In their recent visit to Our Fair City, Chiara from Cascina Gilli and Francesca from Aquila del Torre expressed amazement and horror over several aspects of New York life.
They were shocked by the amount of trash in the streets, and the rats.
They were horrified by the desperation on the faces of the poor. And that there were so many of the poor. They were even more horrified by the evident consequences of lack of access to decent health care.
The gap between Haves and Have-nots seemed very Third World.
The noise and crowding were suffocating. Not to mention the clammy humidity.
On another note, the food was too heavily seasoned (piccante) and the amount of black pepper on some restaurant food made it hard for them to choke down. The amount of wine poured by the glass was excessively large. Did we drink to get drunk? (Um. Sort of.)
It's good to get an outsider's view of things. And note that these Italian ladies had the same reaction as many Americans from less pitiless places, down to the pepperiness of the food. It does no good to point out that, compared to the 1970s and 80s, this New York is a dream.
As Chiara, a self-confessed country girl, said at one point, "You are very brave to live here." This took me aback. I feel extraordinarily fortunate to live here. But...
This is what I saw. (Francesca at the Conservatory at east 106th Street, Central Park)
This is what they saw. Naples West, insomma
I first drank Pecorino a number of years ago at Lupa in New York, which was and is one of the most popular of the Bastianich-Batali eateries in town. I liked it very much. It was new (to me) and had a zesty, rather spicy, quality that made it go down real easy. I had it with cacio e pepe. Simple and utterly satisfying. Just like the wine.
A couple of years later, in the torrid summer of 2006, we visited Camillo Montori and tasted his Pecorino. Given the abysmal quality of the white wines we were encountering in the supermercati of Abruzzo, this wine was like a gift from the gods. It was a clean, zesty, oak-free charmer that helped compensate for the lack of air conditioning when temperatures were well over 100F.
Neddless to say, when we started working with the Costantini family, we were interested in the reds first -- we needed a well-priced Montepulciano d'Abruzzo with structure and excellent fruit, and we got it. We got their barriqued riserva (Tornese), which has turned into a steakhouse staple. But we had a lot of whites on the list back then, and we held off on the Pecorino.
In a way, we're glad we did. The wine has only gotten better, with more refreshing acidity and more of that slightly spicy fruit that makes me salivate just to think of.
The Costantini Pecorino 2010 came in only about two weeks ago, so the day I tasted a couple of customers on it, it was still a little dinged up from the trip. Not at its best, and I knew it wouldn't be -- I had been just eager as hell to start trotting it around.
But I have to say that the wine showed pretty well after its recent crossing. At dinner that night we drank the rest of the sample bottle. It was hot, we had no desire to heat up the kitchen, and so we ordered sushi from our favorite sushi place, Umi Sushi on East 56th.
Hello, spicy tuna roll, meet your Italian soulmate, Pecorino.
This is a white wine you'll love in summer and need, every so often, in the cooler months as well. Somehow I can't see spicy tuna roll pairing too well with Aglianico or, indeed, a California Pinot Noir. Pecorino fills the bill. And, hai, it even stands up to ginger and wasabi mustard.
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Once not long after I first tasted Pecorino, il vino, I went to a well-self-regarded New York wine shop. I asked if they had any Pecorino. Confusion. "We don't sell any cheese here."
That, as they say, was then. This, happily, is here and now.
I love titles of posts that sound authoritative, definitive, coma-inducing. This one is. "The way we drink today." Love it.
I am referring, of course, to a recent poll that found -- horror of horrors! -- that Americans, this unteachable breed, really do like to drink wine without food. As a cocktail, essentially.
According to the results of the Wine Opinions survey, as recently reported in the San Jose Mercury, us all's drink almost 60% of our wine without food -- never mind a meal, and without a snack in sight! Millennials, those born from 1980 on, are 80% likely to pop open a bottle to "kick back with friends." (Note to self: find out if people still say "kick back.") I'll throw in my grumpy old man comment here: "These kids today!"
As you might imagine, the wine blogosphere, obsessed with triviality and consumed by its own false importance, became rather unglued at this perhaps not so startling revelation. For one thing, consider all container-loads of snackless, mealless bottles of wine drunk by the Desperate Housewives (Casalinghe disperate, in Italian) hags, none of whom will ever see 40 again. (Exception: Eva Longoria.)
Or the grimly feisty old broads from Sex and the City. There was usually a girls-only bottle of Chardonnay in the frame, no doubt some plush, oaky monster that wine geeks would no doubt eschew.
These TV shows have habituated Italians to the fact that we indeed don't need a meal as an excuse to crack open a bottle of vino and "kick back." They and other Europeans may cluck their disapproval but, face it, our drinking culture has always been about alcohol in and for itself. I mean, did the Colonials go into a tizzy over pairing a rum shandy with whatever slop they were eating? Hardly. They wanted something to warm them up on cold nights and to ease the pain of a back-breaking day of labor. Plus they'd already polluted the water so badly that even little children routinely drank ale and beer for refreshment and nutrients.
We Yanks have always preferred to drink this way, as have our brothers and sisters across the Pond. The cocktail was principally an American invention -- the flavors were and are so intense, often with a great deal of sweetness, that they didn't lend themselves to accompaniment with food.
I'd venture to say that the Millennials' predilection for wine marks a real shift in our drinking culture, but their preference for wine to "kick back with friends" indicates the survival of an ancient pattern in America.
Another generational change at work today is their turning away from the "hedonistic fruit bombs" of their fathers and grandfathers, and their openness to new tastes and grapes and regions. I'll add that I think those of us in the major cities do overestimate this trend, especially since outside of a handful of big cities, opportunities to experiment with different grapes, regions, etc. are limited by the smaller selections on offer.
