Childhood Heroines and Wine Extraordinaires

A couple Fridays ago was our one year anniversary of being engaged. We began the night with seeing Jerry Seinfeld, who was doing standup at that all too creatively named Chicago Theater downtown, and afterwards we decided to head to a local place downtown. I had met the chef - a transplant from Italy - at an event last year and we had previously a decent meal at his restaurant with a nice bottle of Brunello last October. However, in the year to follow the food took a bit of a dive  and the meal last Friday would have been a bust if it weren’t for the jaw-dropping bottle of wine that made the experience more than worth our while.

Sara Louise Bradshaw was on of my heroines

In order to accurately describe my wine experience with this bottle, I need to back up all the way to my childhood. I am the daughter of a fiercely independent and sharply intelligent woman and was raised to believe in my ability to be and achieve whatever I want, whether it was something expected of me as a woman or not. That resulted in my favorite hero(ines) in books and films being the strong women with teste dure who knew who they were, loved who they loved, and lived as they saw fit. This didn’t always mean the rebel; I looked up to an identified with the women and characters who were strong willed, intelligent, go-getters, and above all, believed in themselves.

It was in the Nov 2012 issue of La Cucina Italiana that I first read about Elisabetta Foradori. Hailing from the northeastern Italian region of Trentino-Alto-Adige - most widely known for its production of white grapes - Foradori is attributed with almost single-handedly putting the indigenous red grape of teroldego on the global wine world’s map. She committed herself to (wo)manning the helm of her family’s winery at the young age of 19, and one of her first tasks was ripping out the 50+ acres of the estate’s new vines bearing teroldego clones – useful for high quantity but not known for high quality – and replanting the land with clippings of the true and quality vines.

A simply magnificent wine

From this act, Foradori has not only rededicated her winery to quality wines with a worldwide following, but she’s done it her way, following her instincts and desires instead of that of others - including the DOC commission. In fact, there was a point during which the DOC regulators called her out on her deviating winemaking tactics and gave Foradori the choice to comply with their regulations or have her wines removed from the prestigious (debatably…) Italian certification. She refused to change to what she considered inferior production methods and promptly allowed her wines to drop to the lower classification of IGT. Foradori’s strong will and fierce dedication to her vines - she is a prime example of the belief that great wines begin in the vineyard not the cantina, following Rudolf Steiner’s biodynamic agricultural techniques linked to phases of the moon and returning to amphorae to ferment some of her wines – has paid off.

Foradori makes her wines bidoynamically

I read about her over a year ago (she was also recently in Wine Spectator) but did not have the pleasure of trying one of her wines until this last Friday night. While skimming through the unimpressive wine list for inspiration, I found it...a diamond in the rough:  Foradori's expression of Teroldego. Hastily calling the waiter over (like it would disappear if I didn't immediately take advantage of it), I ordered the bottle and with one taste was simultaneously ported to Trentino's cool hills, personally introduced the strength and character in the wine expressing all that I had read about the person who had so lovingly made it, and blown away by the balance, complexity, and utter elegance of the wine. 

If I have one point of this blog, it is to tell you to go, now, and get one of these wines. Don't make the mistake of admiring from afar and waiting the year I did --this was one of the best wines I have tasted in the past month and a perfect expression of all I had read about. This wine is the embodiment of what I love about Italian wine - the fact that they themselves embody their maker. And to Elisabetta - thank you for putting the strong role model that you are into the high-quality wine that you make. I will be more actively seeking my next bottle...perhaps one of the white made in 20-ft amphorae under the soft light of the Trentino moon? 

The Perfect Serving of Wine: Volumi Bollati

I'm reading Oscar Farinetti's new book, Storie di Coraggio: Vino Ti Amo (Stories of Courage: Wine, I love you - the second part being pretty much my canto to wine), in which he first recounts his experience and love affair with wine and then interviews 12 of Italy's greatest producers, during which they also taste 4 wines from other producers together and one one of the producer's choice.

I'm not too far into it, but have gotten through the introduction and the first producer, Constantino Charrère of Les Crètes in Val d'Aosta. It is clear by page 2 that although Farinetti has dedicated his life to his work with UniEuro and now with Eataly, his true love and passion is none other than the fruit of the vine; and in particular, wine from his home in Alba...and with a mother from Barolo and father from Barbaresca, he honestly had no choice.

