Chef Patti Jackson’s lasagne were layered savory perfection today at I Trulli in NYC for lunch.
Macaroni, made with farina arsa (burnt flour) and pea shoots.
Tag Archives: I Trulli
The Italian DOC/G system does (and doesn’t) matter
Photos by Tracie B.
A number of folks have posted recently about the Italian appellation system, bemoaning the fact that there is no “official” comprehensive list of DOCs and DOCGs. Back in NYC, my friend and colleague James Taylor posted at the VinoNYC blog: “as is the case with most things governmental in Italy, the system for classifying its wines can be apparently simple but deceptively complex, and can oftentimes cause a headache.” (In case you are not familiar with the Italian appellation system, see the note following this post below.)
Out here in Texas, Italian Wine Guy recently updated his list of DOCGs. His is the most comprehensive list that I know of. (Considering how much Italian wine he “touches,” as he likes to put it, as the Italian wine director for behemoth distributor Glazer’s, you’d think the Italian government would give this dude a medal. He certainly deserves one.)
It’s remarkable to think that neither the Italian government nor its Trade Commission, nor the Agriculture Ministry, nor the Italian Wine Union publish an online, comprehensive, definitive, exhaustive, up-to-date list.
But does a list really matter? Especially now?
IWG notes that while some might wonder why such a list is really necessary, it is important “because sommeliers studying for their tests want and need this information [and] anyway, it is kind of fun trying to figure a way through the labyrinth of Italian wines on that (or any) level.”
The point about sommeliers studying for their exams is a valid one: as Franco and I reported the other day at VinoWire, none of the three finalists in the recent AIS sommelier competition recognized a Langhe Bianco DOC (and one of its producers is no less than the Bishop of Barbaresco, Angelo Gaja!). Needless to say, the award was conferred to one of the contestants despite this glaring lacuna. The fact of the matter is that in the U.S. we perceive these regulations in an entirely different perspective — one that reveals our pseudo-Protestant and quasi-Progressivist tendencies and predilections for precision and accuracy.
One of our (American) misconceptions about the Italian appellation system is that it was designed to protect the consumer. In fact, as Teobaldo Cappellano pointed out in last year’s Brunello Debate, the DOC/DOCG system was created to protect “the territory,” i.e., the production zone and the people who live there and make wine.
On August 1, 2009, the DOC and DOCG system was essentially put to rest by newly implemented EU Common Market Organization reforms. August 1 was the deadline for the creation of wine appellations by EU member states and from that day forward, the power to create appellations passed from member states to the EU. The deadline created a mad rush to create new DOCs and DOCGs in Italy. Beginning with the current vintage, all wines produced in the EU will be labeled as Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and Protected Geographical Indication (PGI). The new designations will recognize and allow labeling using the members states’s current appellation classifications. But from now on, no new DOCs or DOCGs will be permitted.
It’s important to note that the DOCG does denote a higher standard of production practices: generally, lower yields, longer aging, and a second tasting of the wine by local chambers of commerce (after bottling but before release), thus conferring the “G” for garantita (guaranteed). But even though the DOCG classification has been used historically as a more-or-less deceptive marketing tool (like this pay-to-play press release on the just-under-the-wire new Matelica DOCG), it does not necessarily denote higher quality. Think, for example, of Quintarelli’s 1999 Rosso del Bepi Veneto IGT, his declassified Amarone. A few years ago, when I called him to ask him about this wine, Giuseppe Quntarelli told me that he thought it was a great wine and wanted to release it but he felt it wasn’t a “true Amarone” and so he declassified it. (Yes, I hate to break the news to you, Bob Chadderdon, you’re not the only person in the U.S. allowed to speak to Quintarelli. He complimented me, btw, for my Paduan cadence!)
The rush to create new appellations (and in particular, new DOCGs), has created a great deal of confusion and in some cases commotion. I’ll post more on the subject later this week: self-proclaimed xenophobe, racist, and separatist agriculture minister Luca Zaia truly stirred the pot with the creation of a Prosecco DOCG. Stay tuned…
*****
Currently, the Italian appellation system has three basic classifications for fine wine: DOCG, DOC, and IGT.
Acronymic articulations and translations:
DOCG: Denominazione d’origine controllata e garantita (Designation of Controlled and Guaranteed Origin)
DOC: Denominazione d’origine controllata (Designation of Controlled Origin)
IGT: Indicazione Geografica Tipica (Typical Geographical Indication)
There are wines still labeled VdT, i.e., Vino da Tavola or table wines but few of them make the Atlantic passage. In other words, few cross that body of water otherwise known as the “great misunderstanding.”
The best restaurant in Texas?
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…
Do Bianchi 