Tag Archives: Danny Meyer

To barrique or not to barrique (and red wine with seafood in Maremma)

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The 2009 Morellino di Scansano by Poggio Argentiera paired stunningly well with this medley of seafood and noodles at the Oasi in Follonica. It’s not uncommon to pair red wine with seafood in the Maremma, where Sangiovese is expressed as a lighter and more gently tannic wine than it is in places like Montalcino and Chianti.

Picking up where we left off in September… Following my afternoon with Gaia Gaja at her family’s Ca’ Marcanda winery in Bolgheri, I traveled down to the seaside town of Follonica where I had one of the best meals of my trip at the Oasi with winemaker Gianpaolo Paglia of Poggio Argentiera.

Gianpaolo and I have a lot of friends (and colleagues) in common and it was great to finally meet him in person and share not just a meal but a truly amazing meal together. (It was Gianpaolo’s son who gave Muddy Boots his nickname “Strappo,” I learned that evening.)*

Above: Gianpaolo began “weaning” his wines off barrique aging following the 2007 vintage. That’s the 07 Morellino di Scansano Capatosta in the glass. Note the dark color of the Sangiovese.

Gianpaolo and I had been in touch earlier this year after Mr. Franco Ziliani posted a great story and interview about Gianpaolo’s bold decision to stop barrique-aging his Sangiovese (and I re-posted it here).

I asked Gianpaolo what precipitated his decision to abandon barrique aging and the answer was simple.

“One day, I realized,” he said, “that I wasn’t drinking my own wines anymore. And so, I called my business partner and vineyard manager and asked him, ‘do you drink our wines at home?’ When he told me, ‘honestly, no, I don’t,’ I realized that I was no longer enjoying my own wines, however successful they were commercially.”

Above: Gianpaolo’s 2009 Morellino, which we tasted from cask, as we say in wine parlance, was aged in traditional large casks. Note how bright the wine is in the glass.

In fact, to my knowledge, Gianpaolo’s never had trouble selling his wines. Quite the opposite. This new era of his wines, he explained over the course of our delightfully long dinner, was part of an evolution for Italian winemakers.

Back in the 90s, when scores became so important and winemakers were trying to reach the American market, he said, it was only natural that we looked to that style as a model. Barriques were part of larger movement that included a number of changes in Italian winemaking (stainless steel, temperature control, and a cleaner, more precise and more concentrated style). This new phase isn’t so much as a step back as much as a “natural evolution,” in his words. He wasn’t apologetic and he was most sincere. I really admired him for his candor and I really appreciated his effort not to put a spin on this (as so many do).

Above: Chef Mirko’s moray eel was unbelievably delicious that night. Like many of the great restaurateurs of the Maremma, Mirko is first and foremost a fisherman.

And the best news? The 2009 Morellino was SUPERB with the seafood pasta above (whereas I, personally, wouldn’t have paired the richer, more concentrated barriqued wine from 2008 or 07 with it). Chapeau bas, Gianpaolo!

As one of my heroes, Danny Meyer, likes to say, if it grows with it, it goes with it!

* Gianpaolo’s children are perfectly bilingual (his wife is British). When they met Muddy aka Terry, one of Gianpaolo’s sons began calling Terry “Strappo” after making the homonymic association Terry, to tear (as in to tear a sheet of paper), strappare (Ital. to tear), strappo (a tear).

Impossible wine pairing? Chicken and dumplings

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Above: Did I mention the girl can cook? Tracie B made chicken and dumplings last night for the whole B family. Photo by Rev. B.

In Emilia-Romagna they eat tortellini and cappelletti in brodo (filled pasta in capon broth). In Central Europe they eat knödel served in broth. At the Jewish deli, they serve kreplach in broth. And in the South, they make chicken and dumplings.

Above: Tracie B’s chicken and dumplings. I can only wonder what Dr. V’s user-generated content would have to say about this most impossible impossible wine pairings — chicken and dumplings. But, man, were they good! This and below photos by Tracie B.

By its very nature, broth is an inevitably impossible wine pairing: the temperature alone makes pairing like grabbing the moon with your teeth as the French say.

