Arancini!!!

I've seen them in Italian cook books, websites, menus, and even tried them a couple of times but the fact is, until yesterday, I have never successfully made arancini, the delicious Sicilian specialty with a million variations. At their heart arancini are basically little balls of risotto that are stuffed with a filling of choice, then deep fried and served crispy. Traditional sicilian recipes call for a stuffing of peas, tomatoes and beef but the basic soft-and-gooey-on-the-inside, crispy-on-the-outside formula applies regardless of the details. They make a ridiculously irresistible snack but the preparation and time spent making them is more on par with a 3 course meal so it takes some real dedication to make them your self.

Since summer has been fading into chilly, windy fall I have been getting some serious cravings for risotto. Couple that with a bottle of the new 2006 vintage of the Produttori del Barbaresco Langhe Nebbiolo, and I knew it was time. The recipe I picked featured arancini stuffed with gorgonzola and spinach, definitely a Northern spin on a Southern dish, and definitely perfect for nebbiolo. After spending at least an hour making the risotto, it was 11pm and I was ready to give in and just eat it as it was- and it totally would have been good- but I kept seeing visions of little gooey, crispy arancini on a plate laughing at me for my lack of follow through, and I knew I couldn't let them win.

Finally, 2 hours after I started, they were done:

I included the wine and glass in the picture to prove what a nerd I am. I have to say it was totally worth it- they were perfectly crispy on the outside, and soft and gooey on the inside, and perfect with the bright flavors of the nebbiolo. Now I just need to find a couple of hours to make some more.

People need to eat more polenta!!!

Since my last trip to Italy I have been fiending for some serious polenta. Here in the US the closest thing we have to polenta is grits, a ground corn product that is purportedly eaten for breakfast in the South... Up in Chicago grits entered my life via My Cousin Vinnie, where it played an important role in the tangled plot, and made me realize that Italians were not alone in being proud of their ground corn. In Italy polenta is prepared a number of ways, the preparation varying mostly on the geography and/or regional preference of the chef. When I was in Venice last February I was in a small tavern and behind the counter I saw what looked like little sandwiches piled up with the common theme being that all the "bread" was polenta. Each sandwich consisted of 2 pieces of polenta with it's own filling: one was herring, another Gorgonzola, and yet another was Prosciutto, and so on. After ordering a selection the whole thing is pressed in a panini machine and served hot. The result is, of course, magical, in a sort of I-am-abroad type of way, but needs to be shared.

Almost 3 months later I decided to make some polenta sandwiches. After cooking and cooling the polenta I sauteed up some garlic, shallots, shrimp, and Dover Sole, flavored with white wine(Tocai Friulano). I only made a couple since this was a test run so this is what I came up with. 2 "wiches filled with shrimp and the one in the foreground was the Dover Sole.
Here goes:
After cooking with your broth/flavoring of choice, and then cooling the batch, cut the polenta into little squares, then throw it onto a hoooot cast-iron griddle until you have burn marks, then flip over, fry briefly, then assemble each sandwich for each person. It is a bunch of work but it is sooo good.
I used Tocai for cooking the food but for eating with this meal there is nothing better than a glass of Bardolino- a wine very similar to Valpolicella. Mmm. I cannot wait to go back...
Mark!

More tasty memories...

I received a bunch of samples from a local importer and decided I had to make some stuffed yellow peppers. Most of the wines were from Northern Italy but a couple of the whites seemed to brighten up this Southern Italy dish of yellow peppers stuffed with day old bread softened with olive oil and mixed with olives, capers, garlic, parsley and cheese. Two things that I am now sure of: 1) that Friuli has a great potential for the production of exquisite white wines, and; 2) Tocai Friulano, in particular, is a seriously underrated wine that will soon find its way into the mainstream. That's all.

Pictures of fun times

MMM, handmade potato dough pizza topped with zucchine, yellow peppers, capers, and olives paired with Montepulciano D'Abruzzo. I think the wine wasn't a bit too cool-climate for the food, but both are still a couple of my favorites.

Vouvray and the test of time

If you know me you probably know by now that I enjoy a good amount of acidity in wine. It is no surprise of course, that I love the incredible whites from the Loire valley from lean, minerally Muscadet to decadent sweet Moelleux (pronounced mway-le)Vouvray. These wines, thanks to their acidity, are legendary for their potential to age and wine lovers will often tell tales of drinking astonishingly old vintages. I had my first experience a couple of years ago when I tasted a 1990 Vouvray from the Domaine du Viking. Though I don’t remember exactly when it was, I know that the wines was at least 12 years old and it the way it tasted amazed me. It was bright, full of fresh acidity, but time had given it nuttiness and a depth of flavor that I hadn’t ever experienced in Vouvray- all this from a producer that I hadn’t even really heard of, and haven’t really seen lately in our market. Looking at the great labels of Vouvray on the shelf at work from producers like Huet, Foreau and Nicolas Joly, I wondered how wines considered benchmarks for their appellations -symbols of quality and dedication in the vineyard- would fare after some extensive aging.

