By The Tun

The DOC Rules Have Changed: Primitivo di Manduria DOC

2012-02-07T14:18:00.000-08:00

Primitivo di Manduria DOC is no longer 100% primitivo, and I'm mad as hell. Famed wine critic Jancis Robinson reports in her article, Getting to Grips with Puglia, that the Primitivo di Manduria DOC now allows "up to 15% of any other varieties planted on a given estate, including such foreigners as Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot." I'm glad I happened to find this article because I haven't found anyone else reporting on this abrupt change. The Primitivo di Manduria DOC used to be a varietal wine.

A DOC is a government-controlled label of quality in Italy, and Italy has so many DOCs that the label is almost meaningless these days. However, the DOC label is still important in Puglia because the region is in the process of becoming well known in the United States, and its DOCs have been successfully branded. If you go to almost any Trader Joe's, you'll find two of Puglia's best known DOCs: the Salice Salentino DOC and the Primitivo di Manduria DOC. Had you predicted this in the 1990s, you would have been laughed all the way back to Puglia.

Primitivo is famous among Americans because it is the same grape as zinfandel. This has helped the Primitivo di Manduria DOC gain a foothold in the U.S., but Primitivo di Manduria DOC wines aren't nearly as well-known as many other Italian wines. Why would Puglia shoot itself in the foot like this... just as it was getting started? Robinson suggests that the "locals seem to lack faith in their indigenous grapes." Is this the reason? I've never met a Pugliese winemaker who wasn't proud of the native grapes.

But maybe I'm getting ahead of things. Maybe this change in rules isn't bad. Many winemakers will continue to make 100% primitivo Primitivo di Manduria DOC wines, and perhaps the addition of new grapes will produce more age-worthy wines. What do you think?

I can't help but think that this change in regulation will result in confusion among American winelovers. Flavors will change and the wines will be less reliable. Most importantly, a unique identity and terroir will be destroyed. Further, the connection between zinfandel, primitivo, and the Croatian grape, crljenak kaštelanski, is already shrouded in confusion. Just the other day I found a wine at Trader Joe's that further misleads consumers. Its label reads, "Zinfandel in America... Primitivo in Italy... Mali Plavac in Croatia..." but Plavac Mali is not the same grape as zinfandel: It is a cross between zinfandel, aka crljenak kaštelanski, and another grape called dobricic. Can't we just keep things simple?

The Puglia Wine Review, February 1, 2012

2012-02-01T10:14:00.000-08:00

I'm very happy to share three exceptionally well-priced wines in this round of the Puglia Wine Review. All three wines can be found in the United States, and, if you just happen to live in Portland, Oregon, you can purchase two of these three wines at the very same stores that I did, because I list them.

I think that the first two wines reviewed below display Puglia's terroir exceptionally well. With the negroamaro grape, I think the terroir appears in the form of simultaneous bright and dark fruit flavors. How many wines can tout such a paradoxical quality? The dark fruit makes the wine austere and masculine, but Puglia's wines are nothing if not amicable, and the bright fruit is juicy and mouthwatering. I have to guess that these qualities come from the combination of the negroamaro grape—native to Puglia for a couple thousand years or more—and Puglia's unique growing environment, which combines severe, unrelenting sun with cool sea breezes and a healthy amount of groundwater (sorry, gonna geek out for a sec: this ground water is actually sourced from a river near Naples, then channeled through one of the largest underground aqueducts in Europe, to Puglia—That's crazy terroir!). I hope you get a chance to try these cheap, expressive negroamaros for yourself.

Puglia Wine Review

As always, 50% of my ratings are based on quality and 50% on price.

Terravecchia Winery's 2008 Pámpana (100% Negroamaro)
Rating: 94
Price: $14
Where to Buy: Magnolia's Corner (Sandy and NE 41st)
Short Review: Well hello darlin', nice to meechya.

I tasted this wine at a party to support EAT's Italian culinary tours, and it fully demolished the rest of the competition: My friends and I left with a case of it. The Terravecchia line of wines is produced by Alberto Longo winery in the Daunia region in northern Puglia. Pámpana is one of the best representations of Pugliese wine that I've found in Oregon. The wine is dry and has a med/full body. It is fruit forward and the acidity is balanced, making for gulpable drinking. I got aromas of raspberry and blackberry, cinnamon, vanilla, and plum jam, and I tasted blackberry and juicy dark fruit. The finish is medium but the mouthfeel is long. The tannins are soft and this wine pairs well with salmon or chicken. I've been a fan of some of Alberto Longo's wines, and others have left me less than impressed, but the winery really nails it with this one, especially when you consider the price.

Taurino Winery's 2006 Salice Salentino Riserva (80% Negroamaro, 20% Malvasia Nera)
Rating: 92
Price: $13
Where to Buy: Not imported to Oregon these days. Sorry.
Short Review: A mature wine that's worth every dime

I've had this wine many times, but I'm not sure if I've tried it at this age, which is, apparently, the perfect age. The 2006 will drink well for the next year but not much longer. The nose is dark fruit, fennel, and thyme, and I tasted tobacco, fennel, and cedarwood. The wine's mouthfeel was extraordinarily rich and silky—almost as though all uneven textures had been polished down. Structure was solid, and the wine could pair well with acidic dishes like tomato sauce. The tannins are soft. Medium finish.

Pinetti Notte Winery's 2010 Primitivo
Rating: 90
Price: $6
Where to Buy: Fred Meyers (got mine on SE 39th and Hawthorne)
Short Review: For those who like it sweet...

If you like Layer Cake's Primitivo, which retails around $16, save ten bucks and buy Pinetti Notte's instead. This astonishingly cheap wine tastes pretty good, but it is a little on the sweet side. I got aromas of fruit gummies and red licorice laces, and I tasted dark fruit and cedarwood. The acidity was there and the tannins were soft and these qualities balanced the fruit. Very approachable, this wine is a good cheap primitivo.

Top 10 Wines from Croatia (from my recent trip)

2012-01-25T11:27:00.000-08:00

This list of Top 10 Wines from Croatia comes from a ravenous adventure through Croatia last October, during which I threatened the small nation's food and wine supply: If only I could have drank more! I'm warning you Croatia, I'm coming back. At least I can get several of these wines in the United States.

I hadn't planned on putting an equal number of reds and whites on this list—Croatia produces more white wine than red—but you'll find five of each. With each wine I also share basic grape info. Croatia's grapes may have freaky names, like debit, graševina, plavac mali, and marastina, but their flavor profiles are downright homey. Picture this: You're sitting in your backyard on a warm June evening with a glass of light, fruity graševina. Or this: You're grilling up ribs with a tangy BBQ sauce that pairs perfectly with a bottle of teran. Mmmm... Croatia!

Top 10 Wines from Croatia (from my October trip)

White

Matošević Winery's 2008 "Grimalda" (50% Chardonnay, 25% Istrian Malvasia, 25% Sauvignon Blanc) - This was one of my favorites whites of the trip. It is barrel aged and shares some characteristics with California-style chardonnay. The wine's powerful acidity cuts through the toast and butter, allowing the intrinsic quality of the other grapes to shine through on a long finish. The wine is medium bodied and dry. I got aromas of buttered toast and dried flowers and flavors of luscious white fruit, especially peach. The grapes were grown in central Istria. The most famous Istrian wines are made with Istrian malvasia. Istrian malvasia is one of 84 different types of malvasia found in the Mediterranean.

Sladić Winery's 2009 Marastina - The marastina grape is prevalent on Croatia's Dalmatian Coast, particularly on the island of Korcula. This wine's grapes were grown in Krka National Park on mainland Croatia, just outside the city of Sibenik. The wine is dry and full-bodied. I found aromas of peach, honey, and almonds, with flavors of ripe fruit and an almost oily texture that was very pleasant with food. A unique wine that pairs well with seafood, especially seafood served with Dalmatia's buzara sauce.

BIBICh Winery's 2010 Debit - Another grape found on the Dalmatian Coast, debit was once rare but is now becoming more common. Legend has it that the grape was named after the debt that farmers owed to Napoleon. Napoleon accepted his payment in the form of wine, of course, smart man that he was. Though I tried several debit wines that were too minerally and short on acid, I found BIBICh's Debit to be very well crafted. The wine is light bodied and dry. I tasted bitter lime peel and butterscotch, and it was a bit grassy and quite chalky. Just to give you a sense of the grape, it shared some qualities with trebbiano and sauvignon blanc. It costs $16 in the U.S., and I think it's worth every penny for the chance to taste something new and delicious. (Image courtesy of Marcy Gordon)

Antun Adžić's 2010 Graševina "Vallis Aurea" - Likely the most planted white grape in Croatia, graševina has an unknown history, but today it is planted throughout central and eastern Europe. This wine was medium-bodied and verging on off-dry. I got aromas of petrol, grapefruit, and bright fruit, and I tasted honey-dew melon followed by a crisp acidity. The wine was exceptionally clean and bright. Adzic's graševina grapes were grown in the Pozega valley (Vallis Aurea in Latin), in inland Croatia.

BIBICh Winery's 2008 Lučica (100% Debit) - This is BIBICh's more complex debit. It features fruit from one of the oldest and best vineyards, where most of the vines only produce enough fruit to make half a bottle of wine each. The debit grapes are not pressed. Aged in American oak for 16 months, the wine has aromas of toast, rosemary, and bright fruit, and I tasted peach, vanilla, and a little saltiness on the finish. The wine had a viscous texture and a very, very long, mineral finish. It was dry and medium-bodied. (Image courtesy of Cellarette)

Red

PZ Svirce Winery's 2007 Ivan Dolac Plavac Mali - Two things about this wine are immediately surprising: it is dry, even with an alcohol content of 14.5%, and it pairs well with seafood, even though it is full-bodied with a rich ruby color. Also somewhat surprisingly, this plavac mali comes from the island of Hvar, not the Dingac region, where most of Croatia's best known plavac mali wines are born (Hvar is just north of the Peljesac peninsula). This was one of my favorite reds of the trip and definitely my favorite plavac mali. I got floral and dark fruit aromas, and I tasted lavender, plum, chocolate, earth, and cloves. The earthiness keeps the fruit in check, and the tannins are solid, giving the wine exceptional structure. This wine is excellent for pairing with meat dishes, particularly Croatia's pasticada, a dish of beef stewed in a complex sauce that can involve everything from Prosecco to peaches. It also pairs well with grilled white fish and mussels alla buzara. (Image courtesy of Cellartracker)

Ivan Dolac is a Grand Cru vineyard on the island of Hvar, and the wines made with Ivan Dolac fruit proudly display the name Ivan Dolac on the label. These wines are all 100% plavac mali. Check out this beautiful shot of an Hvar vineyard courtesy of PZ Svirce:

Krauthaker Winery's 2008 Pinot Crni (100% Pinot Noir) - The wine was light bodied and dry with a soft mouthfeel. I got aromas of smoke and roses, and the flavors of fresh plum, sour cherry, and smoke. It was round with soft tannins. Krauthaker's pinot noir grapes were grown in the Pozega Valley, aka Vallis Aurea (shown on the wine label below), in the famous Slavonia region of Croatia. Slavonia has a long history of producing excellent wines as well as the top quality Slavonian oak used to make wine barrels. The 45th parallel, the same longitude as Burgundy in France, runs across Croatia, and pinot noir is planted throughout the country along this line. Croatia is not known for pinot, but this one is great.

Franc Arman Winery's 2007 Teran "Barrique" - In 1999, Franc Arman's Teran "Barrique" became the first teran wine to be aged in oak barrels. The wine is dry and full bodied. I got powerful aromas of juicy, dark fruit. The tannins are middle-ground, capable of pairing with beef involtini or other big-flavor dishes (the local prosciutto, called pršut, is a favorite). The tannins were also friendly enough that you could drink the wine sans food. Flavors of juicy blackberries, a little vanilla, and baking spices, like nutmeg and cloves.

In Croatia, the teran grape is primarily grown on the Istrian peninsula. The northern part of the Istrian peninsula is Slovenia, where teran is used to make a wine called refošk, which clues us in to the fact that teran is related to Italy's refosco. Just how related it is is debated, and the grape is sometimes called Istrian teran because the local soil, a mix of red, brown, and white soils, changes the qualities of the grape. In Istria, it is also common to grow international grape varieties such as cabernet franc, merlot, and pinot noir.

BIBICh Winery's 2005 Sangreal (100% Merlot) - This merlot comes from the Dalmatian Coast and I think the growing region really creates a unique merlot. The wine is dry and medium bodied, however, the wine had a very light and nimble character thanks to good acidity. It is not very fruity though there is some raisin on the nose. It has a very long finish and a powerful tannic structure. BIBICh's merlot vines were first planted in 1970, and the wine is aged for 24 months in French oak. (Image courtesy of Vinologue)

Matuško Winery's 2007 Dingac (100% Plavac Mali) - This austere wine represents the Dingac growing region very well, and it isn't going to break the bank like so many Dingac wines (that is, if you can find it—try Dubrovnik). It is bone dry and full bodied. I got balanced aromas, with notes of chocolate and dark fruit. The wine is rich and earthy, with some chocolate. This wine needs to be decanted: an unpleasant cola flavor that was present at first that went away with time. The Dingac growing region is located on the Dalmatian Coast on the Peljesac peninsula, and it centers on the town of Potomje.

How to Pronounce Crljenak Kaštelanski — Doppelgänger to Zinfandel and Primitivo

2012-01-23T09:38:00.000-08:00

Whenever I saw the grape name crljenak kaštelanski, I let my eyes rapidly skip over it. I knew what it meant, I just didn't want to think about pronouncing it—either out loud or in my head. It's sorta like watching Cremaster 3 by Matthew Barney: you don't want to examine all of the individual parts or you might never come back.

Crljenak kaštelanski is a Croatian grape, and though it is rarely found in Croatia today, it is the grape that spread to Italy and California, where it is known as primitivo and zinfandel respectively. When I was in the Croatian capital of Zagreb, I asked Chef Roberta Riplia of Gastronomadi Klub to teach me how to pronounce crljenak kaštelanski. Listen to this:

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The Connection Between Crljenak Kaštelanski/Zinfandel/Primitivo and Plavac Mali

The rapidly up-and-coming grape, plavac mali, is widely grown in Croatia's Dingac region. It is related to crljenak kaštelanski, and this has led many people to think of the two grapes as identical. Plavac mali wines tend to be dry and earthy and have great aging potential. Does this sound like zinfandel or primitivo? Nope.Vinologue warns, in the comments of a recent article I wrote for EuropeUpClose.com, that plavac mali is not identical to crljenak kaštelanski: it is a mutation of crljenak kaštelanski, which makes it a distant relative (you can think of it as a cousin). Crljenak kaštelanski, zinfandel, and primitivo are identical on a genetic level.

