Sicilian food porn (via Brooklyn): Focacceria di Ferdinando

Posted on by

From the “favorite places on planet earth” department…

Above: The potato croquettes at the Focacceria di Ferdinando in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn — a sine qua non of the classic Sicilian focacceria (see note on usage and meaning of the designation focacceria below).

Saturday morning in New York City found me and Tracie P on the F train to Carroll Gardens, where we had a date with one of my childhood friends (since our bar mitzvah days), Noah (the German professor as he is known on his wife’s blog) and his lovely wife, Melanie (whom we also adore), mother to the Cheese-Hater and author of the recently published Eating for Beginners.

rice ball

Above: The arancino or rice ball, served in this instance as the rice ball “special.” The arancino is a rice ball stuffed with ground meet and cheese, dredged in breadcrumbs and then fried, and in this case, dressed with tomato sauce and ricotta and sprinkled with grated Pecorino Romano.

Our destination? The Focacceria di Ferdinando, one of my favorite restaurants in the world and one of those places that brings nearly all of my favorite palates together — like Anthony and BrooklynGuy. (In one of our insanely close degrees of separation, Anthony wrote me to tell me how much he loves the Focacceria and to hip me to the fact that awesome Brooklyn songwriter Jesse Harris used to have a band called “the Ferdinandos” in homage to this storied joint.)

chickpea fritter

Above: The pièce de résistance, the “panelle special” sandwich. A panella (pl. panelle), pronounced pah-NEHL-lah, is a fried chickpea fritter, a classic of Sicilian street food.

The Focacceria di Ferdinando opened its doors in 1904, when it catered to Sicilian longshoremen who worked the dockyards in Brooklyn. The current owner, Francesco Buffa, took over from the second owner in the 1970s, and very little has changed there. (Francesco is one of the most interesting characters I’ve encountered in New York, a true vitellone as he describes himself in Fellinian terms, an ex-Carabiniere and judo instructor who fell in love with the owner’s daughter when he visited the city in the 70s, still sporting a Mark Spitz mustache.)

chickpea fritter

Above: The vasteddu (or vastedda), slowly braised spleen, served on a roll with ricotta and Pecorino. Alfonso’s post on vasteddu in Palermo is not to be missed.

Long before Batali and Psilakis made offal fashionable again in New York, Francesco served vasteddu (the Sicilian classic slow-braised spleen) in the same way it was served to proletarians who could have as easily stepped out of a De Sica film in the 50s or a Pasolini film in the 60s. This remarkable dish is a trace of another era and a Freudian red thread that ties our culinary heritage to the fiefdoms of pre-Lampedusian insular life.

cannoli

Above: Still life with cannolo.

One might ask: Where is the focaccia? In fact, the terms focaccia and focacceria (foh-KACH-eh-REE-ah) come from the late Latin focaciam, from focus, meaning fire or hearth. A focacceria is not necessarily a place where focaccia (i.e., the savory flatbread made with olive oil) is baked and sold (although in Liguria or Tuscany, you would most certainly find focaccia at a focacceria). It means simply an eatery or bakery of some sort and as such is applied in Sicilian parlance (again, see Alfonso’s post on his recent trip to Palermo).

Also highly recommended at the Focacceria di Ferdinando: the Caponatina (made in the style of Carini, the town near Palermo where Francesco is from), the Pasta con le Sarde (long noodles with sardines, another Sicilian classic), and — when it’s available — Francesco’s marinated tuna steak with celery sauce.

An INCREDIBLE flight with the Philip Marlowe of wine

Posted on by

It was about 8 o’clock in the evening, end of May, with the Manhattan moon rising above midtown and a look of hard wet rain in the distance of New Jersey. I was wearing my pinstripe blue suit, with a light checkered shirt and an orange square tie. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed sommelier ought to be. I was about to pour an 1971 Produttori del Barbaresco.

