Vintage Considerations, Victory for Parmigiano, and More: Being the 144th issue of Cosa Bolle in Pentola

Greetings, and apologies for being late. Again not much to report on the Italian Wine Review, though I do have something to say here. On Italian food, a reader's question about pheasant resulted in a quick collection of recipes, together with instructions on how to ripen (can one ripen meats?) feathered game.

Chianti, Nobile, and Brunello: Vintage Considerations

Returning to Cosa Bolle, I spent last week at the vintage presentations of Tuscany's three major appellations, Chianti Classico, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, and Brunello di Montalcino. As is always the case at these events, the number of wines presented was much greater than I could properly address in the time allotted, so in tasting I picked and chose, selecting some wines because I'm familiar with the winery and wanted to see what they've done this time, some because someone was whispering admiringly about them, and some because the name of the winery (or the wine) caught my eye.

Chianti Classico is an especially serious offender in this regard -- the table the sommeliers took their samples from looked to be about a hundred yards long, and it was solid bottles. On the other hand, Chianti Classico is a big appellation, and it was very nice to see the variety of wines available: 2006, 2005, 2004, and 2003 Chianti Classico D'Annata, and 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, and 2001 Chianti Classico Riserva, for a total of 316 wines. Actually doing something with all that variety in the 2 days we had is another matter, and I decided to concentrate on the vini d'Annata, or vintage wines, the wines that are, in theory, made to be set out and enjoyed upon release or shortly thereafter. Not quite quaffing wines, but certainly not the sort of thing one sets aside to return to and meditate over years later.

Unlike some appellations, which encourage producers to release their wines after a set time, Chianti Classico allows quite a bit of leeway, producers who prefer a younger, fresher style can release their wines the spring of the year following the vinification (2006 in this case), while those who prefer a more mature style can hold the wines longer -- many opt for 2 years (releasing 2005s this time) and some wait even longer.

I was pleasantly impressed by the 2006 vintage: it was a nice summer, and this translated well into the grapes, which produced wines that are quite drinkable, with nice balance and pleasant richness of fruit backed up by good structure. As a group they tend to be nimble on their feet, and even though some are rather tannic, they have sufficient fruit to balance the tannic richness, and are bolstered by bright acidities that again keep the wines on their toes. Quite nice, and I found myself scoring them highly; they'll also drink very well with foods, everything from hearty minestrone and ribollita through red sauced pasta dishes and on to grilled meats and light stews. In short, versatile, and if you have friends over don't be surprised if the bottle empties long before you get to dessert.

The rich frutiness of the 2006 also bodes well for the 2006 Chianti d'Annata that will be released next year, and the 2006 Riserve now in barrel and cask.

The 2005 Chianti D'Annata released this year didn't fare as well. Last year I summed up the vintage, which was wet and cold, with the word "tart," adding that many of the young wines had a certain brambly grace to them. Alas, many of the wines that spent another year awaiting release emerged considerably dulled, with the fruit faded in intensity and brightness, and the tannins clearly drawing from oak, which steps in to help the fruit along in a way that would be unnecessary in a better vintage. As is always the case there were some exceptions (brilliant ones, even) to this dreary picture, but when buying wines of the 2005 vintage you'll have to be much more careful than you will when buying the 2006 vintage.

There was also a fair number of bottles of the 2004 vintage; it was good last year (and 2 years ago) and continues to be quite nice now, with the bottles presented this year displaying considerable poise and grace. It was, and continues to be a vintage well worth looking out for, and I also greatly enjoyed the few Chianti Classico Riserva 2004 wines I tasted.

2005 Nobile di Montepulciano

Wednesday evening we all headed south, to spend the night in Chianciano Terme, and transferred to Montepulciano Thursday morning to discover the 2005 Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Given my experience with the 2005 Chianti Classico I wasn't particularly optimistic, but that changed in a hurry with the wines: Montepulciano is warmer and drier than Chianti Classico, and it was drier enough and warmer enough (and probably sunnier enough) that the 2005 wines I tasted were much richer, with pleasing fruit and nice underlying structure bolstered bouquet good acidities that kept them from settling. Not quite as bright as the 2006 Chianti Classico, but more in that direction, albeit with more structure behind them

I do have to admit that my tasting was incomplete: There were a number of barrel samples, and since a barrel sample only gives a limited indication of what the wine will become -- many nuances develop in the bottle -- I decided to return to Montepulciano this fall to taste through everything when it is a bit readier. But the initial impression of the 2005 Nobile di Montepulciano was quite positive. I was less pleased by the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Selezione wines that were also presented; these are for the most part vineyard selections (many from 2004), and with respect to the basic 2005 Nobile they were all much more heavily oaked, and in many cases with much softer, riper fruit. Now it's true that oak will with time fold in, but the softness and the ripeness of the fruit seems to be going in a different direction than that followed by the 2005 wines, which are much more vibrant and (to me at least) interesting.

Last year I said there appeared to be two currents in Montepulciano, one that favored deft, vibrant tightly knit wines, and the other that sought greater concentration and ripeness, but was also much softer and laxer, and I see that continuing in the contrast between the 2005 Nobile and the Nobile Selezione wines.

2003 Brunello di Montalcino

2002 was probably the coldest, wettest, most difficult vintage in the past 20 years, but the searing, parched 2003 vintage wasn't much if any easier, and given the disastrous experience I had with the 2003 Barolo this spring I approached it with considerable trepidation.

I wouldn't go so far as to say I was pleasantly surprised, but the experience wasn't as bad as I had feared it would be. The wines were, taken as a group, big and alcoholic, and many have vibrantly green tannins of the sort that denote drought-related ripening problems (and led fellow journalist Kerin O'Keefe to say she thought the vintage was worse than 2002), but I didn't find many wines that were wildly overripe. There was plum, and there was prune, and sometimes candied fruit, but there were also many wines with the more normal berry fruit flavors one expects of a red wine.

The combination of ripe berry fruit and green tannins was a bit of a surprise, until I remembered that Italian wine law allows what is called a taglio migliorativo, in other words a "blend to improve:" the winemaker can add up to 15% of a different vintage of a given wine to the wine in question, and I would not be at all surprised if many winemakers took advantage of this provision to balance the overripeness of the 2003 wines. In other words, many 2003 Brunellos have a great deal of cellar in them. Many but not all; those whose vineyards are a little cooler (and therefore less good in normal vintages) made out better, as did those who correctly guessed what was in store early in the summer (it was already hot by late May) and planned their vineyard managements accordingly.

And what does this all mean for the consumer? To be frank, 2003 is not a good vintage -- on a scale from 1 to 5 I'd give it 2.5 -- and its timing was especially bad for producers coming off an equally difficult 2002 vintage; had 2002 been better I suspect many would have channeled most of their 2003 wine into Rosso di Montalcino, which would have been a more appropriate place for it. Because even the better Brunello from the 2003 vintage is atypical, lacking (with one or two exceptions) the easy grace and elegance coupled with power that is the hallmark of Brunello, and the reason it's the flagship of Tuscan, if not Italian wines. In purchasing 2003 Brunello select with care, keeping in mind that many of the best vineyards are also those that were hit hardest by the summer sun, and therefore some of the wineries one normally considers a sure bet won't be this time.

I'm sorry to come down hard on a second consecutive vintage, but a person unfamiliar with Brunello who buys a bottle of the 2003 vintage will likely come away with a distorted view of what Brunello is all about, and this is a shame considering that some of the older but still available vintages, for example 1999 and 2001, are developing beautifully and easily explain the comment made by Baron Bettino Ricasoli, the man who developed the Chianti blend in the mid-1880s: When invited to lunch by Ferruccio Biondi Santi, the father of Brunello, he took a sip from his glass and said, "I can't make wine like that." 2004, to judge from 2004 Chianti Classico Riservas I have tasted, should be much, much closer to the mark, if not dead on.

Parmigiano: A Victory for the Cheesemakers!

When I was in college in the States we occasionally had spaghetti with meatballs or lasagna, which were inevitably accompanied by shaker cans with a horrid, rather acrid cheese "product" that the label on the can claimed to be Parmesan. Of course it wasn't, but there was nothing the makers of Parmigiano Reggiano could do about the appropriation (in translation) of their name.

Nor, until recently, could they do much about the German appropriation of the word Parmesan for a significant fraction of their cheese production. Quite the contrary; they sweated bricks when German cheesemakers applied for DOP (product of protected origin) status for their Parmesan, and heaved a collective sigh of relief when the food people in Brussels turned down the application. At least the knockoff wasn't an officially recognized knockoff, and at that point the producers of Parmigiano Reggiano, with the help of the Italian government, went before the courts in Luxemburg to have their name protected in translation too. The Germans at this point flip-flopped, arguing that Parmesan is actually a generic term that everyone should be allowed to use (if so, why did they try to register it?), but the court found with the Parmensi, and ruled that only cheese made within the Parmigiano Reggiano production area following the rules set forth in the Parmigiano Reggiano production code can be called Parmesan within the EEU.

The ruling is a major victory; it clearly establishes that only the traditional producers of a food have the right to profit from their good name and the reputation they have built for themselves. Copycats from elsewhere cannot. However, it's also an incomplete victory: The court ruled that a product's gaining DOP status does not automatically protect it from copycats and imitators. Rather, it's up to the country where the DOP product is produced (in this case, Italy) to seek injunctions against those who infringe upon the DOP products. In this case, the Consorzio del Parmigiano Reggiano has to actively seek out German imitators and take them to court, and I do not see that as being positive at all. The Court in Luxemburg should have said that it's flatly illegal to infringe upon DOP product names and required the countries where the products are made (and, one assumes, labeled) to prevent name grabbing.