For more information, check out the report Science as a Window into Wine History, by Carole P. Meredith. Meredith spearheaded the research into zinfandel's history. In the report, she wrote, "We think that Zinfandel (a.k.a. Crljenak Kastelanski) was once widely grown in Croatia. Disease probably killed most of the vines, but not before a chance cross-pollination took place between Crljenak Kastelanski and Dobricic, giving rise to a seedling that became Plavac Mali."

The Rome and Umbria Culinary Tour by Edible Authentic Travel [Sponsored Post]

2012-01-17T08:52:00.000-08:00

This fall, Edible Authentic Travel is taking Italian food lovers on a culinary tour of Rome and the villages of Umbria.

I met Heidi Spurlock-Burnette, co-founder of Edible Authentic Travel (EAT) culinary tour, during an Italian supper club, viz. party, that my girlfriend and I threw at our home. Over a smorgasbord of traditional Pugliese antipasti and steaming bowls of homemade, sausage-stuffed tortelli with sage-butter sauce (did I mention wine? yeah, lots of wine), Heidi shared her philosophy on culinary tours: Take a small group of people who love Italian food and wine to the small towns that she and co-founder Marco Scaglione, a Piedmont native, absolutely love.

To be honest, I’m not a fan of most culinary tours. The idea of getting on a bus with 30 other random people and trying to share an intimate Italian experience seems like pursuit destined to fail. But that’s not what EAT is all about, and I think it’s time that the people putting together great culinary tours in Italy obliterate the bad name given to culinary tours. Heidi and Marco are two such people.

The things I love about Rome are spaghetti carbonara, amatriciana, carciofi alla giudia, Pecorino Romano, malvasia, trebbiano, and porchetta sandwiches. EAT’s culinary tour begins by visiting the Roman neighborhoods known for cooking and serving these killer dishes and wines. The Jewish Ghetto is full of hole-in-the-wall restaurants, some of which do not even hang signs outside their doors, and this is why it helps to travel with professional foodies. Heidi has worked as a tour guide in Rome for seven years.

Umbria is a quiet region. Its rolling hills are covered with Italian cypress trees and a patchwork of agricultural land. I love Umbrian food, and its wines really blow me away. The culinary tour travels through the Tiber Valley, visiting the famous town of Assissi—a darn cute town full of churches and expansive views—before hitting wine country. The Sangrantino di Montefalco DOCG, made with the sagrantino grape, is famous for its small but fervent following, viz. it’s a true cult wine. Heidi will take winos and winas (I apologize for this neologism) to these small wineries, plus there will be olive oil and cheese tastings. What could be more exciting than eating in the best Umbrian restaurants and drinking the best Umbiran wines? Oh: A chocolate festival! The Rome and the Villages of Umbria Tour will also visit the EuroChocolate Festival, sampling the world-famous chocolate of Perugia.

For more information on the Rome and Umbria culinary tour, check out Edible Authentic Tour’s website or, if you live in Portland, Oregon, come to the wine tasting that Heidi and Marco will be leading at Magnolia Wine Bar this Saturday, January 21^st.

EAT’s Rome & The Villages of Umbria culinary tour is scheduled for October 14-21, 2012.

BIBICh Winery: The Best Culinary Experience of My 5-Week Culinary Press Trip

2012-01-11T11:12:00.000-08:00

Though I have returned, these flavors will never leave me…

We arrived at BIBICh winery at dusk, and the quickly darkening countryside was a mess of with low-lying brush, grapevines, and steep descents. The terra, pulverized limestone, was almost sandy. I felt as though the hills might roll off into nowhere, and this feeling of falling into another world was haunting. I felt as though I were on a ranch in Texas or New Mexico, not on Croatia's Dalmatian Coast. Some of the worst fighting of the Serbo-Croat War happened around BIBICh winery, and almost every vineyard had to be replanted during the late 1990s. Alen Bibić ‘s family has a 500-plus-year history of winemaking, and Alen could only shake his head and say, “It is very sad.”

I remember the giant wooden gates clearly; they led into a courtyard that may or may not have been unpaved—may or may not have been made of sand. A cold wind from the distant mountains was whipping across the hilltop, and we had to struggle to open and close the door into the tasting room. Alen and Šime Petrović welcomed us to a set table full of open bottles—the night’s tasting.

Thousands of descriptors could be used to describe BIBICh’s wines, but, for me, the clearest description is this: BIBICh wine dances. It is lithe and bright, and it stood in direct opposition to the weather outside. It is unusually low in alcohol and features little-known grapes, such as the white grape, debit. Alen said he foresaw a good future for debit. “People, over time, will get to taste more,” he predicted.

To accompany the wines, a tasting menu had been prepared by Alen’s wife, Vesna. Anthony Bourdain was slated for the next night’s dinner. He’d been trailing in our olive oil dust for days.

The first pairing was fresh oysters and BIBICh’s sparkling N/V Brut, made with 100% Debit and crafted using the champenoise method (it is not imported). I didn’t like it. The flavor was dull. However, the texture was surprising and unlike anything I’d had before: it felt like drinking wool. Vesna had prepared local oysters. Half were simply cracked then left untouched, while the other half were covered with Worcester foam. This was the first taste of Vesna's incredible molecular gastronomy.

Next up was the 2010 Debit varietal ($16) paired with a cucumber granita on a bed of sprouts topped with trout roe and smoked trout shavings. The dish’s fruit and smoke flavors paired perfectly with the extremely nimble, dry wine. I tasted butterscotch and bitter lime peel, and it was chalky and a bit grassy. It was astonishing.

(Photos: All of the photos of wine come from Blue Danube Wine)

The northern Dalmatian Coast seems to have a similar growing environment to Puglia, Italy, which is located across the Adriatic Sea. Ground water lies as deep as 200ft, the summer sun is brutal, and the topsoil is shallow, but the cool wind of the sea stops the grapes from maturing too fast, maintaining acidity. The fruit creates wines with numerous, intense flavors that are good for food pairing. The 2010 Debit is a high-value wine.

Next, we tried the 2009 R5 Riserva ($18)—a blend of debit, marastina, posit, chardonnay, and pinot gris—with sea bass tartar flavored with orange and chili pepper. Aged for one year in American oak, the R5 was made in international style, with some toastiness. I didn’t find that the oak obscured the intrinsic flavors of the grapes. It was dry with nice fruit on the nose. I tasted vanilla and felt strong mineral textures. A solid food wine.

Getting down to business, Alen brought out the single-vineyard 2008 Lučica (100% debit - $25) paired with the area’s famous scallops (I’ve written all about Sibenik’s seafood here), which were served on and under disks of semi-hard goat cheese. The scallops were peppered with black sesame seeds and doused in sesame oil. Lučica features fruit from one of the few vineyards that wasn’t devastated by the war. BIBICh’s importer to the U.S., Blue Danube Wine, says the vineyard has 47-year-old vines. Alen explained that each plant in the vineyard produces enough fruit for half a bottle of wine, and that he does not press the fruit. That’s highly concentrated fruit plus top notch free-run juice which equals an insanely bright wine with a viscous texture and an almost interminable finish. The brightness corresponded with a saline quality that brought out the flavors of the tangy goat cheese, which in turn brought out the flavors of the scallops. Aged in new American oak for one year, Lučica was also toasty on the nose.

This next pairing was even more ridiculously awesome: the 2008 R6 Riserva (the first red of the night; a blend of plavina, babich, and lasin - $19) with cuttlefish linguini over Paski cream topped with olive oil foam and almonds with olive oil dust and black truffle and balsamic reduction on the side. The cuttlefish was boiled for nine hours in its own ink then put through a pasta machine; it glistened like black latex. The flavor wasn’t fishy, just reminiscent of the sea, and it was a lot of fun recreating the flavor profiles by mixing it with more or less of the dish’s other components. I have no idea how one creates olive oil dust, but my hat is off to you, Vesna. The R6 was slightly hot on the nose—not unpleasant but surprising for such low alcohol—and very rich in the mouth, with flavors of plum. I see this wine aging well over the next five years.

The next course included two wines: the 2005 Sangreal (100% merlot - not imported) and the 2008 Bas de Bas (80% Sirah, 20% local varieties - not imported). They were paired with lamb encrusted with hazelnuts, which was served beneath a brittle and over chive oil. The brittle was comprised of “the mix of the boss,” which Alen described as a major Mediterranean mix of 25 spices, but I’ve never heard of it (fill me in if you know). The Sangreal again danced, with a little raisin on the nose. It was dry, medium bodied but light in character, and had a big finish. The Bas de Bas was rich and more concentrated, yet also retained the light character. The Bas de Bas is a serious wine.

The final course featured the N/V Ambra dessert wine (100% debit - not imported) and a crema catalana with a chocolate cake. Ambra is produced by drying the grapes on mats then pressing them—several months later—in July. The wine was pure Mediterranean nectar. A nose of burnt caramel paired well with the burnt caramel of the cream catalana and the peach and apricot flavors enhanced the chocolate cake.

When we left BIBICh winery, a giant red moon was rising above the clouds. The wind was cold. I was drunk.

Go visit BIBICh damn it. A tasting just like the one above costs between 100-120 euros. It's a lot, but it embodies my philosophy of Ravenous Travel: An elite food experience at an incredible value. Contact the winery directly or a tour company like this one. Note that the wines cost up to 40% less when bought on location.

I just want to point out that I understand the gravity of saying that BIBICh winery provided me with my best culinary experience. I traveled through Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy—three countries with exceptional food—eating at 5-star restaurants and even visiting the white truffle fairs in Istria and Alba, where I was served tasting menus featuring fresh white truffle. This article is long because the experience warrants it.

5 Awesome Wine Labels

2011-12-30T13:39:00.001-08:00

Just a fun post for New Year's Eve. I've come across some pretty handsome wine labels this year, and I'm really digging the more avant-garde labels that wineries are putting out. Please add your favorite wine labels to the list—I'd love to see them. It's always a pleasure to get a glimpse of a winemaker or winery's personality:

Brooks Winery's "Runaway White" —This wine label features the forlorn face of a teenage waif, and what's with the freaky chalice? It makes me think that the runaway joined a cult and now subsists on human blood, perhaps with false hopes of immortality planted by the cult leader. But what do I know?

Love & Squalor Winery's "Fancy Pants" — Darn cute and clearly well read, this wine has its priorities straight. I don't dry my clothes on a clothes line, but this wine makes me feel good about choosing the travel-writing life of two-figure paychecks and good wine.

Zombie Cellar's "Zombie Zin" — What can I say, I'm a sucker for zombies. 100% Grade A awesome.

J. Christopher's "Cristo Irresisto" - I really like this label both because its elegant and it reminds me of a statue I saw in a cemetery outside of Piran, Slovenia. The photo doesn't do it justice, but the statue immediately evoked the feeling of having lost the love of one's life. Ouch. A tragic but beautiful wine label.

Brook's Winery Sangiovese — I wasn't expecting to feature two labels by one winery, but Brooks's labels aren't afraid to be different (as you can see, they even stick dissimilar wine labels on their own bottles). This tranquil wine label reminds me of Oregon's cherry blossom season. I find it very calming... soothing... Totally unlike this terrible wine label I found the other day:

What a gimmick...

Happy New Year's!

Can't wait to share more travel stories over great wines in 2012!

Wine Tasting at Ščurek Winery in Slovenia’s Goriska Brda Wine Region

2011-12-23T10:01:00.000-08:00

From the Awesome Wine Tasting and Review Department

Slovenia’s Goriska Brda is a hidden wine region: neighboring Friuli gets all the press. Yet, when I went wine tasting, it was impossible to tell where Goriska Brda ended and Friuli began. The boundary between Slovenia and Italy was determined, somewhat arbitrarily, by pissed off partisan fighters at the end of World War II, and, today, Italy and Slovenia zigzag together across the beautiful rolling hills of vineyards. Goriska Brda and Friuli are two puzzle pieces locked together.

I visited Ščurek winery on the advice of Šime, chef and sommelier at Gastronomadi Klub in Zagreb, Croatia, where I’d taken a cooking class. The winery had a uniquely young and rebellious ambiance. In the entrance, there was a photo of winemaker Tomaz Ščurek, reclined, wearing skateshoes and using a case of wine as an ottoman. In the cellar, the heads of several wine barrels featured paintings by artists and friends from all over the world, many reminding me of the vibrant works of San Francisco’s street artists. The winery gave off a rock’n’roll attitude. It made me think of contemporary winemakers Adrianna Occhipinti, Charles Smith, and Christian Tietje. Would the wines taste rebellious, too?

Tomaz was busy working late in the cellar when I arrived, and I waited while he change out of his grape-stained clothes. That done, he took me into the family’s original wine cellar, which looked like an 18^th century farmhouse, except all of the furniture had been replaced with wine barrels.

“We experimented with bottling in 1989,” said Tomaz, “and the first real bottling was in 1991. However, we have tax documents that show the family was making wine back to 1853."

Tomaz was quick to point out that the tax documents were written in multiple languages in the 1800s. The region’s identity was clearly multifaceted even then, and Goriska Brda has changed nationalities five times in the last 150 years. It was good to see that Tomaz and his family didn’t suffer from a similar lost of identity.

“This wine cellar is probably older than the state of Oregon,” he added.

We went into the wine tasting room, which had giant windows that looked out onto the valley and its vineyards, the rich yellow and orange foliage in full effect. The first wine I tasted was the 2010 Strune Belo (belo = white). Strune is a budget friendly line of wines that begins at 4.50€ a bottle. The 2010 Strune Belo had a nice floral and fruity nose and was smooth in the mouth. It wouldn’t have been anything special if it weren’t for the price. At 4.50€ a bottle, it was an outstanding value.

Next came the 2010 Rumera Rebula, made of 100% rebula. This white grape is widely planted in Goriska Brda as well as Friuli, where it is known as ribolla gialla, and it is rarely found elsewhere. It has an ancient history but was hardly planted twenty years ago; the resurgence it is experiencing today is greatly due to its ability to age well. Ščurek’s medium-bodied Rumera Rebula wasn’t my style. It had some round yellow fruit, but I found a nutty flavor that was too pervasive and thought that the wine finished hard. Likely, it needed to age another few years. I was beginning to worry that I might not be a fan of Ščurek’s wines.

Then came the 2009 Pinot Gris (Sivi Pinot), a delicious summer wine—it had a striking copper color in the glass and I got a lot of ripe fruit on the nose. My palate really freaked when I tried the 2009 Stara Brajda Belo. As the website says, it is made with “60% Rebula, 20% Pikolit, 20% Pika and some Glera, Tržarka and Malvasia,” and I got aromas of tropical fruit, sage, cashews, and wild chamomile. The wine was full bodied. The acidity almost prickled my tongue, and I could tell that this would smooth out in a few years, allowing complex flavors to develop and emerge.

