Ulge wine food travel lifestyle blog

July 7th, 2022

Part one. The underworld. 

Sulfur rises from the earth. It passes through freezing water, and sticks to my legs. My feet wobble on round river stones. The liquid elicits a flight reaction. I force my body deeper. It is painful. I collapse wholly under the surface. Thermal normalization never comes. Completely submerged, then floating, every second is a struggle to remain in the frigid pool.

Talese Terme smells like eggs. Elegant gardens surround the spring. Columns, statues, art nouveau posters of bathers with parasols drinking sulfurous water as a curative. The literature that accompanies my 12 euro entrance fee suggests Talese’s fizzy water is a miracle liquid to heal many small maladies. Two long arcs of whitewashed alcoves surround the pool. A reclining chair is tucked into each alcove. They are comfortable. After the plunge I sink into one, and doze off. Cognitive function is gone. My body uses all available power to return its temperature to the normal range for land mammals. 

Locals migrate from pool to solarium, and from alcove to water’s-edge. But the cast of characters is constant. Tickets are sold for three-hour increments. The same two dozen bathers that are present when I arrive are basking in the southern Italian sunshine when I depart. Through heavy eyelids, I admire their regular movements. It seems they are the mechanism of a pool-sized clock. The clusters of bodies are parts of a wide, orchestrated motion. Does it continue outside the pool, through the dappled gardens, across the town? Or does synchronicity only extend to beings enveloped by the sulfurous cloud? Is the gas satan’s secret weapon? Are we idle at his behest? I’m pulled under by dreams. My eyes flit open for a second. Bronzed pieces of a cosmic machine rotate under the mezzogiorno sun. I inhale deeply, and pass again through the curtain.  

With 30 minutes of my allotment left, I startle awake. I’m dry. It’s time to go. Maria is making pizza. My skin is now pink from radiation, not cold. 

Part two: Angel’s wings. 

It’s an improbable location for a butterfly museum. Down a winding street with stones trodden smooth by medieval oxen. Inside old town walls, below a monolith hewn from rock that once served as a keep. Single-file passageways for nobility fleeing from this imposing mountain fortress lead to a spare modern room filled with angel’s wings. A lawyer of some kind lived here. I’ve forgotten details. His life as a collector is the least interesting part of our story. Two sullen administrators from the town hall are our guides. They have been conscripted to explain Guardia Sanframondi’s deconsecrated church, the restored paintings of Paolo de Matteis, a minor local 17th century artist whose work once adorned the chapel and the secret butterfly collection. 

The museum’s shattered, pressure-treated glass door dredges memories of a recently-robbed Fiat. Behind the vandalised door lives an impressive collection of insects. The room is beautifully curated. Sorted by country of origin and date of capture, two long arcs of subtly illuminated old wooden cases span the room, and four decades. The colors are intact. Even luminous butterflies impaled while Truman was president look alive. Frozen. Or very still. Massive devil-horned beetles and gargantuan hairy spiders glower in a corner, but the main space is commanded by lepidoptera the color of daisies in spring, with wings of lace, and wingspans as large as hands. Picked from fields in Japan and Brazil and Formosa, the variety is arresting. 

My thoughts sour. I’m certain the biodiversity in this room is no longer present across continents. An unnecessarily pessimistic outlook. Few people know less about insects than I do. 

Pasquale Morone knows the microcosmos. He studies it in fields of Falanghina, and under rows of Fiano vines where his vegetable garden thrives. Pasquale is a smiling instigator for our unlicensed butterfly tour, and the trip through his hometown church and museum. Later, we see his open-air museum to the lost art of polyculture. Under a canopy of vines, he grows little bright red strawberries, giant pumpkins, all imaginable verdure: tomatoes, zucchini, kale, beans. The flavors of Campania, the food he and Maria eat every day. 

Naked long-necked chickens pace in a cage at the entrance to Pasquale’s field. There are fruit trees: orange, lemon, apricot. The sun is on our backs, so we roll a few hundred feet up the road, and speak to a worker loitering behind orange construction fencing. Deeper underground, the Italian government is tunneling through these fields. A high speed train will connect Naples to Benevento to Bari. As its carriages hurtle past at 200km per hour, will they rattle Pasquale’s already nervous chickens? I’m concerned that egg quality will suffer. Preoccupied poultry won’t peck through the dust to find invasive bugs. Eggs yolks will fade from orange to yellow. Cakes will regress from sublime to ordinary. Glassy-winged sharpshooters will no longer be protein for fowl. Invasive insects will prey upon the tender skin of just-ripe Fiano bunches. Scant bottles stored in the cellar will dwindle to nothing. We’ll have to import gelato instead of wine.

Pasquale is proud of growing almost everything the Morone family eats. Coppa served with pizza lunch is from his pigs. They raise two swine per year. He’s even more proud of the lievito madre pizza crust that he proofed for 36 hours. The long rise creates an ethereal base for a simple salsa, made from Pasquale’s tomatoes. Maria Morone speaks with scorn about greasy, overly-elaborate pizza. “Flour, salt, water, tomato, a little mozzarella, it’s all you need.” I can’t think of a plausible counter-point. We are dining on the patio above their cellar. Afternoon rain is falling. The air is fresh, the “sleeping woman” mountain range is coming into sharp focus across the valley. If this is a simple life, it is also one full of sensory bliss.

Campania is saturated with color. Baked orange terracotta tiles, trees dotted with tropical fruit, flowering prickly pears. The language is floral. Pasquale shares a stream of colloquialisms to explain how farmers in Guardia Sanframondi see the universe. Country wisdom. The value of strong women, the poverty of too many children, etc. It’s clear that growing plants makes Pasquale happy. And he enjoys showing off Guardia, and the surrounding countryside.    

At harvest, Pasquale and his collaborators will deliver crates of ripe Falanghina grapes to the courtyard where we dine. Maria creates a constant stream of earthly delights in the winery’s professional kitchen, enough food for a large family of hungry grape pickers. Breads, cakes, focaccias, homemade yogurts, rolls stuffed with mortadella. I suspect she never sleeps. Skylights in the cellar will be opened, and fruit will be passed into fermenters waiting below. Once the fruit descends from above, it passes into the hands of Pasquale’s children Eleonora and Giovanni, and childhood friend Anna della Porta. The trio take Pasquale’s grapes and transform them to wine. 

Over dinner the following evening, Giovanni Morone explains that his father is strong, but not obstinate like many farmers in the area. He farms, and allows his children to use new ideas in the cellar. He’s accepting of the trio’s enthusiasm for biodynamic agriculture. Next year, Cantina Morone will start farming in this manner. Philosophically, it’s not too great a distance from the traditional polyculture Pasquale learned from his wife’s mother, to the principles outlined by Rudolf Steiner and his disciples. But it takes a person with an open mind and big heart to connect this region’s agricultural past with its future.    

Part three: Nirvana.

It’s an improbable location for Italy’s best pizzeria. Down a winding alley paved with white stones so slick that I almost fall during the descent, even though I’ve visited pizza paradise before. Fiery rays from dusk dart up the alley, and make bas relief profiles of the facing mountains. The valley still smolders from afternoon rain. Charcoal clouds and heat lightning define the sky.

Frano Pepe pauses at our table and asks if we are enjoying the evening. It’s Thursday at 8pm, and he’s monitoring the situation. Intermittent rain is falling, enough to force guests from the “zone of silence,” a conversation-free seating area hidden in a garden below the ancient stone walls of Pepe in Grani’s alleyway entrance. 

We are enjoying the evening. After two fried pizzas, it’s time for assessment. What can we accomplish?  Our intentions are torn up. We chart a more viable approach. The first fried pizza had an onion cream sauce, fried chickpeas, fresh dandelion greens, and crispy onions that brought happy comparisons to the garnish on green bean casserole. Thanksgiving may be the only other day when I’ve been so full! For no real reason, the tacchino is a recurring conversational motif during time in Campania. Pasquale Morone has keen interest in the bird. He asks many questions, and expresses shock and doubt at my insistence that turkeys do indeed grow to monstrous proportions, even in the wild. When I propose that they can rest in trees, his incredulity passes a tipping point. My credibility as a certified American turkey expert is extinguished. 

