Category — Wine

Of all the regional cooking styles of Italy, none is so misunderstood as Tuscan.  Traditionally,  Tuscan food is as simple as can be — a handful of good ingredients and simple techniques add up to memorable eating.  I was reminded of that last week at a dinner hosted by the Sada Family of Fattoria Carpoli with a menu prepared by Emanuele Vallini of Ristorante La Carabaccia in Bibbona, Tuscany.

We began with a passed fritto misto of coccoli, fried bread dumplings, zucchini flowers, and sage leaves accompanied by the Sada family’s fresh and citrussy Vermentino Toscana IGT 2010.  The fritti were perfectly fried and charmingly presented in cones of brown paper, so they were easy to enjoy as we stood around and sipped our wine.

In the dining room, Davide Sada told us about how he founded the winery in 1998 in the beautiful coastal region of Tuscany known as the Maremma.  He spoke with pride about the food of the region and introduced the first course, pappa al pomodoro, a thick soup made with stale bread, ripe tomatoes, basil, and extra virgin olive oil.  He explained that in Tuscany, stale bread was either fed to the chickens, or used to make pappa.  The beautifully orangey-red soup was delicately spicy and also matched well with the Vermentino.

Farro della Garfagnana, spelt cooked with pancetta and leeks, was molded into a disk and served on a sweet bell pepper cream and topped with frizzled leeks.  The smoky bacon flavor complemented the sweetness of the peppers and crisp leeks.  With it we drank the Integolo Toscana IGT 2009, a blend of 60% cabernet sauvignon and 40% Montepulciano, which Mr. Sada said he had developed as an everyday drinking wine.  At under $15 per bottle, I could see enjoying this wine with a wide variety of foods.

Tuscans are great soup eaters, so our next course was another classic of the region.  According to Signor Sada, Caterina di Medici brought the recipe for Florentine onion soup with her to France and taught the cooks at the French court to make this classic dish.  I think I’ve heard that one before!  The slow cooked red onions were sweet and tangy.  The crowning touch was an egg yolk in its shell to add or not, as you preferred.  It brought a creamy richness to the  luscious soup.  With that we drank the Baldoro Toscana IGT, a robust wine meant for aging.

The filet of pork in an an herb and walnut crust was the next course.  Pork filet is not the tastiest cut, but the flavorful crust enhanced it and the meat was cooked to rosy perfection.  It went beautifully with the Carpoli Toscana IGT 2006.  This was Mr. Sada’s Super Tuscan wine, and it had big ripe red fruit flavors.

Dessert was a masterpiece of simplicity:  a luscious cream of mascarpone, blended with crumbled cantucci, the classic Tuscan almond dipping cookie and a few berries.  The finishing touch was a glass of espresso to pour over the dessert as you wished.  I loved the combination with the sweet and concentrated Vermentino Toscana IGT 2008, a late harvest dessert wine.  What could be simpler, or more elegant?

Signor Sada told us that this is the kind of food they eat and wine they drink in Tuscany every day.  He added that he firmly believed that if you work in quality, you will be happy.  After a dinner as good as this one, I think that he must be very happy indeed.

Egg and Cheese Fritters from Tarallucci e Vino

In Italian,” finire a tarallucci e vino” (literally,  to finish up with cookies and wine), means to say that there was a happy ending.  At the Tarallucci e Vino restaurant at 15 East 18 Street near Union Square in NYC,we were happy not just with the ending of the meal, but everything else from appetizers to dessert.

We had the tasting menu, so we got to try a number of different things.  My photos don’t really do them justice, so I’ll just post a few of the best ones.  Above is a roasted sea scallop with wild mushrooms and a poached quail egg.

Among the starters were these fried sage leaves stuffed with anchovies and mozzarella.  I like to stuff zucchini blossoms this way, but this inspired combination means that I can make them even when the blossoms are not available.  The sauce was nice and fresh, but the crunchy sage and tasty filling really didn’t need it.  Many more good things followed.

Did I mention the bread basket?  Charles could not stop eating the flatbread flavored with squid ink, rosemary and olive oil.  I know it sounds odd, but take my word for it, I was glad he ate it all so I could not.  There were also warm little baguettes and olive rolls.

We’ve long been fans of Tarallucci e Vino and weekend mornings often find us there enjoying one of New York’s best cappuccinos and a perfect Italian-style cornetto.  On our recent trip to Abruzzo, we met Lorenzo, who is the manager for all 4 of the restaurant’s branches.  He invited us to come by for dinner to the 18th Street location and we were glad we did.  It’s one of New York’s best kept Italian restaurant secrets.   The place was cozy and the atmosphere lively.  Charles had only good things to say about the wine list and in honor of our last trip ordered the Cantina Frentana Coccociola, an unusual white wine from Abruzzo, and the Emidio Pepe 2003 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, which was superb.

We ended with this dark, totally fudge-y semifreddo topped with chocolate and cognac gelato.  We’re looking forward to going back again soon to try the rest of the menu.

