Wines of Lazio: Regillo Frascati Superiore

Regillo 

Frascati

D.O.C.

Superiore

2009

Tenuta di Pietra Porzia

   I've been on a Frascati kick lately.  The spring is here, finally, it is heating up, and I am working hard in my garden, so I like to enjoy a crisp Frascati at dinner most nights.  Tenuta di Pietra Porzia makes one of my favorite go-to table wines.  It is a bargain at €5 a bottle at the supermarket.  In fact, it is one of the only supermarket wines I will buy anymore.  It has an interesting name that evokes the pre-Roman history of the area.  In image on the label depicts the Dioscuri, the twins sons of Zeus.  The name refers not only to the ancient history, but to the terroir of the area. 

The Castelli Romani is most well known as an agriculturally rich area due to the now extinct volcanoes that gave the area its mineral rich soils.  The Regillo Frascati certainly does not disappoint those who want to taste the minerality in their wines.  

     Before the hills of Rome were finally assimilated by the Romans, a group of people known as the Latins held on for as long as possible to their lands and way of life.  But it was not to be.  Anyone familiar with ancient history knows that one can never escapes ones fate.  Rome had the hand of the gods on their side.  

According to their website: 

496 a.C, in a large amphitheatre with the lake Regillo in the middle, an hard battle took place between Romans and Latinos; in the crucial moment, descended from the sky the Dioscuri, the two twins born by Jupiter, and led the Romans to triumph!

The battle theater is today the Tenuta di Pietra Porzia, a small river that runs in the centre of the estate reminds of the ancient lake, the cave with her long passages, excavated in Roman Empire Age, testifies an agricultural tradition and on 1714 the estate was divided between the proprieties of Pope Clemente XI and the one belonging to Prince Borghese. 

The date 1892, engraved in the bricks, reminds the birth of the modern cellar, that replaces the ancient cellar excavated in the tuff in the Roman Empire time. 

Let's hope this wine lives up to its magnificent past!

     Regillo Frascati is made up of two aromatic white grapes, Malvasia di Candia and Malvasia del Lazio and also contains the grapes Trebbiano, Bombino and Greco. The color is a rich hay yellow.   It has lovely fruity and floral aromas at first which then lead us to more complexity with mineral and herbal notes.  The fruits are typical and rich.  I was at once reminded of apricots, citrus, and pears.   Spring orange flowers, nuts, and maple with notes of fresh cut grass.  

The wine is perfect for an late afternoon glass of wine, pre-dinner drink, or with a light vegetable rich dinner.  I love this with Pasta Fagioli and grilled veggies.  It is light and refreshingly crisp.  In a nutshell, a crisp, dry, medium bodied, aromatic and fragrant wine.  

Enjoy after a long day of gardening! 

    

The Food of Goths

I have not had much time to blog lately.  My house was struck by lightning and my internet and phone line were burnt out for about 10 days.  I have been busy with work, Thanksgiving, and planning Chanukah this year.  

     This blog is dedicated to three people, first of all,  Leilani Clark who  is a great friend and amazing writer of culture and literature.  She is also editor and co founder of a group of people who host writing workshops and publish a zine with a theme each issue.  This past issue, the theme was Dark, to celebrate the coming of Autumn and Winter.  Many different types of people collaborate including writers, artists, and photographers, so my contribution was dark and gothic foods.  The creativity workshops are run by Petals and Bones.  Thanks Leilani for having a place for creatives and helping me with my grammar.  She's also a college English teacher.  

     Secondly, Ms. Heather Hanson who was kind enough to come all the up to the boonies to share Totally Truffled Thanksgiving with us.  My favorite California girl in Rome and fellow wine lover.  She is also a wine educator at a University in Rome and leads wine tours.  Check out her great blog Italy Decanted and read her wine notes!

   And finally, to my favorite vegan food blog , Veganize it...Don't Just Criticize it by Ms. Jenn Shagrin.  A funny, beautiful and delicious vegan blog that inspires me everytime I read it.  I am now much more iinspired to take non vegan recipes and make wonderful veganized versions of them.  

