3BOTTLES
January 2010
Italian Reds

As we ease into the colder weather of January, we have selected 3 red wines from Italy to add interest and provide great flavor at your evening meals. Three different grapes, three different regions of Italy, and three different flavors….and coming from some of the best small family vineyards of the Italian landscape. Simply put, these are the 3 wines we would most like to take home to drink during this season. The exciting thing about this theme is that it taps into the wonderfully diverse (and frustratingly complex) world of Italian wine. Whether it is a delicately floral Gewurztraminer or a heady, dense Amarone, Italian wines come alive with appropriate and thoughtfully-prepared cuisine. Italian wine is food wine, for the table. Since we have only three chances to prove this point, we've picked very divergent examples of Italian red wine. Here are my thoughts on what they are, and why they are different. I have also included recipes and suggestions for foods to serve with each wine. The recipes are loose interpretations of Italian foods which hail from the same regions as each of the 3 wines.

Italy wasn’t a country for a long time - so the regions are like mini-countries, each with their own specialties, identities, and loyalties. So many kinds of grapes, too... “When the merchants of Bordeaux created their famous 1855 classification...Italy wasn't yet a unified country,” Vino Italiano's authors Joseph Bastianich and David Lynch point out. “In 1963, the Italian government drew up the Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC) laws, which created legally defined production zones and production formulas for what were once simple farmhouse wines.” It’s a long country, from north to south, so the hearty foods you find in northern Italy have more in common with those of their Austrian, Swiss, and French neighbors than their Italian brethren from Sicily and Sardinia. Foods Sicily is well known for: olives, tuna, almonds, pistachios, capers, citrus fruit, swordfish. Veneto: salted cod, beans, liver, Asiago, Grana Padano, radicchio, cherries, and peaches. The Piedmont: hazelnuts, chestnuts, truffles, agnolotti del plin (small meat-filled pasta, served with a brothlike sauce), Grana Padano and Taleggio cheeses.

Valle dell’ Acate
Il Frappato 2008
$16.99

The Wine... This red wine from Sicily is totally charming with a soft and juicy texture I find alluring….calling to me to have another sip. It is made from 100% Frappato, which frankly I was unaware of until I took a bottle of this wine home. Again, Bastianich and Lynch: “Trying to keep track of all the grape varieties in Italy is like driving in Naples - chaotic and exhausting. For wine drinkers who think ‘grape first,’ Italian wines are a never-ending source of intrigue - or intimidation, depending on your outlook.” In Matt Kramer’s 2006 book, Making Sense of Italian Wine, Frappato is nowhere to be found. In Jancis Robinson’s 1088-page tome, The Oxford Companion to Wine, Frappato receives five words: “lesser Sicilian red grape variety.” This may be applicable for many wines made from Frappato, but our job at 3CUPS is not to travel continually the main highway in terms of selection. And in fact we love “driving” into areas which are unusual, because it makes our job more fun and it allows us to find wines we believe taste more expensive than they cost. They are hard to sell because few folks have heard of Frappato and you won’t find any article about these wines in the trendy magazines. So when we find a great Frappato our job is to snap it up and provide you with a new taste experience. According to Bastianich and Lynch, Italy has over 800 distinct varieties, a diversity we are thrilled to sort though in search of the next great red for you (and our) dinner.

Valle dell’ Acate’s Frappato is aged for 6 months in stainless steel and 3 months in bottle before release. Lively and floral, with beautiful red fruit flavors and a touch of spice. As I have learned is typical of Frappato, the wine is light- to medium-bodied and displays the tones from the sandstone and clay soils that lie beneath the estate’s vineyards. Frappato is one of the two grapes traditionally blended into Cerasuolo di Vittoria, which in 2005 became the first style of red in Sicily to achieve DOCG status. In Cerasuolo wines, native grape Nero d’Avola gives darkness, and Frappato adds fragrance. Only 2 percent of Sicilian wine even merits DOC status (a tier down from DOCG) and only 15 percent is bottled on the island. We would like to note that Frappato is a perfect red companion to seafood courses (see more on this topic below.)
The Family... The Jacono family has been making wine in the southeastern corner of Sicily since the nineteenth century, and their winery Valle dell’ Acate’s success has made it amongst the top estates in Sicily. The hundred-hectare estate near Ragusa grows not only grapes but Sicily’s famous blood oranges. Gaetana Jacono, the sixth generation of the Jacono family, currently runs the winery. She farms organically and grows many of the island’s indigenous grapes. The natural beauty of her homeland has been a setting for viticulture since the Greeks conquered Sicily millennia ago.