The last white I tried was the 2009 Dugo, comprised of 50% rebula, 25% chardonnay, and 25% pinot blanc. It deserved to be last because it tasted like royalty. It was rich with oak and vanilla nuances, and it had great depth. I tasted butterscotch candy and dried flowers. I could have sat with the bottle for the whole night writing out descriptions and inspirations. In general, I really enjoyed Ščurek’s blended wines over the varietals because they displayed flavors that totally shocked me: I believe that these wines cannot be produced anywhere else on earth than Goriska Brda.

In general, winemakers in the Goriska Brda region make mostly white wines, however, that doesn’t mean that the reds should be discredited. On the contrary, the 2006 Pinot Noir (Modri Pinot) was one of my favorite wines during the tasting. Very elegant, with aromas of cloves and plums, it was light bodied and sleek. I tasted plum, ripe cherry, and cedarwood, and it was very well balanced.

Next I tried a blend of merlot (75%) and cabernet sauvignon (15%) that was part of the winery’s “Up” line. The 2006 Up had aromas of blackberries and plums, and I tasted lots of fruit, such as blackberry jam, and it had cola notes. The finish was long with a powerful pepperiness. For all its strength, the wine was still friendly.

Ščurek tasting room is open year round for wine tasting. Appointments are necessary. Closed Sundays. Email Tomaz at scurek.stojan@siol.net a few days in advance. A wine tasting costs 7€, or you can have it with local meats and cheeses for 15€.

Tis the Season for Olio Nuovo - A Wine Dinner with 2011 James Beard Finalist Cathy Whims

2011-12-19T11:17:00.000-08:00

I got an unexpected invite to Nostrana Restaurant's Olio Nuovo Wine Dinner last week, and this surprise was followed by another: Olio Nuovo, literally "new oil," turns out to be olive oil par excellence. Having never even heard of olio nuovo before, I had to be enlightened. Olive Oil Sommelier Jeff Bergman explained that olio nuovo is olive oil that was pressed less than 90 days ago. Just like novello or beaujolais wine, young olive oil tastes astonishingly fresh. Most olive oil producers complete their first harvest, commonly known as the green harvest, at the end of September, and right now is the time for olio nuovo.

Cathy Whims, Nostrana owner and James Beard Best Chef 2011 Finalist, worked with Jeff to create a three-way pairing (I still can't decide if this term is an oxymoron). Each course featured an Italian dish, a new olive oil, and a wine. The first course was one of my favorites: beef carpaccio with fried capers, celery leaves, and shaved parmigiano topped with Frescobaldi's "Laudemio First Pressing" olive oil. This was paired with Kante's NV "KK" Brut. The dish was refreshing; the sweet Karst beef was given great texture by the fried capers and celery leaves; the Frescobaldi olive oil, which is filtered, tasted grassy and slightly of lemon. Unlike regular carpaccio, this carpaccio writhed in oil. Oil dripped from each forkful. I could feel the health benefits. My skin felt better—my hair shiner. The Kante KK Brut tasted of almonds, caramel, and toast.

"We all drank rancid oil 25 years ago," said Jeff. "Freshness wasn't valued the way it is today. Those were the days when a farmer would put his nets under the tree then back his truck into the tree. Maybe five days later he'd take the olives to the cooperative for pressing, and by then they'd be dried up and in terrible shape." A few years ago, when I spoke with Raffaele Cazzetta, owner of Cazzetta Olive Oil Factory, he explained that the flavor of the olive drastically changes if it isn't processed within two hours of picking. The longer the olive stays on the ground, the more acidic it becomes, and better olive oils are less acidic (the quality label, extra virgin, is partially determined by low acidity). Thanks to technology and awareness, the quality of olive oil is easy to control. "Now producers focus on finessing," said Jeff.

The next course was a fried, cake-like version of ribollita, which we doused in Capezzana's Olio Nuovo 2011 from Tuscany and paired with Capezzana's 2008 "Barco Reale di Carmignano." Also known as third-day ribollita, the ribollita cake was crunchy on the outside but moist and soupy on the inside. If you make ribollita soup at home and you ever find that it's become too thick, try scooping it into cakes and frying it: the texture is amazing.

I think I used half a bottle of Capezzana's olive oil. It was spicy, grassy, and nutty, and neither I nor the bread in the ribollita could reach our saturation. Grassiness is definitely the most discernible characteristic of olio nuovo—just like freshly cut grass. The 2008 "Barco Reale di Carmignano" was also excellent. Made of sangiovese, cabernet sauvignon, and canaiolo, the wine had aromas of plum and lavender. I tasted dark fruit, cedar, and a controlled, pleasant barnyardiness. I liked it because it was a stolid wine, capable of pairing with hearty food. It retails around $14.

The main course was grilled calamari with chickpeas, fennel, lemon, and Tremiti olives, topped with Gianfranco Becchina's Olio Verde and paired with Occhipinti's 2010 "SP68." The Gianfranco Becchina Olio Verde is unfiltered and made from just one type of olive: Nocellara del Belice. Again, there was a hyper-real spiciness and grassiness.

Chef Cathy Whims was particularly excited about Occhipinti winery, and she explained that the winemaker, Arianna Occhipinti, began her winemaking career around age 19. Today, Arianna makes wines with biodynamic farming practices and without adding sulfites. The purity of the SP68 was its foremost quality. It was made of Nero D'Avola and Frappato (another native Sicilian grape), and I was surprised by how light it was; I wouldn't have guessed it had Nero D'Avola in it. It tasted fresh and fruity with aromas of fennel, lemon, and celery. Because it tasted brand new, it paired well with the new olive oil. However, while the SP68 seemed like a fine wine, I couldn't see how it would make a winemaker famous. Then Cathy brought out Occhipinti's 2009 "Il Frappato." This wine shocked me, and there's no other way to say it than that it tasted alive. Sort of a corpulent pinot noir, Il Frappato had aromas of fresh raspberries, and I tasted red fruit and candy.

The wine dinner concluded with an olive oil torta with poached apricots and citrus zests and almond cream paired with the 2007 La Stoppa "Vigna del Volta" Malvasia di Candia Passito made by winemaker Elena Pantaleoni. The torta made using Frescobaldi's "Laudemio" and was very light, as was the passito, which tasted of apricots and honey.

How to Read a Croatian Wine Label

2011-12-13T12:44:00.000-08:00

The first Croatian wine label that I saw might as well have been on a bottle of vodka. I couldn't even distinguish the name of the winery from the name of the grape varieties on the wine label. Fortunately, Sasha Lusic, owner of D'Vino wine bar in Dubrovnik and one of the funniest guys I met on my five-week press trip, took a minute to show me how to read a Croatian wine label.

Every Croatian wine label will display the wine's quality level. This is similar to Italy's IGT, DOC, and DOCG quality rankings. Croatia's wine quality rankings are:

Vrhunsko - "top quality wine"
Kvalitetno - "quality wine"
Stolno - "table wine"

These rankings are generally helpful, but some great wines are labeled stolno, or table wine. "You have Frano Miloš," explained Sasha, "who's 2004 Stagnum won a Bronze at the Decanter World Wine Awards. The government only labeled his wine stolne, but he's winning awards with that particular wine."

The next thing to look for is the grape name, which is almost always proudly displayed in large letters on the label. Croatia's popular grapes include:

Croatian White Grapes:

Debit
Grasevina
Malvazija
Marastinat
Muškat
Pinot Sivi (Pinot Gris)
Pinot Bijelo (Pinot Blanc)
Posip

Croatian Red Grapes:

Babic
Cabernet Sauvignon
Pinot Crni (Pinot Noir)
Plavac Mali (relative of Zinfandel)
Refosk
Teran

However, not every label features a grape name, especially in the case of blended wines, and sometimes the growing region is so famous that it takes the place of the grape name. Of course, many labels list both the grape name and the growing region. The wine label to the right features a wine from the famous Dingac region, where some of Croatia's best red wines are made with the Plavac Mali grape.

Croatia has a large number of wine producing regions, and the one's I came across the most during my trip were:

Dingac
Postup
the island of Korcula
Slavonia
Istria
the island Krk
Kutjevo

Interestingly, many wine labels do not prominently display the name of the winery. The above wine is made by Milicic winery, and the name is half obscured by the growing region. This isn't the case withe label below:

This label below features a wine produced by one of the few cooperatives that still operate in Croatia. For this reason, the winery is simply represented by the name of the town in which the cooperative operates: Cara.

The word "vinogorje" means ~~vineyard~~ grape-growing region, and this label shows that the Posip grapes were grown on the island of Korcula.

These are the most important aspects of a Croatian wine label. To recap, look for quality of the wine, the grape, and the growing region, and whatever word is left on the label is most likely the name of the winery. If you get this down, the label below should pose no problems:

The Ravenous Traveler Hits A Wall of White Truffles in Istria, Croatia

2011-12-07T12:24:00.000-08:00

It was a day I'd waited for my entire life: The day I got to eat (mountains of) fresh white truffle. How did Croatia's white truffles compare to Italy's? Read the latest edition of the Eating the Adriatic Travelogue to find out!

Talking Croatian Wine with Dolores Racic of Vina Milicic Winery

2011-12-06T14:25:00.000-08:00

Let's Talk Dingac, Croatian Wine, Donkeys, and Why Tasting Fees Shouldn't Exist

As I transcribe this wine-infused interview, the bus grinds to a halt and the Bosnian border control officers climb on board. The Bosnian border, which claims a brief 12.4 miles of coastline, cuts right through Croatia's otherwise massive and uninterrupted Dalmatian Coast. Token coastline or not, passports are checked and mental borders are rearranged; the Dingac region, possibly Croatia's most important wine-producing region, is just a few miles south. Had things gone the other way when Yugoslavia disintegrated, might I be writing about Bosnia's greatest red wine?

The Dingac region produces mostly red wines made with the plavac mali grape. This wine was iconic of the region even when the region was part of Yugoslavia. Chances are, if you've ever pass through, you've seen the iconic wine label, which features a donkey. Check out these retro Yugoslavian wine labels from 1984 and *shock* 1954:

The Dingac growing region is located on the Peljasac peninsula, and the donkey is the wine's icon because the Peljasac peninsula's primary geographical feature is one giant hill: donkeys were the lucky creatures used to transport the grapes over the hill. The southern, coastal hillside has the ideal conditions for growing grapes: the grapes get sun from above as well as below, the light reflected off of the waves of the Adriatic Sea. This coast side of the hill is Dingac, whereas the inland side of the hill is the Postup growing region and the flat land that leads up to Postup is the Plavac growing region. The slopes in the Dingac region are sometimes so steep that vineyard workers must wear ropes. This handy map that I picked up at D'Vino Wine Bar provides visuals (sorry about all the tasting notes):

"Today, there’s a tunnel that you can drive through," said Dolores, "but the donkey is still featured on many bottles. Dingac is the most important of all nearby regions. Right before you reach Orebic, where the ferries leave for the island Korcula, you’ll see the village of Potomje. Let’s say that this is the hometown of the winemakers who are Dingac masters. The most important grape in the region is plavac mali, and the name means little blue. It's called this because the berries are small and grow in very tight bunches. In the Dingac area you only get ½ kilo of grapes from one plant, and that’s why a Dingac wine is typically full bodied, rich, and spicy. The soil is mostly composed of limestone and it is very hard for the grapes to grow their roots. This makes good wine.

“Dingac wines can be up to 16% of alcohol yet still dry. People don’t believe it, but the wines really are dry, with fruitiness and a very long finish. It really seems to be surprising people [see Wine Enthusiast]. If I tell you that I taste blueberries or raspberries, you might not agree because everyone’s palates are different. Even with all I've said, there’s no guarantee that you’ll like this wine. You might think that I’m talking about fairy tales or something. But it is something that we are very proud of. Even in Yugoslavia it was very important."

M: Do Dingac wines age well?
Dolores: Yes, very well. This wine right here is 2007 and you can drink it now, but it will be even better in five years. And, perhaps, if it stored correctly, Dingac can be aged much longer. It can surprise you.

M: If I just rented a car could I go wine tasting?

Dolores: Yes, there are wineries everywhere. But I have to warn you that if you go there you cannot drink.

M: That’s right. Croatia has a zero alcohol tolerance. You cannot even drink one glass of wine then get behind the wheel. I wish I could get there on this trip!

Dolores: I would like to drive you there! I really want you to go, but I think that my boyfriend is working the night shift and he has the car. I want to take you because I want people to understand that it isn’t all about French and Italian wines—with all due respect—and Croatia is something new. It is the new old world. We’ve had winemaking here from the Illyians and the Greeks.

M: Yeah, it’s similar to Puglia, one of my favorite wine regions, where it’s a new style of wine coming from a very old winemaking region. I love emerging wine regions. We’ve had enough French wine.

"With wine tasting in Dingac in general, do you have to make appointments in advance and are there tasting fees?"

Dolores: Every day except Sunday is like a holiday there—during the summer season. To me, it doesn’t make sense to charge for a sip. At least I hope they don't.

M: I agree. In Napa Valley it’s become a business within a business. They charge a lot just for a small taste.

Dolores: It doesn’t make sense to me because you have to taste it to know what you’re buying.

For more on wine tasting in the Dingac region, check out my list of recommended wineries located at the bottom of this article. If you're in Dubrovnik, definitely stop in and say hello to Dolores. She'll teach you everything you want to know about the local grape scene and her store has one of the best selections of local wines in the city. The shop is right on the main street: Od Sigurate 2, Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Floating on a Sea of Croatian Cheese

2011-11-29T14:04:00.000-08:00

Read about the Croatian island of Pag, aka the island of wee sheep, aka The Magical Island of Cheese, and learn what it'd be like to own a dairy on the moon. Below are a few of the photos that didn't make it into the article above.

When I like to get cheesy, I like to get microwaved-Velveeta cheesy, so that my prose oozes off the screen and onto the keyboard...

So we got to Paska Sirana dairy and saw this sign...

Naturally, we undressed, then we put on the traditional costume of the locals... Some taking it better...

Than others....

The dairy workers had stayed late to show us how Pag cheese is made...

Ante Ostaric led the lesson...

Inside the dairy, the whole world was cheese...

And we ate it. The sage was particularly popular.

Thanks again Paska Sirana!

Gettin' Randy with Croatian Food

2011-11-18T09:33:00.000-08:00

One of the greatest of all Roman emperors, Emperor Diocletian, lived along Croatia's Dalmatian Coast. Here retired, actually giving his throne away, and immediately grew paranoid. Instead of chillin' on one of Croatia's 2,244 islands, he built a giant palace. But he was so freaked out by assassins that he built only one entrance and zero—that's right, zero—windows. Imagine being king of the world but not being able to look outside?

Today, that palace is the Croatian city of Split, where everything that you eat is an aphrodisiac, and, yes, this article will make you very, very horny: Eating the Adriatic - From Split and Sibenik with Love and Wine

For Straight-Up Food Shots, click here.