And the Parmigiano people do have their work cut out for them; in addition to Parmesan, the makers of the fake stuff use many other Italian-sounding names, including Pamesello, Rapesan, and Pasgrasan in Europe. These should all in theory be relabeled something else that doesn't invoke Parmigiano Reggiano. We'll see if they are.

The other hollow point of the victory is that it only applies to Europe. A significant percentage of what is sold as Parmigiano Reggiano/Parmesan/Similar outside of Europe is counterfeit, and mostly poor quality industrially produced cheese, and since the producers of this stuff will never export it to Europe, they have no incentive whatsoever to change the name.

Artisan cheese makers who use the method used to make Parmigiano where they happen to live might, on the other hand, decide to rename their cheese, because Europe is a huge market, always interested in new things, and a good cheese will always sell, no matter what it's called.

Want proof? Corzano e Paterno makes spectacular wines, but they also make cheese. One day when they were still learning the ropes a batch came out looking decidedly odd and smelling worse, but was too much to throw out. So they set it aside, during which time the skins of the forms became gray and warty. When they got around to tasting a piece, however, they discovered that it was WONDERFUL, with a creaminess reminiscent of Taleggio. So they figured out what they had done wrong, did it again, and when the next batch came out the same as the first called the cheese Buccia di Rospo, or Toad's Skin, because that's what it looks like. Not exactly an inviting name, but it's extremely popular, and you can find it in Florence's finest restaurants.

Winding down, the conventions used in establishing DOP status can lead to some surprises. For example, at Montalcino this year we were given cold cuts and other pork dishes made from the Cinta Senese breed, which is one of the oldest Italian pig breeds -- the word "cinta" means band, and indeed the pigs are black with a white band that goes up one arm, over their backs and down the other arm -- appearing in Lorenzetti's Effetti del Buon Governo in Campagna, painted in Siena's town hall in the late 1330s.

The people serving the foods were also giving out little booklets entitled "Pleased to meet you. Suino Cinto Toscano (Genetic Type Cinta Senese) DOP. In other words, the pig is being called a "Banded Tuscan" of the Cinta Senese genotype, and some of the Sienese eating lunch weren't happy about this: "The damn Florentines don't have a pig of their own so they steal ours," the guy next to me muttered.

It turns out the name is dictated not by the Florentines, but by the EEU bureaucrats who oversee the concession of DOP status: You can't register a breed, because a breed can be raised anywhere. So you tie it to a place -- the Banded Tuscan Pig -- and then specify the breed, Cinta Senese. Makes sense, if you think about it.

I've heard this time's proverb in more than one region: La gatta frettolosa fece i gattini ciechi - The hurried cat has blind kittens.

A presto,

Kyle Phillips
Editor, The Italian Wine Review
http://www.italianwinereview.com
Want to comment? Drop me a line at Kyle@cosabolle.com

PS -- Please forward this to anyone you think would enjoy it! If you would like to read past issues (nothing in them really gets stale), you'll find recent ones at Cosa Bolle.Com, http://www.cosabolle.com, and older ones at http://italianfood.about.com/blbol.htm.

Happy Valentine's Day, and More: Being the 143rd issue of Cosa Bolle in Pentola

Greetings! Not much to report this week on the Italian Wine Review, though I hope to put some thoughts on Marsala up soon. On Italian food, the major new things are rundowns of the Barolos from Alba Wines that impressed me the most, which I divided into two groups -- 2003, which consists of fewer wines than I realized when I was taking notes and marking those that impressed me, and 2001 Riserva, which is a completely different kettle of fish.

Why so few 2003 Baroli? Because it was a very difficult vintage, even more difficult than the sorry, wet, cold 2002 vintage in some respects. While one often hears that hot dry summers are good for wine, it's also true that there can be too much of a good thing, and when this happens -- 2003 was the hottest, longest, driest summer in many, many years -- all sorts of things can happen: the grapes can overripen, or the ripening can just stop; the acidity can go through the floor, the tannins can remain as green as well-watered grass, sugars can go way up, leading to problems in fermentation and excessive alcohol, and so on.

People who work well, and are lucky, can mitigate the effects of all this, and produce good -- even very good -- wine despite the pitfalls Mother Nature scatters over the landscape. But the vast majority, those who worked well but had Luck frown at them, and those who simply made the wrong decisions, made dismal wines. That's just the way it is.

2001 was, on the other hand, an absolutely beautiful vintage, and I was greatly impressed by quite a few 2001 Barolo Riserva wines. They're pricy, and very young, but are the sorts of wines that one can buy and set aside with confidence, to enjoy for a special occasion 10, or even 20 years from now. You'll find what impressed me most here.

San Valentino
Returning to Cosa Bolle, San Valentino is rapidly approaching. You may not know who he was, or why people would associate a Catholic priest with Love. According to Jacopo Da Varazze, the Archbishop of Genova who compiled La Leggenda Aurea (The Golden Legend in English; it's the most important medieval Lives of the Saints) in the mid-1200s, Valentino was invited to renounce God and worship idols by the Emperor Claudius II in 280 AD. When Valentino refused, the Emperor had him locked up in the Provost's house, where he prayed that God illuminate the house, that those living there know God was the True God.

The Lord did, in the process restoring the sight of the Provost's blind daughter, and the whole family converted. Claudius was not pleased, and had Valentino beheaded. At this point Jacopo stops. Popular tradition holds, however, that Claudius had the entire family executed, starting with Valentino, and that on the eve of his execution he wrote the girl a letter, signing it "from your Valentine." After his death, tradition continues, a pink almond tree, symbol of abiding love, blossomed near his grave.

There is more, however. As is often the case with old Christian Holidays, San Valentino replaces a pagan festival, and more specifically a much older Roman fertility rite called the Lupercali, in which the men and women who followed the God Lupercus would meet in mid-February in the cave where the She-Wolf fed Romulus and Remus, put their names in an urn, and have a child draw several couples at random. The couples thus formed would live for a year as husband and wife, doing everything husbands and wives do until the next Lupercali, and in doing so guarantee fertility for the world.

As you might guess, the early Church was not at all happy with the Lupercali, and in 496 Pope Gelasio suppressed the holiday, decreeing that from then on people would celebrate Valentino instead. He was the perfect choice; in addition to writing the note to the Provost's daughter, he is said to have performed the first mixed marriage, between a girl named Serapia and a centurion named Sabino; the family refused when Sabino asked for her hand because he was a pagan, but Serapia had him talk to Valentino, who agreed to baptize him so they could marry, and also talked to the family. Alas, while this was happening Serapia caught consumption. Valentino hurried to her deathbed, where Sabino begged him to marry them, so he did (after baptizing Sabino), and as he raised his hands to impart the Blessing the betrothed fell into a blessed sleep from which neither awoke.

Valentino was also known for his love of children, and would let them play in his garden, which was much safer than the streets (some things never change). Come evening, he always gave the children flowers to take home to their mothers, knowing that if they carried flowers in their hands they'd hurry straight home, and that giving the gift would increase their love and respect for their parents. Thus comes, tradition says, the custom of giving loved ones little gifts.

Having said all this, a couple more ideas for Valentine's Day, or any other romantic occasion:

Bruschetta in Giallo - Bruschetta in Yellow
Bruschetta is, at its simplest, toast rubbed with garlic and seasoned with olive oil and salt, and it's a wonderful way to start a meal. However, you can do much more with a slice of toast, including this light snack. To serve 4:

• 8 slices toasted bread, ideally Italian
• 4 eggs
• 3 tablespoons heavy cream
• A walnut-sized chunk of butter
• 6 ounces (150 g) cooked shelled shrimp (canned will be fine), drained
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh chives, or more to taste
• Salt and pepper to taste

Toast the bread and keep it warm.

Beat the eggs with the cream. Heat the butter in a non-stick pan, add the eggs, and stir them about to scramble them, adding the shrimp as well after a few seconds. Continue to cook until the eggs reach the degree of doneness you like, and season them with salt and pepper.

Arrange the toast on four plates, spoon the egg mixture over them, sprinkle the chives over all, and serve at once, with a dry white wine. A Ribolla Gialla might be nice.

Spaghetti alla Cipolla Rossa Con Acciughe Sotto Sale - Spaghetti with Red Onions and Salted Anchovies
This might not be romantic in the traditional sense, but it is a rather lusty, zesty dish that will heighten the senses. Red onions are a little sweeter than white onions, and make for a slightly richer dish. To serve 4:

• A scant pound (400 g) thick spaghetti (or even bucatini).
• 2 salted anchovies, headed, boned, rinsed, and crumbled
• A pound of red onions, peeled and finely sliced
• 3/4 cup salted ricotta, grated
• A bunch of parsley, minced
• 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) extravirgin olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Set pasta water to boil, salt it when it does, and cook the pasta. In the meantime, heat the oil in a broad fairly deep skillet and add the crumbled anchovies. Stir over a gentle flame for a couple of minutes, until the fall apart completely, and add the parsley. Stir the mixture about and add the onions, which will separate into rings. Season to taste with salt and pepper, cover, and simmer over a low flame for about 10 minutes, by which point they will have softened. Uncover the pot, stir in half of the cheese, and turn off the burner.

When the pasta is done drain it, turn it into the skillet, and cook over a brisk flame for about 2 minutes, and serve it at once with the remaining grated cheese. A wine? White, and I might be tempted by the refreshing directness of a Colli Albani.

Finally, something strictly for Valentine's day:

A Cuore Fondente, or Melting Heart
While a heart-shaped baking tin for two is not a requirement, it does add to the presentation. You'll need,
For the crust:

• 1/2 cup (50 g) flour
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, broken into bits
• An egg yolk

For the filling:

• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 4 ounces (100 g) baking chocolate
• 2 more tablespoons unsalted butter
• Good quality milk chocolate and powdered sugar

Using a mixer, beat the flour, sugar and butter until the mixture looks like crumbs. Beat in the yolk too, and when the dough forms into a ball warp it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for a half hour.