After some searching on the internet and around town I ended up procuring a bottle of 1971 Domaine Huet Clos du Bourg Vouvray from a friend with an extensive cellar. As soon as I got the wine I planned a dinner and started prepping by doing some reading about what I should expect and if the wine might even be over the hill. With the night of the tasting upon us I started wondering if drinking a 37 year old white wine might be too good to be true. Maybe people just write about drinking insanely old wines because it is exclusive and they end up fooling themselves into liking them…maybe. The level of the wine was definitely lower than a young bottle and I could see, holding the bottle up to the light, that the color was surely different from any other I had seen. Removing the capsule, I really got nervous when I saw that the cork was covered in thick, black mold, no doubt the sweet wine had started to seep through the cork and became food for mold. Pulling out the cork was tough since it wanted to crumble and fall into the bottle, but we couldn’t let that happen! Finally the moment arrived and we poured our glasses. The golden color was inspiring and I could smell fresh apples…I suspected we were about to taste magic.

Absolutely magical.

The flavors and aromas mingled like colors in a pile of leaves, there were fresh appley scents as well as apricot, honey and then some butter, and of course, bright acidity framing the whole thing. After tasting several times I decided I didn’t even want to have any food with it, it was enough to just appreciate the wine by itself, unadorned in all its glory. How amazing it must have been, the first time somebody tasted a wine this old and expected it to be bad. Imagine the thrill of being a winemaker and realizing what your wine is worth 37 years down the line. I get a chill just thinking about how in the past 37 years seasons have come and gone, people have been to the moon and back, people are born, other people die, and all the while the wine is resting peacefully under ground, evolving slowly, revealing layer upon layer. For all this I have one word: amazing!

Lamb+ Cabernet Franc

Sometimes you happen upon a recipe or a wine and they really seem to mesh together well. Sometimes, however, the pairing turns out to be really amazing, and the total experience ends up being truly enlightening. Last night I decide that I wanted to try out a lamb recipe in preparation for this Sunday, where we will taste some very old Bandols. I chose a Friulano recipe that sounded simple , yet flavorful. Leg of lamb is cubed and browned in a pot with some onion and garlic that are sizzling in some olive oil, then you throw in some beef broth and cook for a half an hour. After a half an hour on low heat you add a spoonful of tomato paste, some red wine ( I used '06 Paitin Barbera D'Alba) and a dash of cinnamon. Simmer on low for another half an hour, and that is it.
When I tasted the lamb it was so soft, flavorful, and rich it was much more than I expected. We just so happened to have a bottle of Cabernet Franc from the Loire valley open and it was an amazing combination. Loire Cabernet Franc is my girlfriend's favorite but we often drink it as a do-all wine that ends up being paired with some silly food that we are eating like thai food or something spicy. Tonight, though, I decided to make the lamb and it might have been the best food and wine pairing I have ever had. You take gamey, fatty lamb meat and pair it with brightly acidic, aromatic, slightly tannic Cabernet Franc and you get magic. Magic! Acid met fat and earthy wine met gamey meat, and the result was perfect. I am sorry for taking this too far but how can you pass up the opportunity to share a great experience.
I am going to make the dish again with a couple of very rare wines.
This Sunday is going to be a special night. We will be doing some very old wines with some simple, savory dishes and it will be a lot of fun. We will have Tempier Bandols "La Tourtine" from 1982 and 1985 as well as a 1971 Huet Vouvray "Clos du Bourg" Moelleux. I will write more after Sunday, for sure- as for now, drink some Bourgeuil!

mm mm mm Vouvray!

I just finished reading Wine and War, by Donald and Petie Kladstrup, which i will have to say is my first official wine nerd book. It details the experiences of vineyard owners and vignerons in France during the German occupation during World War II. I could write and write about the book but the reason I bring it up is because the book talks a lot about the Loire valley, and how some producers played a part in the resistance, while others, like Gaston Huet, were POWs. The Loire is one of my favorite wine making regions in France, a region that has very high quality reds and whites but yet is often sadly overlooked when people list great wine regions. While i love Cabernet Franc, what I love about the Loire the most are the wines made from Chenin Blanc. From crisp, off dry Vouvray to seriously dry, rich Savennieres, the spectrum of flavors is really amazing.
Tonight i had the pleasure of drinking a sparkling Vouvray from the producer Champalou. Sparkling Vouvray has a certain effect on me that I do not really understand. One sip and I picture myself standing in a cold, damp cellar being poured a barrel sample and I just cannot get over it. The wine tonight is not really that complex, showing lots of fresh apple and pear scents with maybe a little litchi aroma, with a lower acidity than I would have imagined. With 12% alcohol, I found myself drinking more than my fair share and not even realizing it. While i thought to myself that maybe a simple wine is a bit disappointing, sometimes the greatest achievement is not a wine that conjures a string of over-done phrases adorned with adjectives or descriptors, but a wine that is at once simple yet satisfying, and that is certainly how i would describe the Vouvray tonight. So instead of searching for complexity that may not even be there I am content with saying "mm mm mm, Vouvray."