Words cannot begin to describe the sensations Tracie P and I experienced a few weeks ago in New York, when our dear friend Mary Anne treated us to dinner at Alto in midtown Manhattan, where Levi Dalton — the Philip Marlowe of the New York wine scene — had created a special flight just for us.

There a lot of talented wine professionals in New York but none is sharper than Levi, and man, he’s at the top of his game right now, really and truly in the zone. And I’m sure that anyone who knows Levi will concur: the dude’s dry wit and deftness at wordplay are matched only by the acuity of his palate. Raymond Chandler couldn’t have written a more perfect Philip Marlowe of wine.

I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a wine key and a serviette.

Like a mind-reader, Levi couldn’t have thrilled us more than by opening the flight with this Saignée de Sorbée by Vouette et Sorbée. Incredible freshness, sumptuous aroma, sexy but not overly generous fruit flavor.

Next came the 2005 Arbois Pupillon by Overnoy. I’d only ever tasted this wine in Québec, where it seems to be easier to find. To me, wines like this are the “unbearable lightness of being.” They are so light in body yet so rich in mouthfeel, delicately fragrant on the nose yet muscular in the palate. Perhaps only in Barbaresco do I find that same counter-intuitive, ineffable sensory experience. The same equine metaphors apply.

The whole restaurant turned around to see what the fuss was about when Tracie P and I gasped in delight at the appearance of this wine. 1974 not the greatest vintage for this wine but showing admirably. Little did we know what was about to come…

Dreams do come true. Awesome vintage (older than Tracie P!), beautifully cellared bottle. One of the great wine experiences of my lifetime (up there with 1989 Barbaresco Santo Stefano by Bruno Giacosa).

Angiolino Maule’s wines were a discovery for me on this recent trip to New York. Later in the trip, I tasted his declassified Soave. Fantastic wines. Great acidity even in this recioto di Soave. A true connoisseur’s wine.

And not to be outdone in the brandy department… The above photo needs no caption.

“How do you like your brandy?” asked General Sternwood. “In a glass,” said Marlowe.

From Levi Dalton to Romano Levi… what a night! What an amazing flight of wines.

Thanks again, Mary Anne for treating me and Tracie P to such an unforgettable evening in celebration of our wedding. And thanks, Levi, for being such a great friend (however from afar) and for creating such a special flight of wines just for us. I’ll never forget it.

Natural wine in Texas and the woman man behind Charlie Wilson’s war

Posted on by

cruz de comal

Last week I spent an afternoon and evening with maverick grape-grower and owner of La Cruz de Comal winery Lewis Dickson, who, together with winemaker Tony Coturri, who oversees vineyard management and flies out to Texas Hill Country every summer to vinify the harvest (since 2001), may very well be the only natural winemaker in Texas.

I can’t talk about the wines (yet) because my post on our visit, our conversation, and our conference call with Tony will be part of the second edition of 31 32 Days of Natural Wine, which begins on June 19. I can’t reveal (yet) what Tony said to me about how he is able to make these wines with no addition of sulfur whatsoever.

But I can share the below photo of one of Lewis’s super-cool nineteenth-century hand-wound French rotisseries.

rotisserie

And in the spirit of “it’s almost lunchtime here in Texas,” I’ll share our tasty repast that night, leg of lamb that had been marinated for 3 days in wine must, roast potatoes, and freshly wilted spinach topped with mozzarella di bufala and cayenne pepper:

cruz de comal

Hungry yet?

In other news…

Yesterday, at cousin Alexis’s graduation party, I had the chance to sit down and chat with a Texas icon, Charlie Schnabel.

jeremy parzen

As per an age-old Hollywood convention, Charlie was played by a woman in the Mike Nichols movie Charlie Wilson’s War. Charlie was Wilson’s right-hand-man in Washington during the congressman’s covert war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. During that time, he traveled more than a dozen times to the region. “Read the book,” he said joking about the fact that he’s played by a woman on screen, “it’s better than the movie.”

jeremy parzen

Charlie had stopped by to help celebrate Alexis’s graduation: Texas barbecue (chicken, ribs, and brisket), all the fixings (including sweet creamed corn), iced tea (sweetened and unsweetened), and — get this — homemade ice cream.