Roll the dough out to about an eighth of an inch thick (3 mm), and use it to line a heart-shaped pan whose midline is between 4 and 5 inches (10-12 cm). Prick the bottom of the dough with a fork and chill it for 20 minutes. While it's chilling, heat your oven to 360 F (180 C)

When the time is up, line the dough with oven parchment, fill it with dried beans, and bake it for 20 minutes. Remove the pan, remove the beans and the parchment, and let the baked crust cool.
In the meantime, break the chocolate into chunks and melt it over a double boiler with the cream and the butter, mixing well. Let the mixture cool, pour it into the pie shell, and chill everything in the refrigerator for 4 hours. Come time to serve it, decorate it with shavings of milk chocolate and powdered sugar.

To make a bigger pie to serve 6 you'll need:

• 2 cups (200 g) flour
• 1/2 cup (100 g) unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup plus a tablespoon (80 g) sugar
• An egg and a yolk
• 1/2 pound plus one ounce (250 g) baking chocolate
• 3/5 cup (150 ml) heavy cream
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• A 10-inch (25 cm) diameter pan

Winding down, a couple of modern proverbs:

Il cuore ha le sue ragioni e non intende ragione - The heart has its reasons, and doesn't listen to reason

Non baciarti mai davanti a casa... L'amore é cieco ma i vicini no - Never kiss on your doorstep… Love is blind, but not the neighbors

A presto & Auguri!

Kyle Phillips
Editor, The Italian Wine Review
http://www.italianwinereview.com
Want to comment? Drop me a line at Kyle@cosabolle.com

PS -- Please forward this to anyone you think would enjoy it! If you would like to read past issues (nothing in them really gets stale), you'll find recent ones at Cosa Bolle.Com, http://www.cosabolle.com, and older ones at http://italianfood.about.com/blbol.htm.

Foods For When things Are Tight, Thoughts About Varietals and More: Being the 142nd issue of Cosa Bolle in Pentola

Greetings! This week I've been thinking about Bollicine, Bubbles, which those in Franciacorta would like to have us associate exclusively with their sparkling wines, but that can actually be applied to just about any kind, including Prosecco and Gavi. On the IWR I've just posted my complete tasting notes for the bollicine I tasted this fall at Spumantia, a fascinating event held in Viareggio (on the Tuscan coast). On Italian Food, a variety of recipes, which are mentioned in the blog entries from the home page, http://italianfood.about.com.

More about Italian Incomes
Returning to Cosa Bolle, Scott, who is trying to compare Italy and the US in light of the income figures I gave last time, sent me a note asking about taxation. I'll have to do a bit of research, but the quick and dirty answer is that the figures I gave are net, after taxes.

As for taxes, if the worker is a dependent they are withheld (from what I understand; I am not a tax person); professionals instead have to make payments, and the primary income tax, which is called IRPEF, is on a sliding scale, ranging from 23% for those earning up to 26,000 Euros, to 43% for those earning more than 75,000. If you are a dependent worker the company you work for also makes payments into INPS, the pension system (the payment for dependent workers is about 9%, and is detracted from taxable income). I'm not sure how pension plans for professionals work, nor what the percentage they pay is, but they again pay directly.

The other thing self employed professionals have to do is take out a an IVA (value added tax) number and include the IVA in every bill they emit, paying what they have collected quarterly to the State (people can and do get squeezed if the billee hasn't paid yet by the time the VAT comes due). VAT is collected for anything that's paid for, and varies depending upon what one is paying for; for most foodstuffs (and primary non-luxury homes, among other things) it's 4%, for many necessities, including electricity, it's 10%, for most professional services it's 20%, and it's higher for luxury items, for example jewelry or villas. The bottom line, a friend who does PR work for wineries as an independent professional (with IVA number) told me, is that if she wants to take home 5 she has to charge 10.

There are some local taxes, for property, garbage, watershed protection, and so on, but they are relatively low, certainly much lower than the State income taxes one has to deal with in the US. And then there is the gasoline/kerosene tax, which I shouldn't mention but will because it affects everyone: Much of the roughly 8 dollars a gallon of gasoline costs in Italy goes to the government. A percentage of this windfall is earmarked for the road network, but I'm not sure anyone knows where the rest of it goes.

One thing we don't have which Scott counted as an additional expense, is health insurance: Italy has socialized medicine, which means part of our tax bite goes into the Ministero della Sanità, and we get care back. When we have needed the system it has worked fine, and I will stop now before I become polemical.

Foods For Tight Days
As if the news week about how little the majority of Italians bring in every month weren't enough, yesterday ISTAT, the State's statistics office announced that the salaries of dependent workers have stayed just about flat for the past 6 years. Since prices certainly haven't been flat over the past 6 years, this means that most people's purchasing power has declined drastically, and this brings us to Olindo Guerrini (1845 - 1916), who is best known for a collection of poems entitled Postuma (Posthumous) that he published under the pen name Lorenzo Stecchetti in 1877, attributing them to a cousin who'd died of consumption. The book comments scathingly upon the political issues of the times, such as sending farmers to struggle and die in Colonial Africa rather than practice agrarian reforms at home, and casts a penetrating glance at the social customs as well. It raised a scandal and was immediately attacked as erotic and blasphemous; more recently people have decided it's enjoyable. If you're curious, you'll find the text several places, including http://www.rodoni.ch/busoni/bibliotechina/stecchetti.html.

But Postuma isn't why we're here. Rather, shortly before his death in 1916 Olindo Guerrini finished a manuscript entitled L'Arte di Utilizzare Gli Avanzi della Mensa (The Art of Recycling Leftovers), which was published under his own name in 1918. He covers all the major kinds of foods, some of which he felt more promising (as leftovers) than others. For example, he's enthusiastic about the possibilities offered by leftover firm-fleshed boiled or grilled white fish, but thinks leftover small fish, especially when stewed, for example Alla Livornese (with a zesty tomato sauce) is best suited to becoming "the joy of the cat."

One of the best represented foods is beef, and specifically boiled beef. Mr. Guerrini justifies this by saying, "the habit of eating soup, which some say is responsible for the decadence of the Latin races, makes broth necessary, broth that can only be obtained by boiling meat… families driven by need or taste to consume broth frequently are condemned to a lifetime of boiled meat."

The word I translated as "need" is actually hygiene in the Italian, and is a reference to the fact that doctors commonly prescribed broth for those with weak constitutions. I used need because the other reason (which Mr. Guerrini doesn't mention) behind the commonness of boiled meat a century ago was economic: meat was a luxury, and the most those who weren't well off could afford, especially if they wanted to eat meat more than once a week, was the cheapest cuts, which included those from older, tougher animals suited to boiling.

A Few Suggestions, but first a couple of words:
Mr. Guerrini's recipes are by modern standards incomplete; he goes largely by eye and assumes the reader will have a good enough cooking sense to bridge the occasional gap or jump in his instructions. On the other hand, when one is cooking with leftovers, one works with what one has. I have filled fleshed things out some, but feel free to adapt the recipes as you see fit.

Lesso col Risotto
Clean gristle and fat from 1 kilo (2.2 pounds) of boiled beef (if you also have roast beef, so much the better) and cut it into pieces the size of a walnut. Heat a half cup of unsalted butter and 2 ounces of finely chopped cured lard [if you cannot find cured lard use fatty pancetta] in a deep saucepan. Peel an onion, quarter it, and cook it, turning the pieces about in the fat until they are nicely browned but not burned. Remove and discard them, and add the boiled beef. Stir well and simmer the meat for 15 minutes in the drippings, stirring occasionally. Pour 1 1/2 quarts (1.5 liters) of boiling broth over the meat, and stir in a pint (2 cups, or 1/2 liter) of good rice [he doesn't say which; I might go with Roma or Rive rather than a really short-grained rice]. Cover and cook, taking care lest the rice stick and burn, until the rice is done, by which time the dish will be almost dry.

If you want, you can add a little saffron, a grating of fresh nutmeg, or some freshly ground pepper to the rice as it cooks. And, come time to serve it, Mr. Guerrini says to sauce it with meat sauce, or tomato sauce, or whatever else you prefer -- he doesn't say how much, but you'll want at least a cup, and perhaps more -- and then to add a handful of freshly grated Parmigiano, and mix well.

Lesso Colla Crosta (Au Gratin) - Boiled Meat with Crust
Here you'll need a serving dish that can stand up to heat, because you'll be serving the meat where you cooked it.

Heat thin slices of pancetta sufficient to line the bottom of the serving dish (you don't want to really fry them, rather just heat them) and line the dish. They will serve to grease the bottom of the dish and add flavor to the drippings. If you don't have pancetta, make due with a bit of broth, or some butter and a little water. Coarsely chop some fresh mushrooms, or steep and chop some dried mushrooms, and sprinkle the pieces over the bottom of the pan, together with finely chopped onion and parsley, and -- if you like it -- garlic. Cover the mixture with finely ground dry bread crumbs seasoned with salt and pepper, and lay slices of boiled beef (I'd figure 1/4-1/2 inch or 3/4-1.2 cm) over the bread crumbs. Cover the slices of beef with another layer of pancetta, mushrooms, bread crumbs, and so on, and moisten everything with a little broth to which you have added some white wine or rum, if you like. Heat over a gentle flame, and when the dish is heated through well run it under a broiler to brown the top.