Last week, Charles and I spent a few days in Rome, then headed to Abruzzo.  Here is my Roman favorite dish his trip, the Spaghettoni alla Carbonara at Roscioli.  The bits of guanciale were chunkier than usual and had been fried until crisp around the edges.  The sauce was perfectly made, with just eggs and cheese and lots of black pepper.  Perfection!

In Abruzzo, we stayed in the area known as the Costiera dei Trabocchi where we were the guests of the Cantina Frentana winery.  Trabocchi are wooden platforms built for fishermen that are now used as restaurants.  For a better look at them, see my blog on the i-Italy website.  Not surprisingly, the star attraction in this area is very fresh seafood.

Of course, there was lots of great pasta, too, both fresh and dried.  The town of Fara San Martino is the home of several major pasta companies, including De Cecco, Del Verde and Giuseppe Cocco.

The last one above had tiny little lamb meatballs tangled in spaghetti alla chitarra, fresh pasta made on a chitarra, a wooden frame strung with thin wires used to cut sheets of fresh pasta into long square spaghetti.

Cheese, of course, was only served on pasta with meat sauce.  A plate of long, skinny fresh green chilies was passed with every pasta.

Tender little tarts filled with chocolate and grape preserves were a tasty dessert on at least two occasions.

Throughout our stay, we drank wonderful wines of the region from Cantina Frentana.

Joel Peterson, the owner of Ravenswood Winery, has been called both a vino-revolutionary and the godfather of zinfandel.  That may be, but it doesn’t give you any idea of how knowledgeable he is, or that he is a delightful dining companion.  You may already have guessed that he makes a superb line of California zinfandels.  Joel was in town last week and together with some other writers, I had a chance to chat with him and taste his new vintages over lunch at A Voce in the Time Warner Center.  As far as I’m concerned, there is no better way to taste a wine than to accompany it with food, and A Voce turned out to be the perfect choice.

Joel organized the tasting in 3 flights.  We began with the lightest wine, the Dickerson Zinfandel, named for the vineyard where the grapes are grown.   This wine is made from 100% zinfandel grapes.  As soon as I lifted my glass, I noticed the aroma — like a big bowl of fresh ripe raspberries. It was a perfect way to the start the tasting and went great with the first course, crisp fried cassoncini, little turnovers filled with crescenza, a creamy cheese, and swiss chard, plus tender sliced prosciutto and stracchino, a soft cheese best known as the stuffing in burrata, and fresh fava beans.  Then we moved on to the Big River Zinfandel, also 100% zinfandel, which had a more subtle fruit aroma and concentrated flavor.  The third wine in the flight was the Belloni Zinfandel made from a blend of grapes.  Joel described the aroma as dark fruit like plums, which was true, and boysenberry, but since I ‘m not sure I know what boysenberry smells like I’ll have to take his word for that.

Joel made it clear that he wants to avoid what he called the “3 sins of Zin”:   high alcohol, high sugar, and too much oak.  With the next course we  drank Barricia Zinfandel fom the vineyard of the same name, made with 76% zinfandel grapes blended with petite sirah.  This wine was more complex than the first three with a better balance.  The Old Hill Zinfandel, so called because the vines are thought to be the oldest in Sonoma, went great with my pasta, Sagne alla Amatriciana.  Sagne is a wide fresh pasta ribbon and in this version it was sauced with a smooth tomato sauce flecked with smokey bacon and fresh marjoram.   The wine tasted of dark cherries with a rich leathery quality.  The bacon, tomatoes and spicy pecorino cheese on the tender pasta matched up with the wine beautifully.  The Teldeschi Zinfandel was particularly interesting to me.  Joel said that the blend of 4 grape varieties — zinfandel, petite sirah, Carignane and Alicante Bouschet — used were originally planted by Italian immigrants and this wine was a favorite with traditional grape growing families.

We ended with two more wines.  According to Joel,  the ICON Mixed Blacks was the wine that should have been and would have been made in California if it had not been for Prohibition.   The blend of grapes is the same as the above Teldeschi, but the proportion of zinfandel is much lower — 37% for ICON as opposed to the 75% in the Teldeschi.  That’s why the ICON cannot be called a zinfandel on the label.  To go with the wine, I had grilled quail glazed with fig reduction resting on a bed of fregula, tiny Sardinian pasta similar to couscous.  This was outstanding and the flavors of the fig glaze and grilled meat were an ideal match with the robust flavors of the ICON and the final wine of the day, the Pickberry Red.  This is a Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon blend that shows promise, and will really come into its own with a few years of aging.

I had the best time yesterday.  Some friends from the Clavesana Winery in Piedmont in Northern Italy were in town, and we decided to have a few people in to taste some of their wines.   There were 4 variations on Dolcetto, red wines made from the local dolcetto variety of grapes.  These wines go with a wide variety of foods and are well priced.  Problem was, I had had a really busy week and not much time to prepare.  So Charles and I decided to keep it simple.