The second fried pizza is topped with rounds of fresh tomato, anchovies from nearby Cetara, and grated lemon zest. Pepe in Grani’s menu is a pantry full of local ingredients. The third pizza has bufala ricotta from Il Casolare caseificio piped into the center of elegant ham florets. If you need any convincing that Franco is a maestro in top form, consider the phrase “elegant ham florets” and whether your local pizzaiolo could accomplish such singular porcine beauty on a pie. A deft touch is required. The ricotta is milky and light. The ham is ornate, the shape and contour of a rose. The composition of each slice is masterful. Someone in the kitchen has practiced its form a thousand times. 

The patio is airy and cool at dusk. Caiazzo has spectacular vistas, commonplace to hilltop towns in Campania. I’m comfortable in a button-down shirt and jeans. I dress up a little for pizza. It seems rude to wear shorts in the presence of greatness. Still, it's July. Maria’s disdain for American pizza styles still resonates. So we order the Sfizio al Pomodoro, a pizza whose just-cooked yellow Datterini tomatoes cause audible gasps from my daughter, and then myself. Not because they are hot (though they are) but because a fruit has never tasted more like a tomato. They are incendiary, an improvement on the golden ripe cherry picked warm from your garden vine, and popped immediately in the mouth. Impossible. Hyper-real, transcendent, the juice slightly thickened like an ancient balsamic, sweet/sour/savory at perfect pitch, 33 1/3 per element. The rest of the slice is the frame. Trapani salt is just better. Grana, sun-dried tomatoes, olive oil. 

Predictably, and still surprising for a pizzeria, the desserts at Pepe in Grani are outstanding. The honey and rosemary strips are really zeppole, with a ramekin of sweetened bufala ricotta and a dusting of fine granulated sugar and orange zest. Each one I eat makes me less full. Like the pizza that started our meal, the zeppoli are pillowy, airy, as light as a fried food can possibly be. 

Ricotta and pistachio ice cream comes sandwiched between hazelnut biscuits. The flavor is exceptional, somehow more “real” than confectionery flavor can be. Which is a theme. Franco tightens up each dish until the flavors are perfectly defined. 

We walk down the main street of Caiazzo to our car. It is raining. The ancient black stones are lined like the furrows on my brow. How can Franco’s food be so far above everything else? Heat lightning arcs across the sky. Tomorrow we’ll cross the mountains that frame Caizzo to the east, and pass into Molise. My thoughts will stay in Campania much longer.

Tasted in Campania:

2020 Cantina Morone “Monaci” Falanghina IGP - A whiff of smoke. Apple. Serve with mozzarella di bufala, ripe tomatoes, and olive oil 

2020 Cantina Morone Albanora Falanghina del Sannio - Peach aroma. Very bright. This is my favorite of Cantina Morone’s wines. Pairing possibilities abound. Grilled chicken and summer vegetables, bruschetta of caramelized onions, fresh tomatoes, cime di rapa.

2021 Cantina Morone rosato - Bottled 15 days ago. 100% Camaiola, a promising indigenous grape that used to be called Barbera, which stirred up confusion on all sides. Fresh. Light strawberry flavor. Good! Serve it with arrosticini for a fantastic simple meal.

Cantina Morone col fondo - 100% Falanghina. Faintly fizzy. Nice orchard fruit notes. Serve it with lightly fried anchovies. 

2020 Cantina Morone “Fiori di Galano” Piedirosso - Bloody red-black fruit notes with dry tannin. 3,000 bottles made. Bottled six months ago. Perfect for cheese-filled ravioli in marinara. 

2020 Cantina Morone “Nero Piana” Camaiola. Pronounced campfire aroma. Fruit is reminiscent of a darker/riper Sangiovese. Some tomato leaf and herb aromas. Serve with involtini stuffed with wild mushrooms. 

Terre di Principe Pallagrello Bianco - Last October I walked past this winery with Anna della Porta. It’s in her hometown, and grows the same grapes that her father farms. This summer, we’ll import Anna’s version of Pallagrello, bottled under her Hesperia label. Rescuing basically unknown wine grapes like Palagrello and Camaiola speaks to the character of Franco Pepe, Anna della Porta, and the Morone family. Campania is lucky to have diligent food and wine professionals that can evangelise its many distinct flavors and I’m lucky to meet them and taste their work.

Pizza Journal July 4, 2022.

La Comedia dell'Dante/Daniele

July 4, 2022

The hills outside of Rome are on fire. Funny that didn’t make the news in America. I suppose we have our own problems. And our own fires. I’ve listened to farmers chronicle the days without rainfall this spring and summer, and unremitting heat that started in May. We’ve reached the burst-into-flames point on our journey through the pre-apocalypse. 

It’s raining ash on the northern half of the city, including the Parioli neighborhood where I’m staying. I notice the extreme haze while driving away from Fiumicino airport. The smell of woodsmoke hangs over Il Cigno Pasticceria while I stop for a coffee-flavored granita, and a coffee. Served in a chilled silver chalice! I’m tired. Or maybe my blood oxygen level is low. Or maybe withdrawal is setting in. Twenty four hours away from American cold brew and my thoughts and movements are slowing down. 

I was sure someone in Parioli was grilling brats in an oil drum over fancy charcoal, to celebrate our country’s glorious revolution. Italians love American things. There’s a Don’t Tread on Me flag hanging from the balcony behind the hotel. Maybe it’s that guy. I wonder if he misses his AR-15. Writes it letters. Has a postcard from the gun range taped to his fridge. 

God’s cigarette ash is falling on my shirt. Makes sense: we’re only a few blocks from his house. I pass the dome of St. Peter’s basilica on the way to dinner. He’s a deity, thoughtful and kind. In college I loved coffee and a smoke. Old Testament god has a long memory! Twentieth Century god, smoking Camels up on high, sweet fumes rolling forth from the pearly gates like the clouds that used to roll out of the cracked window of my Mazda 3. Back when my young lungs could tolerate this air quality. 

It’s 95 degrees at the vatican. A smoky heat, just as satan likes it. Nothing can dampen my spirits while I’m in the eternal city. Even Zanni, the immortal car thief from Commedia dell’ Arte, who crept up the banks of the Tiber and smashed the passenger side window of my Fiat 500 won’t ruin this afternoon. Zany Zanni! I have no things to steal. Not even an ashtray full of pocket change gleaned from autostrada toll booths. It’s too early in the trip. Better luck next cycle, my journeyman friend. 

People say it's foolish to rob rental cars indiscriminately. But I sympathize. Even though I play the part of the Vecchi in this performance, we’re all hungry. My sins include gluttony, and sloth. I could walk to Seu Pizza Illuminati, but Vecchi always drive. Maseratis. Hertz had several, and an Alfa. As a minor Vecchio, a demi-Vecchio, second class, I’m assigned an SUV crossover. The reasonable fuel economy and lack of ostentation is troubling. Where are my superfluous cupholders!!  I’ll be angling for an upgrade, leveraging sky miles, hotel points, ill-gotten gold, and ordinary nepotism. 

The Illuminati are gathering. A notable contingent are Americans, or at least English-speaking. Many are blonde. Some were on my plane. It’s not my plane (minor Vecchio) and also not theirs, a fact that’s embarrassing to both parties. We avoid eye contact. I scrub the scorn from my visage when they humbly request a “to go” box. Perhaps madam would enjoy tonight’s meal with a serving of ranch? For true pizza illuminati, your belly is the to-go box. Daniele averts his gaze.

Until Rome’s sun dips below the first range of apartment buildings facing our table, all optical perception is impossible. At best I can see shapes. Borderless shadows. This is intentional. No Italian dines at 7pm. The enduring pain of scorched retinas is a debt worth paying  to avoid the eternal damnation of diners foolish enough to approach the portal of Seu Pizza Illuminati at American dinnertime. Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate. Or, abandon hope of tasting the 100% courgette pizza, a wonderfully fresh creation that brings appropriate seasonality to Pier Daniele Seu’s airy, faintly charred crust. It’s an ethereal meal, meatless, laden with color, form, and fragrance. Perfect small zucchini blossoms adorn each bite. 

Even more vivid is the 100% tomato pizza, where Seu layers pomodori in every imaginable color and form. San Marzano tomato sauce, whole yellow tomatoes, roasted tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, it all crashes together and makes beautiful chaos. A lil’ grated grankase and basil bely the name, but it’s barely noticed, and wholly forgiven. 

It’s infernally hot. The illuminati crowd every table. The sun has a triptych of windows to bring down from the heavens its magnificence. The oil in Seu’s fryer makes crocchetta from every living thing, saint or sinner, of land and sea. Cod with potatoes and cream, zucchini flowers, ricotta and anchovies. Fried food has never been so beautifully plated. There are even potato chips. 