Welcome to the Wine Scene on Croatia's Dalmatian Coast

2011-11-16T12:54:00.000-08:00

The Ravenous Traveler strikes again: I get really buzzed with a bunch of old Croatian men in a local bar. Check out the latest travelogue article: The Dalmatian Wine Scene. Photos included, plus I drink plavac mali, a relative of zinfandel, and I learned a ton about the different growing regions on Croatia's Dalmatian Coast. This article will definitely help anyone planning a wine tasting trip on the Dalmatian Coast. The most important growing region is Dingac, which is about and hour and a half drive from Dubrovnik. I include wine tasting hours, prices, and a handful of winery recommendations. Hope it's helpful!

Cheers to all the great wineries in Croatia! I'll still salivating... which is kind of gross.

The Puglia Wine Review, November 3, 2011

2011-11-03T12:37:00.000-07:00

I'm on the fourth week of an Adriatic press trip (to see how ridiculously drunk I've been getting, follow @ravenoustravelr) but haven't drunk any Puglia wines. I'm heading to Puglia in four days, so look for a complete Puglia Wine Review on December 1st.

From the Archives: Top 10 Negroamaro, "Holy Guacamole Batman, This Is Good"

Negroamaro is the most important red grape grown in Puglia, and I've heard enologists say that over 80% of Puglia's grapevines are Negroamaro. I believe that Negroamaro demonstrates the region's terroir better than any other because it is native to Puglia, it is has been celebrated in the region for thousands of years, and winemakers in the region have developed a particular style. As for flavor profile, wines made with Negroamaro are light to medium bodied, with sun-soaked fruit that can be dried, dark, and bright all at the same time, and the mouthfeel is striking: it feels, at times, like you're drinking silk. Other common flavors are smoke, plum, and herbs. These wines are intensly friendly and approachable. I highly recommend tasting rosés made with Negroamaro, too (click for my Top 5 Best Puglia Rosés List). (Below: Map of Puglia courtesy of Italian Flavor Consortium).

Luckily, Negroamaro is a good and unique wine as well as a cheap wine. I'd say that every winemaker in Puglia makes two mono-varietals with Negroamaro, one of which is aged in oak and one that is made to be drank young and fresh using stainless steel. It is also very common to blend the grape with Malvasia Nera, notably, in the Salice Salentino DOC. Salice Salentino is a town near the city of Lecce on the Salento Peninsula in the Puglia region of Italy. I've spent many hours bicycling its roads between wineries. The Salice Salentino DOC can be found throughout the U.S. at low prices, and the percentage of Negroamaro is at least 80%. I believe that mono-varietals made with Negroamaro showcase the region's terroir better than blends. However, the Salice Salentino is both too delicious and too popular to leave off of this list. A quick shout-out to the Copertino DOC (made in a town just south of Salice Salentino), which is difficult to find, but which also showcases Negroamaro (at least 70%). There are only 5 or so producers of the Copertino DOC, but these wines are of the highest quality.

To make wines with Negroamaro that are capable of aging, winemakers often blend it with grapes that have high levels of tannins. Negroamaro's tannins are commonly referred to as "soft" or "light." For example, Winemaker Massimiliano Apollonio of Apollonio Winery pairs Negroamaro with Montepulciano (with both grapes grown in Salento) because their tannins unite to create something greater than either could alone. Let's just say, yum. Agricole Vallone makes a mono-varietal wine that can be aged by using the process made famous by Amarone wines: they rest the freshly harvested Negroamaro grapes on racks for over a month before pressing them. This wine is prohibitively expensive however.

Before I get to the list I'd like to help dispell one myth about Negroamaro. The etymology of the name leads some folks to think that negro amaro means negro=black and amaro=bitter. In Italy, an amaro liquor is a liquor made with herbs, viz. a bitter. This misunderstanding has lead some wine reviewers to say that wines with Negroamaro have a slightly bitter finish. This is untrue 99% of the time. Further, the grape's origin goes so far back that you have to look at the Greek language. The Greeks inhabited Puglia for well over a thousand years. Northern Italians love to point out that the dialects spoken in Puglia are indecipherable because they are primarily Greek-based rather than Latin-based. Anyway, the root amaro, when you look at its Greek origin, actually means black, so Negroamaro means blackest of the black. Dr. Parzen at Do Biachi writes eloquently on the subject.

And here's what you've been waiting for: the 10 Best Negroamaro Wines Produced in Puglia

1) 2004 “Graticciaia” (100% Negroamaro) by Agricola Vallone
2) 2000 “Divoto” Rosso Riserva Copertino DOC (70% Negroamaro, 30% Montepulciano) by Apollonio
3) 2003 "Notarpanaro" (85% Negroamaro, 15% Malvasia Nera) by Taurino (my next post will focus on this wine and its availability. Available online $16)
4) 2005 “Cappello Di Prete” ( 100% Negroamaro) by Candido
5) 2004 “Suavitas” Le Riserva Salice Salentino DOC (Negroamaro, Malvasia Nera [amounts not specified]) by Ionis
6) 2003 “Piromáfo” Salento IGT (100% Negroamaro) by Valle dell'Asso
7) 2004 “Eloquenzia” (100% Negroamaro) by Azienda Monaci
8) 2006 "Capoposto" Negroamaro IGT (100% Negroamaro) by Alberto Longo (available online $22)
9) 2003 “Patriglione” (90% Negroamaro, 10% Malvasia Nera) by Taurino Winery
10) 2008 “Liante” Salice Salentino (80% Negroamaro, 20% Malvasia Nera di Lecce) by Castello Monaci (available online $16)

New Article on Dubrovnik's Food Scene

2011-10-27T08:05:00.000-07:00

More experimenting with local Croatian cuisine. The Dalmatian Coast is a lot like Italy (it was ruled by Rome then the Venetians [1400-1800]), but it has an identity of it's own. The city of Dubrovnik remained independent from 700AD-1800 (amazingly) and its food just blew me away. I tried to find only traditional Croatian dishes, wines, and restaurants, and share them with you! Eating the Adriatic - Traditional Dubrovnik Dishes.

Wine Comic of the Day

2011-10-19T04:09:00.000-07:00

D'Vino Wine Bar in Dubrovnik is filled with such hilarity. (Click image for full size)

Ravenous Travel - Eating the Adriatic Travelogue

2011-10-18T13:18:00.000-07:00

I can't get no satisfaction.

Ever get that funny feeling... you know, sittin' at home or on the subway when something inside begins to rumble. What are my insides telling me you might ask. Am I hungry? Yes, of course, but it's not that. Sometimes I shrug it off and say, Hey, it's just one of those days. Sometimes I take a walk, but still, I can't get no satisfaction.

(Above: Photo taken by custom's guard in Frankfurt, Germany)

Life is rich. A friend took me to Mexico and taught me how to travel. I don't know how I would have found it otherwise (not that I wouldn't have). I think we traveled together for a month and I spent a total of $1000 with flight. That's when I figured out that budget travel isn't just a catch phrase. Whether it's Thailand (where you can live like a king for two to three months on $1000) or Italy, traveling to another country is a real possibility. Life is rich. I won't miss any of it.

Over the next five weeks I'm going to post travelogue articles on EuropeUpClose.com that will focus on culinary travel through Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy. It's all about finding the best gourmet ingredients in those countries and eating the crap out of them. Just the other day I could have bought a decently sized white truffle for $30. What would that have cost in the U.S.? Probably the price of a plane ticket.

Check it: Eating the Adriatic, Dubrovnik Croatia

Croatia's Coastal Wine: The New Old World

2011-10-13T14:39:00.000-07:00

So far I've visited Dubrovnik, Split, and Sibenik, and the wines just get better. Even though some wineries have been operated for four generations or more, the wine scene along the Dalmatian Coast is relatively new. Today, Croatia's winemakers are defining the country's wine-making style, and, interestingly enough, they are all saying the same thing: We want to make wines that taste like no other. They want to stand out from the throng.

Amazingly, every Plavac Mali and every Debit wine that I've had has tasted unique, and there really aren't many grand, sweeping generalizations to be made in regards to a Croatian wine-making style. That being said, I do find that the wines made with the Plavac Mali grape (relative to zinfandel) tend to be very dry and minerally. I would also say that they are more Old World than New World.

Wine production was controlled by the state when the Balkans were united as Yugoslavia. Tito did not allow individuals to make their own wine. Instead, cooperatives produced all of Croatia's wine. But everything changed with Croatia's independence in 1992.

I've been lucky enough to drink wines that are exceptionally balanced, and I really like the wines made by Milicic, Matusko, and Bibich. All three wineries distribute their wines in the United States. Wine Enthusiast recently provided the following list of distributors distributing Croatian wines to the US: Blue Danube Wine Company, Vinum USA, Oenocentric, Katharine's Garden, Empty Glass Wine Company, Tasty Wine Company and Dalmata.

As a last note, I highly recommend trying the wines made with each of Croatia's grape varieties several times. Usually, if I try a wine that is made with a grape that is new to me, say Petit Verdot, I give it two chances. If I don't like the wines either time, I tend to assume that I don't like the grape. In Croatia, however, winemakers are experimenting with different styles, and the wines simply are not consistent. I drank three wines made with the Debit grape before finding one that I liked. In short, I recommend withholding strong judgment until the country has had more time to weed out the less innovative and sincere wine producers. In my opinion, there are great wines being made using the Debit, Posip, and Plavac Mali grapes.

Sipping from the Heel - Polpettini di Carne aka Mini Meatballs

2011-10-04T10:36:00.000-07:00

Part 3 of the Puglia Online Culinary Tour: Polpette di Carne Recipe (Puglia's famous mini-meatballs — one of the most iconic dishes from Puglia.)

Polpettini, often called simply polpette, are a Pugliese specialty. The small meatballs, which are three-quarters of an inch in diameter, they are commonly found in three styles, 1) deep fried and eaten alone during the antipasto course or 2) served in tomato sauce over pasta during the primo course, and 3) cooked in tomato sauce and eaten alone during the secondo course. Moist inside and crunchy outside, the deep fried version are particularly addictive.

In her book Puglia, A Culinary Memoir, Maria Pignatelli Ferrante writes that polpette could make two meal courses in the time it takes to make one . The meatballs are cooked in tomato sauce, and the tomato sauce (sans polpette) is put over pasta to make the first course, or primo. For secondo, the meatballs are eaten with a little sauce. I was served polpette this way many times. The meatballs really give the sauce a full flavor. It's an easy way to make two courses, and I think it helps you to focus even more on the flavor of the ingredients. It also makes wine-pairing a breeze. I recommend a bottle of Negroamaro or Nero di Troia.

Ingredients:

1 lbs ground beef, or pork, or a mixture of the two

2 garlic cloves

1/3 cup breadcrumbs

1 egg

1.5 tbsp milk

Oregano or parsley qb

Salt qb

Pepper qb

Directions:

1. Lightly toast breadcrumbs then put them into a large bowl. Add milk and mix. Next, add the ground beef and egg, then mix. If mixture is too dry, add more milk until small meatballs are easy to form. Wet is fine as long as they don't fall apart.

2. Get a large pan. Roll the mixture into balls about 3/4 inch in diameter, then put them on the pan, using all of the meat.

3. For fried meatballs: Heat a saute or frying pan with about a quarter inch of oil (vegetable oil is cheapest and healthiest). To test oil, add a meatball, cook, and sample. Make adjustments if necessary (more salt, pepper, oregano, or milk), then deep fry all meatballs, turning so that all sides get nice and brown and crispy. 3-5 minutes. Serve in a bowl.

4. For cooking in tomato sauce: Heat tomato sauce in a pan until slightly boiling. Add meatballs and cook on a soft boil until fully cooked. 8-12 minutes. Serve over pasta or in two courses, as is the traditional Pugliese way.

There won't be any new Puglia recipes next week because I'm embarking on a 5-week culinary tour of Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia. If you'd like to follow along, I'll be writing a travelogue for EuropeUpClose.com, called Eating the Adriatic, and I'll be testing out my new travel-writing name, the Ravenous Traveler. Please follow along and send any questions or comments. If you want me to check something out in the small town of Rovinj, Croatia, there's a good chance I will!

The Puglia Wine Review, October 1, 2011

2011-10-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

In this month's edition of The Puglia Wine Review, I found a very special Negroamaro, the Scaliere by Rosa del Golfo winery. It matches everything I want: it's interesting, delicious, and cheap. It reminds me of why I love reviewing wines. There's something special about digging around until you find that special wine. It's easy to find a great wine in the $50 price range, but how about 14 bucks? It's another reason to appreciate wines from Puglia, too.

As always, the following wines can be found in wine shops in Portland, Oregon.

Cantine Rosa Del Golfo 2008 “Scaliere” Negroamaro IGT

Grape: 100% Negroamaro
Rating: 9.5
Price: $13.99
Where to Buy: Liner & Elsen
Short Review: Smooth and surprising; great price

This wine is made just east of Gallipoli, Puglia, and it's truly complex. I'm using Karen McNeil's definition of complex: It's not complex because it has so many different components; it's complex like an artwork that you can't get out of your head but you don't know why. At first whiff, Cantine Rosa Del Golfo's Scaliere remains illusive. Memories of childhood somehow arise, and all descriptions fall short. This wine is excellent. It is interesting; more so than many $30-$40 wines. The nose has floral and citrus notes. There's dried date, cinnamon, cloves, and cooked blueberries. In the mouth, the wine's texture, structure, and finish are most present: medium bodied, soft as velvet, long finish. I love this wine, and the price is perfect.

epicuro 2006 Salice Salentino Riserva DOC

Grape: 80% Negroamaro, 20% Malvasia Nera
Rating: 8
Price: $5.99
Where to Buy: Trader Joe's
Short Review: Simple wine for complex people

I hesitate to review cheap, mass-produced wines from Trader Joe’s because I question their consistency in terms of flavor. However, I reviewed this wine back in 2008 (when it was $3.99) and I liked it then. It’s a good wine for 5.99, but I think it would be a great wine for 3.99. It's simple but stolid. The score is so high because of the price point (price and quality both get 50% in my wine rating system). Nose of raspberry and cherry pie. In the mouth, it's rich with a smooth, chalky/chocolaty finish; full bodied. Great with any marinara sauce or pizza.

Sipping From the Heel - Roasted Vegetables

2011-09-27T19:21:00.000-07:00

Week 3 of the Puglia Online Culinary Tour: Roasted Vegetables Recipe

Possibly the easiest and most versatile Italian side dish, it's also very healthy. The only prep work is chopping veggies and preheating the oven. The best part about this dish for me is that it allows me to focus on cooking the main course. All I have to do is stir the veggies from time to time. As far as flavor goes, the caramelized onion and garlic really bring out the best in the other veggies.

Ingredients:

1 or 2 onions

Several cloves of garlic

Veggies, such as eggplant, zucchini, summer squash, bell peppers, mushrooms. Use anything you think will taste good. (My favorite combination is onion, garlic, eggplant, red pepper, and mushroom.)

