Las Cuatro Milpas
1875 Logan Ave
(right by Chicano Park)
San Diego, California
(619) 234-4460
Atmosphere: Old school, friendly
Cost: Super affordable
Favorite dish: Chorizo con huevo
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Giacosa 1999 Barbaresco (classic) and a gig tonight
From the department of “somehow, someway, I get to taste funky ass wines like every single day”…
Comrades Howard and Mary Beth came to visit me on Saturday night at Sotto in Los Angeles, where I was “pouring wine on the floor,” as we say in the wine trade.
Comrade Howard graciously and generously shared the above bottle of 1999 (classic) Barbaresco by Bruno Giacosa. (Howard was elected vice president of the Writers Guild of America last week, btw. Mazel tov, comrade!)
Great Barbaresco always inspires equine metaphors in me and this wine, powerful and muscular, asserted a masculine beauty tempered by feminine grace, a young mare whose strength was still countered by its youth.
Earth and stone dominated the fruit as the wine began to reveal its nature but dark and red fruit emerged as the wine spent some time in the glass.
Barbaresco by the hand of Giacosa never fails to invoke equine wonder in those of us lucky to experience the wines and his 1999 vintage continues to thrill me, often rivaling the perhaps more graceful 2001 with a combination of power and to kalon.
Thank you again, comrades! Avanti popolo!
In other news… All work and no play would make me an otherwise dull boy…
My friends at Jaynes Gastropub have asked me to sit in with them at tonight’s battle of the Chef Bands 2011 in San Diego. The charity event supports domestic violence awareness and takes place tonight. The Grapes (our band) go on around 9 p.m. Last night’s rehearsal featured some excellent 2007 Lafarge Bourgogne Passetoutgrain.
Joe Dressner requiescat in pace Iosephus
Pasolini wrote about Naturalism as a form of transgression and subversion of Bourgeois and Materialist values.
Joe Dressner embraced that spirit in what he shared with us through wine while on this earth.
Today, he has passed to another world…
Requiescat in pace Iosephus.
See you at Sotto in Los Angeles tonight…
If you happen to be in Los Angeles tonight, please stop by and say hi at Sotto, where I’ll be working the floor, pouring and chatting about wine.
And wherever you are, buon weekend yall!
Harvest dispatches from Europe are changing the way we understand “vintage”
One of the coolest things about the enoblogosphere this year is the number of European wineries who are posting dispatches from the harvest. I loved the above photo of grapes for Vin Santo posted by my friend Ale at Montalcino Report (he’s been posting regularly about weather conditions and harvest progress).
My friend Laura, also in Montalcino, posted this brutally honest report about the recent heat spike there, entitled “Can someone please turn the hairdryer off?” Not everyone in Montalcino has embraced transparency but a few brave souls like Ale and Laura have.
It’s been a few weeks since he’s posted, but my buddy Wayne in Colli Orientali del Friuli has posted some great photos of harvest (like the one above), including some shots of the young Ethan Bastianich!
Back in July, Wayne did this amazing however sad post of images documenting hail damage in Collio.
Today at the Boutari blog, we posted some images and a report from the harvest in Naoussa by enologist Vasilis Georgiou. Those are Xinomavro grapes, above, waiting to be picked.
Although he doesn’t have a blog, my good friend and Pasolinian comrade Giampaolo Venica has been using social media to document the harvest in Collio. He sent me the gorgeous photo of dawn (above) to illustrate the time of day that they begin picking the grapes, when temperatures are coolest. Beautiful, no?
There’s no doubt in my mind that the 2011 harvest in Europe has been documented like no other before it… all thanks to the internets and a growing number of forward-thinking winemakers.
Know a winery that’s posting about harvest this year? Please share a URL in a comment and let’s a list going! Buona vendemmia yall!
Negroamaro, a supreme expression in Graticciaia (tonight in LA)
In the Salento peninsula of Italy, the Negroamaro harvest will begin any day now, as my friend Paolo reports on his blog.
When I visited Apulia (Puglia) in June of this year as a judge in the Radici Wines festival, I had the great fortune of attending a vertical tasting of Graticciaia, a dry-style dried grape expression of Negroamaro created in 1986 by the Vallone family in Salento, a wine considered by many to be the greatest wine of Apulia. (No relation to my friend and client Tony Vallone in Houston.)
Only made in top years, the grapes for Graticciaia are late-harvested and then dried on mats (graticci in Italian, hence the enonym). They are then vinified in stainless steel and aged in large casks (similar to and inspired by the wines and winemaking of Valpolicella).
When I tasted at Vallone, they served a flight including the 2003, 1997, 1994, and 1990 and we were all impressed by the nuance that these wines attain with age. The 1994, in particular, blew me away: the fruit had emerged brilliantly, as had a wonderful sea salt note that danced with the wine’s bright acidity. The younger vintages were muscular yet elegant, with classic spicy notes accentuated by the winemaking style: think cumin and cinnamon sprinkled over ripe plums and dried cherries.