There is no room for dessert. Virgil guides us to a simple digestivo from Marco de Bartoli, made from Zibibbo grapes grown on the island of Pantelleria. It’s an inspired choice. Windswept, battered, pushed down into the ground for the whole of their existence, desiccated by the brutal unremitting Mediterranean sun. A liminal place, a small boat crossing from Africa on the journey to a paradise falsely advertised. I leave and climb the hill, and walk past a long ruined palazzo. The tram station is also destroyed, tracks torn up. Graffiti of a beautiful woman’s face rises up steps to an unkempt mop of urban vegetation.  Abandoned bird scooters are Rome’s newest obstacle, adding to the gauntlet of vespas, pedestrians, tourists, men carrying styrofoam coolers of fish. 

It’s dusk. The heat has broken. Teenagers congregate in front of the colosseum. The couple in front of me are speaking Russian. A drunk woman yells at a waiter that she once owned a winery in Napa. The crescent moon makes worn steps wet and slick. I smell summer’s garbage. A seagull perches on the lamppost. Its caws are obscene, coarse mocking of gli innamorati that surround me, the colosseum, all of central Rome. I should shout back. Seabird, you make a point. They might be drunk on cheap Sardinian beer. But there’s nothing wrong with love. 

Renata Bonacina, dacapo wines

I had to catch up with Renata and Giovanni at Slow Wine Bologna the moment I arrived, because they were sneaking out early to catch a plane to Copenhagen, Denmark, and then Malmo, Sweden. Yet more wine events bekon. I’m glad dacapo are doing a brisk business in Scandinavia. I know it has been a challenging series of years for many small farmers whose wines we import. Dacapo is no exception. Their cellar and vineyard work have transformed the property, setting Renata and Giovanni up for reaching a new plateau of quality in years ahead. But all that hard work required cash, and the Covid weakened many wine markets in Italy. 

In spite of all the challenges facing winemakers today (drought, expensive bottles, wobbly restaurants) the couple were in good spirits. I love how much Giovanni smiles. He has the easy demeanor of a man thoroughly enjoying his honest vineyard work. He’s already got a good summertime tan. Farming is a second career for him. His first line of corporate work brought the couple for a time to live in North Carolina! It’s nice to talk with Italians who understand in greater detail where we’re from.   

With time in short supply, we dove into tasting wine. 

New Arrivals:

2020 Ruché di Castagnole Monferrato smells like raspberry and Dr. Pepper to me. Also roses and violets. Then black pepper, and cinnamon. There’s loads going on! If you are fond of aromatic reds with some texture and ripeness, look no further. Ruché can be high in alcohol, this bottling comes in at a very moderate 13.5%. Drinking this makes me want Vietnamese-style crispy quail, rubbed in fish sauce and sugar, and then grilled. I also love eating tiny birds in general. Makes me feel like a giant. 

2017 Nizza DOCG Nizza is a cru for Barbera. This is an exciting development, a development that began in 2014. The wines must be grown in a certain elevation range within the designated Nizza zone. The sites can’t be north facing. Renata’s Nizza (100% Barbera) comes from a vineyard planted in 1960. Maximum permissible yields are low, nine tons per hectare. Renata’s old parcel yields a scant six tons per hectare. The 2017 vintage was shaped by high summertime temperatures and no rain for three months (in that regard, similar to 2022.)  

2016 Barbera MAGNUMS You will remember this wine from 2021, when 750ml bottles of it were abundant in our storehouse. Delightful as it was, magnums always seem to taste better. The smaller bottles seemed to be at peak maturity to me, in this format the wine is a little more leading-edge of ideal drinkability. Anyway, what a bargain! You spend hours planning a perfect northern Italian menu for a dinner party with family and friends, why wouldn’t you want the wine to make an impression, too?

It was such a short visit with one of our closest wine allies. It’s more common to hang out at dacapo for a week and watch the harvest begin, or to have Renata in North Carolina for a flurry of wine dinners and customer visits. I prefer having a few days to reconnect. But a dacapo sighting is still a bright point in my work life. I’m glad the wines are returning to North Carolina, just a few days after this happy moment. 

La Casaccia, April 2022

Margherita has a surprise. She’s animated. All smiles is her default setting, but something is different today.

We’re meeting in a strange setting. Cold for such a warm person, whose place in my work life has become closer to a friend than a wine provider. We’ve gone running together, in Durham and in Cella Monte. We’ve shared too many meals to count, and spent hundreds of hours criss-crossing my home state selling wine. We’ve even picked grapes together. 

It’s a strong bond, made in the spaces where we live and work. But today we are meeting in a vast conference center in the drab industrial outskirts of very beautiful Bologna. It’s the first-ever Slow Wine fair, and I’m happy to be catching the last few hours of a three-day event. Time enough to reconnect with a half-dozen winemakers whose bottles will be in our warehouse this spring. 

The surprise: La Casaccia have a new wine! A metodo classico rosato, lees aged for two years. One hundred percent Grignolino. The label is fanciful. It mirrors Margherita’s ebullience. The wine smells of strawberries. The new wine is a success. It’s nice to see her happy, and proud of this project. 

Speaking of Grignolino, 1,200 bottles of the ever-popular “Poggeto” 2020 Grignolino del Monferrato Casalese are arriving now. It’s basically why you have this missive to read. The flagship red wine for Margherita’s small estate spends three days on the skins. It’s quite floral. Poggeto is a wine of enduring aromatic appeal. There’s always a fine edge of tannin. Margherita says Grignolino is quite resilient in the face of climate change. Good news, because I need bottles for my summertime chillable red wine fridge, no matter how high the mercury rises. 

Also arriving now are 900 bottles of the 2019 “Giuanin” Barbera del Monferrato. The wine is accessible, ripe, as reliable as anything we import. Little to no tannin, fresh acidity, and an overabundance of pure plummy Barbera fruitiness. If you’ve spent too much time in challenging, hipster hairshirt wine purgatory lately, here’s the remedy. 

The 2019 “Monfiorenza” Freisa feels structured alongside the Giuanin. It smells like macerated strawberries. Also faintly floral, and a tad spicy. There’s some dry tannin on the finish. If you love classic Piedmontese reds but occasionally wish the linear aromatics of your favorite Langhe Nebbiolo would loosen up a little bit, check out Monfiorenza. 

For a short time there will be 2020 La Casaccia “Charno” Chardonnay in North Carolina. Unoaked, lees-aged in stainless steel, it overdelivers in a very similar manner to the La Ca Barbera. If you enjoy the low-key appeal of Chardonnay that isn’t trying to be Meursault or a fruit cocktail, this wine can be an unfussy visitor to your dining table. Loud and dissonant flavor gets noticed and rewarded. It’s a relief to taste a white that’s succeeding with quiet charm. 

Also tasted: The 2015 “Ernesto” Grignolino has come a long way since Margherita and I first tasted it in their cellar a few years back. At that time I was uncertain about the desire (rooted in tradition) to long-age Grignolino in large wooden tank. Now I see that the Rava family were correct. After three years in barrel and two in bottle, the wine has become really nice. It smells good, a mix of Grignolino’s red fruit and secondary maturation characteristics. Everything that stood out as disjointed mid-project is harmonious now. 

2017 “Bricco dei Boschi” Barbera spends one year in big barrel. Each year La Casaccia bottle their best Barbera vineyard parcel as Bricco dei Boschi. The 2017 is remarkably good. Deep black fruit aromas, secondary spicy notes. Graceful texture. I typecast La Casaccia as making reliably delicious everyday wines. This bottling shows an estate whose top wines are worthy of consideration among the best of the Monferrato. 

We went to dinner. Left the antiseptic environment of the convention center, for a very neighborhood place called Nonna Rosa. The restaurant’s walls were covered in movie posters, coffee grinders (?) and a large collection of signed Bologna FC jerseys. Dinner was nice. We laughed a lot. It was unpretentious and good. The rooms bustled. Somehow I ordered tortellini in cream sauce, followed by a veal cutlet in cream sauce. I was so full. Margherita walked me halfway back to the city center. I needed the steps. And the cool air. Margherita had a mushroom ravioli (she’s vegetarian.) By the end of dinner I envied her selection. It looked great. I don’t think she was dying from calorie poisoning. I was grateful for the miles of covered sidewalk that make central Bologna exceedingly pedestrian friendly, even when the weather is a tad damp. I looked at some centuries-old dormitories and churches, then called it a day. Dreamed of being chased through a maze of ever narrowing roads by a mob of rabid chefs wearing cappellacci. Bloody chef’s knives drawn, ready to carve me up for scaloppine. Kafka's cream-fueled calorie nightmares.