Italy, Italy, Italy

Ok so I have been back from Italy for almost a week and I haven't event posted anything. I must be crazy, right? Well, let's just say that I am feeling kind of overwhelmed, so much food and so much wine and now i have to figure out what to write about. Well, sitting around not writing isn't very interesting so I might as well just get on it.
First of all I should start with the fact that i went to Treviso, a city just outside of Venice in the Veneto that is (relatively)famous for its radicchio. In terms of wine, the Veneto is famous for a couple of things, and abounds with misconceptions: Valpolicella, a wine that can be made in several ways (including Recioto and Amarone) boasts wines that range from easy drinking and refreshing to decadent and incredibly dense and sweet, is readily available at most wine retailers; Soave, a white that can be brilliantly expressive of minerals, fruit and aromatics, but often thought of as cheap, poorly made quaffing wine; Prosecco, the grape responsible for many sparkling wines from low quality, high volume production wines to delicious, expressive, low quantity wines from the hill of Cartizze. Besides the aforementioned, the Veneto produces a lot of beautiful wine including the famous sweet wines of Maculan, crisp and refreshing Lugana and Bianco di Custoza, and of course, the often maligned Bardolino.
The focus of this last trip was definitely Prosecco, a grape that produces yummy sparkling wines of the same name and can be quite a good value. Prosecco, by nature, is light and pleasantly aromatic, usually smelling strongly of peaches and, as such, tastes best when it has abundant acidity. A wine like this does not scream for oak nor does it benefit from aging. Let's get one thing straight: Prosecco is all about freshness. When matched with food that is typical of the Veneto Prosecco showed me that often the best wine for a meal is one that doesn't interfere with the flavors of the food. While I would never say that a well made Prosecco has no flavor, it certainly does not have the aggressive nature of an aged Champagne. That is, it is clear that Prosecco evolved as a wine suited to everyday drinking, serving as a crisp, refreshing foil to the rich, starchy food of the region. Speaking of the food, I think I need to do a separate post because the food I had was so unbelievable that if i keep writing about it here i will never finish this post.
Anyways, Prosecco reaches its ultimate expression when it comes from Cartizze, a very small area that consists of hills, steep slopes and little calderas. It is here that you get the best of the following: Southern disposition, high altitude, optimum drainage, and clay soil. The result is wines with body and fruit, freshness, acidity, and minerality. Cartizze was extremely steep, with little hills and slopes interweaving and forming a beautiful patchwork. Land is crazy expensive and it makes you wonder why wine that doesn't age well can cost so much.
Well, it is getting late and I think it is time for me to go to bed so I can be somewhat productive tomorrow. I will do a post about the beautiful food of the Veneto very soon- I PROMISE!!
Mark!

Provence night.

So about a week and a half ago my girlfriend were in the mood to have a feast and our dear Chicago winter had been treating us to some particularly frigid weather conditions so we decided that feasting on some food from the sunny South of France might be just the ticket.
This is what we ended up making: a very simple potato dish that involves baking slices of potato and sticking some rosemary and garlic underneath very simple and savory; another easy dish that turned out to be a new favorite of mine- scallops baked with red bell pepper tomato, thyme, tomato, and garlic; and, just to deviate from the theme, some Pugliese stuffed yellow peppers.
To go with all this I picked out a 2006 Chateau Pradeaux Bandol Rose and, as a back up, a Cotes de Provence rouge from the negociant Jerome Quiot. I figured the rose would be perfect given the fact that all the dishes revolved around vegetables and that we didn't have any substantial meat presence. Instead of finding out if my estimation was on or not we found out that even Bandol rose does not keep well with the fruit totally gone just leaving the acid and alcohol at this point. I have to say, however, that Chateau Pradeaux is a very good producer, so I do not attribute this unfortunate experience to the ineptitude of the producer but simply to the fact that we were drinking the wine about 7 seven months after the intended consumption date.
The aforementioned red was almost equally disappointing with some nice fruit and spice aromas in the nose but the palate seemed like it was not quite yet done: fruit was light and there was virtually no structure provided by tannin or acid- definitely not what I expected...
Anyways, the highlight of the night was surely the scallop dish. I hadn't had scallops in months (maybe even a year!) so I sure was surprised when this simpled recipe yielded such a great dish. I really, really, wished that the rose had showed better because I couldn't imagine a dish better suited to Bandol Rose. The blending of sweet scallops and red bell pepper, with garlic, olive oil, and some nice tomato acid was so refreshing it really made me feel like I was hanging out in a place in Avignon or Arles wiping sweat from my brow.
That is all for now, if I am feeling generous I will post the recipe for the scallop dish, if not you will be treated to more of me talking about lame wine and food drudgery.
Mark!