The Food of Goths

By Sarah May Grunwald

    My partner and I suffer from “opposites attract syndrome.”  He is the dark to my light, appearance-wise, but his skin is about as deep as his darkness goes.  He is the sun to my moon, he is Cat Stevens where I am Diamanda Galas, his cup is half full to my cup is half empty, but he laments the passage of summer as if he is mourning a lost friend or relative.  As soon as the light turns to dark, he becomes embittered, whereas I welcome the short days and rainy weather.  Fall is the season of darkness. The days get shorter; we want to stay inside by the warm fire. It is perfect for gothic tunes about darkness. Tanorexics lament the passing of sunny days.

 For my own part, I celebrate the coming of fall.  Fall gives birth to the darkest of Mother Earth’s gifts, the elusive truffle. They grow under oak trees deep in the soil. In fact, light is not their friend. For a gourmand like me, dark days mean delicious days. What is darker and more gothic in the world of food than a black or white truffle? Once you’ve had the occasion to have the perfume of one linger in your nasal cavity or palate, an addiction will be born. They are sweet-smelling, like old roses; hormonal, barnyardy (a word often used in the wine community), and a known aphrodisiac. They are humble and ugly--a fungus, nothing more.  But they are the most coveted of the fungi family. During the White Truffle festival in Alba, Piedmont, people who own these darlings must have a body guard. In divorce proceedings between couples who are perhaps in the food industry, when the proceedings turn to custody, they aren’t speaking of children. 

Yes, a simple fungus has driven many a woman or man insane.  I know I have my own anxieties the few weeks before I am to go to a truffle festival. I squander money, hide it around the house, plan elaborate menus around the truffles I am to buy, close my eyes and imagine that sweet aphrodisiac perfume. It is the food of the goddess. Surely the milk of mother earth is a white truffle.  I cannot imagine anything else as divine.

One of my favorite recipes that I have veganized includes the friend of the truffle, the porcini mushroom. I took the recipe from a favorite book on the Umbrian kitchen in Italy and adjusted it to make it vegan and still delicious:

Sformatini di Ricotta con Funghi Porcini e Tartufo Nero

Baked Ricotta with Porcini Mushrooms and Black Truffle

200g of raw cashews

300g of firm tofu (about one small/medium package)

2tsp of course Celtic Sea Salt

1 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes

1-2 large cloves are garlic (go by your love of garlic)

Equivalent of 2 eggs Egg Replacer (Ener G works best)

Juice of half a lemon

1 large handful of dried porcini mushrooms(make sure they are well rinsed so as not sandy)

1 bay leaf

One sprig of fresh rosemary

Extra virgin olive oil

Black or white truffle, or, if not available truffle paste or truffle oil (make sure no dairy is added)

Day old rustic Italian bread, cut into soldiers (like lady finger size) and toasted

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 180° C.  Soak the mushrooms in warm water for at least half an hour. Mix the cashews, tofu, sea salt, nutritional yeast, garlic, egg replacer, 1-2 tbsp of olive oil, and lemon juice in a food processor and blend until totally smooth, with absolutely no nutty chunks. If you need to add a tbsp or so of warm water, if you have problems blending.  Keep aside until ready for use. 

Drain the mushrooms and keep the dark water on the side for later use.  If the pieces are large, cut them into about ¼ to ½ inch pieces with scissors.  In a small pan drizzle about 2-3 tbsp of olive oil, a splash of white wine (I would use whatever wine you are serving this with), salt to taste, one spring of rosemary, the bay leaf and mushrooms.  Sautee with medium heat and slowly add 2-3 tbsp of mushroom water.  Sautee until it has dried out and the mushrooms are done. 

Now, in aluminum panna cotta cups/molds(which are similar to cupcake cups, or in a cupcake cup if you can’t find panna cotta cups), scoop up a large spoonful of mushroom mix, making sure there are no sticks from the rosemary and the bay leaf has been removed, and put it at the bottom of the cup.  Fill the rest of the cup up to the top with the cashew ricotta mix.  This mix should make 4-6 depending on the size of the cup.

Put each cup on a cookie pan, and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, or until the tops are toasted and golden brown.  Make sure not to let them go dark.  Once cooked, reverse the molds onto a small plate, grate the toasted bread over it, and serve with toasted bread that has been brushed with olive oil.  Grate black or white truffle over the mushrooms and dish.  Or, if using truffle oil, drizzle the truffle over the mushrooms, letting it drizzle slightly over the sides. 