Heeding the adage by restaurateur giant Danny Meyer, if it grows with it, it goes with it, I should have paired Tracie B’s delectable dumplings with Lambrusco (my top pick would have been a Lambrusco di Sorbara). In Emilia, versatile Lambrusco is served throughout the meal, with the appetizer of affettati (sliced charcuterie), with the first course of tortellini in brodo, with the second course of bollito (boiled meats and sausage), and even with the dessert of Parmgiano Reggiano served in crumbly shards, perhaps topped with a drop of aceto balsamico tradizionale di Modena or di Reggio Emilia (none of that hokey, watery aromatic vinegar). Lambrusco would have been perfect here.

Above: Don’t try this at home. Frankly, the 2004 Barbaresco Pora by Produttori del Barbaresco is going through a nearly undrinkable stage in its evolution.

But as food writer Arthur Schwartz says of pizza, if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one your with.

Before heading to Orange for the Christmas holiday celebration with the B family, I had reached into our cellar and pulled out a bottle of 2004 Barbaresco Pora by Produttori del Barbaresco. Frankly, the wine was too tight, overwhelmingly tannic, and even though it opened up over the course of the evening, it’s going through a nearly undrinkable period in its evolution. But that’s part of my love affair with this winery: experiencing the wine and the different single-vineyard expressions at different points in its life. And there are more bottles of 04 Pora to be had in our cellar. We ended up lingering over wine, sipping it is a meditative wine as we retired to the living room and watched a movie together and munched on oatmeal cookies that Tracie B and Mrs. B had baked that afternoon.

Above: Nephew Tobey wasn’t concerned with wine pairing. But he sure loved him some chicken and dumplings!

Happy Sunday ya’ll and thanks for reading!

The best restaurant in Texas?

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Above: A furtively photographed bottle of 2004 Potel Les Epinotes, well-priced and served with grand style by Fabien Jacob, sommelier of Le Rêve in San Antonio.

A good friend of ours (a reputable wine writer and wine blogger of note) remarked to me the other day that “there is nothing good to eat in New York.” She exaggerated for effect, of course, and I think her bleak assessment was partly affected by the gray, drab late winter months, when the snow-lined shop windows of yesteryear’s Christmas have been usurped by the sludgy grime of Manhattan’s slow unthawing. However hypertrophic, her lament made me think about how the island of New York is a culinary utopia (in the etymologic sense of the word), a “non place,” a locus where restaurateurs attempt to recreate the food of other places: on the same block of E. 27th St., you can eat at Danny Meyer’s Blue Smoke (a southern BBQ joint) or Nicola Marzovilla’s I Trulli (featuring the cuisine of his native Apulia); around the corner myriad Indian restaurants dot Lexington in the high 20s and the “falafel nazi” (how’s that for an oxymoron?), Kalustyan, resides between 27th and 28th. I love all of these restaurants and recommend them highly but when you visit them, they take you somewhere else, beyond the island of New York.

Above: The “foie gras club” at Le Rêve. My low-light photography doesn’t do justice to this brioche-layered sandwich of foie gras, tomato confit, and mango. (I didn’t want the flash to encroach on the intimate mood of the low-lit room.)

One of the things that has struck me about living in the South is how people here are connected to local culinary tradition and ingredients, whether the gulf oysters I enjoyed the other night in New Orleans or the mudbugs of an impromptu crawfish boil last Sunday (not to mention home-smoked ribs on one of my first trips out here).

Above: “Hydroponic lettuces” at Le Rêve, garnished with candied Texas pecans. I’d never tasted a great pecan until I first came to Texas. Hydroponic lettuces? Not the sticky icky kind.

On Saturday night, Tracie B and I had dinner at Le Rêve in San Antonio, a restaurant called by many the “best in Texas,” a perennial winner of top accolades. Whenever a venue is so hyped, my inclination is to disbelieve (and, truth be told, how many times do Michelin stars disappoint?). But Le Rêve lived up to its name with every oneiric mise-en-place: a truly world-class dining experience, four-star service, a superb and well-manicured if small wine list with great pricing (wine directors, please take note), and genuinely inspired haute cuisine that didn’t need to lean on the crutch of affectation to transcend its place and time.

Chef and owner Andrew Weissman’s cooking is muscular but not angular, refined but not precious, honest but never apologetic. My main course was Texas-raised venison, blood rare loin and a rack of ribs so tender that no steak knife was required to slice the lean, flavorful meat. (Dulcis in fundo: I also loved Andrew’s signature raw honeycomb served with the cheese course.)