Note: Mr Guerrini, who was writing before broilers (even now they are uncommon in Italy) says to cover the pot and put hot coals on the lid to apply heat from above. This technique of applying heat from below and above, called fra due fuochi (between two flames), was common and you often find it in older Italian cookbooks.

Fritto di Avanzi di Manzo Lessato - Fried Leftover Boiled Beef
"This is a variation on many other recipes, but I include it because of its simplicity," he says. Slice and onion and sauté it in butter in a sauce pot. Cut your leftover boiled meat into pieces the size of a hazelnut, add them, season everything with salt and pepper, and continue sautéing for 15 minutes. Serve piping hot.

If you want a more flavorful dish, add several blanched, peeled, seeded and chopped tomatoes, some hot wine, rosemary needles, sliced boiled potato, etc, at which point you'll have roughly a fritto alla cacciatora, which will want to be well peppered and should not be swimming in liquid. If the beef is too firm, marinate it before adding it to the pot.

Lesso Fritto Con Le Cipolle - Boiled Meat Fried with Onions
This is quite similar to the above: Slice two or three onions, and sauté them in butter over a gentle flame until golden. Add the beef, finely sliced, a clove of garlic, and season with salt and pepper. Cook over a brisk flame, and when the meat is heated through and steaming finish it with a good dusting of minced parsley and some lemon juice.

This dish has many variations. You can use lard or olive oil instead of butter, and can also add potatoes, wine, or other herbs and spices. It is also more flavorful if you add a few blanched, peeled chopped tomatoes, before you add the meat because they take longer to cook than it does to heat.

And finally, something summery:

Lesso Freddo Alla Giapponese - cold Boiled Meat Japanese Style
What this has to do with Japan is beyond me, but that's what Mr. Guerrini calls it:
Simmer a number of peeled potatoes in broth until a skewer penetrates easily, slice them, and season them while they're still hot with olive oil, salt, pepper, and vinegar, followed by a half glass of strong wine. Dice your boiled meat and put the pieces in the middle of a serving dish, arranging the potatoes in a ring around them. Finely slice a truffle over all, let the salad rest for a few hours, and serve it chilled.

"It's obvious," he says, "that in this recipe and others that call for them are not a requirement, though they do a fine job of adding class and flavor to leftovers."

If you omit the truffle the last recipe will be frugal, as will the others, and given the times this is a good thing.

Varietals Lost, and Varietals Found
Winding down, some thoughts on varietals. If you're interested in agricultural history, you probably know that wine as we know it now was almost wiped out in the mid-late 1800s. Not intentionally; Europeans have always taken vines with them when they travel, and brought them home as well. So long as the travel within Europe this was good. However, in the early 1860s a shipment of American vines was delivered to the banks of the Rhône, where they were planted and did very well. Then, a curious thing happened: Nearby European vines sickened and died.

The blight spread inexorably, quickly where soils were moist and more slowly where they were sandy or the climate dry, until all of Europe was under its pall and somewhere between 60 and 90% of the vineyards had been wiped out.

Botanists soon understood what was wrong -- the roots of the American vines were infested by a lymph-sucking aphid called phylloxera, which they were able to tolerate, but that was fatal to European vines. Devising a solution, however, took time.

The simplest, to replace the European varietals with American varietals, was unacceptable because the wines made from American grapes are very different, and (to European palates) vastly inferior. Then a French botanist had an idea: Why not graft the vulnerable European vines onto American rootstock that's immune to the bug?

The idea worked, and now, with a few exceptions, all the grape vines in Europe (and most everywhere else) grow on American rootstock. Of course it didn't happen overnight, and this brings us to Predappio, in Romagna: I was having dinner with several other journalists at the Vecia Cantin D'La Pré (which I heartily recommend), when we were joined by Giuseppe Nicolucci of the Azienda Casetta Dei Mandorli. We were talking about the differences between Tuscan and Romagnan Sangiovese-based wines when he said, "Of course you know just about all Tuscan Sangiovese is actually Romagnan."

I looked at him -- I may not be Tuscan, but I live in Tuscany, and the faces of a great many Tuscan producers proudly discussing the merits of their "strictly autochthonous" Sangiovese flipped through my mind.

"Yes," Mr. Nicolucci continued, saying one of the first Italians to learn how to graft European vines to American roots was a Romagnan named Angelo Sansoni, known as Esciop, the gun, because he was so quick with his hands: With the help of a couple of assistants, who handed him the materials, he replanted vineyard after vineyard in Romagna, and also worked extensively in both Chianti Rufina and Chianti Classico, planting cartload after cartload of Sangiovese vines from Romagna.

This was of course several generations ago by now, and has faded from memory. However, if the vines gave good results they, or cuttings propagated from them, are still there. In short, the pedigree of some of the finest Tuscan Sangiovese vines may not be as pure as we think it is.

Hearing about Esciop set me to thinking: Italy now boasts more grape varietals than any other country in the world. Some are outstanding, e.g. Sangiovese and Nebbiolo, some are excellent supporting actors who complement the stars (and are called uva complementari for this reason, for example Canaiolo, Colorino, or Negrara), and the vast majority are simply there, growing untested and unevaluated in old vineyards. Some of this unevaluated majority may be superb, and some may not, but it was all good enough that someone in the distant past thought it worth grafting onto American root stock.

I can't imagine how rich and varied the Italian ampelographic (a fancy word meaning the classification of grape vines) panorama must have been before phylloxera wiped almost everything out. Actually, I take that back:

During my trip to Romagna we visited La Sabbiona, a winery not far from Faenza that is bringing back from the brink of extinction a varietal known as Sauvignon Rosso. Not Cabernet Sauvignon, which is a cross between Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc, but a red Sauvignon that survived the phylloxera outbreak thanks to a guy known as Centesimino, who liked the vine enough to plant it in a pot on his balcony. There it survived, until the folks at La Sabbiona heard about it, and were intrigued enough to try propagating it, grafting it onto American rootstock, and planting a vineyard of it. Since the name Sauvignon Rosso is used as an alternate name for some other Italian varietals, they registered it as Centesimino, and now some other wineries are beginning to take an interest in it as well.

And well they should; La Sabbiona's first few vintages were variable, with some wine that was very good and some that was nondescript, and then they realized that the good wines came from cold falls and tried cooling the must during fermentation, a practice used to maintain the freshness of the bouquet that's more generally associated with white wines. The result is most impressive:

La Sabbiona Sauvignon Rosso IGT Ravenna 2006 is deep ruby and has an eye opening bouquet that unleashes an extraordinary blast of black currants and gooseberries mingled with black currant jam and some strawberries. It's got the same sort of impact one gets from a Rosenmuskateller, combining great power with seductive grace. On the palate it's rich, and fairly sweet, with powerful black currant fruit supported by smooth sweet tannins that gain direction from some India ink and graphite bitterness, while the finish is long and clean. It's an extraordinary discovery, of the sort you'll be happy to serve friends who don't mind conversation grinding to a halt and people concentrate on what's in their glasses.
91

This wine is aged in steel. There's also a Centesimino that goes into oak:
La Sabbiona Rifugio Ravenna IGT Rosso 2004 is deep black cherry ruby with brick rim. The bouquet is fairly intense, with black currant fruit supported by cedar and airy sea salt with some greenish vegetal notes and spice. Very nice, though it doesn't have the explosive impact of the 2006 Sauvignon Rosso -- If I hadn't tasted the other first I would have been very impressed, and as it was I was nodding my head. Grows nicely in the glass, too, with the fruit gaining in intensity. On the palate it's full and rich, with powerful black currant fruit supported by deft sweet tannins that gain direction from India ink bitterness, and flow into a rich black currant finish. Most impressive, and perhaps a little better balanced on the palate than the unoaked wine, which is instead more opulent. But both are captivating and fascinating, and well worth a detour if you're a wine lover and happen to be visiting Romagna. For that matter, La Sabbiona also has a nice agriturismo.
90

Bottom line: In Italy, we think we're rich, enologically, and we undoubtedly are. But we don't know what we lost thanks to phylloxera. Nor, for that matter, do any of the other European countries with longstanding winemaking traditions.

This time's proverb is from Bassano Romano, in Lazio, and is earthier than some: Pe' cchi nun se ccontenta da' zzinna da' vacca, c'è quilla do' toro - For those unsatisfied by the cow's udder, there's always the bull's (ahem). In other words, be happy with what you have.

A presto,

Kyle Phillips
Editor, The Italian Wine Review
http://www.italianwinereview.com
Want to comment? Drop me a line at Kyle@cosabolle.com

PS -- Please forward this to anyone you think would enjoy it! If you would like to read past issues (nothing in them really gets stale), you'll find recent ones at Cosa Bolle.Com, http://www.cosabolle.com, and older ones at http://italianfood.about.com/blbol.htm.

La Sapienza, Getting to the End Of the Month, and More: Being the 141st issue of Cosa Bolle in Pentola

Greetings! This has been a busy but productive week. I've posted my notes for Dolceto & Dolcetto, the annual presentation organized by Dolcetto producers on The Italian Wine Review, at http://italianwinereview.blogspot.com/2008/01/dolcetto-and-dolcetto-2007.html. On Italian food I've posted a selection of Dolcetti, and added several recipes.

Addio Romano!
Returning to Cosa Bolle, you may have heard that the Italian government collapsed last night, thanks to a vote of no confidence in the Senate. This wasn't a surprise, and indeed the real miracle in some ways is that Romano Prodi and his government managed to hang on as long as they did with a 3 (I think) seat majority in the Senate.