We talked about the dandelion wine he makes at home and his love of Lambrusco, and I asked he why he thought Texas has played such an important role in the iconography of the U.S. “Because of size of our state, it’s really five different states,” he said. “It’s really a country… with a wide range of climates and people, from the Spanish settlers to the Indian culture that was already here. We’ve never lost the independent spirit.”

He also told me what really caused the 1983 fire in the iconic Texas state capitol, where Charlie served as the secretary of the senate for more than 30 years. But I’ll have to share that with ya’ll a voce… ;-)

Check out this cool profile of Charlie, a Texas icon.

Graduation day (Pflugerville, Texas)

Posted on by

Yesterday, the Branch-Johnson (and now -Parzen) clan attended the high school graduation of Alexis Johnson, daughter of proud parents Holly and Terry Johnson. Alexis graduated from Pflugerville High School, home of the Panthers.

The arena-sized event, held at the Erwin Center in downtown Austin, included folks of seemingly every walk of life — from those whose kids are heading to Ivy League schools next year to those who were the first in their family to see their children graduate from high school. Alexis is headed to Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, Texas.

Alexis sang in the choir (above), which performed excellent versions of “America the Beautiful” and the “Star-Spangled Banner.” Outside the arena, the Six Flags of Texas waved in the warm summer breeze.

I couldn’t help but think of my graduation from La Jolla High School in 1985 and the adventures that would follow. The electricity in the air was contagious, the ineffable sensation that a new flag is about to be unfurled, no matter what the walk of life. (Memories from that time were also present in my mind because the day before yesterday, an icon of my youth and my alma mater, U.C.L.A., John Wooden passed away. Older brother Tad Parzen used to attend John Wooden basketball camp.)

Congratulations, Terry, Alexis, Grant, Josh, and Holly! I couldn’t be blessed with a more wonderful, loving, and generous extended family and I’m so proud of my cousin Alexis!

Jancis Robinson: “Syrah di Montalcino”

Posted on by

From Jancis Robinson’s blog, yesterday, “Montalcino votes for modernism”:

“After dramatic last-minute machinations, it has just been revealed that the secret ballot to elect the new president of the Brunello di Montalcino consortium revealed that arch-modernist Ezio Rivella of Banfi garnered most votes and will now direct the fortunes of this controversial wine.

Until very recently it looked as though the most prominent woman in Montalcino, Donatello Cinelli Colombini, would win, but at the eleventh hour, in a move that took many by surprise, she withdrew her candidacy and threw her weight behind Rivella. Concerned that this would be the final nail in the Brunello coffin, and that Piemonte-born Rivella would encourage the use of grape varieties other than Brunello (Sangiovese), veteran winemaker Fabrizio Bindocci of the respected estate Il Poggione declared his own bid for the presidency yesterday. …

It seems as though the juggernaut rolling towards the likes of Syrah di Montalcino is unstoppable.”

2006 Produttori del Barbaresco: an important clarification from Aldo Vacca

Posted on by

From the “department of keeping the world safe for Italian wine”…

aldo vaccaAbove: I tasted with winemaker Aldo Vacca at Produttori del Barbaresco in March 2010. Anyone who reads my blog knows that I am one of the wineries hugest fans.

Reader Ken wrote me a private message recently, asking if I’d seen an email blast from a New York retailer in which the author claimed that there had been two bottlings of Produttori del Barbaresco classic Barbaresco 2006 — one made before the decision not to bottles the 06 crus (and thus not including the single-vineyard juice) and one made after the decision not to bottle the 06 crus (and thus containing the higher-quality single-vineyard juice).

“If there has, in fact, been a second release that now has included the single-vineyard grapes,” he asked plaintively, “how on earth can anyone distinguish the bottles?

“I’ve cut and pasted a recent e-mail from [a highly respected New York retailer] and highlighted the statement about a second release. I’ve collected a ton of the blended 05’s for cellaring and have only a couple of the blended 06s, which got initially reviewed (by fellow Cellar Trackers) as a ‘drink early.'”