A recurring subject in this book (or at least these first two chapters), is Farinetti's Vino Libero project, one which advocates for wine with no chemical fertilizers, herbicides, or excessive sulfites. Farinetti actually puts the objectives of the project very well in his interview with Constantino when he says "Una volta c'erano i vini puliti perché non mettevano niente, ma spesso erano anche cattivi, poi c'è stato il grande scandalo del metanolo e da lì e partita una ricerca verso vini molto buoni ma fatti senza disdegnare la chimica. Adesso le cose stanno nettamente cambiando: meno solforosa, insetticidi, concimi chimici, diserbanti, e quindi occorre andare a cercare un nuovo equilibrio, quello di un vino che sia pulito ma anche buono." Farinetti, speaking to Constantino, basically says that at one time, there were "clean" wines, but often they were bad wines. Then came the scandalous methanol, which was corrected by chemicals. Now things are changing for the better: less sulfer, insecticides, chemical fertilizers, weed killers, and so we are finding a new equilibrium - a wine that is "clean" but also good. It's an interesting concept that is unarguably growing in the wine world and is fundamental to Vino Libero, and several of Farinetti's own wines (he owns quite a few properties, especially in Piedmont) are certified as such.

Yesterday I went to Eataly to get some new wine. Not that I didn't have any - in fact, my wine fridge is just about full - but I was by myself and I love to wander the isles for as long as I'd like and just look. So for an hour I went around reading, looking, and tasting. I found that some of Farinetti's Fontanafredda wines are actually in various sizes of bottles, a concept called volumi bollati. Each of the wines that are a part of this are in 500ml bottles, 1000ml bottles, and 1500ml bottles, the idea being that you buy a bottled perfect for however many people you are with, 2, 4 or 6. I saw this and thought fantastic; my fiance was in Asia and I was by myself and didn't want to open a bottle that would stay picking up oxygen for more than 2 days.

I almost went for the Barolo, but was craving salmon pasta, so went for the La Lepre Dolcetto di Diano d'Alba instead. I ended up making a salmon and tomato-based linguine with zucchini and mushrooms sauteed in the juice that I dehydrated the mushrooms in. The mushroom pairing was obvious - Piedmont wines are known for loving mushrooms and this one brought a nice brightness to the wine - but the salmon pasta surprised me in it's ability to cut the almost dirt and earthiness, giving it a pleasant roundness that I wasn't expecting.

Today I made some pepper and turkey bolognese over spaghetti squash and to be honest, the wine got much flatter and the equilibrium we search for in wine was pretty must lost, but that bottle yesterday would have been a perfect, freshly opened serving for two...

15 Sure Signs An Italian Lives In Your Home

I have been a proud Italian American for my whole life...defending polenta and bagna cauda in my Atlanta elementary school and making pizzelle and torchetti every Christmas instead of gingerbread. But in the last few years, through working with Italy, receiving my dual citizenship, and being engaged to a Sicilian, I have become much more present-day Italian. Recently I took notice to a few aspects of our home and realized that our decor and way of living that slightly varies from that of the American norm. Here's what I found. An Italian might be living in your home if...

1. Twenty out of 24 bottles in your wine fridge are Italian, and they're good/hard to find Italian. (Allegrini La Grola, Fontanafredda No Name, Nino Negri 5 Stelle Sfursat, Cesare Bosan Amarone, Tramin Lagrein, Fontanafredda Già)

2. Both the man and woman have the same amount of shoes...it might even be that the man has more.

3. Even though the house is kept at 75 Fahrenheit, there are still two comforters on the bed.

4. A good deal of your bath products are Italian, due to the fact that you forgot to pack them on your latest trip (see above nail polish remover...thank you Fiumicino farmacia!)

 5. Your coffee maker is a bit...smaller...than those in American households (and in my case, your Italian fiance does not know how to make drip coffee - it is a confusing concept to him).

6. 75% of your hot tea collection is Chamomile. Did you know it cures all? Even una colpa di vento (which exists only if you are Italian).

7. Carb staples in the house? Pasta, polenta, and risotto. The only rice that is actually used is risotto - any other kind expired years ago but is kept in the back because you never throw anything away.

8. Important dinner tools include a ricer (also used for gnocchi), pasta maker, and ravioli cutter.

9. Washcloths...what are those? Decorative towels that you only use to dry your hands, of course! (Definitely not for washing in the shower).