...and we're BACK!

So this last week or so was a pretty tough one- everyone at work has been passing around sickness and just when I thought I had gotten rid of it- BAM! It cam right back, and given my habit of not sleeping enough, I think my system wasn't quite as ready as it should have been. Anyways, the point is that I have been sick for the past week and all wine I have smelled or tasted barely gave me any impressions so I have not been posting as usual, and for that I apologize. The good news is that in the past couple days that I have been well I have tasted a couple of things that are really worth talking about so I will have some words in a few. Also of note, I will be in Italy from the 1st until the 5th so I will try my best to taste as much wine as possible and I will bring my laptop so I can keep people filled in on anything spectacular.
Mark!

Everything in it's Right Place

Last night I had dinner with a friend at a Moroccan restaurant on Clark Street called Casbah. He had just returned from visiting his family in Bordeaux, part of whom owns a Chateau in Pessac-Leognan called Chateau d’Eyran. Chateau d’Eyran has fifteen hectares of sandy limestone soil in a village named St. Médard d'Eyrans. The vineyard is planted to 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 45% Merlot and 5% Petit Verdot. The same family has owned Chateau d’Eyran since the 18th century and today is made by a man named Stéphane Savigneux. Grapes are hand harvested and aged in oak barrel for one year.
Unfortunately, d’Eyran is not available in Chicago, but my friend brought back a few bottles of 2000, one of which we took to the restaurant.
Upon opening the wine was showing more oak on the nose than I would have liked, but quickly evolved aromatically. About a third of the way through the bottle, fruit and mineral flavors had digested the wood, and by the last glass, the stoney, limestone components were roaring from mid-palate to finish. This was a well-proportioned Bordeaux, at 12.5% alcohol, with good tension between fruit, tannin and eventually, oak. The mid-palate was dense and broad, but avoided clumsy over-extraction, the finish laden with red fruits and Pessac gravel. The wine demonstrated what Bordeaux is at it's best, digestable but captivating and designed with harmony in mind.
For dinner, I ordered skewered lamb chunks over couscous. The meat was savory and tender and typical for me, everything was gone from my plate too quickly. As expected, the wine and lamb were great together, never speaking over the other, but sharing a pleasant, multicultural conversation. I was disappointed when my plate and glass were empty.

More interesting wine from Friuli

Just when it seems like you've tasted everything or you start to get bored with wine something always comes along and teaches you that you can never taste everything, and there will always be something new and different to grab your attention. We were tasting through some wines from Friuli, the region in the upper Northeast corner of Italy and I saw on the table a new wine from a producer whose wines have a bit of a cult following. Based in Valeriano in the Eastern side of Friuli, Emilio Bulfon produces wines from grapes that are native to Friuli- grapes which he saved from extinction, and which only he produces. While I know that I tasted through all of his wines last year with him at VinItaly, I was shocked when I saw the new label. The wines I was most familiar with are single varietal wines and it was surprising that this was a blend of some of them. All of the grapes are hand harvested and the final blend is 35% Piculit-Neri, 15% Forgiarin, 15% Cjanorie, and 35% Refosco del Peduncolo Rosso. I have been surprised in the past by his wines, but this really surprised me.
The nose was showing lots of fruit, though not at all candied or baked- very fresh. In the mouth persistent fruit was backed up by plenty of acid and the finish is clean, juicy, and minerally but showing some nice tannin for structure. The alcohol level was higher than most Friuli reds but I think I can deal with it because the wine is so balanced.
If I can think of one big problem it is that it is really hard to sell people things that taste nothing like anything they have ever had. Sure I could say this sort of reminds of really young Merlot from Bordeaux blended with a young Barbera D'asti or something like that but there are probably only a handful of people for whom my description would provide some sort of idea of what to expect. My point is: the more we explore and expose ourselves to more unique, varietals, the more reference points we gain, and that means we can all try new things without being afraid of not liking it. My advice is that if you ever see a wine made by Emilio Bulfon- you can tell which ones are his, all his labels look somewhat like the one above- you should pick it up. They are all wonderful expressions of grapes that might not ever try if you didn't make an effort. Go forth! Discover the World is full of treasure!
Mark!