Author Archives: Living Venice

Who sat on my peaches?

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“Snuffbox” peaches: make the Bellini cocktail’s perfect puree…

…or eat them one by one (warning: have plenty of napkins handy).

These white tabacchiere (named for their snuffbox shape) dell’Etna, also known as saturnine peaches begin to show up at markets here mid-to-late July. They’re cultivated in Sicily, at various locations that circle the Etna volcano, where the climate and the soil are perfectly adapted to their needs: warm and dry, with well-drained soil. According to Slow Food, they’ve only been around since WWII, when estate agricultural laws changed to permit perennial cultivation (as opposed to only annual), which would fortunately include peach trees.

While the snuffbox name might not be an appetizing association, these are some of the sweetest and juiciest to be had, and due to their soft pulp make an excellent choice for the puree required to whip up the famous Bellini on a summer’s eve.

Recipe from Harry’s Bar:

Made with Prosecco instead of Champagne, it is nevertheless widely regarded as the best Champagne cocktail in the world.

When making a Bellini, everything (the glasses, Prosecco and white peach puree) should be as cold as possible.

The general rule is to use one part white peach puree to three parts Prosecco. Use fresh frozen white peach puree when you can, but when making your own puree, never use a food processor because it aerates the fruit. (Maurice Graham Henry often uses a cheese shredder, shredding the peaches and using a strainer to collect the maximum amount of juice.) Add a bit of sugar or some simple syrup if the puree is too tart or a tad sour.

And absolutely never use yellow peaches.

In recent times, Bellini recipes have begun to include a touch of raspberry juice — evidently the white peach color isn’t lively enough. Some use a two-to-one ratio of puree to Prosecco; Mario Batali uses goes one-to-one in Simple Italian Cooking, and has adapted the recipe for other fresh fruit, including pomegranate. Now that would be a color the maestro Bellini (after whom the cocktail was named) might have found truly appealing!

In order not to diminish the peaches’ sweetness, a dry Prosecco is probably preferable to a brut. I love the idea of using a cheese shredder for the puree — but I keep consuming the peaches by themselves so that I don’t have enough left over for the cocktail. Markets are open again on Tuesday, I’ll give it another try then…

 

Mountain Men and Mountain Wine

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Enofaber introduces Vincent Grosjean

Fabrizio Gallino lives in the Piedmont, north of Torino near the Valle d’Aosta, in the land called Canavese. He a family man who works as an editor, and in multimedia and the web, but his passion is wine and food, Canavese, Italian, and otherwise. He’s been an AIS sommelier since 2008 (encouraging me via Twitter before my own final exam), and continues to deepen his knowledge around all aspects of it — a search that never ends, he says.

Fortunately for us, he also writes, maintaining his blog enofaber.com. I like the way he writes about the experience of drinking wines, meeting vintners and other “personaggi” he comes to know (mostly small producers and lesser known wines); it’s not a report or a review, he says; he prefers to relate more “the emotions of the moment,” as he puts it.

I am delighted that he’s given me permission to translate selected articles here. The first is from a visit with Vincent Grosjean of the Maison Vigneronne Fréres Grosjean in the Valle d’Aosta. Enjoy.

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Vincent is a man not much taller than me, well placed with large, calloused hands that make you remember that the earth is low… 

Hands like two shovels, that if one slapped you across the face your head would spin for three days.

Vincent who, when I first arrived at the vineyard for a visit, made me wait half an hour because he had other things to take care of. I was also met with some suspicion.

Vincent, arrives now to shakes my hand firmly, give me a pat on the back and smile at me, eyes and mouth. Still maintaining a bit of a “low profile,” but much more jovial now and friendly. Maybe he came to understand that my love for the Valle and his wines is authentic without any ulterior motive.

So much so that he let me taste this wine, retrieved from his personal stock: Pinot Noir 1989, 22 years old. In 1989, I was 16; I did not drink, I did not smoke and I’d just become interested in women (mamma mia, how much time I’ve spent on least two of these activites…). 

Well, this wine is like Vincent. It’s of him. Healthy, compact, all in one piece, but richly faceted. The smell of woods after a spring rain, a scent that fills the air once you seek it out.

This is the land of damp woods that crown to Ollignan, the village where Maison Grosjean vineyards are located. But there are also traces of the freshly cut meadow grass that surround the vineyards; of spices, of the herbs found in these mountains. Verticality, in every sense. At the beginning — just like Vincent — it’s rough, surly, calloused. You have to know to wait for it. You’ll then be presented with a truly memorable wine, but only when the it decides. It also has the power to last, last, and last.

Stainless and in one piece, just like Vincent Grosjean.

Merci bien, Vincent

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Grazie a te, Fabrizio…

 

Leggi l’italiano? Vai all’articolo originale.

Images courtesy of grosjean.vievini.it

 

 

When does a visit become an assault?

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Translated from an article by Marco Petricca in La Nuova Venezia:

At 9am, the onslaught begins. 33,000 day cruisers begin to disembark in groups of a thousand at a pop, from 7 massive ships and 2 ferries. It’s a surge that continues uninterrupted until 5pm, when these floating cities start to sail away.