What will happen now? In theory, new elections, but with the current electoral law, which was passed by the previous government, the outcome could be just as close again, leaving the country almost impossible to govern. The problem is, from what I understand, that whereas in the House the winning coalition automatically gets a set of bonus seats that serve to strengthen the majority, in the Senate it does not. Couple this with a system that allows tiny parties to form and send just a handful of deputies, and maybe one or two senators to Parliament, and you have a recipe for disaster, because all it takes is one little party not getting its wish and stamping its feet, and the whole thing collapses.

This time the foot-stompers were of a party called UDEUR, one of the formations that rose from the ashes of the old Christian Democrats, led by a guy named Clemente Mastella (the Minister of Justice before the scandal brewed up), who was on the one hand upset by the way left-leaning students and professors of La Sapienza, one of Europe's oldest universities, led protests that resulted in the Pope's deciding to back out of an invitation to speak at the opening of the academic year, and on the other because his wife, who is a high-ranking politician in Campania, was arrested along with quite a few of her colleagues for influence peddling.

Incidentally, the first professor to object to Papa Benedetto's going to speak at the opening of La Sapienza has since said he was dismayed by the way others took his message and turned it to suit their needs, some erecting anticlerical barricades and holding sitins, and others wailing about preventive censorship and the insult paid to the Pope. "I don't have anything against the Pope's coming to talk," he said, "but thought that if he came for the inauguration of the Academic Year, his presence would completely overshadow the event. So that's what I said." The sad thing is, he's probably right. Had Benedetto gone, everyone would have focused on him, not the University.

ISTAT: Times Are Tough
The only other thing one can say about the collapse of the government is that it came at a singularly bad time. According to a recent survey by ISTAT, the Government's statistics bureau, half of all Italian families make do with less than 1900 Euros per month (though the Euro is worth more than the Dollar, in terms of purchasing power this is about 1900 Dollars), and 15% -- one out of seven -- run out of cash before payday, while close to 30% say they would be unable to meet an unexpected expense of 600 Euros, say if the car breaks down. Those who run out of cash resort to letting bills slide for a few days (9%), turning off the thermostat (10%), and even fasting (4%) to weather the drought. As you might expect, poverty is not evenly distributed; on average southern families earn 30% less than northern families, and in the south wealth is less evenly distributed.

Education also plays an important role in determining earning capacity; the average Italian family with college graduate breadwinners earns close to 3200 Euros per month, while 50% of the families whose breadwinner began working at the end of the scuola dell'obbligo (reqired schooling, which now includes some high school, though it hasn't always) make do with 1200 or fewer Euros a month. Surviving on 1200 Euros per month is not easy (gasoline, to name one commodity, is about 1.40 Euros/liter, or 8 Dollars/gallon), and because of this in most lower-income families both parents work, while many also depend upon the pensions of the Elder Generation.

And how do people survive? By going into debt; though Italians were once known for being a nation of savers, now 56% are paying for something, or perhaps a number of things, in installments. Mortgages and cars naturally come to mind, but now most everything is sold "a rate" too, from vacations to TV sets, and if you flip through the just about any advertising flyer, especially those from electronics shops, you'll be amazed at the number of things you can take home, and begin to pay for in 6 months or more.

While it is true that wages haven't kept pace with inflation in the recent past, especially in the past couple of years, there are other forces at work as well. Paola Zanuttini, of La Repubblica, took a look at prices considered as a percentage of wages over the past 30 years and came up with some very interesting results. In 1975 the average factory wage for an operio di terzo livello (an experienced worker) was 248,000 Lire (about 415 dollars), and a tank of gas cost 15,000 lire, or about 6% of the monthly wage. Now, with the average factory wage 1121 Euros for an operaio di terzo livello, a tank of gas costs 65 Euros, or about 5.7% of the monthly wage.

Ms. Zanuttini found similar cost-as-percentage-of-wages over the years for a great many things, including records and movies. She also found some declines, for example the cost of a month's supply of pasta, which went from .98% to .25%, and some increases, in particular of cars -- a compact then cost 3 months of salary, and an equivalent model now costs 7 -- and houses, which have skyrocketed.

So why are people now having a harder time than in the past? She thinks, and I think she's right, that people's expectations have changed. 30 years ago most families had one TV set. Now many have one in every room, a satellite hookup, and a computer too, together with an ADSL account. And several cell phones, at least one per person above age 10. Everyone goes to the gym; they didn't 30 years ago. People now buy children's clothes that fit, rather than getting coats long enough to last for 2-3 years, and come the new season buy again both to insure the proper fit and the correct style.

Bottom line, in 1975 there wasn't much money, nor much to buy. Now the money is still tight, but much more stuff is available, and that's when the installments begin.

Crumiri
Winding down, a reader recently asked me for a recipe for crumiri, a classic crescent-shaped cookie from the Monferrato region in Piemonte, made with a combination of flour and finely ground corn meal. To make a batch you'll need:

• 2 cups (200 g) finely ground corn meal
• 1 3/4 cups (175 g) unbleached all purpose flour
• 1/2 pound (220 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature (it should be soft), broken into bits
• 1/2 cup (100 g) sugar
• 3 eggs
• A packet of vanillin or a teaspoon of vanilla extract

Sift the flour onto your work surface with the corn meal. Add the sugar and the vanillin (if you're using vanilla extract add it with the eggs), scoop a well into the mound, and crack the eggs into it. Work everything together quickly, using the tips of your fingers.

Add the butter and continue kneading the dough energetically, until it is smooth, homogenous, and elastic. Shape the dough into a ball, put it in a floured bowl, cover it, and let it rest for at least 30 minutes.

Come time to make the crumiri, preheat your oven to 400 F (200 C).

Take the dough and shape it into a considerable number of snakes the diameter of your little finger and about 4 inches (10 cm) long. Use a fork to flatten them so they are about half as thick as they are wide; the fork will leave longitudinal ridges that are quite distinctive. Next, bend the flattened ropes into the crumiro's characteristic open parenthesis ( shape, and put them on a cookie sheet lined with a piece of oven parchment.

Bake the crumiri for about 20 minutes. Cool them on a rack, and they're ready.

A couple of observations:

• If the cornmeal is too coarse the texture of the crumiri will suffer.
• The word crumiro also means strike breaker, i.e. scab.

This time's proverb is from Lucania:
I pariend so' cum lu stuwal: cchiù so stritt' e cchiù t' fann mal.
Relatives are like boots: The tighter (closer) they are, the more they hurt.

Kyle Phillips
Editor, The Italian Wine Review
http://www.italianwinereview.com
Want to comment? Drop me a line at Kyle@cosabolle.com

PS -- Please forward this to anyone you think would enjoy it! If you would like to read past issues (nothing in them really gets stale), you'll find recent ones at Cosa Bolle.Com, http://www.cosabolle.com, and older ones at http://italianfood.about.com/blbol.htm.

Trash, Bottled Water, and More: Being the 140th issue of Cosa Bolle in Pentola

Greetings! Another hectic week, and I'll be adding something new to the IWR tomorrow, though if you visit Italian Food, you'll find something on Cavolo Verza, or Savoy cabbage, one of my favorite winter vegetables.

The Garbage Update

The trash troubles continue in Campania, and they offer opportunity for thought and reflection. The Government, faced with the necessity of getting mountains of refuse off the streets, is filling trucks and boats, and sending them elsewhere. The reception elsewhere has been mixed; bands of Sardinians tried to block the port of Cagliari to keep a boat of Campanian trash from docking, and since then two people have been arrested with fire bombs they planned to use upon the house of Renato Soru, President of the Regione Sardegna. If nothing else, Sardinia as a political entity is coming to the assistance of those in need, while Sardinians who disagree with their island's government are being up front with their feelings.

Lombardia has been much more simpering in its handling of the crisis; the Region's President Formigoni said in an interview that he'd be happy to come to Campania's aid, if it weren't for the fact that his region's trash collection is entirely differentiated, and they're simply not set up to handle mounds of undifferentiated stuff, especially not stuff that was set alight by enraged Campanians and put out with fire hoses -- who knows what dangerous chemicals might be lurking in there? An Italian might say, Non Fa Una Grinza -- the reasoning is formally correct, but…

An honest refusal, and there have been those as well, would have been better.

And that’s the situation; the EEU has said Italy must resolve the problem, but exactly how Italy will, especially in the long term, is not clear.

To keep this discussion at least nominally food related, sales of Campanian products have taken a tremendous hit since the story broke. The most obvious victim is Mozzarella di Bufala, probably because the word Campania figures prominently on the packaging; though the Consorzio admits there has been a 15% decrease, some other sources say it's closer to 40. But it's not alone; sales of fruit, vegetables, and even wine are off.

My thoughts?

While the mounds lining the streets are frightening to look at and as such are a PR disaster, I don't think they are responsible for current contamination problems, especially in areas removed from the accumulations. The real problem besetting Campania is its hundreds of undeclared dumps, some operated by the mob, which earns hefty sums for disposing of stuff (from all over Italy, and other parts of Europe as well) without asking any questions, and some that were filled and forgotten before people realized how dangerous dumps can be to the environment. In other words, these are problems that have been long in coming, and are going to require a great deal of thought and resources to solve.

And how do I feel, watching from the outside? At least the Campanians know they have problems. Elsewhere, including Tuscany, people enjoy a sense of false complacency. A number of years ago, I translated a study of Tuscan ground water for a professor at the University of Florence.

The results were disturbing: It turns out that the groundwater is uncontaminated in the steep-sided high mountain valleys, but as soon as the slopes soften enough for cultivation to be practical one begins to find agricultural chemicals (fertilizers, pesticides, and animal waste) in the ground water, and when the valleys widen enough to contain towns one also finds urban and industrial contaminants; under Florence, for example, the water is contaminated enough that of one sinks a well one must run what comes out through a purifier of the sort used by the municipal water company before drinking it. Along the Tuscan coast, the problems posed by industrial and urban groundwater contamination are compounded by salt water infiltrations consequent to pumping for irrigation. I'm certain that if one were to look elsewhere, say the Pianura Padana, which is agricultural, heavily settled over large areas, and industrialized, one would find much the same situation.