10. Even if it is freezing out, the window is open. We need to air out the apartment, after all.

11. You apartment decorations are ceramics from your respective region (Caltagirone from Catania in our household).

  

12. Your cookbook collection includes IlCucchiaio d'Argento..and a libro del pane.

13. Your cereal collection remains unopened until you have guests, but Belvita has a nice dent in it.

14. Your wine openers are gifted from friends or people you've met.

15. Padre Pio and St. Francis are staples on the night tables and bedroom walls.

 Anyone out there also experienced these cultural bridges, let's call them?

To Somm or Not to Somm: The Communicative Method of Wine

It's been a good six months since I've been meaning to sit down and watch the recent-ish documentary Somm. Every month or so another one of my friends or family stumbles across it and contacts me asking if "I've seen that new documentary yet- the one about the wine..."  Anyway it's been a busy fall between traveling to and from weddings and wine events and I hadn't seen it until I had the fortune of it it as an option for an flight movie option on our way to Aspen last week (Delta has redeemed itself in my book- free bags with Delta Skymiles Amex and personal TV screens... Hallelujah!).

I wasn't sure what to expect or even if I was going to like the movie - the sommelier diploma has long been something that I've eyed with awe and with skepticism. My courses with the International Sommelier Guild last year often approached wine as an objective liquid. Classes felt like we were putting it into a box with rights and wrongs focusing on the details and not the story or the experience as a whole. A lot of times it wasn't fun, and I often felt that we were losing the forest for the trees. Yes, being able to tell a good wine from a bad requires a fair amount of knowledge, but the knowledge was packed so hard that it suffocated itself at times. I missed the conversations about how that particular bottle came about, the special occasions it's graced, and which piece of the winemaker's heart was in it.

I guess you could call me a communicative wine theorist. This term harks back to my second-language education days graduate school days of theory. Learning a foreign language and learning wine aren't quite that different, really.  Back in the 1950s, second-language acquisition was almost entirely taught by what is called the grammar translation method. It was a method by which students would study the grammatical rules and vocabulary of a language and practice, hardly speaking or watching natural conversation, by rote memorization. Lessons were only conjugating verbs, grammatical exercises and direct translation, and most students who exited the class could not put a full, comprehensive sentence together when speaking or writing to a native. As the years passed, the the 60s and 70s held several very strange methods of second language acquisition (one of these being the silent method, during which osmosis was expected to do the trick with no practice...just think sponge) - we'll call those years growing pains. Eventually, however, in the 90s and now in the 2000s with the widespread use of English and the growing need for people actually being able to communicate in English across the globe, the communicative method has emerged.

Conversation over wine at Villa della Torre

The communicative language teaching method means less of a focus on rote grammar and more emphasis on teaching students to model their speech and  writing after actual native speakers. This means use of authentic materials, many communicative  activities, and only the teaching basic grammatical rules which will then be applied flexibility to the students' own idiolect. (Idiolect: an individual's own way of speaking, often with syntax, semantics and structure which slightly differs than that of those around them.) Each person put their own spin on the language, and although there are general rules which language follows, it changes based on exposure, region, individual, and several other external factors. The person's language is fluid, and teaching a second language must recognize that and allow for that.

Costanza at the Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School at Regaleali

The same kind of theory can be applied to my approach to wine to some extent. To be a master sommelier you must commit yourself entirely to the grammar translation method, and I'm not sure that's how I approach wine. This doesn't mean that I do not want to be able to name all of the regions in Burgundy or all of the crazy levels and qualifications of German Qualitätswein - I hope to one day do that, and  in fact, I have spent a good deal of time and money on certifications and lessons in just that. But at the end of the day, when I speak in these terms I do not feel as though I am completely speaking about the wine the way that it is meant to be spoke about. I feel that I am speaking robot, grammar translation wine. I instead want to learn about the communicative part of wine, one that I can share with people other than just sommeliers - I not only want to know the grapes that are in it and the year that it was me but I also want to know who made it where it came from, what food was made to be drink with. I want to know the story behind the wine, not just if it is in a barrique or a bottle.

When I have learned the story or -ideally - have actually visited the place that the wind came from and spoke with the people whose love and labor is reflected in each bottle- that is when I feel like I am speaking wine. I use my own idolect then - my own experience with the wine, and in describing it, my own experience with flavors and exposure  I believe that you can't taste a wine without its and your experiences pouring themselves into your tasting. What wines can I describe best? Allegrini, Tasca, Giacosa, Castello di Neive, Antinori, Ferrari, Vinolibero, wines at Fontanafredda, Villa Dora, Nicola Trabbuco, - I haven't been to all of these properties, but I have done my research, and knowing where it comes from changes the wine.