A day at Caparsa with Paolo

Paolo Cianferoni seems happy to see me. Before my car door is even closed we are off on a whirlwind tour of the cellar, ending with a formidable line-up of his wines, new and antique. Paolo is always generous with bottles, but I may be benefitting from the recent visit of a prominent American wine journalist. Whatever the reason, I’m happy to taste through verticals of Caparsino and Doccio a Matteo, wines that, as they age, and as I grow familiar with their evolutions, allow me to learn a little about Radda terroir and vintage. The wines are so direct. 

We start with the fresh stuff. 2020 Rosato di Caparsa IGT is as dark as they come. Maybe there’s an edge of rosato to the the burgundy color. A faint vivid glow. The fruit of this wine is compelling, forest berries, exuberant. I like it so much that when we sold out in autumn, I started buying bottles back from local retailers, to drink at home!

The current release of Rosso di Caparsa IGT is very fruity. Pristine Sangiovese. I bought a fiasco of this wine, to drink in Umbria. One day I’ll import it in straw baskets. In either format, it’s inspirational stuff. The IGT wines of Caparsa seriously over-deliver. 

The 2018 Chianti Classico is aged mainly in cement. It has beautiful aromas. Really nice, uplifting, pure red fruit. On the palate it’s delicate, light, with a fine tannic edge to the finish. The wine is a real triumph in the classic style for Chianti. It speaks to my personal preferences in Sangiovese. I’ll drink this, and leave hotter vintages to collect dust.

2015 Caparsino Chianti Classico Riserva MAGNUMS are making an encore appearance in North Carolina. This is yet another item where you, dear consumer, will be racing me to purchase scant inventory. Not sure who I want to win!

1999 vin santo is a mix of intense glacéed orange rind and toasty Madeira. So thrilled and honored that Paolo shares this with us. Now’s a happy (if brief) time when bottles are around. Grab one to top off your next Tuscan feast, with or without biscotti. 

“Wine is a mirror of life.” The life of a vine at Caparsa is hard. In the Chianti Classico DOCG, seven tons per hectare is the maximum permissible yield. Paolo’s vines yield five.

“Quality means organic. It’s the only chance. Hope for the next generation.” Paolo explains that in the vineyard there are many thousands of microorganisms. The work of the farmer is to grow this community. “Under the soil, there is a communication. A mycorrhizal network. Vines have soul. Soul is important to this kind of wine.”

“Herbicides are poison that kill not only plants, but the habitat for insects.” Paolo explains that they destroy any chance of biodiversity in a community. 

“Alcohol is poison. But resveratrol is heart-healthy. Quercetin is healthy. My father and grandfather drank one and a half liters of wine per day, and lived into their 90’s.” Wow. Other factors may have been in play. Rural Tuscany is a decent landscape for healthy living. You’ll get your steps in! 

Paolo’s father Reginaldo Cianferoni bought Caparsa in 1965. It was fully abandoned after World War II. All the former farmers moved to industrializing cities, to find steady paychecks. This is the reason why sixty percent of Chianti Classico today is under foreign ownership.

“The British arrived in the 1960’s. They called it Chianti-shire. The Americans arrived after 1998. 

Reginaldo Cianferoni also worked at the university in Florence, and wrote a book about the daily life of people in Chianti. The story is told through the narrative device of a group of locals gathered at a simple restaurant, telling stories after dinner. Illustrations from that book adorn Caparsa’s labels. 

Paolo was seven when his father bought the farm. He started working on the tractor right away. He reckons he’s worked 55 vintages at Caparsa. It’s not surprising that recent wines have gone from very good to brilliant. 

Also tasted:

2019 Bianco di Caparsino smells of lemon rind and candle wax. It’s made from Trebbiano and Malvasia. It would be perfect with a Carbonara. Maybe we’ll get some bottles for autumn. Paolo didn’t make a 2020 bianco, because the vintage was too hot to make a balanced white. 

Paolo’s second-oldest son Filippo made a natural wine from Trebbiano and Malvasia. It’s an orange wine aged in amphora, and it’s all sold out: destination California. Paolo is kind enough to let us try the wine anyway. 

The 2018 Caparsino Chianti Classico Riserva is beautiful. Violet, blackberry, and cassis. It is aged in 1,800-liter barrels. Mid-weight, and in the classic, moderate Chianti Classico style. 

Paolo thinks the 2018 Doccio a Matteo Chianti Classico Riserva is one of the best wines he’s ever made. The structure, the complexity, the many, many layers of blackness: I see what Paolo means. Today the wine is quite tannic. I’ll revisit it in a few years. 

The 2017 Caparsino Chianti Classico Riserva is 100% Sangiovese from a warm dry vintage, aged in 1,800-liter barrels. There’s a marked graphite aroma. The fruit (in comparison to the previous wine) comes across as subtle. The tannin is long, but not brutal. 

The 2016 Caparsino Chianti Classico Riserva (100% Sangiovese) really is a complete wine. For me this is Caparsa at its finest. Excellent texture. Optimal Sangiovese aromatics. I love it. 

The 2016 Doccio a Matteo Chianti Classico Riserva (Sangiovese with a few percent Colorino) is a little more saline, and a little more prune. 

The 2015 Doccio a Matteo Chianti Classico Riserva is quite structured. It’s a tad drier than the 2016. Words like taut and lean come to mind. Bring it to the table for bistecca.

2012 Doccio a Matteo Chianti Classico Riserva is showing signs of secondary maturation. There’s more forest floor. Paolo says this is a false maturity, a sign of the vintage, not the age. 

The 2011 Caparsino Chianti Classico Riserva smells of woodsmoke, followed by nice harmonious black fruit on the palate. It leaves a very persistent, positive impression. 

The 2018 Mimma Super Tuscan is something new to me. It’s very soft, very easy to drink, and according to Paolo, geared specifically to the American market. Lush, expensive. He quips that if some people wanna pay more, he can handle that. 

A bottle of 1999 Doccio a Matteo Chianti Classico Riserva aged in barrique and toneaux seems fully mature. 

At the end, we try a bottle of 1988 Caparsino Chianti Classico Riserva. Thirty-four years old! It has the traditional Chianti composition: Sangiovese, Malvasia, and Trebbiano. What a treat. Plum, stewed fruit, a relic of pre-global warming moderate temperatures. Paolo is generous to a fault. 

Outside it is bitterly cold, unseasonably so for early April. Exiting the cozy cellar, we hustle over to Federico’s little house on the property, for lunch. Fresh pasta prepared by his mother, lardo and pate bruschetta, delicious porchetta from a small butcher in Panzano (no, not that one.) Federico’s dog Pancake circles the table. His partner joins us, as does his younger brother Filippo. It’s a convivial meal, enlivened by the highlights from our cellar tasting. It’s just what I needed.  

Massimilliano greets me at the (already covered in farm dust) Jeep Renegade that I’ve rented to traverse the low mountains of Chianti Classico. I’ve never met Max. In the decade since I first mustered courage to climb the steep, rutted gravel road to Pruneto, he’s mostly been away at university in Bologna. In fact, he still resides in Emilia-Romagna for half the year. There are a lot of compelling reasons to live in Europe's oldest university town (tortellini, ravioli, tagliatelle, lasagna, for starters) and time away from rural Tuscany has certainly shaped Max’s view of wine. He freely admits that the beverage his father and grandfather made for 30+years was of little personal interest, until he encountered it recontextualized in Bologna. “I mostly drank gin and tonics.” An array of urban wine bars pouring a more progressive take on the drink allowed Max to grow appreciation for work his family were doing, and to cultivate enthusiasm for continuing this labour back at home.   

Unsurprisingly, Massimilliano’s father makes a grand entrance. After being summoned, Riccardo saunters from the stone farmhouse to shake hands and stand around in the unseasonably warm sun of a midmorning in late March. “You’ve gained a few kilos since we last met,” is his opening salvo. True, and funny. Covid kept us apart since 2019, and mostly kept one of us on his butt. Isolation is never ideal, but a sundrenched hillside, surrounded by forest and vine, facing a centuries-old convent across a wide valley: Riccardo’s quarantine landscape was close enough to perfect. There were hardships. But he had room to roam, and vines to tend. And now he gets to hold court. 