The Place... The winery of Valle dell’ Acate is located in the southeast corner of Sicily in the hills of the Dirillo Valley. Sicily is a large island of 10,000 square miles, and produces lots of wine. For decades Sicily was Italy’s most productive wine region. In most vintages as much as 50% of the island’s harvest was used in the production of Marsala, particularly fruit grown on the western extreme of the island, near Trapani. Another significant portion of Sicily’s harvest would end up as “cutting wine,” adding pigmentation and body to anemic reds from other colder regions of the Italian mainland and France. Much of the remaining wine was consumed on the island. In real contrast to the rich culinary history of the island, which enjoys a cuisine studded with meticulously-sourced pristine primary ingredients, these wines were either bland dry whites from Alcamo on the west coast, or unfocused and rustic reds from Mt. Etna and elsewhere. In Sicily cultivated acreage and total wine production drops annually, and this is a good thing. Between 1992 and 2002 total production on the island fell by 40%. Much of what is passing into history is plonk, and in the early years of the 21st century it appears possible that Sicily is going to reposition itself in the marketplace as a home for ambitious, quality wine estates. Away from the bustle, a promising new Sicily is emerging. It may seem that the sun-baked region is well-suited to Cali-style bigness, but Sicily surprises with its variety of terrain and climate. Just drive around Etna and you’ll see high-elevation arable land and vines that are as verdant as northern France. Pistachios growing instead of olives. The Baroque hilltop towns of the island’s southeastern corner provide elevation and proximity to cooling sea breezes necessary for the bottling of wines with ripeness and acid structure. In short, the Sicily=Hot equation is too simplified to be useful.

The Foods... I’ve made a Sicilian fish stew which paired beautifully with this lighter red wine, and other suggestions from the 3CUPS staff have included grilled squid, sardines, red mullet with fennel and olive oil, but the recipe I decided to include is something I go back to over and over again. In the fall and winter when cauliflower is in season, I love this one-pot meal, and our wine is perfect to serve along side this pasta dish.

Penne with Cauliflower and Anchovy Sauce
I am a huge cauliflower fan and believe its popularity is crushed by the ubiquitous raw vegetable platters at so many social functions. This vegetable comes alive with flavor when cooked. I first tried this recipe from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, and I enjoy serving this dish to folks who profess to not like anchovies (which I find a magical pantry staple adding so much flavor and always coming in handy while taking up so little space in the pantry).

What you'll need... 1 head of cauliflower; 2 or 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped; 2oz. tin of flat anchovies, chopped; lots (3-4 TBSP) of tasty olive oil; a knob of unsalted butter; 1/4 teaspoon crushed red chiles; 1/2 cup chopped flat leaf parsley; salt; and a pound of pasta

1) Trim cauliflower of the stalk and outer leaves and steam whole until just tender.

2) Start the water boiling and do not forget to add salt before cooking the pasta.

3) Meanwhile, over low heat, saute the garlic, crushed red chiles, a bit of salt* in flavorful olive oil and butter. Add anchovies and allow them to melt over low heat, mashing them up with the back of a fork.

4) When the cauliflower is done and slightly cooled, break it apart into bite-size pieces with a spoon. This happens very easily. Remove the stalk and either eat it as a snack or cut into bite size pieces and return to the rest of the cauliflower.

5) When the pasta is done and drained, return it to the hot pot and add the cauliflower. Pour the anchovy sauce into the same pot, add parsley and stir.

6) Serve immediately on warm plates. See notes below.

Notes*

1. Salt to taste as there are 3 factors to getting it right: how much salt did you add to pasta water, how salty were your anchovies and lastly how much salt did you add to the garlic anchovy sauce?

2. It’s not traditional, but I often add lemon zest and a squeeze of lemon to the anchovy sauce and add grated cheese to the pasta before serving.

3. Any short shape pasta will work and if there’s one you love by all means use that one. Want to read more? For great recipes (and great wines!) subscribe to 3BOTTLES. 3 wines, great info: we do your dinner homework for you. Call (919) 968 8993 and we'll tell you more.