In short, Campania's problems may be more obvious, but they're not alone.

Acque Minerali: Boon or Bain?

While we're on the subject of water, Italians are known for sneering at what comes from the tap, and considering it much better suited to housework or cooking than drinking. As a result of these feelings there has been a dramatic increase in the country's per capita consumption of bottled mineral water, which went from about 80 liters per person in 1988 to 182 in 2003 (+ 115%), and is by now approaching 200 liters/year -- the highest per capita consumption in the world.

When asked why they drink bottled water, many people reply that they find it lighter than what comes from the tap, and therefore think it's healthier.

Alas, though this is what the advertisers spend terrific sums to convince people of, consumers would have been wrong about the healthier part until recently, and perhaps still are: Until 2005 Parliament considered mineral water to be therapeutic, as opposed to a foodstuff, and therefore tolerated much higher concentrations of many chemicals in mineral water than they did in tap water, for example five times as much arsenic and manganese.

But that's not all: in 2003 a magistrate from Torino ordered mineral water analyses that turned up all sorts of things that would get a municipal water supply shut down, including hydrocarbons, tensioactive compounds (soap) and pesticides.

Rather than order the bottlers, most of whom are owned by multinationals (the brands owned by Nestlé and Danone account for close to 70% of the Italian bottled water market), to clean up their act, the then Minister of Health Girolamo Sirchia relaxed the standards to allow them to continue bottling.

As you might expect, there was considerable outcry on the part of consumer organizations, and the Minister of Health decreed that as of January 1 2005 bottled water should meet the much more stringent standards set for tap water in a law passed in 2001. All of the major bottlers passed the analyses and continue to sell briskly, but everything I have read on consumer sites about bottled water is quite wary in tone, with people wondering what the bottlers did to purify the water they had analyzed, because some substances, for example ozone, can introduce other hazardous compounds as they remove those that are banned.

We drink tap water.

Frittole di Mela, Uvetta, E Frutta Secca

Winding down' we're still in Carnival season, and it's time to enjoy some sweets before the long privations of Lent set in. Fritters are especially popular, and these, made with dried fruit, apples, and raisins, are tasty and a pleasant surprise when you bite into one. You'll need:

• 2 3/4 cups (275 g) unbleached all purpose flour, plus 2 more tablespoons
• 1/2 cup (100 g) sugar
• 3/5 cup (150 ml) whole milk
• 2 eggs
• 4 ounces (100 g) raisins
• 4 ounces (100 g) whole shelled pistachio nuts, chopped
• 2 baking apples (in Italy one uses renettes, which are pale brown, sweet, and a bit mealy)
• A shot of brandy
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• An organically grown lemon
• Olive oil for frying

Put the raisins in a bowl, sprinkle the brandy over them, add warm water to cover, and let them plump for 20 minutes. In the meantime, peel,, core, and quarter the apples. Dice them and sprinkle them with lemon juice.

Grate the zest of the lemon.

Prepare a batter by beating the eggs in a bowl with all but 2 tablespoons of the sugar, and the grated lemon zest. Beat in the flour and the baking powder, followed by the milk and the pistachio nuts.

While doing this, set your oil to heat. Next, drain the raisins well, and dust them with the 2 leftover tablespoons of flour, shaking them about in a strainer to dislodge excess flour. Incorporate them and the chopped apple into the batter.

By now the oil should be hot; drop the batter into it a tablespoon at a time, and fry the fritters until they are golden, turning them about to they brown evenly. Drain them on absorbent paper when they become golden, and when they are cool enough to handle dust them with the remaining sugar.

Well, that's it. Happy Carnevale!

Here's a proverb: E' come un cardo senza sale, far col marito il Carnevale - It's like eating a cardoon without salt, if you celebrate Carnevale with your husband.

Kyle Phillips

Editor, The Italian Wine Review

http://www.italianwinereview.com

Want to comment? Drop me a line at Kyle@cosabolle.com

PS -- Please forward this to anyone you think would enjoy it!

Olive Oil, Cotenne and More: Being the 139th issue of Cosa Bolle in Pentola

Greetings! This has been a hectic week, and I regret to say I haven't added anything to the Italian Wine Review, and only a couple of recipes to Italian Cuisine, though I did update a few things.

Olio Italiano? There are Other Options
Thus we quickly find ourselves with Cosa Bolle, and this means (to start out) olive oil. A couple of years ago I was invited to a conference hosted by the Fattoria di Monte Morello, a major olive oil producer on Monte Morello, northwest of Florence (see http://www.fattoriadimorello.it/). The topic was "Are there terroir-related differences in quality oils?" and the result was a surprising no; the extraction technique commonly used has a leveling effect that leads top quality oils to resemble each other, unless a given producer uses very distinctive olives. I perhaps wouldn't have believed the panelists, had the conference not closed with a blind tasting of quality extra virgin olive oils from all over the world. I am not an olive oil taster, and therefore the fact that I was unable to guess the provenance of any of the oils is not surprising. However, a number of the other participants were (a couple worked on one of the major Italian olive oil guides), and none of them were able to place the oils either.

The reason for this anonymity, if one can call it that, is that the cold-pressing technique used to extract extra virgin oils oxidizes the membranes within the olives that trap much of the oil, and as a result the oil too is slightly oxidized, and this masks differences between terroirs and cultivars. There is another technique that doesn't oxidize the membranes, but yields, which are already low with the commercial technique (18% maximum, or a kilo of olives yields at the most 180 grams of oil), become economically unfeasible with the other technique.

Therefore, I concluded, if you go to the store to buy olive oil, you needn't feel you must buy something from the Mediterranean. A well made oil from California or South America can be just as good, and may cost significantly less depending upon where you live.

Among the new producers of olive oil, Chile is attracting a great deal of attention. Though the country has had olive trees since the arrival of the Spaniards, nobody really thought about cultivating them seriously until about 10 years ago, when farmers in the Province of Coquimbo, north of Santiago, started planting olive groves, with high planting densities, on the order of 800 trees per hectare, and employing drip irrigation. The land, says Marco Mugelli, an Italian expert who also spoke at the Morello conference I attended, is quite good, and the farmers, who enjoy the sponsorship of the Chilean Government, are using the best modern techniques to extract the oil.

What's it like? This summer I attended a comparison tasting in Florence: ten extra virgin oils, five Tuscan and five Chilean. It was quite interesting; I found the Tuscan and Chilean oils to be evenly matched, and I wasn't alone -- a number of Tuscan olive oil producers who had come to scope the competition were pulling at their chins by the time we had tasted the last oil.

Bottom line: I was impressed, and all the more so considering that Italians have been making olive oil for millennia, whereas the Chileans started quite recently. They do have, on their side, a lack of traditions that allows them to use the most modern techniques, but even so I would have expected somewhat greater differences considering that the Italian trees have had centuries to adapt to where they live.

It could be that one would find greater differences using the high-quality low-yield extraction technique I mentioned above, but without it the Chilean oils made a most impressive showing, and if you come across one it's well worth considering.

Cotenne: Treats of the Season And a Step Into The Past
Moving in a very different direction, a reader recently asked me for a recipe for cotenne. Cotenne, also known as cotiche, are raw pork rinds, or skins. Before you blanch, some context.

In the past, when most Italian farmers paid the landowners rent to work the land, said rent was in part in cash, but also included a share of the harvest, and as such some meat from the pigs when they were butchered in late fall or early winter (the traditional time for pork butchering in Italy). While the landowner probably didn't get a fresh ham (he might have gotten one after it was cured and became prosciutto), it's a safe bet that his share came from the more noble sections of the animal, say the loin. With famine a constant possibility the farmers couldn't afford to let even the tiniest part of their pigs go to waste, and therefore also came up with all sorts of ways to use the cotenne, or pork skin.

The most common use for pork skins today is in the fillings of cotechini, the classic large pork sausages one simmers for hours and enjoys with lentils on New Year's Day; the sausages derive their name from cotiche, pork rinds, and also their texture, which has a satiny gelatinous feel people either adore or can't stand. I have found there is no middle ground.

However, if you can find fresh pork skin -- I've never seen it in a supermarket in Tuscany; it's one of those things that you have to special order from your butcher -- there are a number of things you can do with it. The easiest is to enhance the texture of a stew; take a strip of cotenna, wash it well, blanch it and scrape it to remove bristles, and then add it to the stew pot. It will impart a rather libidinous feel to the texture; remove it before serving the stew. Here are a few more recipes in which cotenna plays a leading role, and as such offers a glimpse back to when people were of necessity much more frugal than they are now:

Cotechinata is a specialty from Basilicata; true peasant food of a sort that one doesn't encounter often any more. To serve 6 you'll need:

• 2 1/4 pounds (1 k) fresh pork skin
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup minced parsley
• 2 fresh hot red peppers, minced
• 2 tablespoons lard or olive oil
• 1 cup tomato sauce
• Toothpicks

Blanch the skins, scrape off any bristles you see, and cut them into squares between 4 and 6 inches (10-15 cm) per side.

Combine the garlic, parsley, and peppers, and mix well. Spread the mixture over the squares of pork skin and roll them up to make involtini, securing them with toothpicks.

Heat the oil or lard in a skillet large enough for the involtini to lie in a single layer. Brown them, turning them to color all sides, add the tomato sauce, and simmer them covered until the skins are quite soft, at least an hour and more likely two, adding water if need be to keep the pot from drying out. Serve hot with a zesty green, for example broccoli raab, and a bright red wine, for example an Aglianico.