“Now I have a boss.” Riccardo’s view of the return of his eldest to the property is a winking misrepresentation of their working relationship. It’s clear that Max remains deferential to Riccardo, fundamentally receptive to his advice. It’s also apparent that change is afoot. The cellar is cleaner than I’ve ever seen it. A new field has been cleared, and young vines planted. To support a new generation, the farm must grow. At least a little. 

Blunt farmer assessment of the passage of years eases us into conversation about new wines. We move to the shade of a tree covered in honeysuckle, and surround a picnic table covered in wine and cheese. Remarkably, there’s a new wine at Pruneto. It’s called de Mode, and it bears the fingerprint of Massimilliano’s time in Bologna. The aromas are a tad more natural, the texture less doggedly traditional for Radda than anything I've tasted from the farm before. In sum, the wine is fruity, accessible, and good. I like the impression it makes on the palate. Irreverence, life. And I like that Max has found something worthwhile to do with the small amount of Merlot grown at the estate. De Mode is 70% Merlot and 30% Sangiovese. Its style plays to the strengths of the former grape. 

The marquee wines at Pruneto need more oxygen to reach full flight than most reds. This is true even in comparison to other traditional Chianti Classicos from nearby addresses. I regret that the decanter isn’t omnipresent in restaurant wine service, because Riccardo’s wines have a tendency to change from good to brilliant once half the bottle is poured. I think this difficult-to-explain trait must be a reflection of the man as much as the land. Soil at Pruneto is a mix of gallestro in the steepest vineyard, and clay/albarese in the lower of the family’s two sites. In short, it’s the classic geology for Chianti Classico, well-suited to Sangiovese, and not (on its own) enough to explain the reserved style of the bottled wine. 

In Pruneto’s two small cellars we view a short row of enamel-lined cement tanks, and a handful of large old wooden casks. Two of these massive vessels are enough to contain the total production of the farm in a normal vintage. Three and a half hectares of old vines don’t produce much fruit, and the age of the vines (and a series of hot, dry vintages) means that (at best) 70% of the total fruit weight is extracted as juice before fermentation. Given the infernally hot summers Tuscany has been experiencing, I’m surprised (and delighted) to find that the 2019 Chianti Classico isn’t even a bit heavy. Despite rising to 13.5% abv (uncommon at this estate) the wine seems very traditional. Chalky, dry, fresh red fruit. Massimiliano explains that at Pruneto the vineyards are so close to the cellar that fruit can be harvested and then hustled into a relatively cool room in a matter of minutes. By processing the grapes almost exactly when you pick them, freshness is retained. 

Riccardo steps away to smoke a cigarette. Max talks about the benefit of having a strong relationship with other farmers in the zone. The Vignaioli di Radda organisation shares know-how and equipment, which is invaluable in the community. Radda is the heart of Chianti. It has a history that stretches back eight centuries. But the place is remarkably small, at least in comparison to other Chianti Classico communes. Good neighbours lift the overall quality of Radda’s wine.  

We taste the 2019 Riserva, made from a single, higher-elevation site full of 50-year-old vines. The wine is impressive, more cassis-kirsch in aroma than the duo’s “normal” Chianti Classico. The texture is plush, seamless.       

Succession plans were on my mind almost from the start at this estate. Riccardo isn’t too too old, but he plays the role of an ancient codger to the hilt. On my second visit, in 2013, I remember him lamenting his children’s lack of interest in working the land around his farm. I think he was exaggerating. His daughter is around the farm, taking care of the agriturismo. It is assuring to meet Massimiliano, to get a sense of his character. He’s amiable, and full of energy. I like his ideas. I also like the relationship he shares with Riccardo. I think things will change at Pruneto in the years ahead. But not too much.

Chapter One: Getting there. 

I’m behind a box truck that is pitching 20 degrees from vertical on the narrow two-lane road to Montalcino. Looking out the truck's windshield, the driver must notice that the hills he’s crawling past are framed at a nauseating angle. In first gear, and following at a healthy-and-growing distance, I’m petrified. Our unlikely convoy rolls onward for interminable kilometres. I don’t know if there’s an alternative route to Pian dell’Orino. The drama unfolding in front of my rented Jeep is too compelling: I can’t pull over and consult maps. 

The hydraulically-challenged truck reaches its destination, an industrial site in the flatland close to Montalcino. Mercifully below the most winding and vertical stretch of road. I can breathe again. 

Jan Henrick Erback and Caroline Politzer live and work quite close to venerable Biondi Santi. The original Brunello maker/catalyst for many estates that now dot the hillsides surrounding Montalcino has a long tunnel of cedars framing its driveway. Ostentatious landscaping, enough to make clear that the path to their storied cellar door is not the road to tiny Pian dell’Orino.

The town of Montalcino is dominated by a very Pythonesque mediaeval fortress. It’s a castle from central casting. I expect to see John Cleese peering from the ledge, shouting insults in fake French, hurling refuse. Cinematic landscapes lead my thoughts astray. The farcical roundabout below the town reminds me of European Vacation. I spin around it for days. Because the farm is not in the town, of course, and I have printed out directions that hinge on this roundabout. The paved main state road that will eventually lead to both Biondi Santi (now French owned, maybe in a state of waning prominence) and Pian dell’Orino (tiny, hidden down an unmarked gravel path, very much on the upswing) passes through the roundabout below the fortress. I drive through the roundabout more than I’d like to admit. To tamp down frustration, I stop to look at the impressive clustering of wine bars, gift shops, and wine-themed eateries that now comprise the centre of this community. I tread carefully. There are no bargains to be had here, and my travel budget doesn’t include a line-item for a suitcase bulging with Brunello di Montalcino. 

To the fair, the town’s enotecas are more than willing to ship internationally. For free! Because the retail price of any case of Montalcino wine is going to offset a DHL expense. The best wines of Montalcino are worth a tidy sum. The rest still command it. So I’ve waited until late in my wine career to visit this heartland of Sangiovese. Price isn’t everything, and maybe it’s a dull thing to discuss. Apologies. I thrive on the hunt for value, and Montalcino isn’t a logical hunting ground when considering the bottom line. 

During the housebound months of Covid isolation, a remarkable thing happened. I drank a few bottles of Rosso (and eventually Brunello) di Montalcino that upended my consideration of that denomination. The wines had energy. Aromas of pristine red fruit and brambly fresh herbs lifted from the glass and swirled around in my consciousness for minutes on end. In short, these bottles were world class wines that delivered on the promise of Montalcino in a way I hadn’t experienced before. They were expensive, and worth every penny.

They were from Pian dell’Orino. 

As travel restrictions loosened, I marked a first visit to Montalcino on my calendar. At last I was on my way. But regrettably (the leaning truck of Montalcino, the inscrutable roundabout) I was running late. I had a sense this wouldn’t go over well with the people responsible for creating such finely detailed Sangiovese. And in fact when I arrived, Jan Henrick Erback and Caroline Politzer seemed worried. They probably thought I was dead! A half hour behind schedule felt like a significant faux pas. Luckily, the couple are meticulous and kind in equal measure. Instead of a reproach, I was greeted with an expansive tour of the garden surrounding their home. In a past life Jan was a landscape architect, and it shows. 

Chapter Two: Everything that matters. 

Caroline is from Alto Adige. Jan is German. In 1997, Caroline purchased the farmhouse outside Montalcino that is now their home. At that time the European Union was incentivising investment in rural properties, allowing the planting of new vineyards. She took advantage. Not long after purchasing the property, Caroline met Jan. In a few short years the couple were able to harness his understanding of botany and enthusiasm for biodynamic agriculture to begin a singular, remarkable estate. 

In 1998 the first vines were planted. In 2001 the first wines were made. In 2006 the couple constructed an impressive round cellar near their home. The multi-level facility’s shape, and the use of all natural construction materials, is in keeping with fundamental principles of biodynamics. “The wines sleep better than we do!” Caroline jokes. Formerly, their house was both a cellar and residence. It is a beautiful home, with a living room filled by records and high fidelity audio equipment, and a hallway dominated by an enviable glass-walled personal wine collection. But upstairs (where they sleep) hasn’t been renovated. With so much happening in the fields, who has time to build a bedroom?