Rosemary QB

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt QB

Cook Time: 1 hour

Directions:

1. Chop all veggies and preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. On a large cooking sheet, add garlic, salt, rosemary, and all veggies, except mushrooms. Rosemary pieces can be large, but the more broken up the better. Pour two turns of the pan of olive oil, then mix. Add more olive oil if needed.

3. Cook for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally (the less you stir, the crispier the vegetables will get. I’m a big fan of sweet, caramelized garlic, so I only once or twice).

4. Add mushrooms and cook 10-20 minutes more. Taste for salt, then serve as a side.

Next week we'll try one of Puglia's most quintessential antipasti: Polpettini di Carne aka Mini-Meatballs. Oh yeah baby: they're deep fried.

Taking Semi-Nude Girls to Redneck Bars for Vice Magazine

2011-09-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

Pick up a (free) Vice magazine and check out the latest photo shoot. Went on a raging ride to and through the Twin Peaks Festival. We staged murders, took semi-nude gals to redneck bars, and more. The two Vice journalists I was riding with even got Employee of the Month awards (whatever that means). Here are scans from the mag, but you can pick up you very own Vice at, you know, cool stores.

Sipping from the Heel - Southern Italian-Style Marinated Vegetables

2011-09-20T12:05:00.000-07:00

Week 2 of the Puglia Online Culinary Tour: Southern Italian Marinated Vegetables Recipe

At a restaurant in Puglia, the antipasto della casa can include anywhere from 7 to 12 unique plates. These antipasti are always surprising (you never know what the chef will feel like sending out), and the first part of the Puglia Online Culinary Tour will focus on these appetizers.

This dish of marinated vegetables is one of my favorites because it's flavorful, easy to prepare, and easy to adapt if you want to make enough to eat for a week. Marinated vegetables can be eaten plain or added to sandwiches.

Ingredients:

2 lbs veggies (zucchini, squash, or eggplant)

1.5 c vinegar

3 cups water

olive oil

1/2 head garlic

oregano

salt

Directions:

1. Slice veggies about a quarter inch thick, then sweat weighted down for 2 hours. Chop all garlic and put in the container you will use to store the marinated veggies (I use Tupperware).

2. After 2 hours, bring water and vinegar to a boil in a large pot.

3. Boil veggies (as many as will fit in the pot) for 4 minutes. Do this for several rounds, placing the par-boiled veggies in a colander as you go.

(OPTIONAL) For grill marks, boil veggies for only 2 minutes then grill on a stove top grill for 2 minutes, turning once.

4. Place veggies in a colander and press for another 4-24 hours.

Get the container that you're going to store the veggies in. Layer the vegetables, adding the garlic, oregano, and salt as you go - QB. Pour a hefty amount of olive oil, vegetable oil, or a mixture of the two so that the veggies are almost covered. Let marinate for 24 hours, then feast.

Next Tuesday, we'll take on the tried and true side dish, Roasted Vegetables. If you begin with good quality produce, a more simple and delicious dish is hard to imagine.

Sipping from the Heel - Homemade Limoncello Recipe

2011-09-13T12:04:00.001-07:00

This is the first edition of the Puglia Online Culinary Tour, and we're going to make homemade limoncello. It ages two months, and if we get it started now, we'll be able to drink it around the same time that we're mastering Puglia's pastries and doughs.

I'm not sure about the origin of limoncello (I do know Danny DeVito has his own brand now) but the Amalfi Coast is the best place to drink it because of the extraordinary quality of the lemons there. I've spent many hours sitting on the cliffs sampling the local wares. In Puglia, homemade limoncello is commonly served after a big meal. You can make any kind of "cello" you want, including orange, cherry, and spiced cellos. Here's a recipe for the basic limoncello.

Ingredients:

1 750ml bottle of Everclear
8 medium-sized lemons (get the best you can)
1.9 cups of sugar
750ml of water

Directions:

1. Get a large jar that will fit two liters or more. Peel the lemons using a regular ol' lemon peeler. Try not to get much of the white stuff, i.e. pith, because it makes the limoncello bitter. (If you want to be resourceful, squeeze the lemons and make lemon juice. Freeze it or keep it in the fridge for other uses.)

2. Put lemon peels into your jar. Add sugar, booze, and water, and stir rigorously. Not all of the sugar will dissolve. Continue to stir once a day or so for a week. Store jar in a dark place.

3. The Tweeking Process: After 30 days, taste your limoncello. Sometimes it is too bitter or too alcoholic or it needs more lemon. To fix this, just add more lemon, water or sugar, but don't go overboard: The only way to make it less watery or less sugary is to go out and buy more Everclear. Test your limoncello again after 10 days, and if it tastes the way you want it, take out the lemon peels. Store for another 30 days, then put it into bottles, put the bottles into the freezer, and drink when chilled.

Note on Everclear: Everclear has an alcohol proof of 200%. It is the closest thing we have to "plain" alcohol, which is a common product on Italian grocery store shelves (usually right next to the soft drinks), because it is flavorless. Ask your local liquor store clerk for further help.

Note on Saving Money: This recipe makes just over 2 bottles of limoncello and the total cost of ingredients should be around $18. One bottle of limoncello typically costs $35 at a store. You do the math.

24 Tips for Cooking in Authentic Italian Style (19-24)

2011-09-06T11:09:00.000-07:00

These are the last round of Italian cooking tips before we dive into Southern Italian cooking! I'm hoping that this Online Culinary Tour of Puglia will share the region's unique combination of cooking styles. Puglia was conquered by the Greeks, the Romans, the Turks, the French, the Spanish, and even African Sultans: That's one exciting culinary history! So be prepared, this Friday we'll make Homemade limoncello.

Tip 19 - Roast Bell Peppers
Roasted pepper adds umph to any dish and it's simple to prepare. I don't even rub olive oil on the outside. If you have a gas stove you can rose it right over the burner without a pan. If not, simply put a red, yellow, or orange bell pepper in a toaster over. Put it on toast. Turn the pepper when one side has blackened. You're finished when it almost looks like a chunk of coal (no worries about burning this one). Take the pepper out, let it cool, then watch how easily the charred parts come off when you scrape them with a fork (see below). What's left over is perfectly roasted bell pepper.

Tip 20 - Don't Burn the Garlic
Burned garlic can make an entire sauce or pasta dish taste bitter, whereas perfectly sauteed garlic is divine. Also, don't confuse caramelizing garlic, which is delicious, with burning garlic.

Tip 21 - Blanch
Blanching is simply a method of removing the skin from vegetables (usually tomatoes or peppers) or nuts (usually almonds), and it regularly appears in Italian recipes. It's so simple and so useful that it's worth learning by heart. To blanch tomatoes: 1. Boil a pot of water 2. Take the tomatoes, cut off the tops (the part with the stem that you would usually discard) and cut one slit in the side 3. Boil for 15 seconds - 1 minute 4. Prepare a large bowl with ice water 5. Drain tomatoes, plunge into ice water, let cool, then watch how easily the tomato skin just falls off. This will turn your tomato sauce from chunky to smooth.

Tip 22 - "A Turn of the Pan of Olive Oil"

This is a simple way of measuring olive oil without measuring spoons. If a recipe says 3 turns of the pan of olive oil, you simply pour olive oil around the pan 3 times.

Tip 23 - Make Italian Breadcrumbs

These are breadcrumbs with a little added kick. Put breadcrumbs in a large bowl. Dice some garlic as small as possible and combine. Add oregano, salt, and pepper qb. Evenly spread the mixture on a baking pan, then lightly toast in a toaster oven or in the stove.

Tip 24 - Share What You Know

Whether its recipes, feedback on recipes, tips, additions, subtractions, or time-saving techniques, we all want to hear it. We can't gather in the piazza, but we can get together for dinner.

We'll make Homemade Limoncello next Tuesday!

Rally!

2011-09-04T16:46:00.000-07:00

I entered a travel-writing contest and I need Facebook “Likes” to win. I know everyone’s busy, but it only takes a second to Like, and it would really help my travel-writing career.

How to Vote:

1. Like Gear Up and Play's Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/gearupandplay

2. Then like my article, Hanging Out with the Mafia, here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.241281519242816.50482.132448243459478&amp%3Btype=1". It's the first article, with the picture of two mafiosi (he he). Thank you!

I'm currently in the lead. Let's keep it that way.

24 Tips for Cooking in Authentic Italian Style (13-18)

2011-09-02T10:06:00.000-07:00

Having the right ingredients on hand makes all the difference. These first tips will focus on the basic Italian cooking ingredients that I always keep stocked. Afterward, we'll get into basic Italian cooking techniques.

Tip 13 - Stock Herbs and Spices
I buy my herbs and spices in bulk from WinCo, which is a discount store. I have every herb and spice you can imagine and they are never more than six months old. For Italian food, make sure you have oregano, rosemary, thyme, sage, dried hot peppers, cinnamon, and nutmeg at all times. This is your arsenal. Now, you can season anything at a moment's notice.

Tip 14 - Stock Flour, Sugar, Salt
The bigger the tubs the better. If you're buying flour in 5 pound bags, you won't be making pasta, focaccia, stuffed focaccia, or pizza.

Tip 15 - Stock Cooking Wine, Red and White
I used Almaden Mountain Burgundy and Chardonnay. They stay good for months.

Tip 16 - Stock Vinegars
Stock red wine, balsamic, and white vinegars. High quality balsamic vinegar is only necessary for finishing certain dishes. Most Italian recipes call for basic balsamic vinegar.

Tip 17 - Sweat Vegetables
Sweating is a time-consuming process but it's really easy, and once you learn it it takes almost not time at all. The process takes the moisture out of the vegetables so that they can absorb more flavors while cooking. It also removes some bitterness. To sweat, get a colander and put it over a pot or bowl. You will put your vegetables into this colander and let their moisture drain into the pot or bowl (click on photos for visual help). First, slice your vegetables (eggplant, zucchini, summer squash, or similar vegetable), then add them to the colander one layer at a time, salting each layer as you go. Next, put something heavy on them. And that's it. Let them drain for a while; 2 hours is ideal. This secret cooking technique is the trick for making excellent eggplant lasagna, marinated vegetables, eggplant involtini, and many other dishes.

Tip 18 - Pasta Water
Ever wonder how Italians make their sauces saucy? It's pasta water! Whenever you drain your pasta, keep a cup or two of the water. Pasta water is used to make spaghetti carbonara, cream sauce, orecchiette with broccoli rabe, and many other dishes,

Italian Cooking Tips 19-24 are coming up on Tuesday. Have a freakin' good weekend.

The Puglia Wine Review, September 1, 2011

2011-09-01T11:13:00.000-07:00

In this month of The Puglia Wine Review, I’ll focus on wines that feature two native grapes rarely grown outside of Puglia: Negroamaro and Nero di Troia. Negroamaro is the most planted grape in Puglia, and many winemakers believe that it is the grape that best expresses the region’s terroir (I almost wrote unique terroir; that’d be rather redundant, wouldn’t it?). Many writers screw up the meaning of the word Negroamaro. They think that the roots are negro and amaro, and say that Negroamaro means "black, bitter." However, the languages used in Puglia are rooted in both Latin and Greek, and the roots of the word Negroamaro are more likely negro, a Latin root, and maru, a Greek root that also means black. Negroamaro is the blackest of the black grape. Hear the perspective from local winemakers here.

As always, I purchased these wines at local wine shops in Portland, OR.

Tormaresca's 2008 "Neprica" (40% Negroamaro, 30% Primitivo, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon)
Rating: 7
Price: $9.79
Where to Buy: Fred Meyer
Short Review: Good wine for under $10

This interesting mix of grapes creates a dark wine that can be drunk with food or on its own. Let it breathe for 45 minutes. The nose has cooked blueberries/blackberries and vanilla ice cream, but it's not sweet. The mouth matches the nose, a little ice cream and dark fruit. Full bodied, with a medium finish, it was nicely juicy and silky. The finish was a little tart at first, but the longer I let the wine breathe the more it went away. This is an everyday wine to have with a nice pasta dish. The tannins will stand up to acidic dishes.

Antica Enotria's 2007 Nero di Troia IGT
Rating: 8.5
Price: $15.99
Where to Buy: Liner & Elsen
Short Review: Austere! Bourgeois! Awesome!

The Nero di Troia grape is very unique, and I can always expect 100% Nero di Troia wine to have serious structure. Accordingly, this wine should not be drunk on its own, but should be paired with food. I paired mine with a New York Steak over the grill. Surprisingly, this is an Old World style wine coming from a region known for making New World style wines. This wine needs to breathe at least one hour. The nose was cigar box, tobacco, and a little barnyard. It reminded me of a particular bike ride I took through the Pugliese countryside between San Donaci and Brindisi. Kristin and I passed many abandoned masserie (aka fortified farmhouses or mansions), and there were many long-tailed sheep and tractors. The air was crisp... In the mouth, the wine was very dry, silky, and smooth, with leather, choke cherry, and lots of pepper. It had a long finish.

24 Tips for Cooking in Authentic Italian Style (7-12)

2011-08-30T23:24:00.000-07:00

Tip 7 - Share the Experience

Hospitality. Whether it's the cooking itself or simply the meals you create, Italian cooking is all about family style. Get your friends together and rock it: Community Starts in the Kitchen.

Tip 8 - Don’t Be Afraid and Don’t Apologize

Get into the mindset of an Italian mother making Sunday dinner for not only her husband and her children, but everyone else that she and they bumped into on Saturday. You've got to fearlessly cook fifteen unique dishes, and after that amount of work no one better complain! Plus, it's a little known fact that almost any dish can be saved from being a complete disaster. Julia Child once said "never apologize," and she was right.

Tip 9 - Cook the Dish 1,000 Times
The greatest thing about Italian dishes is that they are easy to make and can be incorporated into daily life. Until I lived in Italy I didn't realize that it's easier to make a healthy pasta dish from scratch than it is to make a box of instant macaroni and cheese. Just think about how good your signature dish will be when you've cooked it 1,000 times!

Tip 10 - Drink While You’re Cooking
I’m not sure if this is Italian, but it’s something I do while cooking and it seems to enhance the entire experience.

Tip 11 - Serve Lots of Good but Inexpensive Wine
A bartender in San Francisco once told me, You can't live the dream every day. Accordingly, you can't drink fine wine every day, nor should you. Italians drink vino sfuso, or table wine, and in America the closet thing we have is box wine and jug wine. If you're having a dinner party, break out the jug wine and get the party started!

Tip 12 - Stock Olive Oil
The next time you see olive oil on sale, buy six bottles. Nothing forces you to make instant mac n cheese like running out of olive oil. Further, it shouldn't be the good stuff. Good olive oil should only be used on very special dishes. It is used to finish a dish, not for cooking.

Italian cooking tips 13-18 are coming up this Friday.