Cotenne e Verdure, Cotenne with Greens, is instead a Sicilian recipe, and again a testament to frugality. To serve 6 you'll need:

• 2 pounds (900 g) fresh pork skins, flamed to remove bristles
• An onion, sliced
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1 cup (250 ml) tomato sauce
• 2/3 pound (300 g) potatoes
• 1/2 pound (225 g) cabbage leaves (whichever variety you prefer)
• A pear, cored and diced
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• Salt and pepper to taste

Boil the pork skins in salted water for two hours. When they are cooked, drain them and slice them into thin strips.

Peel and dice the potatoes. Coarsely shred the cabbage.

Sauté the onion in the olive oil in a large saucepan; when it becomes a translucent gold add the tomato sauce and the pork skins. Cover, reduce the heat, and simmer for an hour. Add the potatoes, cabbage, and pear, together with a ladle of hot water. Check seasoning and continue simmering until the potatoes and the cabbage are done. Serve at once with a brisk red wine.

Finally, pork and beans are an old standby, and as you might guess, you can also use pork skins. This recipe for Fagioli con le Cotiche is from Lombardia, and will be a very nice way of keeping winter at bay. To serve 6:

• 1 1/3 pounds (600 g) fresh pork skins
• 2/3 pound (300 g) dried borlotti (cranberry beans), soaked overnight
• An ounce (30 g) of cured lard or fatty pancetta, minced
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 medium onions
• 2 8-inch (20 cm) ribs celery
• 2 6-inch (15 cm) carrots
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• A hint of ground spices (cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg)
• 3/4 cup (200 ml) tomato sauce
• Ground cayenne pepper to taste (go easy)
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

Drain the beans, put them in a pot with cold water to cover abundantly, and boil them until tender, salting them at the end.

In the meantime, flame the pork skins to remove bristles, rub them clean with a cloth, and cut them into thin strips. Put them in a pot with cold water to cover, add an onion, a stick of celery, and a carrot, all coarsely chopped, together with the garlic clove, and set the pot to heat; then it comes to a boil turn the heat down to a simmer.

Mince the remaining onion, celery and carrot and combine them. Heat the butter and oil in a large casserole and sauté the chopped lard until it begins to brown. Add the minced onion mixture and the spices and continue to sauté, stirring, for about 10 minutes.

Drain the beans and add them to the saucepot. Drain the pork skins and add them too, together with the tomato sauce and a ladle of the liquid the rinds cooked in. Mix carefully, cover, and simmer over a low flame for about 40 minutes. Check seasoning and serve at once, with polenta and a bright, fairly acidic red wine, perhaps a Valtellina DOC. Sfursat would be overkill, as would Sassella, but an Inferno or Grumello would be nice.

Winding Down, Naples
I was going to say something about the garbage crisis in the Province of Naples, but I am certain you have seen news reports, and I would simply be rehashing what has already been said. One thing you may not have heard, however, is that the situation isn't much better in much of the rest of Italy. Put simply, the dumps and landfills are filling up, and not enough has been done to transform recycling from a pipe dream into reality.

Planners say the future will revolve around what are called ecoballe, burnable bales made from what is left over after all the recyclables are taken out, but for now everything, including most of the termovalorizzatori where the bales will be burned (producing some energy, one hopes, and as little pollution as possible) is either under construction or in the planning stages. Among the other cities especially at risk are Florence, Torino, Genova, and Rome. It will be interesting to see what happens.

This time's proverb is from Molise: Chi è state muccecate da na serpe, tiè paura de le lucertole, One who has been bitten by a snake fears lizards.

Kyle Phillips
Editor, The Italian Wine Review
http://www.italianwinereview.com
Want to comment? Drop me a line at Kyle@cosabolle.com

PS -- Please forward this to anyone you think would enjoy it! If you would like to read past issues (nothing in them really gets stale), you'll find them on the IWR site, through http://www.cosabolle.com.

Dozza, Case Basse and More: Being the 138th issue of Cosa Bolle in Pentola

Greetings! It has been entirely too long since the last issue, and I apologize profusely. Let me begin with belated best wishes for the Holiday Season; I hope and trust everyone had a safe and wonderful time. Next, the latest on the Italian Wine Review is an overview of the 2003 Barolo, which, to be honest, I found wanting: It was a long, very hot summer, and many wines are unbalanced or otherwise suffered the weather. Many, but not all, and this means that when you buy you'll have to select with care. See http://italianwinereview.blogspot.com/2007/12/2003-barolo-difficult-vintage.html.

Dozza
Returning to Cosa Bolle, I recently visited Romagna at the invitation of Romagna Terra Del Sangiovese, an organization established to promote Romagna's Sangiovese, and though this sounds obvious it requires explanation: Sangiovese di Romagna is produced over a huge area that extends along the foothills of the Apennines, from San Pietro Terme in the province of Bologna all the way to Rimini, on the Adriatic coast -- a distance of about a hundred kilometers that spans several provinces.

As an appellation, from a promotional standpoint Sangiovese di Romagna is beset by two problems. First, its size: The promotion of an appellation is generally financed by the province that hosts it (for example, the Province of Prato contributes to the promotion of Carmignano). While the provinces where Sangiovese di Romagna is made are happy to promote the wines produced within their borders, they are much less enthusiastic about promoting wines made a province or two away, and therefore the "official" promotion of the appellation is fragmented. Second, Romagna was (and is) the land of wine cooperatives, and until recently the cooperatives paid a flat rate for grapes that encouraged farmers to pay much more attention to quantity than quality. The result was a tremendous volume of plonk labeled Sangiovese di Romagna, and this led those interested in serious Sangiovese to look elsewhere, e.g. Chianti.

Romagna Terre Del Sangiovese was founded by drawing from the four provincial Strade del Vino for the Romagna area to promote the entire Appellation, thus gaining strength from numbers, and also to promote quality wines. In other words, producers can apply, but have to meet a series of standards to be accepted. Thus those who visit the events the association organizes can be certain of enjoying good wines rather than the mass-produced stuff. In addition to promoting the wines, the association promotes other local foodstuffs, for example formaggio di fossa, grotto cheese, which merits another aside:

In the days before refrigeration cheesemaking was the only way to preserve milk, and thus store today's bounty to help survive tomorrow's famine. It was therefore an extremely valuable commodity, and if bandits came raiding, they would take it in addition to whatever other valuables they could find. Therefore the inhabitants of a number of Romagnan towns took to scooping chambers out of the tufo that was the bedrock and lining them with reeds; the families would gather all the cheeses they had made during the summer milking season, put them in burlap sacks (10-15 kilos per sack), fill the chamber with them, and cover the entrance so outsiders wouldn't find it. They'd wait until late fall to reopen the chambers, at which point the cheese would emerge transformed: under the anaerobic conditions it referments, giving off a great deal of oil in the process, becomes crumbly, and acquires a piquant sharpness that many find utterly addictive. What started out as a means for guaranteeing a supply of good cheese during the winter months has become one of Italy's most sought after gourmet cheeses.

And, returning to the reason I began talking about the Romagna Terre Del Sangiovese organization in the first place, it supports travel too.

The second day of our trip began with a visit to Dozza, a walled town in the foothills above Imola that's well worth a quick stop if you're exploring the region. The town, which dates to the time that the Pianura Padana was inhabited by the Gauls (before the arrival of the Romans), was fortified in the 11th century by Bologna because of its strategic position dominating the Via Emilia, and acquired a massive Rocca, or keep, while under the rule of Caterina Sforza (a woman of legendary beauty, courage, and brashness) in the late 1400s; the town subsequently became the fife of Bologna's Malvezzi-Campeggi family, which transformed the interior of the keep into a renaissance palace, while maintaining its ponderous outer structure.

The Rocca is now host to Emilia Romagna's Enoteca Regionale, and boasts a wonderful selection of all the wines produced in the region, everything from Lambrusco through Albana Di Romagna and (of course) Sangiovese di Romagna; you can taste by the glass, and if you like something buy bottles at decidedly promotional prices.

The town is also fun; in 1960 Tommaso Seragnoli, a local artist, suggested they hold a fresco show, with artists painting on the walls, and the town council liked the idea. So did the public, so much that Dozza decided do it again, and since then the Biennale del Muro Dipinto (the Painted Wall Biennale) has become firmly established, with world renowned painters participating. You can see all sorts of things -- I noted Coppi and Bartoli, legendary cyclists of the 40s, riding on the clouds -- and frescos that are especially nice are pulled from the walls to free up space for the next time.

A visit to Dozza will take 2-3 hours, and offers a fine change of pace if you're hiking or heading to the coast. To reach the town, exit the A 14 Autostrada at Castel San Pietro, turn right onto the SP 19, left onto SS 9, and right onto the Strada Provinciale Dozza Imolese (about 11 km from the highway).

A few links:
Dozza's site (in Italian) http://www.comune.dozza.bo.it/index.html
Muro Dipinto (the frescos and more) http://www.murodipinto.it/
Romagna Terra del Sangiovese (in Italian) http://www.romagnaterradelsangiovese.it/default.asp?id=1

Gianfranco Soldera and Case Basse: If he's right, where does that put me?

Gianfranco Soldera is a former insurance executive who likes wine. Very much, and in 1972 (long before he retired) he planted a 6 hectare vineyard not far from Montalcino. He based his decision of where to plant on two criteria: exposure, and soil, saying that vines need long hours of direct sunlight to give their best, and without them even the best land isn't fit for winemaking. One of the colleagues I was with asked about the Alto Adige: "With all those mountains providing shade?" He shrugged and shook his head.