      The news, if you haven’t heard it: for the 2006 vintage the Produttori have decided not to bottle any of their single-vineyard Barbaresco Riservas. Aldo Vacca, manager of the Produttori, describes this [

SEE THIS POST

      ] as a business decision that was not based on the very high quality of the wines, but instead because there have been so many strong vintages in a row (basically 2004-2009) that they were concerned that there would be too much wine on the market.

The wines were vinified and aged separately as per their normal practice; following an initial release of the 2006 Barbaresco (which was a terrific bottle at the time), all of the Riservas have now been blended together to produce just one wine.

Yesterday afternoon I wrote to Aldo, who promptly responded with the following message:

      What happened is that we took the final decision not to produce the 2006 S[ingle]V[ineyard] one year later than usual, in the spring of 2009. At that point the first bottling of 2006 was already done so no SV in the first bottling. However this is the bottling that we release every year in Italy in the early Fall, so it is largely used for domestic market.

Second bottling was done in July and then a third bottling in the Fall. These two bottlings were a blend of SV juice and standard Barbaresco juice in very similar %. The wine you can buy in the States now is from the 2nd bottling and later this year will be from the 3rd, so very similar indeed.

So the bottom line is that there were two bottlings, one without the crus and one with the crus (the former sold in Italy, the latter available in the U.S.). But if you’re buying the wine in the U.S., you’re getting wines that include the crus.

To this I would add that 2006 is not a forgettable vintage, as some of Ken’s Cellar Tracker buddies might insist. In fact, it was a good-to-great vintage (05 very-good-to-great, 07 FANTASTIC). IMHO 06 is best to drink 2011-2016 and beyond (but keep in mind that I’m a believer that these wines are to be drunk younger than most American fetishizers of old wine would tell you).

Maginot lines in Montalcino

Posted on by

Above: Tracie P and I took this photo, facing southeast toward Mt. Amiata, in February on Strada Statale 64 (State Hwy 64) heading north from the village of Paganico toward Sant’Angelo in Colle on the south side of the Montalcino appellation. It’s just a matter of time before Asti-born Ezio Rivella will be making “Brunello” just northeast of there, in a partnership launched with Veneto behemoth Masi in 2007.

And so, just as the Germans flanked the Maginot Line, invaded Belgium and then France, Ezio Rivella — the self-proclaimed “prince of wine” — has been elected as the new president of the Brunello consortium. He has vowed not to change appellation regulations so that they would allow for international grapes, as he previously advocated. But the thought of an Piedmont-born enotechnician at the helm of an appellation situated in the heart of a UNESCO-protected territory sends shivers down the spines of many — myself included. It’s a dark, dark day in Montalcino.

Above: “Hunting forbidden.” Facing southeast, gazing out on Masi’s Bello Ovile vineyards. Taken in February 2010. Today the sun shines in the early summer heat but it’s a dark, dark day in Montalcino.

Chatting with a friend, a wine professional I admire very much, late last night, he pointed out that this battle was lost a long time ago: anyone familiar with European history and iconography is acquainted with the metaphor allegory of the Maginot Lines.

If you’re not tired of my posts on Montalcino and what has transpired there, please revisit this post on the Brunello debates where Rivella and the sorely missed Teobaldo “Baldo” Cappellano sparred over the future of Montalcino and the Brunello appellation.

I promise to write something fun and entertaining (to cheer myself up) tomorrow but today — the day after the commemoration of the founding of the Italian republic, freed from fascist tyranny — I plan to mourn. Sorry to be a bummer…

Nightmare in Montalcino: Fabrizio is our only hope!

Posted on by

I just saw a retweet in my Twitter feed and am literally feeling ill after what I just read over at Montalcino Report: Donatella Cinelli Colombini has “stepped aside” and is giving her support to Ezio Rivella in his bid to become president of the Brunello producers association (if you haven’t been following events there, just scroll down on my blog to my most recent posts).