So back to the documentary. The introduction intrigued me, whenever the four candidates are introducing themselves and their love for wine. I distinctly remember one instance where one of the candidates was describing the experience of wine. He said "it is almost like a way to travel around the world."  But that world in the movie was just a bunch of maps and regions with grapes varietals, alcohol levels, tannins, acidity, aromas and bouquets. It was also a world of fierce competition with one another and oneself. The world of right and wrong that is only enjoyable once you prove yourself to someone who in the end won't be there at your wedding, the birth of your child, or you funeral. It's a world where you emanate someone, be the greatest of the greatest by following the greatest of the greatest, not being yourself. There was no idolect in Somm.

Villa Dora - it's not just the volcano in that wine, for me

Right now I am reading Oscar Farinetti's book Storie di Coraggio: Vino Ti Amo. I just finished the first interview where he speaks with the Costantino Charrère of Les Cretes in Val d'Aosta. Farinetti asks the man where he learned his trade and found his ambition The producer answers in two simple words lo specchio. The mirror.

At one point during the film the candidates for discussing a blind tasting. The conversation was focused on whether certain wine was either Brunello di Montalcino or Barolo - both are big Italian wines that are widely respected, and both can age very well - and the candidate couldn't tell which it was. But they are completely different. My first thought and this is not whether or not the cherries and tobacco of Brunello could be confused with the dead forests of leaves and dried violets of the Barolo, but with how could you possibly mix up a cool, dew-covered wine of Piedmont with a sunny wine of Tuscany? The wine as whole expressed not only the tannins, alcohol, and flavors, but the territory. It was communicating and some Somm's maybe weren't listening.

I have the utmost respect for sommeliers and still am considering one day becoming one. But I also like speaking my own idolect when it comes to wine - one that knows the ground rules and is schooled to some extent, but it also draws on my experience. I think that's how wine should be.

The Anomalous Gem: Veneto Monovarietals

"The Veneto is special as far as Italian wine regions are concerned," Giancarlo Mastella, director of Allegrini's illustrious Villa della Torre estate once said to me over a tasting, "because unlike other regions in Italy, we do not have a star red grape like Sangiovese in Tuscany or Nebbiolo in Piemdmont. Instead, we have three." These three grapes are a source of pride for Veneto winemakers, whose Valpolicella, Ripasso, and Amarone wines are blends of the three red indigenous grapes, Corvina, Rondinella, and Molinara. In fact, it is often rare to find a monovarietal red hiding behind the classic bottles of "Corvina blends" from the Valpolicella region.

However, there are some playful Valpolicella producers who have dedicated a spot in their cantine to the Corvina grape (corvina coming from the Latin word for "black," giving a pretty good indication of the grape's color) and all of its cherry-flavored glory. Most recently I have had two which have impressed me so much that they are more than worth sharing. 

Cesari Jèma Corvina Veronese IGT

Made of hand-harvested Corvina grapes which have been dried for 20 days before an extended 20 day maceration on its skins and 18 months in oak, this wine is beautifully structured. It took about an hour for the cherry flavor with hints of chocolate to fully open, and once it did, I wished I had bought more bottles. I drank Jèma - with comes from the Italian gemma, meaning both "gem" and "bud on a grape vine" - on New Year's eve with a buttery filet mignon, but any game meats or aged cheeses would compliment this gem of a Jèma beautifully.

Allegrini La Poja Corvina Veronese IGT

In 1979, Giovanni Allegrini made the unconventional decision to plant only Corvina Veronese grapes in the best possible location of his vineyards at the top of La Grola hill (any visit to Villa della Torre will quickly reveal how proud the family is of that particular spot and those vines). I remember sitting at the table with Giancarlo as he introduced me to the wine, placing it even after the conventional Amarone and praising it for its innovativeness (in being a monovarietal), structure, balance, and piacevolezza (pleasantness). And it deserved it - the wine was structured, complex, and told the story of the elegance of Verona and the gentile sophistication of the Allegrini family. The full-bodied La Poja spends four years aging and intense flavors of dark cherries, herbs, and spices appear after about an hour of being open, has stellar age-ability of 15-20 years and can be paired with aged cheeses, game, and red meats. 

Any others I'm forgetting or thoughts on these innovative, interesting wines?