Andrew clearly belongs to the Admiral’s club of aggressive, extreme, highly competitive American chefs but the fact that he presides over a world-class cuisine in an unlikely locale seems to give him an unbridled freedom of verve and choice in his ingredients and creativity. It’s not because he’s off the beaten track. It’s because he beats his own drum and embraces the frontier spirit of a place where only a handful are so ambitious.

Above: Tracie B and I stayed the night and visited the Alamo the next day. I’ll remember the Alamo and I’ll remember Le Rêve.

San Antonio is the culinary destination that has impressed me the most since my arrival in Texas — more so than Houston and Dallas — and you might be surprised by what I’ve found there… stay tuned…

De austinopoli: a new category and an ichthyophagian surprise

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Above: “Maguro sashimi and goat cheese with cracked pepper, Fuji apple and pumpkin seed oil” at Uchi in Austin. If that’s not fusion, then grits ain’t groceries and eggs ain’t poultry…

There’s a new category at Do Bianchi: de austinopoli or on the city of Austin. It appeared for the first time over the weekend, with the “beans don’t burn in the kitchen” post (btw, I swear it wasn’t me who burned the beans: they were burning in Tracie B’s neighbor’s apartment). Austin is my new home (my new desk is arriving this week!) and I’ve already begun posting about our enogastronomic experiences here in Texas. (On Kim’s recommendation, I’ve been reading T. R. Fehrenbach’s Lone Star, a history of Texas, which I find fascinating — the book and the historia.)

Above: “Avo bake, creamy baked tiger shrimp and krab [sic], served in an avocado.” We ordered this dish on the recommendation of my new hair stylist, Felicia. It was a fresh and delicious take on the ubiquitous crab/shrimp casserole you find in Californian “sushi” restaurants.

I’ll confess that I was highly skeptical when so many of my friends (Californians among them) suggested that I take Tracie B to Austin’s top “sushi” destination Uchi. Raw fish in land-locked central Texas? Not exactly in line with the Danny Meyer motto if it grows with it, it goes with it.

What we found was not a “sushi” restaurant per se but a truly delightful and entirely playful “fusion” menu. The restaurant’s signature dish, in particular, “Maguro sashimi and goat cheese” (raw fish and caprine dairy?) seemed to challenge the very tenets of our occidental palates. (In many parts of Italy, for example, the mixture of fish and dairy is considered as taboo as the contact of meat and dairy in kashrut.)

As Franco often points out, rules are rules: I cannot conceal that we both found the confluence of textures to be ethereal (including the delicately unctuous quality of the pumpkin seed oil), the savoriness of the fish an excellent complement to the slightly sweet cheese, and the fattiness of the materia prima utterly decadent.

Rarely do you find waitstaff so knowledgeable (our bartender Scranton was extremely helpful in navigating the unusual menu and negotiating the extensive sake list; he made the long wait at the bar on a Friday night well worth it). We thoroughly enjoyed our experience.

Above: “Tomato katsu, panko-fried green tomatoes.” Need I say more?

In other news…

Who’s Who in America just published these interviews I did with Josh Greene, Eric Asimov, and Lettie Teague (click to read). We had fun with the Q/A and you might be surprised by some of the responses. Buona lettura!

*****

If I don’t love you baby,
grits ain’t groceries,
eggs ain’t poultry,
and Mona Lisa was a man.

Colorado Day 6: Aspen, under the big top

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Thanks everyone for checking in this week. When I get back to California, I’ll post on some of the tastings I attended. In the meantime, here are some images from opening day at the 2008 Aspen Food & Wine Classic…

The first session of tasting seminars at the Aspen Food & Wine Classic

Under the big top: a view of one of the main tents at the festival.

Martin Foradori (owner Hofstätter) and New York restaurateur Danny Meyer share a laugh after Danny led tasters in a chorus of “Alto Adige” to the tune of Mel Brook’s “High Anxiety.”

Ran into Ed McCarthy and Mary Mulligan, the first couple of the U.S. food and wine scene.

Celeb sommelier Richard Betts wanted me to try his new Mojito at the bar at the storied Little Nell hotel.

Drank 1996 Jacquesson for lunch.

My friend Aldo Sohm — the best sommelier in the world — poured me some great Rieslings.

1988 Massolino Vigna Rionda Barolo was fantastic. Note the clear, brick color of the wine, a standout for me on this trip.

Evening found me in the home of collector. The views in Aspen are amazing.