If you are serving with black truffle I suggest a light bodied Riesling from Germany, or Alto Adige in Italy.  With white truffle, bring out the more aromatic whites like a Gewürztraminer from Alsace, or, strangely enough, a buttery California Chardonnay

Buon Appetito!!

Play the Black Celebration album by Depeche Mode

Wines of Lazio: Frascati Superiore

Wines of Lazio: Frascati Superiore

Casale Mattia

Frascati Superiore

Terre del Casale

DOC

2008

     Frascati is the white wine most often consumed by the Romans, and most of its production makes its way down the hills of the Castelli Romani to be consumed in the trattoria and osteria of Rome.  Typically in Lazio winemakers make wines for quantity over quality, so there are many mediocre Frascati bottles out there, but there is hope.  There are a number of producers that are making great Frascati wines that evoke both the fertility of the land and the aromas of the grapes used.  Frascati does not need to be a boring and tasteless wine at all.  Casale Mattia is making great wines from organic grapes and a combination of modern and traditional winemaking.  They use all natural methods in their wine making process including natural yeasts instead of GMO yeasts.  

     I tasted a 2008 Casale Mattia Frascati Superiore called “Terre Del Casale.”  I quite enjoyed it, thug I feel that most Frascati are best when consumed in their first year.  Visually, I could tell it had a bit if age(for a Frascati), as it was darkening.  It was a very crystalline hay yellow with moderate consistency with average arches.  The hay color had a bit of golden hue in it as well.  It had very intense aromas that were clean and crisp which were suggestive of citrus such as grapefruit, lemons, and limoncello.  Underneath all that was the aroma I most associate with a Frascati, apricot.  It also had undertones of citrus flowers, fresh cut grass, shell like minerals, and fragrant bread.  On the palate it was medium bodied, dry to off dry, very fresh, silky, and with a long mineral finish which came directly from the volcanic soil the vines are planted in.  I enjoyed every sip, and think it is a perfect white wine for the spring and summer, but even in the cooler months when we start to make soups.  The aromatic qualities would pair perfectly with a warm minestrone or vegetable risotto.  

Burton Anderson: Mi fa depressa

I am reading the 1980 edition of this book:  Vino:  The Wines and Winemakers of Italy and I feel I have been cheated.  Born in the wrong era!  This book is one of the most beautifully and poetically written books on wine I have ever read, and there are many stories about wine legends, now departed and the sensual, unforgetable but also not replicable wine they made.  This is a time before the phrase Super Tuscan, a time when there were no terms like biodynamic, sustainable, or natural wines.  Those catch phrases now used more as a marketing tool rather than an adjective describing the passion of a wine maker.    The men and women who made their wine in the traditional way, with organic and natural procecsses did it out of love, not for marketing.  This was right on the cusp, the time of the greats was peaking and Coca Cola just spent $36 million investing in Montalcino to produce more industrial crap. I am on the hunt for one of the last great bottles ever made by a Prince who spent his time tending his vineyard like it was his special, and who, to prevent his vineyard being molested by the wrong people, tore out all the vines and never looked back.  This all happened before I got out of high school.