Assuming the exposure is good and provides sufficient light, there's the soil: It should be infertile, with deep natural drainage that allows the vines to send their roots down for many meters and draw up minerals from the rocks with what water they find. It takes nature millions of years to create the optimal cconditions, he says, adding that if one improves vineyard drainage by artificial means one ruins everything. Or, to be more succinct, "Some land is good for vines, and some is best suited to potatoes."

Backtracking slightly, the first Brunello Mr. Soldera released caused a tremendous stir, and he quickly attained a legendary status among wine lovers and critics. Some people revel in attention, while others would rather be left alone, and when I drove up to his door unannounced a number of years ago, he had no interest in seeing me. But he has since begun writing for Andrea Cappelli, a friend and colleague who plays a major role in a magazine called Il Chianti e le Terre del Vino, and invited a number of us to come visit.

It was quite interesting; and also a bit humbling; he doesn't think much of most wine, saying that of the billions of bottles produced every year there are about 50,000 he'd care to drink -- his own, some Barolo, a little bit of Champagne, and he didn't say what else. The appellation system that has governed European wine production is falling apart, he says (correctly, alas), thanks to EEU provisions that will open the appellations, allowing large scale industrial producers much more freedom in moving and bottling wines, and he feels that the buyers for mass market wine sales (supermarkets and so on) have driven wholesale prices -- what the wineries get -- down through the floor. For example, he quoted a major Brunello producer who said, at a meeting, that buyers won't pay more than 3 Euros for a bottle of Brunello. If you consider retail prices you realize there are terrific margins to be had in the wine trade, and with that much money to be made he says the possibility of shady dealing is quite real.

Nor does he much trust producer's associations (such as Appellations, which depend upon member wineries for their survival), because the people working in them end up becoming both enforcers and enforcees, and this is an invitation to mischief. He thinks pretty much the same thing about the wine press -- journalists depend upon wineries for samples, press trips, and often double as PR people, while magazines derive much of their advertising budget from the wine world, and this all leads to a group of people very unwilling to bite the hands that are feeding them. Actually, he went further, saying that much of wine journalism is fraudulent.

Nor does he supply samples; he says that for a tasting to be truly representative a journalist should buy three bottles of a given wine from three different stores, and compare them. Only then can one be certain of getting what the public gets. My reaction? He is of course correct, and though few speak publically about the matter, we all have heard stories about special casks being selected to provide samples from. If one can afford to do what Mr. Soldera advocates one sidesteps the problem, but I cannot. So I ask for samples, and if possible pick them at random from the winery's storage bins.

The other bone he has with the wine press is the influence wine writers exert on consumer tastes. Wine drinkers should, he says, buy wines, taste them, and decide what they like or don't. I definitely agree; a great many consumers are overly influenced by wine writers, and I recall a friend who owns a wine shop telling me about a client who had tried something new, liked it, and bought a case: The man returned a month later with the case less a bottle, saying he only drank 90-point wines and Parker had given this particular wine an 89. The guy was allowing the wine press to second-guess his own palate, and that's a shame. Alas, few consumers can taste the range of wines wine writers have access to, so I think Mr. Soldera's advice that one go it completely alone is impractical.

Having talked for a while, we toured Case Basse, which is also known for Mrs. Soldera's botanical garden; she's as devoted to horticulture as he is to wine, and it's one of the richest and most varied in central Italy, with plants from all over the world ("flowers with white blossoms" -- a large area of the garden -- "are important because they attract nocturnal pollinators").

Cultivation at Case Basse, as one might expect, is completely organic -- the only chemicals they use are copper and sulfur -- and when you step from the garden to the vineyards, you'll note that the poles from which the wires supporting the vines are strung are dotted with bat and bird houses: More natural pest control.

The winery is a newly completed structure, made with stone and steel but no cement, because Mr. Soldera thinks cement is bad for wine. Once the grapes reach the winery he destems them, but doesn't press them -- "if you see a press in a winery, go elsewhere" -- rather, his staff picks through them to remove all imperfect grapes, and the whole grapes that pass muster go directly into fermentatori troncoconici, vertical oak fermentation tanks. Temperature control? None; he actually wants high temperatures, because he says that some aromas aren't released unless the must reaches 37 C (about 99 F). He does of course hope that the must won't overheat (one year it reached 38.8 C), but adds that those who don't take risks don't win. Lack of temperature control doesn't mean the must just sits; he pumps it over the cap three times a day for 90 minutes each time. And then racks the wine into botti (large casks, one per vintage), which are in a rock-lined chamber where the temperature ranges from 10-14 C and the humidity stays at 85%.

How long in cask? 5-6 years, until he, his wife, and Giulio Gambelli, the Grand Old Man of Tuscan winemaking, think it's ready. No filtration, no clarification, and the barest minimum of sulfites for stability. Capsules made from aluminum because he doesn't want lead near his wine, and indeed he said he only uses lead-free glassware because lead has an adverse effect upon the wine it comes in contact with.

"Tannins and alcohol preserve," he said, as he drew from the botte containing the 2007 vintage, "but they must be harmonious. If the tannins are rough, the grapes weren't good."

The 2007 was frankly impressive, though it was only a couple of months old. Freshly made wines are usually clearly babes going in many different directions at once, but Mr. Soldera's Brunello already displayed great harmony, balance, and finesse; though he does things nobody else does (e.g. the high temperatures in vertical wooden tanks) it clearly works.

The 2006 again displays beautiful balance and great finesse; it's very clean, and also very, very long. It will be spectacular.

The 2005 is a bit weaker than the 2006, and a bit more vegetal on the nose, with hints of balsam and tobacco as well. But nice structure and very fresh.

The 2004: Great richness coupled with fantastic berry fruit on the nose, with peppery notes from grapes. Spellbinding fruit on the palate too, and it will be very long lived.

"Never write it down. Remember it," he says as I take notes and he pours the 2003:
It's richer on the nose than the others, with jammy notes that came from the hot summer blended into the fruit, but they are balanced by minerality and don't distract. Palate full, rich, and with great finesse.

The 2002: He will have 6000 bottles when he decides to bottle it; it's lively ruby but paler than the previous years, and has a more greenish nose with vegetal accents, while the palate is elegant and lively with clean acidity and great finesse, and is by far the best 2002 Brunello I've tasted.

As we emerge from the cellar, we note that he uncovers the grafts between vine and rootstock (grape vines are almost always grafted onto American rootstock, which is resistant to the American phylloxera bug that wiped out European vineyards in the late 1800s) -- so the cold will kill parasites. Most people cover them up, and this is another example of how he does things differently.

At lunch we enjoyed his 2000 Brunello Riserva: Lively ruby, and with a very fresh nose that has berry fruit mingled with minerality and some floral accents -- beautiful balance and extraordinary harmony. On the palate it displays extraordinary finesse with rich mineral laced fruit supported by warm savory tannins, while lively acidity provides direction and it all flows into a clean savory finish. Harmony and finesse in a glass, an impressive display of depth and balance that is very pleasant to drink now despite its obvious youth, and that will age beautifully for decades.
94

Taken as a group, Mr. Soldera's wines are harmonious, but also bright: They have a lively acidity to them that keeps them very much on their toes, rather like a ballet dancer who effortlessly makes steps that would be almost impossible for anyone else seem easy. If you're inclined to the seductive elegance of the International style, for example Ornellaia, you'll find Case Basse an eye-opening change of pace, with much more brash aggressiveness, but after the second sip you'll find yourself cocking an ear to what's in the glass, because it has many stories to tell.

Bottom line: I very much enjoyed Case Basse, and hope Mr. Soldera won't be too offended if I say they reminded me of the Barolo Bartolo Mascarello poured for us when I went to visit him with several other colleagues a few years ago: it was a 1982, and had the same brightness and depth.

Winding down, Lent comes early this year (Ash Wednesday is February 6), and it therefore is already time to begin celebrating Carnevale. These Turtlitt are treats from Romagna. To make enough for about 10 people, you'll need:

The Dough:
10 cups (1 k) flour
4 eggs
3/4 cup (150 g) sugar
1/2 cup (100 g) unsalted butter, reduced to bits
Abundant oil or lard for frying
The Filling:
4 ounces (100 g) amaretti (crunchy almond macaroons), finely crumbled
1 1/8 pound (500 g) mustarda, chopped into bits -- a jar, and see note below
A small glass of rum
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
Confectioner's sugar for dusting

Make a mound of the flour on your work surface, and scoop a well in the middle. Fill the well with the eggs, sugar, and bits of butter, and work the mixture until you have a smooth homogeneous dough.

In a bowl, combine the finely crumbled amaretti with the chopped mostarda, rum, and chocolate. Mix well, until you obtain a soft, but firm mixture.

Roll the dough out to a thickness of 3/4 inch (2 cm), and cut the sheet into strips about 2 fingers wide. Put a teaspoon of the filling about an inch from the end of each strip, and fold the ends over to cover the filling. Cut the filled bits free with a serrated pastry wheel, tamp them down to seal in the filling, and repeat the process until you have finished dough and filling. Fry the turtlitt in hot oil until golden, drain them well on absorbent paper, and dust them with confectioner's sugar.

The note about Mostarda: It's candied fruit in a syrup that gains considerable kick from mustard oil. You could substitute for it by stirring a couple of teaspoons of powdered mustard seed into a sweet syrup along the lines of corn syrup, filling a jar with chopped candied fruit, and adding flavored syrup to cover. Let the mixture sit for a few days before you use it.

This time's proverb is Romagnan: Un gòt e' fa ben, dù i n'fa mêl, u t' sagàta un buchêl.
A sip of wine does you good, and two do no harm, while a tankard will do you in.

Kyle Phillips
Editor, The Italian Wine Review
http://www.italianwinereview.com