24 Tips for Cooking in Authentic Italian Style (1-6)

2011-08-26T11:09:00.000-07:00

The Online Culinary Tour of Puglia Begins!

My girlfriend and I got lucky. We were backpacking through southern Italy without any plans (no hotel reservations) except to find an apartment and write books. We'd sublet our apartments in San Francisco and quit our jobs. Traveling without plans is risky, and for a week or so it didn't look good. But then we got lucky, and we found not only an apartment but a palace in southern Italy. Located in Lecce, the Bernardini Palazzo didn't have a website or even a sign yet; we simply called a phone number beside the door. For the next month we had a complete Italian kitchen at our disposal, and this is where we learned to cook in Italian style. Why? Because the kitchen was an Italian kitchen, not an American kitchen, and the grocery stores were Italian grocery stores, not American. It might seem like a small difference, but small differences make all the difference in Italian cooking, as the following 24 Tips show.

We returned to Lecce again and stayed over a year. I love the food and the people of Puglia, and the Online Culinary Tour of Puglia is designed to share all of that. Over the next few months, I'll post some of my favorites recipes from Puglia, as well as the basic cooking techniques that serve as the foundation of Italian cooking. I'll reference this page regularly, so that you don't have to read the same explanations of Italian cooking techniques over and over again in future blog posts. I hope you'll follow along, sitting around the cyber dinner table with me.

24 Tips for Cooking in Authentic Italian Style

Tip 1 - No Measuring Cups

Q.B. is a common acronym found in Italian recipes; it means quanto basta which literally translates to "the right amount." Our palace didn't come with measuring spoons or measuring cups and it taught us to cook intuitively. Unless baking, don't use measuring spoons. Q.B. really means do whatever you think is right, which brings us to the next tip:

Tip 2 - Cook from the Heart

If you enjoy what you're doing, everyone can taste it. I think that the more you love working on a dish, the more you get to know the dish through creative experimentation/inspiration. You'll test out different quantities of salt... you'll learn that tomatoes and potatoes can take whole handfuls while asparagus deserve just the slightest pinch. This is food love. This is cheesy.

Tip 3 - See Recipes as Guides, Not Holy Scripture

I promise you that after a few months of Italian cooking you'll know the basic cooking techniques used to create 99% of Italian dishes. What are recipes good for, then? Inspiration. If you don't like something don't included it. If you want something, add it. The main point: don't fret over recipes, have fun!

Tip 4 - Shop Fresh, Fresh, Fresh and Regional, Regional, Regional

Each region in Italy is different than the others. Each town in each region is different than the others. They have their specialties, why shouldn't you have yours? Growing up in Maine, my family cooked lobster whenever we had visitors. Get to know your local specialties and cook using the freshest ingredients you can afford.

Tip 5 - Simple Is Better

I tried to make my girlfriend's stew eggplant the other day. I added a healthy pour of wine to give it a rich flavor and an extra tomato and an extra quarter onion. When we sat down to dinner, it didn't taste right. Two nights later, she made it her way, using less wine and less tomato and onion. This allowed the eggplant brown, sealing in the moisture, so that each cube of eggplant exploded with flavor. What about the extra onion and tomato? I didn't miss them at all.

Tip 6 - Simple Is Better!

Seriously. Once I was interviewing winemaker Umberto Cantele and I boasted of a pizza I'd invented. It began with a dough made with a 24-hour fermentation, then topped it with ricotta, slice pear, parmesan, arugula, and white truffle oil. He said, "With those ingredients how couldn't it have been good?" What he meant was: Give me a regular pizza, one where I can taste the ingredients.

I'll post Italian Cooking Tips 7-12 on Tuesday.

Top 5 Dirt Cheap Summer Wines from Trader Joe's

2011-08-18T18:35:00.000-07:00

Happy Three-Year Anniversary Blog-o-Mine! And thank you to all who've been reading: By The Tun's web traffic has tripled in the past six months! To celebrate, I thought I'd go back to the beginning, and provide a list of cheap but good Trader Joe's wines. I don't know how to say this without sounding like a hobo, but I've been drinking a lot of cheap wine. It all started in mid-July, when Reed College held the annual Tin House Summer Writers Workshop. My good friend and amazing writer, Kelly Luce, was a part of it, so each night for a week my girlfriend and I attended the readings, which featured incredible fiction writers and poets, including Joy Williams, Matthew Dickman, Jim Shepard. Below is a photo of local Portland poet and poetry editor of Tin House literary journal, Matt Dickman, reading a train full of dynamite poem (check out more poems here).

The college's outdoor amphitheater paired with top-notch literature was the perfect environment for wine drinking, and each reading was followed by a reception. As you probably know, writer's rarely make money, so cheap wine was a necessity and Trader Joe's was nearby. One night there was fire dancing to the schizophrenic sounds of Skrillex.

With all those nights and the hoards of thirsty artists, we got to try almost every cheap wine at the local TJ's. I've always found it difficult to choose the right wine at TJ's, simply because there are so many that go for $4 or $5. Could they all be good? Absolutely not. However, here's a list of 5 gems:

Blue Fin Petite Sirah $3.99 Totally quaffable while reading Kerouac OR Bolano. I wouldn't try it with Joyce, however, it's too simple.
J.W. Morris Gewurztraminer $3.99 This wine is sweet as a halbtrocken German riesling, and should be paired as such. A little too sweet to drink by itself, but well-balanced for what it is.
J. W. Morris Moscato $3.99 This wine is pure summer and probably the best wine for the price on this list. Pairs well with the poetry of Sappho or the prose of Marilynne Robinson. Again, this wine is on the sweet side.
Columbia Crest "Two Vines" Vineyard 10 $3.99 Medium bodied and dry, it's all about grilled chicken over arugula salad peppered with the poetry of Paul Blackburn.
Concannon Central Coast Riesling $3.99 Decently dry, though still a little sweet, this wine calls out for shrimp risotto and Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett.

Crab Grits and Buttery Chardonnay (Recipe Included)

2011-08-12T10:27:00.000-07:00

This dish accentuates crab like no other. Crab is so easily obscured by the ingredients it's paired with that I never feel as though I've had enough. With this dish, the texture and flavor of the crab are at the forefront. The crab "pops" with flavor. I first had it at a dinner party in San Francisco, and it was prepared by a woman named China who grew up in the South. Shockingly flavorful and rich yet delicate and succulent, crab grits has run through my mind ever since. My girlfriend and I never did get a recipe, so we pulled out the ol'let's see what happens, which, if you've been following along, is one of our favorite activities. It turned out great, so I thought I'd share the recipe. It's really simple, fyi.

Ingredients for two people:
6 oz shelled crab (we used Dungeness)
1 fresh ear of corn (if corn isn't in season, the canned stuff works)
1/2 cup grits
1 1/2 cup water
3 tbsp butter
2 pinches salt

(Here's a question for everyone: What's the difference between polenta and grits? I know that they're both cornmeal. I think that the difference has to do with the way that they are ground, but I've found both stone-ground polenta and grits sold in stores. I've also found products called both polenta and grits. Grits and polenta do not taste the same. Is it all in the flick of the wrist, viz. how you cook them?)

Finding the right grits:

Directions:

Directions in Brief: Boil corn, make grits, infuse butter with crab, combine all.

1: We'll cut the corn from the cob and add it to the grits. First, boil it on the cob for 8 minutes then set aside to cool. When it's cool, slice off the kernels, making sure not to cut off any of the cob. Set aside.

2. Prepare the grits following the recipe on the box (boil water with all salt, slowly stir in grits and cook on low heat until creamy; 5-8 minutes). As you see, we used "quick grits," which didn't take away from the flavor or texture in the least. In another pan, saute the crab and any crab juice in the butter on low heat. This is just to infuse the butter with crab flavor, so make sure you don't brown it. Turn off the heat when you think it's had enough.

3. We had beets with shallots and tarragon and steamed green beans with olive oil and sea salt on the side. To make the beets, simply slice the beets then boil until tender; saute a few shallots in olive oil; add the beets and a 1/2 tbsp tarragon and cook until the flavors meld (1-2 minutes).

4. Did I forget to say: Open the wine? I'm sure you're already ahead of me. Open that buttery chardonnay! We had Sonoma-Cutrer's 2008 Sonoma Coast Chardonnay. It paired perfectly. We found it in our local Safeway grocery store for $21.

5. When the grits has thickened and gotten a creamy texture, add the crab and corn. You might not want all of the corn, so do a little taste test (WARNING: very addictive). Cook until it's all hot, and you're done.

It's berry season in Oregon, and for dessert we had a raspberry-blueberry tart/crumble.

My aunt and uncle just wrote that it's crab season in Maryland. Looks like they're havin' a good feast. Hope everyone's enjoying their blue crab, snow crab, and Dungeness crab. Enjoy the recipe and write in with any questions!

This Weird Week in Wine: Top 5 Weird Wine News Stories

2011-08-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

Join A Group of Mercenaries and Get a Free Vineyard!

The Telegraph: The French Foreign Legion is currently enlisting down and out gents from around the world. Can’t afford alimony? Don’t care about living now that your love’s abandoned you? Join this fight-to-the-death group of mercenaries and you just might get the easy job: tending the Legion’s personal vineyard in Provence. Either that or get sent to Libya.

A Quiet Night of Wine, Celebrities, and Zombies

AFP: Christopher Lee was named the Dracula of Wine at the Grossmann Film and Wine Festival in Slovenia. Alright I made that award up. But he was given a life time achievement award. Either way, the festival is fully dedicated to celebrating horror movies and fine wine. Sounds like heaven to me.

Wine By the Pint = Wine Keg Stands?

Boston Globe: Some U.S. wineries are selling their wine in keg form to restaurants and bars. Vino sfuso has finally reached our backward little country? Excellent. My 2 cents: Don’t sell your wine in kegs. Put it into mobile trucks and sell it door to door, refilling 5 liter jugs as you go. You won’t have to sell major tap systems, purchase bottles or kegs, or pay people to bottle or keg your wine. We all want it. We’re just sitting around man, waiting…

My Computer's Been Drinking Again

MSNBC: An artificial, electronic tongue has been developed to taste test wines. The image alone is enough to make me switch to beer. But, like most ventures in robotics, this one sounds cooler than it actually is. Basically this instrument, which doesn’t look like a tongue, just measures sweetness. Still, it's kinda creepy.

Where Do These People Come From?

News 10: Would you pay $28 for a half-once of wine? Yes: It is a rare wine. But a half-once taste is pretty difficult to fathom. Personally, I’m leaning towards the once-and-a-half pour for $84.

The Puglia Wine Review, August 1, 2011

2011-08-01T10:04:00.000-07:00

I found both of these primitivo wines at Fred Meyer's on Hawthorne and SE 39th. As always, the Puglia Wine Review features wines found in Portland, Oregon.

A-Mano 2008 Primitivo IGT
Rating: 7
Price: $8.99
Where to Buy: Fred Meyer
Short Review: Doesn't taste like Primitivo, but a great budget wine

A-Mano is the winery that really changed everything. Founded by two Americans, the winery invested in Puglia around 1999 and immediately began to capitalize on the connection between primitivo and zinfandel. I think that A-Mano was the winery that really brought this connection to the forefront. As far as bang for buck, this wine is really great. However, it does not taste like primitivo: it isn't big and silky with dark fruit. It starts off right, though. The nose is big and spicy with dark fruit. It almost hugs you. There's a little heat. In the mouth, however, the wine is light boded, dry, tannic, acidic, balanced, and clean. It will pair well with most food. It is not jammy or fruity. It is surprisingly vibrant, too. The heat gives it energy rather than distracting from the flavor. At a blind tasting, I would guess that A-Mano's primitivo were a Montepulciano d'Abruzzo.

Primaterra 2009 Primitivo IGT
Rating: 2
Price: $7.50
Where to Buy: Fred Meyer
Short Review: "I wouldn't spend too much time trying to taste this one."

This wine is very fashionable, with a cute, childish drawing of a chicken on the label, and even literary, with a bit of a poem on the back. Unfortunately, the wine tastes uninspired. Nose is low key---not hot---with a little choke cherry. The mouth is very acidic. Tannins tingle the front gums. I got a little cola or oak, but the tartness was pervasive, reminiscent of rhubarb. Finish is short. Light bodied.

Time to Get Your Wine Tasting On in Lecce: Barocco di Vino

2011-07-29T10:39:00.000-07:00

Stefano Belfiore was kind enough to send this along. Lecce's streets will be taken over by 40 local wineries on August 10th, 2011, from 7pm to 2am. This type of event is one of the best ways to taste wine in Puglia because all of the wineries come together. Instead of setting up appointments and renting a car, you just pay 10 euros and stroll the beautiful baroque streets, imagining the great 16th and 17th centuries, when King Charles V and Bishop Aloysius Pappacoda provided funds and roused the minds of great local architects, such as Giusseppe Zimbalo and Cesare Penna.

I've been to tons of events like this in Lecce, and I imagine Barocco di Vino will be a lot like Calici di Stelle, which usually takes place in August. The event will consume the town; the streets will be paved with wine; the parties will go into the wee hours. Here's a video of last year's Calici di Stelle:

Since August is a very busy time in Lecce, I have a couple tips for getting the best out of your experience.

1) Show up exactly when the event begins and purchase your wine glass before the lines become insufferable.
2) Steer clear of the pizza in front of Santa Croce: it becomes a sea of people. Visit the wineries on the smaller streets, where the lines are almost non-existent.

Below is a photo of a worker cutting Lecce stone, aka pietra leccese. That's one big saw blade! Have fun and feel free to share your experiences here on By The Tun.

The Life of a Vegetable Costs More than the Life of an Animal

2011-07-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

I know I just posted, but NPR's latest report on obesity in Italy and the disappearance of the Mediterranean diet has fully creeped me out. I wake up to NPR every day, and the first words I heard today were "We'll tell you why Italians are abandoning the Mediterranean Diet." I just wrote an article on the Mediterranean Diet and I was initially worried that a new scientific study found the diet unhealthy and that I'd have to retract the article ("The times, they are ah changin'" and fast: I wrote an overview on Northern Ireland two months ago, stating that the violence that once ravaged the area had been over for nearly a decade; then Belfast turned into a riot zone two weeks later.). Anyway, NPR's report wasn't about a new scientific study but about the fact that Italy has the largest obesity rate in Europe. What happened to all those good vegetables, fruit, olive oil, and fish? They got expensive. Now people eat meat because it's less expensive than tomatoes. There's something wrong. Very wrong.

But this news doesn't reflect every region in Italy. As I wrote in my article, soon to be published, fruits and vegetables, fish and olive oil, are still major components of the daily diet of Pugliese. Puglia has remained uninfluenced by the agendas that Europe, and America, have been pushing. But how long will the region hold out? For that matter, how long will we hold out? We who pay dearly for our artichokes, red peppers, and olive oil? Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. Like my mother always told me.