A nightmare is unfolding in Montalcino and Fabrizio Bindocci (left, in a photo I took probably 6 years ago) is our only hope. Fabrizio had not officially announced his candidacy for the presidency but Cinelli’s “abdication” has led him to speak out finally. He did so today in an open letter he wrote to Italy’s top wine blogger Mr. Franco Ziliani. Fabrizio’s son Alessandro has published an English translation at Montalcino Report.

In it, his father writes:

    It is, however, with a certain dismay that I have learned — in a meeting that we held yesterday with some of the councillors — that Donatella Cinelli Colombini wishes to give way (and to give the presidency) to the very person, in my opinion (and in accordance with my own sense of propriety), who is the farthest from my land and the wine that we steadfastly wish to continue to produce (perhaps by improving our tradition but certainly not by bastardizing it). He is the farthest from it in his actions, his feelings, and his interests.

    I am referring to Cavalier Rivella, whom I have known since his earliest days in Montalcino and whose bluntness I appreciate.

    Therefore, I believe that it is my duty, on the eve of this most delicate of appointments, to ask all of my fellow councillors and all of those who hold dear the reputation (and success) of this wine to banish from our behaviour any interest that does not correspond to that of the producer Consortium members.

    This — and only this — is what I would wish to do if I were to be President!

However distant this election may appear, it is the front line in the battle to save traditionalism and indigenous winemaking in Italy. I know Fabrizio well and as outspoken as he is (in the true Tuscan tradition), he is also a very humble man who would not have taken such a brazen stance if the situation were not grave.

Keeping my fingers crossed (and hoping you are, too)… thanks for reading…

Numbers point to Cinelli Colombini, while pundits stump for Bindocci in Montalcino president race

Posted on by

Above: Art historian and Siena native, Brunello producer Donatella Cinelli Colombini is one of Italy’s leading women winemakers and she has been endorsed by a number of high-profile producers in her bid to become Brunello consortium president. She also received the greatest number of votes in the general election for the body’s advisory council (which we reported today at VinoWire). Photo courtesy Susanna Cenni.

Why am I so obsessed with the election of the Brunello producers association’s new president? The answer is simple: the Brunello appellation has become the front line for the battle of traditionalist champions of indigenous Italian grapes vs. progressive proponents of “modern trends” and international grape varieties. What has happened over the last two years in Montalcino and what will happen in the wake of tomorrow’s election will surely inform the direction, objectives, and ideals of Italian winemaking in the next decade.

Many have considered technocrat winemaker, architect of Brunello giant Banfi, Ezio Rivella, to be a shoe-in. But at least one high-profile actor on the ground told me this morning that Donatella Cinelli Colombini (above) is the leading candidate, and, in fact, she received the greatest number of votes in the body’s general assembly (while Rivella fell near the bottom of the list of top-vote-getting advisory council members).

Above: Winemaker Fabrizio Bindocci of Tenuta Il Poggione, a homegrown candidate from Sant’Angelo in Colle (and my friend), student of Brunello legend Piero Talenti and teacher to his own son Alessandro Bindocci, who will ultimately take his place when he retires. Photo courtesy Montalcino Report.

I’m not the only one to be watching the election so closely: today, Italian wine blogger Alessandro Morichetti, contributor to the popular site Intravino, launched an appeal: “We want Fabrizio Bindocci [above] to be president of something, right away!” My partner in VinoWire, Mr. Franco Ziliani, author of Italy’s top wine blog, Vino al Vino, quickly signed on to and reposted Morichetti’s endorsement (and Mr. Ziliani has often pointed to Bindocci as an excellent candidate).

Me? I’m just an extracomunitario, an extracommunitarian, an alien (to Italy) as it were. As such, I can, however, with good conscience observe that among the three most talked-about candidates, two are from Montalcino and one is from Asti, Piedmont (guess which one). Local trumps alien in my book when it comes to wines that speak of the place where they are made and the people that made them.