The farm is divided into four parcels. The land closest to the house and cellar is the source for Sangiovese grapes that become Piandellorino IGT. It’s an entry-level bottling, and a small fraction of the estate’s total production. “It’s not a terroir wine,” according to Jan.The farm’s other parcels (including Vigneti di Versante and Bassolino di Sopra, source vineyards for the Brunellos) are farther from the cellar. All told, Pian dell’ Orino covers 5.5 hectares of vineyard, and 3.5ha of forest. The couple also have some olive trees, and Jan is very enthusiastic about the planting of fruit trees to improve biodiversity. 

A hive of angry bees on the path provides an element of danger/excitement to the vineyard tour. Maybe the pollinators are mad that I’m late as well! This winter, Jan constructed a chicken palace. It is resting at the edge of a new vineyard, next to the farm’s impressive compost pile. Soon the chickens will sleep better than Caroline and Jan, too.

Jan follows the lunar calendar for pruning. In keeping with biodynamics, they make big pots of nettle and chamomile tea to spray on the vineyards, mixed in solution with bentonite clay. These treatments increase the density of positive microorganisms in the fields, essential to fight against microbial life forms that are detrimental to the vine.

“The mechanisation/compaction of the soil weakens the auto-defence systems of the vine.” Jan is taking remarkable action to counteract this compaction. He’s planting a new site with a goblet/alberello vine training system that aims to restore some harmony to the fields. “Etruscans found vines in the woods,” he states. “They didn’t just bring the vines (to the fields) they also brought the trees.” By planting trees next to his new vines, Jan hopes to restore the symbiotic relationship between vine and tree that the Estruscans established. He’s using maples. Once they are tall, the trees should provide shade that will beneficially lower yields in the vineyard, and reduce the potential for scorching and overripeness. 

Veraison in August is the moment in a vine’s life when the greatest amount of sugar is being produced. But the aromatic peak-of-importance for a winemaker is about a month later, when polyphenols/terpenes/pyrazine that will make or break the lasting character of the wine are formed. Jan has found that he can win his grapes a few extra days of polyphenolic maturation by pruning off the main part of the Sangiovese cluster, keeping only the “wing” of the grape bunch. Using this radical-sounding method, they end up with small bunches of Sangiovese with more moderate levels of alcohol. Additionally, Pian dell’Orino leaves only one grape cluster per vine. It’s a sign of how far Jan will go in pursuit of perfection. 

Across the field and cellar, other indicators of passion for quality are easy to find. All the fruit is harvested by hand into small cases. Grapes are destemmed, and then passed through a double selection process on a vibrating sorting table that removes insects, dried berries, and other unwanted detritus. The berries are covered with a layer of CO2 in cask, so the winery can avoid using SO2. 

Pian dell’Orino purchased an optical selection machine that has reduced the harvest/grape selection time at the winery from two weeks to two-to-three days. This expensive piece of machinery allows Jan and Caroline to avoid sunburn and overripeness in the final moments of the vintage. Now they have time to pre-cut bad fruit prior to harvest, so the grape pickers (who of course have varying degrees of viticultural experience) can harvest everything, without blemished fruit affecting the quality of the eventual wine.

The barrel cellar is made from volcanic material. Jan allows no visitors to enter this underground room. He wants to preserve the 90 percent humidity/ambient temperature control in the cellar, and to avoid introducing foreign aromas. The room naturally stays between 11 degrees Celsius in winter and 16 degrees in summer. Alongside the large oak casks, wine bottles can be stored upright in the room without fear of the corks drying out, because of the high level of humidity. In fact, Jan points out that the only remaining wine bottles to be collected from the cellar are on a pallet bearing the inscription “Piedmont Wine Imports.” Along with being personally late to arrive today, apparently my wines are slow to depart. I’m not very German. 

Underneath the barrels in the cellar are unfinished patches of clay soil that allow for contact with the earth, and improve circulation. Jan stores water in a vast tank built into the external wall of the cellar. This helps with thermoregulation. Also, having a large reservoir of potable water in this dry region is a sensible thing to do. At the time of my visit, it hadn't rained in Montalcino in 90+ days. 

We taste wines at Jan and Caroline’s dining table. 

A 2021 Rosso di Montalcino cask sample has a pretty garnet color. The wine is a result of a warm spring, then a cool early summer, followed by a warm late summer. It was a year of extremes. Frost damaged the vines. Across the region, the ripening period was uneven. The wine is good. There’s significant dry tannin on the finish, which is to be expected at this point of evolution.

The 2020 Rosso di Montalcino has a much more violet aroma, followed by a rush of very ripe blackberry and currant on the palate. The wine is remarkable: an obvious success. Jan says the vintages were similar, except that 2020 was spared 2021’s spring frost. 

The 2019 Rosso di Montalcino is strawberry cream and raspberry, with a tiny whiff of balsamic/dark chocolate sweetness. There are flowers in abundance in this one. 

2018 was a rainy year. It was a vintage where grapes struggled to mature. We taste a cask sample of the Brunello di Montalcino that will be bottled in two weeks. The estate will only make one Brunello in 2018. Given the challenging vintage, the cask samples has great aromas, and complexity. It’s a woodsy, midweight wine that I’ll be tempted to drink a few years after it reaches America.

The 2019 Bassolino di Sopra Brunello di Montalcino will be released in 2025/2026. The wine already has an exceptional texture. Ripe aromas that (again) border on floral. I wonder how much Jan’s dedication to biodiversity affects the wildly aromatic character of this wine. The fruit is very forward and pristine. Fresh forest berries. 

By contrast, the 2017 Vigneti di Versante has more roasted, savoury aromas. This is a wine from a hot, dry year, a wine for meat, a wine to age. 

It’s easy to imagine that a few years ago the living room where we sat discussing wine was filled with nine large barrels. It’s classic Tuscan architecture. I have to leave, to explore more of this new-to-me land. Before departure, I’m already longing for the arrival of that last lonely pallet of Pian dell’Orino to North Carolina. I’ll keep you all updated as it moves west!

I’m beginning to understand Franca.

And I’m beginning to clear up misconceptions about Pietralta’s wines. Or maybe they are simply changing. In 2011 they were dusty and herbal. Fast forward a dozen vintages and the Chianti is dark, lush, almost brawny. The Chianti Riserva walks a tightrope between harmony and opulence. It used to be boorish and high in alcohol. Finesse is replacing rusticity. Pietralta is ascendant.

But we’ll come back to that after dinner. 

I catch Franca smiling more. I think she likes to entertain. In the company of her son she seems happy, even when discussing the challenges of the past few years. We sit around the dinner table in Franca’s 12th century Tuscan farmhouse kitchen and talk about war, drought, the pandemic, economic scarcity: the greatest hits of rural life for time immemorial. But she has a gleam in the eye. We haven’t shared a meal in three years. The fireplace is crackling, warming the room, providing comfort as cold rain falls on the fields surrounding San Gimignano. 

Maybe Franca is simply pleased at the quality of the food she prepared for lunch. A fresh sausage bruschetta is unbeatable:  indescribably perfect. It is clean, meaty, almost bloody: wholly satisfying. A thing of beauty. Pasta with pristine spring vegetables comes next, then a rich caramel brown cinghiale stew. Shot by a friend, cooked in a volcanic stone bowl. 

Franca is a masterful home cook. The wines benefit from being on the same table as her creations. Fumbling with the bottles, I notice Pietralta’s wines bear the European green leaf, denoting organic agriculture. We can’t use this logo (ain’t bureaucracy grand) but it’s nice to see printed recognition of healthy vineyard practices. The estate has been organic since 1983, when Franca decided to abandon the drab suburbs surrounding Milan for a life in agriculture farther south. 

Stefano is calm. Relaxed, even. I think the rain (after 100 days of drought) may soothe the nerves of local grape and olive growers. When a person does hard viticultural labor day in, day out, a rain day can force a necessary pause. Like his mother, Stefan smiles a lot. He’s good at telling stories: humor, lots of eye contact. He seems totally comfortable in his own skin. 