The Puglia Wine Review: Archives - Before May 2011

2011-07-14T10:55:00.000-07:00

After tasting so many Puglia wines, I thought I'd put a collection of reviews together.

Puglia wine review lists:

Top 10 Primitivo Wines from Puglia of 2010
Top 10 Negroamaro Wines from Puglia of 2010
Top 5 Rosé Wines from Puglia of 2010
List of Stand-Out Wines from the Apulia Wine Convention (2009)
Best Wines of 2009 ( many Puglia wines included)

Individual Puglia wine reviews:

2004 Sumanero (100% Susumaniello), Cooperativa Santa Barbara Winery
2004 Graticciaia (100% Negroamaro), Agricole Vallone Winery
2008 Liante (100% Negroamaro), Castello Monaci Winery
2007 Primitivo di Manduria DOC (100% Primitivo), Attanasio Winery
2006 Salice Salentino DOC (90% Negroamaro, 10% Malvasia Nera), Vecchia Torre
2007 Diciotto Fanali rosé (100% Negroamaro), Apollonio Winery
2005 Sine Pari (100% Nero Di Troia), Azienda Monaci
2003 Notarpanaro (85% Negroamaro, 15% Malvasia Nera, Taurino Winery

Puglia wine reviews covering multiple wines at a time:

Puglia Wine Review:
2008 Capoposto by Alberto Longo
2006 Sine Die by Azienda Monaci

Puglia Wine Review:
2003 Piromáfo by Valle Dell'Asso
2003 Santufili by Mocavero
2004 Suavitas Salice Salentino DOC Riserva by Ionis
2007 Copertino DOC by Leone de Castris
2008 Neama by Consorzio Produttori Vini
2005 Sine Pari by Azienda Monaci

Puglia Wine Review:
2006 Felline Primitivo di Manduria DOC by Racemi
2006 Lirica by Consorzio Produttori Vini
2003 Rubinum by Soloperto

Puglia Wine Review:
2008 Serene Bianco by Consorzio Produttori Vini
2008 Galatina Bianco by Valle Dell'Asso
2008 Alticelli by Cantele
2008 Scirocco Rosato by Pirro Varone
2008 Rosato by Cantele

Puglia Wine Review:
2000 Divoto Rosso Riserva DOC Copertino by Apollonio
2007 Fanali Rosato by Apollonio
2007 Emera IGT by Castello Monaci
2007 Arcione Brindisi Rosso DOC by Botrugno
2006 Teresa Manara Rosso by Cantele
2007 Santi Medici IGT by Castel di Salve
2005 Rosso DOC Salice Salentino by Feudi di Guagnano
2004 Barbagli IGT by Cooperativa Santa Barbara
2005 Leverano DOC Riserva by Vecchia Torre
2006 Salore Salice Salentino DOC by Cantine De Falco
2008 Messapia IGT by Leone de Castris

Puglia Wine Review:
2001 Salice Salentino DOC by Apollonio
2005 Cappello Di Prete by Candido
2004 Salice Salentino Riserva DOC by Cantele
2006 Amativo IGT by Cantele
2008 65 Anniversary Five Roses by Leone de Castris
2007 Salento Rosso IGT (100% Ottavianello) by Botrugno

The Puglia Wine Review, July 1, 2011

2011-07-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

In this month's Puglia Wine Review I review two Primitivo wines and a Chardonnay. The Primitivo wines were blind tasted along with a few American-made Zinfandels. It was a fun experiment, and it was east to distinguish between the two. In general, the Primitivo wines tasted more concentrated and rich with dark fruit, whereas the Zinfandels were lighter and had more spice. As always, I found the following wines in local wine shops in Portland, Oregon.

Cantina Salvalai's 2008 "Flaio" Primitivo Salento

Rating: 8.5
Price: $11.50
Where to Buy: Woodstock Wine & Deli
Short Review: Like a book of poetry, there's a lot going on for 12 bucks

This wine was the favorite of the blind tasting. It has a huge nose of cooked blackberry and it smells just the tiniest bit hot. For such a big nose, I expected this wine to be big. Instead, it was light in flavor profile (not aggressive) and balanced. It is a little hot, but this heat balances very well with the tannins and the acidity. Medium bodied. NOTE: The winery that makes this wine uses grapes grown in Puglia, but it makes the wine just outside Verona.

Cantele's 2008 "Primitivo" Puglia IGT
Rating: 4
Price: $11.50
Where to Buy: Pastaworks on Hawthorne
Short Review: Expected more

This wine had the most interesting nose of the tasting, with medium dark fruit, caramel, vanilla, nutmeg, and coriander. With all these aromas, you'd expect it to be big, but the nose was less concentrated than the Flaio. In the mouth, the flavors of the wine let me down. Mouth is full bodied, tannins across the gums, with a little dried fruit and leather. The wine tasted hot, and the heat cut through the finish, obscuring flavors.

Tormaresca's 2009 Chardonnay IGT
Rating: 2
Price: $9.79
Where to Buy: Fred Meyers (8955 SE 82nd Ave)
Short Review: I don't like to be mean...

I just want to say two things before the review. One, Tormaresca makes many wines that I like. Two, it gives me no pleasure in disliking a wine. The wine has almost no nose at all, but there's some melon. The mouth is off putting to my taste buds. Tastes of wet dog, really, and it is not very clean, especially on the finish. For the price, there are better chardonnays.

A Homemade Pizza, sure. But a Homemade Pizza Oven?

2011-06-23T17:41:00.000-07:00

Almost every home in Puglia has a full-sized pizza oven in the backyard. These stand alone pizza ovens look like guest houses they're so big (maybe I'm thinking of Hansel and Gretel?). My buddy Neil, a hard rocking homesteader who feeds iridescent millipedes to his chickens, just finished building his own. He lives near Ceglie Messapica in the Itria Valley grape growing region of Puglia. Land of the trulli and one of Puglia's only Michelin-star rated restaurants, Al Fornello da Ricci. I don't know the details, but I know that it takes a ton of time to build a wood-burning pizza oven. This post goes out to all those hours of sweat and cement. Cheers to pineapple pizza!

A real pizzaiolo!

The Best Rosé in Southern Italy?

2011-06-21T09:59:00.000-07:00

The Radici del Sud 2011 wine convention took place just a few weeks ago (Jeremy Parzen did a killer job covering it, with all the traditional Pugliese foods photographed) and the results are in: Albea winery's 2010 "Petrarosa" was voted the best southern Italian rosé of the year.

I've never gotten a chance to taste Albea's wines or the Petrarosa (which means red stone) rosé. Has anyone else? If so, what's it like? The rosés from Puglia are some of the most highly regarded in Italy, so it's no minor achievement being crowned the best of the best.

Meanwhile, I'll be calling the wineshops in Portland, Oregon, trying to get my hands on some. I was happy to find Tormaresca's "Bocca di Lupo" recently, and another edition of the Puglia Wine Review will be coming soon.

Wine Tattoos

2011-06-20T11:16:00.000-07:00

Gotta love 'em. I photograph wine tattoos whenever possible. This one is Brianne Day's (I don't have the name of the tattoo artist), and I think it's my favorite wine-related tattoo to date. If you've got one, share it!

About the 2009 "Cristo Irresisto" by J. Christopher (carefully labeled "Oregon Pink Wine"): Inexpensive and delicious, this rosé is creamy thanks to ~~malolactic fermentation~~ see comments yet retains the necessary acidic bite that tells you: It's summer and this wine can barbecue. Dry with more fruit than flowers, this is one of the best budget rosés made by an Oregon winemaker. You can find it all over Portland, Oregon, for $13. I got mine at Storyteller Wine Company on SW Hood Avenue.

Vintagecellars.com Review and The Science of Aging Wine

2011-06-14T13:12:00.000-07:00

From the Promotional Review Department

I like to build things—my dad was a wooden boat builder—and I've often thought about making a custom wine rack, but my skill level is nowhere near high enough. The intricate wood work in the best wine cellars is absolutely beautiful. I've included a photo of a bookcase bar that I built, just to flaunt my amateur skills, and below that is the work of Vintage Cellars, true custom wine cellar professionals.

Now for the real deal:

Vintagecellars.com was recently featured in Wine Spectator, and when Laina McConnell contacted me to see if I'd like to review the website, I was immediately interested in the Science of Aging Wine section, which reads, "Surrounded by crumbling corpses and carefully aging bottles, a murderer befuddles his victim with expensive wine, preparing to lure him deep underground with the promise of a rare Amontillado sherry." What story is Vintage Cellars referencing?

Wine cellars can be dark and creepy, and when I was living in southern Italy, our landlady, who owned a 18th-century palace, had to stop work on hers because she came across a bunch of human bones. Vintagecellars.com points out that, for aging wine, dark, damp, and cool conditions have always been the best. The website includes an interesting historical tidbit: the ancient Romans used the catacombs beneath Rome to age their wine. Cool, right? If you're looking for authoritative information on the science of aging wine, I recommend visiting the site. (The picture above is from an ossuary in Milan.)

But why is it important to age wine? The compounds in wine react with one another over time, which creates new flavors. You can actually pinpoint where many of these flavors come from. For example, Vintagecellars.com writes, "Esters are one kind of compound that contributes to the wine's aroma." The yeast used during the winemaking process directly impacts the type of esters that develop as a wine ages. That's why winemakers are so picky about which yeasts they use. However, a winemaker can never know how a wine will change with time.

If a wine isn't stored correctly, it can develop negative flavors, such as when wine turns to vinegar, and that's where the professionals come in. They build wine cellars that keep wine safe. If you want to turn your wine cellar into a work of art, you can use wine barrel staves for flooring, incorporate stained glass, add hand-carved doors or redwood countertops, and even include a dining area; but most importantly, you can work within any space, which comes in handy if you want to fit a lot of wine in a small area. Vintage Cellars has even constructed a wine cellar on yacht.

Wine Spectator reports that some serious wine collectors, such as New Jersey-based investor Hank Uberoi, invest heavily. Uberoi's wine cellar cost over $350,000, which comes to $70 per bottle in terms of storage space. Uberoi's wine cellar, you might say, is to Burgundy what the New York Met is to Monet.

For the rest of us, wine storage doesn't need to cost as much, and Vintage Cellars creates custom wine cellars and wine racks for all budgets. I'm glad Laina contacted me, because the science of aging turns out to be very interesting stuff, and the intricate woodwork involved is quite simply beautiful.

And the short story alluded to on Vintagecellars.com? Edgar Allen Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado."

What Really Makes Wine Turn into Vinegar?

2011-06-07T13:57:00.000-07:00

A Scientific as well as Culinary Answer to This Confusing Question

I answered this question a long time ago, but it turns out I only had half the answer. Does wine turn into vinegar? This web site says yes, while this web site says no. Both sides seem pretty authoritative, but it turns out that neither give a complete answer. To help me get it right, I've enlisted the help of Derek Shedd, enologist, winemaker, and all around Smart Guy who works in the lab at Dobbes Family Estate Winery.

Mattie: Can wine turn to vinegar?
Derek: In wine, acetic acid is an indicator of wine spoilage. If wine gets infected with acetobacter and other conditions are right, then acetic acid will be produced, along with lots of other bacteria (pediococcus, etc.).

We're talking about acetic acid because one definition of vinegar is diluted acetic acid. Derek says that acetic acid can be produced from wine under the right conditions. So, what's the confusion? It turns out that it's all a classic example of a verbal dispute. In philosophy, a verbal dispute is when two sides are arguing about something but they agree on the facts. The confusion stems from a definition, and in this case the definition for "vinegar."

Everyone agrees that wine can become acidic when it's been sitting around for a while. However, without adding the specific bacteria used to make vinegar (mycoderma aceti), this super acidic wine likely won't taste good, causing many to hesitate to call it vinegar. The verbal confusion here seems to be one between scientists and chefs.

A chef will say, No, wine cannot turn into vinegar because old wine doesn't taste like vinegar. It tastes bad.

A scientist will say, Technically acetic acid is created when bacteria, which is found everywhere in the air, comes into contact with alcohol for a long time. So wine can turn into vinegar (the scientific definition of vinegar is something like diluted acetic acid).

Here's what you need to know. Technically, wine can turn into vinegar when it is exposed to a lot of oxygen for a long time (months at least). Should you add a little to add richness to your tomato sauce? Sure. Should you use it for salad dressing? I wouldn't. It's highly unlikely that it will taste that good.

I asked Derek if he thought that a wine vinegar produced without a mother would be tasty. He said, "You would need to consult a better source than I, but the difference is what happens when you have an infection of acetobacter bacteria and what happens when you have an inoculation of a specific bacteria (the latter is a pure culture). The stuff that tends to infect wine can quickly turn acetic acid to acetone, which does not happen with a true mother. (Get a mother culture and keep it safe and happy and pure)."

I love science! If you know more about this, please set the record straight. But as it stands, I think this is all correct. It's all in a definition.

The Puglia Wine Review, June 1, 2011

2011-06-01T12:53:00.000-07:00

As usual, the Puglia wines I'll be reviewing this week I found in local wine shops in Portland, Oregon.

Casa Gir elli's 2006 "Virtuoso" Primitivo Puglia IGT

Rating: 9

Price: $13

Where to Buy: Woodstock Wine & Deli

Short Review: Against my better judgment, it's excellent

Long Review: Here's my guess. An international winemaker assists Casa Girelli, and he wanted to make a true Primitivo with the tannic structure of a Tuscan-style wine, say Chianti. He wants the best of both worlds. Primitivo lacks strong tannins, so he used tons of new oak to give a woody tannic finish that leave the mouth feeling very dry. Am I right? Don't know because I can't find any info on the company's winemaker(s). But here's the point: I don't like overly oaked wines, and this wine might come off as overly oaked to the staunchest of non-new oakers, but it does a great job at tasting like a Primitivo and a wine from Puglia even though it's made in the town of Trento in the Veneto. So high marks for Connectedness and Typacity.

Nose of concentrated dark fruit, rubber boot, and cola. Flavors of extinguished fire, cigar box, berries and cream, and blackberry. Finish is very woody, with cedar and oak. The wood gives it a lot of structure, and it can pair with very complex, powerful dishes. At the end of the bottle, I truly loved this wine (to my surprise), and for the price it is an incredible budget wine from Puglia.

Leone de Castris's 2009 "5 Roses" Negroamaro rosé
Rating: 7.5
Price: $20
Where to Buy: Vino Vixens
Short Review: A supple, strong rosé that won't back down from no one

Leone de Castris invented Italian rosé. You might think I'm speaking figuratively, but they actually were the first winery in Italy to bottle rosé. "5 Roses" retains its edge. I associate it with words like "dreamy" and "sunset." The nose has citrus, raspberry, and orange. It drapes across the palate; it is minerally and viscous with a medium body. It is dry, crisp, and smooth. But it's all about the finish, which is exceptionally long. The tannins are strong enough to stand up to many complex dishes. It is not a light rosé from France or a sticky sweet rosé from Napa Valley. Unfortunately, you have to pay for such character, and twenty dollars puts it on the expensive side, especially when you're comparing it with Oregon's locally made rosés. But if you can afford it, I highly recommend it.