Starting tonight, I’ll be pouring a mini-vertical — 2006 and 2005 — of Graticciaia at Sotto in Los Angeles (where I’ll be pouring wine on the floor tonight, tomorrow night, and Saturday night).
Please drop by and I’ll tell you some wine tales!
Redd Volkaert at the Austin airport holy smokes!!!
Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Taurasi, a guest post from Naples (and a vertical of Taurasi tomorrow in LA)
I’ve been doing my homework, getting ready to present a mini-vertical of Taurasi by Struzziero tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday nights at Sotto in Los Angeles (where I curate the wine list). Yesterday, I reached out to my friend Marina Alaimo who works with top Southern Italian wine blogger and journalist Luciano Pignataro in Naples. Here’s what she sent me. Buona lettura!
Dear Jeremy,
In the attached photo, you’ll see old plantings of Aglianico Taurasino. This type of training method is called starzete: it’s a type of high trellis, with four long canes. It allowed the farmers to grow vegetables and other crops below the vines and to bind the canes to trees. As a result, the farmer could use the available land to its greatest potential by employing integrated farming. Furthermore, the starzete training system guaranteed an abundant crop of grapes. As you know, in the past, grape growers aimed for quantity. I’ve also sent you a photo of the Castello di Taurasi, symbol of the appellation.
Marina
La Bunga Bunga c’est arrivée!
Et voilà! Our love letter to Berlusconi!
Please support the musique by downloading the first single from our new record Freudian Slip by clicking here (for Italian) or clicking here (for English).
The best Italian restaurant in the U.S. (and why I was made to love her)
When Tracie P and I talked about one last “babymoon” before the last trimester of our pregnancy (when she can’t fly anymore), she expressed her desire to dine at Frasca in Boulder. And so on Saturday, we headed for the Rocky Mountains and one of the best meals we’ve ever had.
It’s so hard to get properly sliced prosciutto in this country and I have told Tracie P about Chef Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson’s obsession with reconditioned vintage Berkel slicers and how their beveled blades make all the difference (it’s in the diffusion of the heat, Lachlan explained to me last year when we traveld in Friuli together). When our server asked us about what we wanted to eat, the first thing out of (and into) Tracie P’s mouth was: P-R-O-S-C-I-U-T-T-O!
Co-owner Master Sommelier Bobby Stuckey graciously offered to select the wines for us and it was only fitting that we start with 2010 Malvasia by Venica & Venica: Lachlan, he, and I tasted the wine together last September at the winery in Collio not long after it had been harvested. We loved the spice in this vintage of Malvasia by our good friend Giampaolo Venica.
Lachlan’s frico was off-the-charts good.
Bobby surprised us with this 09 lees-aged Sauvignon Blanc by Borgo del Tiglio, a winery I’d never tasted or seen in the U.S. I love the muscular style of Sauvignon Blanc embraced by certain Friulian producers. If ever there were an international grape variety to grow in Italy, it would be Sauvignon Blanc in Friuli, where winemakers can obtain sublime expressions of this aromatic grape. The 09 Tiglio had a crazy spearmint note on it and it was amazing to see this intense wine evolve over the course of the evening. (Note how Bobby decanted it for us.)
Lachlan’s cooking is a benchmark for Italian cuisine in the U.S. His gnocchi had that perfect balance of substance and lightness.
His ravioli were stuffed with a “deconstructed ratatouille,” in other words, all of the ingredients of the classic French dish, but prepared separately. Again, the quality of Lachlan’s pasta is a benchmark for Italian cuisine in the U.S. (Note the yellow color.)
1997 Schioppettino by Ronchi di Cialla was one of the most incredible wines we’ve drunk this year. Unbelievable minerality with this bright, fresh grapey note and under 13% alcohol. Simply incredible… It was gorgeous with Lachlan’s roast pork loin.
After dinner, Lachlan gave us a tour of the kitchen and revealed some of the secrets behind his Neapolitan pizza, served at their new pizzeria next door. Believe it or not, we actually went next door after our 3-hour dinner and ate again! I’ll post on the pizza later this week.
At certain point during our dinner, we were having so much fun that we were nearly overwhelmed by the joy of sharing food and together. Almost simultaneously, we looked into each other’s eyes and it was as if the same thought had just come to our minds at the same moment. I looked at Tracie P and told her I loved her and that it’s a miracle that we found each other: there’s no one else in the world that I could share an experience like this.
See that glimmer in her eye (as she enjoys a Sanbitter before dinner)? It makes me melt like prosciutto on her tongue…
IMHO, Frasca is the best Italian restaurant in the U.S. and you really can’t go wrong there. But it’s so much better if you go with someone you love…
There’s so much more to show and tell about our dinner in Boulder but it’ll just have to wait… Stay tuned and thanks for letting me share this special evening with you!
Do Bianchi 