The change I mentioned in the wines is a marker of his growing influence in the vineyard and cellar. Since Stefano finished school and started working on the property full-time, the number of memorably good wines made at this tiny address has spiked. While still in his 20’s, I see the confidence and sure-handedness of his work etched into recent vintages. It bodes well.

gratuitous dog image

Carlo Romiti has improved the labels as well. It’s another reason why I’m glad I visited. On the computer, the new labels looked a mess. In real life they are great! With a quick phone call, Franca arranged a visit to the studio of Gambassi Terme’s most celebrated painter of the natural world. Carlo uses pigments from the earth to create his (often quite expansive) scenes of deer, boar, dog, and horse. They are filled with motion, energy, and passion. I suspect this is a decent enough description for Romiti as well. He looks every bit the wizened country painter, inhabiting a magical woodland grove far down an unfindable gravel path, behind a gate, protected and accompanied by large, loyal hunting dogs. We share an anise distillate. He puts on a show. Massive rolls of canvas reveal the country life of Tuscany, according to Carlo. It’s a treat. Antlers are everywhere. The antechamber is filled with saddles. Jars of colorful dirt (one smuggled back from China by Franca!) rise on shelves to the ceiling. He asks If I want to see a roll of paintings of naked ladies. I do not. 

The wines:

The 2021 Pietralta Bianco IGT Toscana (90%Trebbiano/10%Malvasia) now sports a quite regal horse on the front label. The wine is pleasant: clean and bright. It’s perfect with goat cheese that Franca rolled in paprika, and pistachios. 

The 2021 Rosato IGT Toscana (100% Sangiovese) reminds me of why I fell for a vintage of this bottling a couple of years back. It is lively, delicate, with strawberry and orange rind in the foreground. Pasta with English spring peas, a mixed salad with watercress and raw wild asparagus, red shrimp: pick your fresh fare. This wine is versatile. 

The 2020 Chianti DOCG is dense, dark, and woodsy. Forest floor, not oak. The wine ages in cement. It’s impressive stuff. You won’t find many Sangioveses in this glass-pourable, stackable price range with nearly the intensity and concentration that Franca and Stefano have mustered for this release. 

I’m unlikely to import the 2015 Chianti Riserva, though that decision has nothing to do with the quality of the wine. Our portfolio bulges with fabulous Chianti Riservas. We can’t have everything. Want some bottles? Book a trip to Tuscany. You can even stay with Franca and Stefano. Their agriturismo is about to open for the season. There’s a pool! If you threaten to buy a painting, they might lead you to Carlo Romiti. Then enjoy a glass of this wine, in its correct place. 

Change is afoot. I like it. Keeps us alive. Stefano has a new line of natural wines, bottled with a friend from Pisa. The labels are carnivalesque. I’m not ready to leap down that rabbit hole. Maybe in 2023. We need reasons to return. I’m beyond satisfied with the new wines at Pietralta. This summer I’ll have to make a small Tuscan feast in the office, to celebrate their arrival. North Carolina has wild boar, right?

Paolo Petrilli 

Pasta shapes and their (alternate) uses

We’ve been selling Paolo Petrilli pasta and tomatoes for several years. Demand has always exceeded supply. UNTIL NOW. 

In October, Paolo agreed to begin direct-from-Puglia shipments of his legendary, famous-across-Italy freshly harvested tomatoes. To make things even better, these tomato shipments came to our warehouse covered in multiple layers of pasta! Pallet-upon-pallet of beautiful shapes, lovingly made in Gragnano, the holy city of dried pasta. Our first shipment of 2022 was forged from Petrilli’s final harvest of 2021 heirloom wheat. It’s fresh! And even in dried foods, freshness matters.

This may sound like an exaggeration. But life in North Carolina will never be the same.  

Tortiglione Toni.

What if ziti got twisted? Like picture this: one crazy day in Amalfi, some Campari-sipping hippies got loose in the bronze dye factory, jammed out to deep cuts of Paolo Conte, and created a wild child. Antonioni in the pasta store, circa Blow Up ‘66. Throw off those old rules, egg (pasta) head. Straight lines and 45 degree angles are for losers. Tear up your maltagliati, grandpa. It’s a tortiglione freak out, baby. A big ol’ pile of hard-to-handle curves and analog tubes coming at your brain like a character from Italo Calvino’s Le Cosmicomiche. Atoms crashing together, sauces deep and rich with Puglian chili spices, bringing Big Bang heat to the New World, topped with an absurdist sardine. Feed your head, brother. 

Festoni Freddy.

How can you not have a great time with Festoni? It’s so big! Louis Prima big.  Ebullient, irrepressible, kinda hard to understand at times: the life of the party! Your kids will love Festoni. You’ll feel like a kid eating it. It’s a noodle that reminds me of a slinky, or a jack-in-the-box, wobbling all over the place. I want to make a ridiculous neon orange cheese sauce for Festoni, possibly cheese sauce also studded with chunks of a different cheese. Discerning palates will opt for pesto, maybe dotted with just-cooked halved cherry tomatoes, delicately garnished with preserved lemon. A dish just Ligurian enough to make the hearts of pasta purists flutter. 

Rigatoni Ronny.

At the end of the day, it must be baked. A patient person will stuff each noodle with a meat mixture (I’d suggest ground pork) or cheese. Petrilli Rigatoni boils for a period of geologic time without boundaries. Chronos expanded to infinity, a point of existential emptiness where its passage can no longer be measured using our primitive timekeeping devices. Like 18 minutes. I suggest browsing a battered old cooking periodical in this purgatory. Maybe The Art of Eating, vol. 43: The Caves of Roquefort. It’s a classic analysis of the merits of the small co-ops that struggle to birth France’s greatest bleu cheese. A watched Rigatoni will never be al dente. It is stubborn, and actually a little delicate. Strikingly thick girders, made strong with heirloom Senatore Capelli wheat that grows high in the unremitting glare of a midsummer Puglian sun, too far from the Gargano’s wide, isolated massif to be given a moment’s respite in shade. Surprisingly, Rigatoni’s architectural, gracefully curved tubes will shatter into (still delicious) half-moons if vigorously stirred. Make gentle waves in the aggressively salted, faintly bubbling pasta water. Salt it to taste like the Ionian sea. Use nonna’s 19th-century Calabrian wooden spoon, the only artifact from a troubled childhood in Cosenza, to keep Rigatoni separate. Once accidentally aggregated, these clusters of drainpipe-sized pasta cannot be torn asunder. On the outer edge of al dente, maybe when their appearance is just beginning to suggest that your feeble American teeth could dare hope to pierce the ridged exterior, carefully drain Rigatoni. Bake the dang stuff in a whole jar of Paolo Petrilli brand spicy tomato sauce. Accept no imitations. *spicy sauce is sold out in NC until October 2022. Oh, for the love of Paolo, don’t forget the cheese. I like a mix of caciocavallo and fontina, or provolone. You could toss in some herbs. 

Paula Paccheri.

It’s a masterpiece. A marvel of engineering. I want a miniature polpetto inside each mezzi paccheri. I want them stacked on the plate in configurations that would set Renzo Piano’s mind a fuoco. I challenge any culinary logician (living or dead) to present a cogent argument that another extruded shape matches the dizzying heights of sensory perfection of Paccheri. One Pacchero is a perfect bite. A mouthful is an overwhelming hedonistic experience. Texture and form, weight and precision. All tomato-based sauces are improved by Paccheri’s presence. I even prefer it to Puglia’s beloved Orecchiete, a perfect shape that deserves it’s own essay. *Petrilli-brand Orecchiete unavailable in NC, because it exists only in my imagination.

Eddie Spaghetti.

It’s the gold medalist of noodles. Spaghetti’s only serious long-form rival being Abruzzese arch-nemesis (Chiara) Chitarra. Details below. Making brilliant spaghetti isn’t simple. But the shape will always seem simple to us, as it is woven into childhood. Spaghetti was first on our plates. Eventually a few (then many) other shapes wandered into the frame. Maccaroni. Rotelle. Fusilli. Farfalle. Cavatappi. Orzo (eew.) For the mature pasta lover, most of these frivolous forms are a warm memory, like celery with peanut butter and raisins, mom’s tomato soup, and velcro shoes. Not spaghetti. It endures. And grows in stature. No food is more satisfying. No pasta more easily transitions from summer to winter, from red sauce to white. No other shape is as at ease wholly unadorned. Its beauty is evident in the ability to be served simply in olive oil, with salt, as a complete meal. Breadcrumbs and parsley wouldn’t hurt. 

Chiara Chitarra.

