you must have been expecting me.”
Rosa di Gorizia (Rose of Gorizia), a radicchio cultivar unique to Gorizia that resembles a rose.
White asparagus is in season. Valter served it raw, thinly sliced, dressed with extra-virgin olive oil and accompanied by delicately marinated goose breast. “It had to be extremely fresh,” he said, “to serve it raw like this.”
Riso nero Venere (black Venus rice) is a hybrid of Asian and Italian cultivars and, besides being delicious, is purported to have health-enhancing properties. Valter makes his with formadi frant, the truly unique, piquant cheese made from discarded and otherwise imperfect cheese — an ingredient that appears repeatedly in his cooking.
I asked Valter to show me the rice uncooked.
His My Time is always a treat to look forward to. The 2009 was unctuous and richer than previous vintages I’d tasted. And while it will undoubtedly become more elegant with some bottle age, its more muscular expression paired well with blood-rare pan-roasted and thinly sliced Prussian rumpsteak served with herbed formadi frant and montasio cheeses.
I’m posting this from the Colli Orientali del Friuli where the COF2012 trip has just begun… Stay tuned!
Alfonso and I met up in Siena yesterday afternoon and joined good friends Laura and Francesco at Laura’s restaurant Osteria Le Logge for dinner.
As I prepare to head up to Friuli today, there’s not enough time to post properly on the brilliant meal and stunning flight of wines. But here’s a “taste” of the “intellectual provocation”… THANK YOU, again, dear friends, Laura and Francesco, for opening your hearts to two weary Americans traveling along the wine trail in Italy…
Atlantic croaker sausage with mineral-water-macerated lettuces sous-vide
veal tongue Carpaccio in salsa verde
vitello tonnato with seaweed and ポン酢醤油 (ponzu jōyu)
Parisi egg with potato foam and marzolino truffles
fusilli with chicken livers and eggplant
Marcarini 1967 Barolo Brunate
After another meeting this morning, I headed to the village of Panzano in Chianti to pay a visit to famed Tuscan butcher Dario Cecchini.
If you arrive at lunchtime (as I did), they hand you a little glass of red wine and offer you a small slice of bread topped with a spalmata (a schmear) of his spiced lard.
Note his signature boneless Panzanese steaks in the center of the case.
As fabu and glam as Dario is, his place is all old school, all the way.
Dario — a poet butcher — famously sang the death of the bistecca alla fiorentina back in 2001 when it was banned at the peak of Mad Cow pandemonium.
Across the street.
Springtime has come early to Tuscany, not a good sign for the vintage, especially with fears of drought running high this year. When I was out walking in the vineyards, you could hear the insects buzzing and there were lizards everywhere.
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain…
Do Bianchi by Jeremy Parzen 