First we had an assortment of salumi.  There was coppa made from pork shoulder; lardo and pancetta, both made from the belly; and hard and soft salami.   Then we had an assortment of Piemontese cheeses, including 2 kinds of robiola–one with 3 milks: goat, sheep and cow–and the other with 2 milks: sheep and cow.  Both were creamy and mushroomy with a soft texture like brie.  There was Testun made from cow and goat’s milk and aged in the must (the squeezed out grapes) used to make Barolo wine; Braciuk, similar to Testun but not as aged and made only from cow’s milk; Castelmagno DOP a firm, sharp cow’s milk cheese; Bra Duro Stravecchio, an “extra-old” cow’s milk cheese aged a minimum of 1 year;  and Toma Piemonte, an unpasteurized cow’s milk cheese aged 60 days.

Some fresh fava beans in the shell went great with the sharp cheeses, plus we had breadsticks, bread and a platter of fresh fruit and raw vegetables.  I cooked only one thing: a homestyle pan pizza, a recipe from my book Pizza Anyway You Slice It. It’s a good pizza for a party because it makes a large pie, tastes good hot or cold, and cuts into neat slices so it’s easy to eat.  In fact, I just reheated some in the toaster oven for lunch today. It crisped up nicely and still tasted great.

The pizzas were a big hit and everybody loved trying the different cheeses, salumi with the wine.  The improbably named D’OH (long story, but makes sense when they explain it) was the lightest, a very easy to drink red that we will enjoy with summer meals like grilled tuna.  Then there was the Dolcetto di Dogliani 2009, which was  a bit richer — a perfect wine with roast chicken.  Il Clou, with more body still, would be good grilled sausages or chops.  Finally there was the 174 Dolcetto di Dogliani, a wine made with grapes from a single vineyard.  This wine has big flavors and will only improve with age.

For dessert, we had Nocciolina, a crackly-topped hazelnut sponge cake that Anna had managed to carry to New York intact all the way from Piedmont.  The region is famous for its superb hazelnuts and the simple, nutty cake was a delicious treat with a cup of coffee.

Thanks to Anna, Tessa, Mario and Marinella for taking time out from their busy travel schedule to visit us.  As they say in Piedmont,

Representatives from nine wineries belonging to the the Vignaioli Piemontesi Association arrived in New York this week to introduce a marketing campaign aimed at promoting the region of Piedmont and its magnificent wines. The wines are being featured all week at Eataly, the new Italian market and restaurant complex located at 5th Avenue and 23rd Street.

Along with a group of restaurateurs, wine buyers and other journalist, I had a chance to sample some of these wines yesterday at a luncheon at Del Posto Restaurant, which was recently given a 4 star review in the New York Times. Gianluigi Biestro, director of the Vignaioli Piemontesi Association, gave us a presentation on the current situation in Piedmont. The region, located in northwestern Italy is separated from France to the west by the Alps, and is one of the most prestigious Italian winemaking regions. Mr. Biestro said that “to a Piemontese, the first job of a wine is to be red”, though the region is also know for its excellent white wines.

We began the meal with one of those whites, Alta Langa Spumante Contessa Rosa NV from Fontanafredda. Dry, crisp and sparkling it was a refreshing starter and a delicious match to the first course, Lidia’s Lobster Salad Catalana, cold poached lobster in a spicy tomato sauce with celery and yellow zucchini for a bit of crunch. Barbera d’Alba Superiore 2005 from Cantina di Govone was an alternate wine choice.

Agnolotti dal Plin, meaning a local variety of ravioli  with a pinch for the way they are shaped, are the quintessential stuffed pasta from the Piedmont Region.  Typically the agnolotti are served with a meat ragu, or butter and sage sauce, but at Del Posto they were sauced with a bright green puree of ramps,  a kind of wild leek, and butter.  The slight bitterness of the sauce did not overwhelm the delicious meaty filling and with the pasta we drank Dolcetto di Dogliani 2009 and the Dogliani “Il Clou” 2008, also from Clavesana.

The next course was a classic New York Strip steak with crisp fried potatoes, arugula and tomato raisins, tiny roasted cherry tomatoes with a sweet, concentrated flavor.  With it we sampled four different wines.  The first, was the “Paesi Tuoi”, a 2005 Barolo from Terre da Vino.  Next came my favorite, the Barbaresco 2004 from Vignaioli Elvio Pertinace.  This was followed by the Barbaresco “La Casa in Collina” 2003 from Terre da Vino and Barolo Serralunga 2005 from Fontanafredda.

Unfortunately, I had to get back to work, so I did not stay for dessert, a Tartufo al Caffe, with Dark Chocolate, Sant’Eustachio Coffee & Cinnamon Croutons which was served with Moncucco Moscato d’Asti 2009 from Fontanafredda.  As I write this, I am really regretting that I had to miss it.

The luncheon was a splendid opportunity to sample these outstanding wines as they should be enjoyed, with food inspired by the classic cooking of the region.  For me it was a preview of the good food and wine I will be enjoying when I go to Piedmont in a few weeks.  I wonder if I can find that Tartufo in Alba.