For my part, I don't care how or in what context Americans drink their wine. I just hope they keep drinking more of it.
One of the things that frustrates us a lot is the belief that a white wine is past it at the age of two. Retailers spurn an Italian white from 2008 or 2007 or earlier, I suppose because they can't seem to distinguish between utter plonk like Cavit Pinot Grigio (to name one illustrious example) and a well-made wine with real depth, like the I Stefanini cru, Monte de Toni.*
This wine has everything going for it. It's farmed organically on volcanic soil with excellent hillside exposure to the south and west. It is made of 100% Garganega, the true Soave grape. It is aged in stainless steel. The winemaker, Francesco Tessari, ages it in bottle for one year before release.
By some magic all this results in a wine with a golden honey color, loads of minerality and pleasing fruit. The finish is moderately dry, but the acidity and mineral notes prevent it from being too "soft," as I think some big-names Soaves are.
I'm speaking of the 2008, although recently I scavenged a few bottles of the 2007. The 07 lacked the layered complexity of the 08, but there was no sign of its being tired or lacking fruit. In fact, it was a bit austere, with a leaner mouthfeel than the luscious, rich 08. Either way, Monte de Toni remains a wine that can utterly change your perception of Soave.
My guess is that the Monte de Toni 2008 will still be drinking well in 2013. Not bad for an Italian white, eh?
One retailer who does not fall into the category of ignoramuses is Christy Frank of Frankly Wines down south in ole Tribeca. She has Monte de Toni in stock. Click here for her website.
Ladies and germs, old Strappo is in Rome. Roma aeterna. Where all roads lead. On this, his 65th birthday, he feels he's reached some sort of apotheosis. After all, he began teaching himself Italian at the age of 14. He studied and obsessed about Italy and its authors and film-makers for years. He was like the kid in "Breaking Away," that wonderful film released in 1979, dreaming of another life, a better self. Italy, Rome, wine, love and alive.
Già, tutto bene.
An inquiring mind wants to know
Chiara Martinotti of Cascina Gilli recently remarked to me, "You haven't been posting as much on Muddy Boots. Why?"
"There's a lot going on, mostly concerning new producers. But it's too early to publish anything. It's all behind the scenes."
There's the simple but not necessarily complete answer to Chiara's question.
Because, you see, that screeky sound you hear, of metal on metal as brakes are applied and tracks are changed, is Domenico Selections taking a new direction -- making a course correction, to switch figurative modes of transport.
When the company began importing in late 2008 (impeccable timing), the portfolio was rather Mezzogiorno-heavy. It was far too light with regard to the north of Italy. We are in the midst of changing the proportions of northern to southern wines, radically.
Because the simple (if not complete) truth is this: Northern wines are an easier sell. Dollar for dollar there is less resistance to them at the retail and wholesale levels than is the case with southern Italian wines. There is more magic associated with the names "Piemonte" and "Alto Adige" than with "Campania" and "Sardegna." For those magic names there are more reviews and higher scores. This is what the market in the United States goes for in a big way, and we are beginning to do a better job of giving it to them. Live and learn.
So we're pushing to add a heap of new producers from all over the Settentrione (north), some of whom might actually be known to you. A little less pure missionary work will be nice.
Guess where
And yes, the wines of the north are quite different from those of the south. Generally a little less "rustic", a little more refined in their attack, which I think is shorthand for "tannic". The whites are often more steely and bracing, at least if they come from Trentino-Alto Adige, than the whites of the south. They should be, anyway, if they are made to harmonize with grape, tradition and terroir. How can the wines not be different when you're closer to, say,Tunisia and Greece than to France and Austria?
But can I tell you that I, personally and not as a businessman who seeks and needs profits, still adore the wines of the south, Campania in particular? There are days when, after tasting Friulano and Sauvignon Blanc, I crave the volcanic bite of a well-made Fiano. When, after tasting a lot of northern Merlot and Pinot Nero, I wish I had a big, tannic Aglianico to go with my steak.
For Domenico, as an importer, it's a question of balance which, as we see daily in politics, personal behavior and wine-making, is harder to achieve than it ever looks.
Aglianico chilling on the vine. The balmy Mezzogiorno
Hold on to your cappelli, Italian-Americans: your ancient tradition of the Christmas Festa dei sette pesci is unheard of in Italy. (See Wikipedia article here.)
Last year about this time, Paola and Anna Chiara Mustilli were in New York to promote their wines. One day Paola, mystified, asked me what this festa was. Full of the confidence of the fatuous, I told her it was an old Italian custom, etc. That it originated in the South, possibly in Campania.
She looked at me as if I'd just emerged from a flying saucer.
She asked her sister.
They shrugged their shoulders and both looked at me as if I'd just emerged, etc.
Well. Lesson learned. A lot of "old-country" traditions are no such thing. They are hyphenated Americans' reactions to assimilation and the loss of old cultural bearings, evolving rapidly over the course of a few generations.
Paola learns of the Feast of the 7 Fishes
Fortunately for those of us who love wine, things don't stand still in Italy. By and large, competitive pressures have spurred Italian winemakers to higher levels of quality and, after the fad for oak-bombs, wines that let the grapes' character shine through. The producers are respectful of their traditions, but they're not enslaved by them.
And if you insist on celebrating the Feast of the Seven Fishes, you'd do well to try some of the Mustilli wines: the basic Falanghina for lighter seafood dishes, the rounder Vigna Segreta Falanghina for creamy, richer fare, and the delightful Piedirosso, a light red that pairs well with tuna, salmon or eel.
Our good friend Christian Bucci posted this vacation photo on his Facebook page. He was on the Isle of Elba and saw evidence of Strappo's international renown with his very own eyes.
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