Our Day in Piglio

Our Day in Piglio, Latium, Italy


Our day in Piglio.
A few week ago Ettore and I were tired of being house bums and decided to get back into our old routine of going for a Sunday drive to a town within two hours of Genzano for a walk and lunch. We decided we would go to a little mountain town called Piglio which is located in the hills of Frosinone, which is a province of Latium. Piglio is "famous" for a native laziale varietal called Cesanese and Cesanese del Piglio has the excited new designation of a DOCG wine, which is th first in the region of Latium.
After the fall of Rome is 476 C.E. Rome experienced a huge change, which was a population drain and a brain drain. When the Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire from the city of Rome to Constantinople, many of the skilled crafts people left, as well as scholars. Rome's population in th 5th c. dropped to about 10,000, although some estimates say 20,000 people. With the collapse of Rome in the west, Italy was espeically plagued by constant evasions by the so-called Barbarians. Without a central power securing the city of Rome, many people fled the area and moved into the hills of Latium where they built these amazing medieval towns out of stone totally isolated from anyone else, but also protected from invasions. Piglio is a great example of this. In the Middle Ages, Italy was primarily made up of hundreds of little city states, all at odds with each other. What happened is really what defines Italy today, a country of extreme diversity in culture, language and kitchen. Many people went back to their roots, to the villages of their ancestors before they were Romanized. The Hernici once ruled this region.
The Pigliesi retained their cooking and wine making skills for centuries without interuption, many of these traditions were brought from classical Rome. When one drinks the native varietals of Latium, one drinks the wine of the Classical Romans. It is a very exciting time in terms of wine production in Latium, with native varietals being rediscovered and wine producers realizing they have gold in their hands, and instead of relying on the internationl grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon, they are places their bets on what seems natural, and what will thrive in the region.
So on this cloudy day, we decided to give ourselves a few hours break from our sick puppies, and took a drive into the real backwater countryside of Latium for a small taste of what the town offered.
After a very pleasant one hour drive from Genzano on the Autostrada, We encountered this town built of whatever stones were in the area. I would have hated to be the peasant who had to transport good from the fields to the town!

Due to recent rains(I should say never ending rains!) the countryside of Piglio was very green, and even though the vines of Cesanese were lifeless at the moment, the had an air of nobilty and age that no New World wine countryside can compete with.

When we got to town it was still too early for lunch, so we decided to have a walk in what seemed like an ancient ghost town, but surprisingly we came across people just minding their own business. This lady seemed to be taking laudry from the well to hang to dry. The people of these sorts of town are very interesting. It is rare to see young people, and the older people really hang on to their traditions as if glued to them. Ettore enjoyed hearing their dialect. He couldn't understand. That is what centuries of isolation created!!

It is good to know Italians never lost the ability to make the Etruscan arch. That's right...the arch is NOT a Roman invention, but something Romans took from the Etruscans when they conquered them.I love to study pre-roman Italian civilizations.

So we finally saw a child. Sometimes people who are from these towns move to the cities, but they never forget their roots, and come home for Sunday lunch.

When it was finally lunchtime, we found a real hole in the wall, down a stone alley, with the smallest door. The only reason when knew it was a open for lunch it because of the delicious aroma coming from the kitchen. It was cold, and we cold smell minestrone and polenta, cold weather foods that appealed to our cold hands.

The restaurant is called La Cantinetta. They weren't quite ready to serve lunch, but they welcomed us anyway, and we got our table and ordered the house wine, which was made by the owners Uncle, a lovely Cesanese del Piglio, which was lovely with the grilled vegetable antipasto which were the best tasting grilled vegetables I have ever tsated. they were perfect, straight from the garden, and with a very earthy homemade olive oil from the region. YUM!

For lunch I ordered the Polenta di Porcini which was more of a creamy polenta with fresh mountain porcini, most likely fund in the forest behind the town. I can tell you it was delicious, but not very good looking, which is why I didn't take a close-up photo.

Ettore ordered the Penne di carciofi the pasta with artichoke. It was also delicious, and not as bitter as many artichoke dishes are, which was great in terms of being to taste the wine. Sometimes the bitter metalic property of artichoke interferes with wine. It is notoriously hard to pair with wine. Ha! You can actually see the fork moving in the photo. It was so delicious, I couldn't get Ettore to wait 5 seconds while I took a photo!!

All the food was extremely fresh, the kitchen aromas were enough to appeal even the pickiest eater. We had a lovely day trip, and the best part of it was the cost. Our meal, which was two antipasti, two primi, two desserts, house wine, and caffe was only

30 euro for both of us.

It was really one of the best meals of my life. Simple country food, that was satisfying in is simplicity, but also in it's soul and heartiness. I can't wait to get there in the summer, when everyone is boiling in Rome, I will be enjoying the cool mountina breeze of Piglio, sipping on a local wine. We saw that there argreat haking paths in the area and want to make a backpacking trip in the area. Hiking all day, eating local cuisine at night. Our favorite kind of vacation. The first year I lived here, Ettore and I would go on spontaneous day trips like this all the time. This tradition has waned, but I am hoping to revive it. Italy is so diverse, even a town about 50km away is like a different country for us.