Chitarra is pushed through a curtain of metal strings suspended above a rectangular box, a “guitar” in the eyes of Abruzzo’s pasta makers. It’s a daunting implement that to my amateur eyes looks more like a torture device than it a musical instrument. It’s a tough way to start life. Chitarra is Spaghetti’s doppelganger. Identical at first glance, but look closer and you’ll find squared-off edges, a cubist noodle that is requested by name in many of central Italy’s most famous pasta recipes. When it comes to the dining experience, I struggle to find significant difference between the two shapes. I’m sure Paolo would beg to differ, like the parent who insists their identical twin children are really quite easy to distinguish at 30 paces. Pronounce Chitarra correctly (like Chianti, with a hard C) and a hopeful diner is spontaneously elevated in status to pasta connoisseur. Maybe Chitarra’s role is to make our primal need for spaghetti easier to sate. It’s the glutinous equivalent of  an actor’s cameo in an independent film that lends credibility to their oft-reprised moneymaker role in a superhero franchise. The Noodler. A guitar-wielding, interminably soloing arch-villain. Don’t get tangled up in its slippery (with guanciale) painfully spicy (Abruzzo grows great peppers) nest. You’ll never want to leave! 

Oof.

Benny Penne.

A workmanlike pasta. Ubiquitous because it does what it does very well. Omnipresent. The AP flour of pastas. You can’t hate it. You can try different things, but denying its place in the pantheon is foolish. It will make a casserole worthy of a Wisconsin winter. Penne all’Arrabbiata is central enough to central Italian culture to have a starring alongside Marcello Mastroianni in Roma, Federico Fellini’s homage to his adopted home city. I’ve eaten Penne at harvest lunches with families of grape pickers, and been served it with a simple sauce of tomato and red pepper (cut at the table with scissors) in simple accommodations in the mountains north of Naples. It’s real. Foundational. A staple. 

Jeanie Linguine.

Ignored, misunderstood, the outsider. It’s not an essential pasta shape, until it is. Linguine is fundamental to one of the best things you can eat, the beautiful, perfect marriage of pasta with clams. Spaghetti will do, but it ain’t the same. Linguine is a specialist, an awkward ugly duckling shape that, presented in very precise circumstances (shallot, parsley, clams) becomes unsurpassably brilliant. 

I think you should buy some bags of Paolo Petrilli brand pasta. Or cases, if you run a trattoria, or are a prepper. It makes me sad to think that many Americans never encounter high-quality dried pasta. There are other good brands. Monograno from northern Italy is refined, Rustichella d’Abruzzo is decent for a mid-size producer (I love their Fregola Sarda) and Martelli in Tuscany makes a mean noodle, packed in a killer yellow bag. In my opinion, Petrilli pasta has something extra. With very little additional effort you’ll have an exceptional meal. In that context, these fancy bags of pasta that easily feed four hungry humans are quite a value. 

So many food words: I’m famished. See you at the next meal! 

America Today. Covid all over the place, gun-toting crazies steering the ship of state, cream cheese shortages at the Food Lion. But cheer up, and put down the Ecco Domani: our cheapest wines are available to you, for traversing the darkest days of winter. 

Reasons for optimism are thin on the ground. You just spent a fortune on aerial silks lessons for your nieces. Your NYE caviar binge will require some creative personal accounting. After 31 days of feasting, the fridge and double-wide garage freezer are still packed with inscrutable leftovers, abandoned food fragments whose original destinations beggar the most vivid of imaginations. What meal did we think this kohlrabi would improve? Why do we have three pounds of block cheddar? Is Pirate Booty a food group? How many jars of kimchi does one family need? Seven. The answer is seven. 

If bread butts were currency I’d be a centibillionaire. 

(Over the next several weeks we will go on a tour of Jay's fridge, stove and wine glass...stay tuuuuuuuuuuuned PWI friends.)⁠

PART 1. Centorame “Scuderie Ducali” Pecorino d’Abruzzo (750mls & 5L BIBs) w/chicken thighs

I am given a lot of jarred sauces. I age them all for a minimum of one year. Some I wait to open until they are expired, then I simply dump them in the trash and recycle the jar. Others intrigue me. Recently I used a jarred peri peri sauce (my favorite wings flavor: see below) to coat a batch of baked chicken thighs. It was pleasant. The Scuderie Ducali is snappy, bright, full of ripe citrus. It’s made to accompany poultry plus spice. It would probably be good with fish sticks, too, but pull yourself together, this isn’t third grade lunchtime. This Pecorino slakes thirst, makes chicken taste fresh, and makes dinner feel intentional. 

PART 2. Carussin “Asinoi” Barbera Piemonte (750ml bottles or 3L BIBs) w/wings

There’s heated debate in my neighborhood about who makes the best wings in town. And I don’t think it’s just because of the NFL. Burgers are bland: wings are America’s food. Should I trademark that? I feel a franchise comin’ on. Sticky/spicy/sometimes sweet meat, eating with your hands, nominally choosing only one part of the animal to consume: it’s who we are. Celery as comic foil, a joke vegetable to be dunked in not-one-but-two creamy, calorie-filled sauces. It’s low food as high art, a pantomime of eating. The little chemical-filled wipes, an anesthetizing and utterly superfluous “hygiene” option provided free of charge (and in tandem with) a stack of napkins the size of a brick, with each order. The napkins and sani-wipes are mandatory: you can’t refuse them. Waffle fries. What amiable, guileless foreigner can wade into such absurdity? Asinoi, of course! Aesthetics aside (the wine is high-toned and lightly spicy, chillable, really a dynamite match for any dry-rub or higher heat wing) the name alone “we are donkeys” merits the pairing. A  biodynamic Barbera that doesn’t take itself too seriously. We could all use a little more humility. Eating messy foods with one’s hands is a good place to start. 

Part 3. Alla Costiera Terreni Bianchi w/steamed soupy buns.

Alla Costiera Terreni Bianchi w/steamed soupy buns. Can you escape Li Ming/H-Mart/Grand Asia without every iteration of frozen dumpling? I cannot. Bring on the gluten. In particular I like the ones where my ignorance of (we’ll say) Mandarin sets up a fun “what’s in the middle” dinner party game. Will there be a quail egg, or a peanut, or a funky little hunk of sweet hot dog? The soup bun is first among equals, and the hazy, wintry substantiality of Terreni Bianchi, with it’s luminous floral aromatics, make this bargain organic bottle an all-round best bet for frozen/steamed/stuffed pan-asian fare. Alla Costiera’s herbal notes will be more in the foreground if your buns have chives/scallions, and if (praise be) one of those sticky rice triangles wrapped in lotus/banana leaves is unearthed from the deepest reaches of the freezer floor, the Marianas trench of frozen peas and corn, well then you are in for a Michelin-starred pairing. The foie gras and sauternes of the supermarket. The pinnacle of couch dining. ⁠

Part 3. Paolo Petrilli “Motta del Lupo” Cacc’e Mmitte di Lucera w/grilled cheese and tomato soup.

Do you make your own tomato soup? I don’t. I make gazpacho in summer, of course, but that’s entirely different. In January I eat leftover pour-and-heat tomato soup from a box, after filling two school-bound thermoses. It’s not an exaggeration to say I can make grilled cheese sandwiches in my sleep. I do it at 6am, several times per week. It’s a wonder this food ever makes it into the backpacks of my girls. One day I’ll slump down at the counter, moments after the last child has departed for state-mandated instruction, pop open a bottle of Paolo Petrilli Motta del Lupo, and fill a bistro glass like it’s 7pm, not 7am. Read the paper, eat a full grilled cheese prepared solely with myself in mind (not just the chopped-off sad crusts of breakfasts past) and imagine myself the protagonist in Donald Barthlome’s short story Chablis, a character either sipping a far-too-late last glass of white wine at the end of a long night, or starting his day with one. Then I’ll go back to bed, and sleep till the dog starts whining at noon. 

Paolo’s Sangiovese, Montepulciano, Nero di Troia, and Bombino blend won’t judge your transgressive behavior. January is for surviving. Tasty inexpensive certified organic wines go a long way.

Part 5. Visintini Palmira w/Mississippi tamales

It did occur to me that some readers won’t have ziplock freezer bags full of tamales that family members lugged back from Vicksburg. I suppose those readers will have to eat ordinary tamales. Sad. Or other freezer stalwarts could stand in: frozen egg rolls come to mind, even the dreaded hot pocket (there really is no god.) Palmira is perennially delightful, 100% Merlot, a table wine without a care in the world. I’ve said it before: everyday wine should have character, affordable wine should be made from healthy grapes, and enjoying wine on a daily basis should be economically viable for average Americans.