There’s not a moment’s pause in this Venetian August: thousands of vacationers head for the People Mover to transfer to Piazzale Roma, although the tram was overwhelmed yesterday with endless lines and inconvenience. The tram runs every three minutes, each car jammed full of passengers dragging suitcases and rolling bags. Those meeting them on their return drag buggies, shopping bags and water bottles.

Before 10am, the line at the People Mover station to Piazzale Roma already spans the distance between the exit of the port and the tram ticketing machine [about 1/2 mi]. Those who get fed up decide to cross the roundabout in front of the port entrance and walk instead, keeping an eye out for trucks and vans that whiz into and out of the port and dodging the snake of cars before as they arrive to undergo VTP security checks.

Definitely in the minority are those who take the sidewalk to reach Piazzale Roma. But still there are plenty and form long, single file lines along the side of the road, halting road traffic at crosswalks.

They all make their way to Piazzale Roma, hampered by barriers and contruction work, but eventually finding themselves at the foot of Calatrava bridge. At this point they accelerate their pace: smiling faces; smiling, smiling.

The mass of tourists [ignores alternate routes and] follows itself, bound intently for the center [and Piazza San Marco], so much so that the expansive riva in front of Saint Lucia station is already thronging with people.

At 11.30, lines begin to form in reverse: at Piazzale Roma and below the entrance of the tram. There’s plenty of People Mover staff available, giving directions and attempting to regulate the line. One of the three tram railway ticketing machines is broken and the line continues to grow; increasing the chaos are commuters and those who come this way because the Tronchetto bus isn’t running due to the construction in Piazzale Roma. Those arriving don’t add much to the problem, though; it’s mostly due to the large number of those who are heading in the opposite direction.

They merge with the other tourists who, numbering at least in the hundreds, come rushing out of Saint Lucia train station, heading straight for the cruise ships, via the People Mover.

At noon, the line is so long that it blocks the cars leaving the Garage San Marco, complicating the traffic trying to get into the port and the municipal garage. The trouble spreads over the entire traffiic chain: the information points, bars, tobacco shop, the kiosk of the hotels, all overwhelmed by the crowds.

• top photo courtesy Venice in Peril

Think you know Nebbiolo? O mio babbino caro, think again.

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I’m enthralled by Tri-Veneto wines, and seek to sing their praises whenever I get a chance. They’re made for what we eat around here; it’s only natural we “drink local.” But any wine enthusiast will seek out good wines no matter where they’re produced; and good locales will always offer a wide selection of palate-pleasers representative of the wide-wide world of wine.

That’s what happened the other evening at La Cantina*, when co-owner Andrea ported out a bottle for an impromptu tasting. It was a bubbly, so I was already half way to liking it: métode champagnoise is all to often overlooked as an after-dinner, evening-ending option. So, what do have we here…

A sparkling metodo classico but not Franciacorta? Not Trento DOC? Rose, OK, but, what color is that? Coral? no. Pink? nope. Sort of an intense, mauvish red, as if the dried rose hips you might find in your great- grandmother’s potpourri had soaked for hours in the perlage. Curiouser and curiouser… Lots of floral in the multifaceted nose, and in the mouth? Charming and unexpected. Fresh and sturdy, but not forceful or challenging or steely. People pleasing without being silly or soda-poppy. Just a pleasure.

It’s Nebbiolo in purezza, the same wine of the austere, head spinning Barolo fame, over whose massive calices who-knows-how-many of the world’s problems have been solved, late into the night, by its imbibers. And here it is, flouncing around, singing, lilting, but never leaving far behind its intense complexity, even as a wild rose.

Same grape, whooooole different wine. Grande nebbiolo…

Erik, Paolo, Cristian and Federico are Erpacrife (formed by combining the first letters of their first name), and this is their wine. Nebbiolo harvested early to guarantee the acidity and contain the alcohol, soaked on the skins just long enough, even adding a short stint on wood. Then a second fermentation in the bottle with 24 months on the lees, and at the end, at the sboccatura, when the lees are removed, the wine is capped pas dose, dosage zerò, topped off only with identical wine. Not brut, not extra dry, not saten.

All of this would make little difference if the wine wasn’t, well, just delightful. It’s one of those that will stick, like the first, and still best Piccolit I ever tasted (I don’t think my eyebrows have been raised as high since), the Gavi Soldati La Scolca Millesimato d’Antan Rosè, the color of apricots with a perlage that would have gone on for centuries if I’d been able to resist drinking it, etcetera, etcetera.

I love these ad hoc discoveries; they’re the reason I almost never choose my own wine when eating at a trusted locale — just like ordering dinner, it’s best to ignore the menu and the list and just ask, what’s good today?

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* La Cantina is one of many locales in Venice that offer a great selection of wines by the glass and by the bottle. Located just off the Ca’ d’Oro stop on Campo San Felice, across the bridge in front of the church of the same name. Dinner reservations are essential.

 

photo credit Altissimoceto.it and Albergo-Ristorante il Cascinale Nuovo