(Note on Rating System: I balance my rankings between quality and price, both elements go toward 50% of the rating)

Guide to Cantine Aperte 2011 in Puglia

2011-05-26T15:07:00.000-07:00

From the Guide to Exotic Wine Tasting Department

It's that time of year again. Italy's wineries open their doors and pour their wines for the low price of 10 euros per person. In Puglia, Cantine Aperte kicks off the wine season. It takes place May 29th, 2o11, and you can find a complete list of participating Puglia wineries here. The best part about Cantine Aperte is that you don't have to make any appointments because Puglia's wineries are open to everyone.

Event Overview: 57 wineries across Puglia, mostly free wine tastings, snacks, food pairings for a few euro, live music, and free tours of vineyards.

Here’s what you need to know:

1) Here's a wine map of Puglia with wineries listed. These wine map thingies are incredibly difficult to find!

Wine Map

2) Grab lunch at a winery, that way you can pair your wines with some local grub. Find the participating wineries that serve lunch and make a reservation.

3) Rent a car in advance! They sell out quickly. Also, try to get one with GPS as Puglia's road signs are a mess.

4) Make an itinerary in advance using Google Maps. This is the best way to keep from getting lost. However, once you're in the countryside you'll be surprised by the number of signs advertising Cantine Aperte. They include arrows to the nearest wineries.

5) Note that one or two wineries do charge extra, but only a handful.

6) Here's a list of some of my favorite wineries in Salice Salentino, Manduria, and Castel del Monte with contact information.

7) Enjoy the beautiful day and the heavy pours. I'm sorry to have to sit this one out, but next year I'll be leading a culinary tour through Puglia during Cantine Aperte. Send an email to me or to Edible Authentic Travel to learn more!

Letstalkwine.com Review

2011-05-25T14:24:00.000-07:00

From the Stop Cramping My Style Department

I was recently approached by Stacey Marrs of the web site Letstalkwine.com (I'm not including a link because I do not want to increase their web traffic). She wrote:

I notice that you publish articles and other content that tackle different aspects in the world of wine. Would you be interested in having more wine-related articles for your site? My best writer on staff knows a lot about the subject and extensively writes for our website as well.

From the beginning, something seemed fishy. Why cramp my style? I know I've got a good thing going... why should you get a piece?

Visiting Letstalkwine.com, I found an article on Puglia's wine that is filled with poorly researched (did they do any real research?) and incorrect information. The internet is filling up with what a college buddy once called pocket knowledge, i.e. hearsay. It's getting easier and easier to pass along misinformation. I say it has to stop. When I write articles, I do my research and I list my sources whenever applicable. Writing a blog post once a week or more, we're bound to make mistakes, but Letstalkwine.com took it one step further: They tried to publish their crappy articles on my blog.

For the love of Bacchus, if you're a blogger who received a similar email from Stacy Marrs, don't let her "professional writer" anywhere near your site. Below is a list of the false information published on their site. It's also worth mentioning that Daniel Manu, the "professional writer" of the article Let's Talk About Puglia's Wine, has no online presence as far as I can tell. Further, Letstalkwine.com provides zero contact information on their web site and their About page is blank, leaving one to conclude that there's simply nothing to write about them. If they don't provide a service, such as entertainment or information, do they even exist?

False Information Published in Letstalkwine.com's Article Let's Talk About Puglia's Wine:

"...Puglia is the biggest producer of wine in Italy..."
Puglia was behind the Veneto and Sicily last I knew. The 2010 GAIN report said that Puglia's overall production fell by 7 percent while Sicily's rose 10 percent.

"...The flagship red grape is Primitivo, used to make food wines..."
Roughly 80% of Puglia is planted with the Negroamaro grape. This is a number told to me by multiple winemakers in Puglia. I can't find a reliable source for this online, but one wine producer wrote this. My main point is that you might want to mention the Negroamaro grape somewhere in your article on Puglia's wine.

"But Puglia has a bit of a shameful background. For years it has produced “plonk”. Plonk is a term used to refer to very poor quality wines, the kind of wines that will make you spit in disgust. They would illegally blend this excuse for a wine to create mediocre ones."
No, Puglia winemakers shipped vino sfuso north, then northern wine producers "illegally" blended the wine. Relax: Puglia's vino sfuso can be quite good.

Of the Castel Del Monte DOC: "This delicate wine comes in white, red and rose version. "
Besides good grammar, this sentence leaves out the fact that the wine comes in several versions.

Puglia's Most Important DOC Wines

2011-05-13T12:02:00.000-07:00

I don't believe that there's an objective standard for "the most important" DOC wines made in Puglia. Let's judge them anyway. Clearly, the best DOC wines in Puglia are the Salice Salentino Rosso DOC, the Primitivo di Manduria Rosso DOC, and the Castel del Monte Rosso DOC. The rules for making Puglia’s DOC wines can be difficult to track down, but I’ve found several sources that support the rules I’ve provided below.

Below I've included more detailed rules for each DOC, as well as some wine recommendations in case you're interested. The main reason I'm writing this post is that Puglia has many DOCs but few of them matter to U.S. wine lovers. I'd like to hear from anyone who thinks otherwise, especially if you have recommendations. I've heard good things about the Gravina DOC and the Locorotondo DOC but haven't tasted enough of them.

All of the following DOCs, like any good bar story, come in multiple versions. The red wines, as opposed to white or sweet, are by far the most important and are demarcated by the word “rosso” on wine labels. Also, all of the wines below must be produced and bottled in or around their respected towns, viz. Manduria, Salice Salentino, and Castel del Monte.

Watch Out: These rules change somewhat regularly, but the rules for grape percentages, alcohol percentages, and aging should be basically correct. You never know what the central or regional Italian government will whip up. If you have corrections, please send them in, and please include your sources.

Primitivo di Manduria DOC

The city of Manduria is in the western area of Puglia’s Salento peninsula. This DOC comes in dry and sweet versions. The sweet version is called “dolce.” The DOC is rarely made riserva, but a few wineries, principally Soloperto winery, have created a few. You’ll often seen non-DOC primitivo wines at U.S. wine stores, and this means that the wines were not produced or bottled in or around the city of Manduria and that their grapes were not necessarily grown in or around Manduria. These wines do not have to follow the rules outlined below. Primitivo is genetically identical to Zinfandel, but the wines should not be considered identical because of the environmental and other factors that impact flavor.

Rules for Making Primitivo di Manduria Rosso DOC

Grape: 100% Primitivo

Alcohol: at least 14%

Aging: at least 7 months

Recommended Primitivo di Manduria DOC wines:

Racemi “Felline” 14% alcohol

Masseria Pepe “Dunico” 15.8% alcohol

Consorzio Produttori Vini “Lirica” ??%

Consorzio Produttori Vini “Elegia” ??%

Attanasio DOC 16.5% alcohol

Pirro Varone 15% alcohol

Sources of DOC information: Vini del Salento, Puglia DOC

Salice Salentino DOC

The town of Salice Salentino is located 13 miles Lecce, putting it in the center of Puglia’s Salento peninsula. The sea is less than 20 miles on either side. The DOC features Puglia’s most important grape: Negroamaro.

Rules for Making Salice Salentino Rosso DOC

Grape: at least 80% Negroamaro. Malvasia nera di Lecce or Malvasia nera di Brindisi are often used to make up the remainder.

Alcohol: at least 12%

Aging:??

Recommended Salice Salentino Rosso DOC wines:

Apollonio 80 % Negroamaro 10% Malvasia Nera di Lecce 10% Malvasia Nera di Brindisi

Vecchia Torre 90% Negroamaro 10% Malvasia Nera

Cantine de Falco 80% Negroamaro 20% Malvasia Nera

Rules for Making Salice Salentino Rosso DOC Riserva

Grapes: at least 80% Negroamaro. Malvasia nera di Lecce or Malvasia nera di Brindisi are often used to make up the remainder.

Alcohol: at least 12.5%

Aging: at least 2 years

Recommended Salice Salentino Rosso Riserva DOC wines:

Candido “La Carta” 95% Negroamaro 5% Malvasia Nera

Ionis “Suavitas” ??%

Conti Zecca “Cantalupi Riserva” 80% Negroamaro 20% Malvasia Nera di Lecce

Leone de Castris 90% Negroamaro 10% Malvasia Nera di Lecce

Taurino 80% Negroamaro 20% Malvasia di Lecce

Sources of DOC information: Apulian Wines, Puglia DOC, La Vinium

Castel del Monte DOC

The Castel del Monte DOC comes in a huge number of versions, including a Chardonnay DOC, Sauvignon (Blanc) DOC, and other random grape varieties. Below are the rules for making the red wine Castel del Monte DOC. The red wine can feature one or all of three red grapes, and a single red wine can be 100% of only one of them.

Rules for Making Castel del Monte Rosso DOC

Grapes: At least 65% of the wine is composed of Nero di Troia, Montepulciano, or Aglianico. Any red grape grown in the region can make up the remainder.

Alcohol: at least 12%

Aging: ??

Recommended Castel del Monte DOC Wines:

Tormaresca “Bocco di Lupo” 100% Aglianico

Tormaresca “Trentangeli” 65% Aglianico 25% Cabernet Sauvignon 10% Syrah

Rivera “Cappellaccio” 100% Aglianico

Torrevento “Bolonero” 70% Nero di Troia 30% Aglianico

Santa Lucia “Vigna Del Melograno 100% Nero di Troia

Rules for Making Castel del Monte Rosso Riserva DOC

Grape: a At least 65% of the wine is composed of Nero di Troia, Montepulciano, or Aglianico. Any red grape grown in the region can make up the remainder.

Alcohol: at least 12.5%

Aging: at least two years

Recommended Castel del Monte Riserva DOC:

Rivera “Il Falcone” 70% Nero di Troia 30% Montepulciano

Torrevento “Vigna Pedale” 100% Nero di Troia

Santa Lucia “Le More” 100% Nero di Troia

Sources of DOC information: Corriere della Sera, Vini del Salento, Apulian Wines, La Vinium

The white wine Castel del Monte DOC or Castel del Monte Bianco DOC, can feature the white grapes pampanuto or bombino bianco. The rosé is primarily composed of the nero di troia and/or bombino nero grapes.

Gianni Cantele, the Wallstreet Journal, and Puglia

2011-05-09T19:27:00.001-07:00

I promise to return to what I started, and my next post will focus on the most important DOCs in Puglia, but first, I have to send a shout out to Gianni Cantele, a wonderful guy and winemaker, who was recently interviewed for an article in the Wallstreet Journal, A Movable Feast in Southern Puglia.

Man, can't the well-paid journalists come up with original titles?

I met Gianni Cantele thanks to his brother Paolo. I was contacting winemakers in Puglia, researching the 2009 Puglia Harvest Report, when Paolo directed me to Gianni. Gianni has a commanding historical perspective, and when his grandfather first came to the Salento Peninsula to begin a winery, the locals spoke a dialect that had more in common with Greek than Latin. Today, some local dialects still have Greek roots, but everyone speaks good ol' Italian, too, which wasn't the case 100 years ago. Gianni also has an eye for the future, and he's one of the first winemakers on the Salento peninsula to begin truly exploring the capabilities of the aglianico grapes grown in northern Puglia around Foggia. Glad to see the heel of the boot rising, I just hope it tilts before it comes down, pouring it's sun-soaked wines so that we'll all be Sipping from the Heel.

Buona Festa della Mamma!

2011-05-08T20:13:00.000-07:00

From the All Puglia Cooking All the Time Department

Happy Mother's day everyone! We just completed our mother's day feast. The sky is a mix of rainbow, nuclear-orange haze, thunder clouds, and blue sky, and no I'm not on hallucinogens, I just live in Portland, Oregon.

When we lived in Puglia, my girlfriend and I loved to recreate the dishes we ate in restaurants. To share the incredible traditional cuisine of Puglia, I will feature traditional Pugliese recipes regularly on By The Tun for the next few months. My girlfriend and I run a supper club called Hip Nana, which focuses on Puglia's simple cuisine, and we've collected many recipes that are difficult to find in English (at least we've had a hard time!). Most of the recipes we use have five ingredients of less. Today, we cooked an authentic Pugliesi Sunday dinner (as authentic as you can get without Puglia's salt-wind kissed vegetables) for Kristin's mom. Below are some photos to get your taste buds going. More recipes and photos to come. I hope everyone had a great Festa della Mamma!

Puglia's First DOCG And Why It Doesn't Matter

2011-05-06T13:08:00.000-07:00

From the What does DOCG actually mean? Department

As wine writer Alfonso Cevola recently wrote, Puglia was granted its first DOCG wine by the Italian government recently, the Primitivo di Manduria Dolce Naturale DOCG. However, I doubt that anyone really cares: this wine is made in the old, peasant style, and it is very sweet even though it is not considered a dessert wine. Puglia's wine tradition is currently divided between "dry" and "sweet" red wines. This is particularly interesting because the changes that are taking place now in Puglia's winemaking style took place in Italy's more famous wine producing regions, such as Piedmont and Tuscany, over a hundred years ago.

(For a general idea of the Italian IGT, DOC, and DOCG wine system, click here).

Can you believe that Barolo was once a sweet wine? In fact, it was sweet up until the French enologist Louis Oudart was invited to the town of Barolo around 1850. Pragmatically, the wine was made sweet to keep it from spoiling, but this technique eventually set the standard for wine in Italy up to the 1800s. This is still the case in Puglia, where sweet wine is served with meals just as often as dry wines (of course, this isn't true in fine dining restaurants, but in households). When Oudart arrived in Barolo, French wine had become the new international standard of fine wine, and he created dry Barolo for the first time. The success of dry Barolo among Turin's royalty gave Barolo the nickname, "the wine of kings, the king of wines." Not everyone was so elated, and I imagine they were probably the local farmers, as I'll get to just in a minute, but first, can you imagine if Barolo was sweet? Jesus.

A sommelier in Puglia once explained to me that sweet wine is an important part of Puglia's history, and that wine was seen as an energy drink more often than a work of art. He'd said:

Before, everyone worked in the fields; everyone was a farmer, and they were very poor and had very little to eat, so wine was used as food. Sometimes, a farmer will wake up very early, work all morning, then have very little to eat for lunch, maybe a few vegetables, but the work day would be just half over. He would need energy to work. For this reason, the wine was made with a lot of sugar to provide energy. He would drink the wine, then he could work for the rest of the day.”

Today, many winemakers in Puglia create both sweet and dry wines. They sell the former vino sfuso style (directly out of giant stainless tanks with gas-pump nozzles); they sell the latter in bottles (usually to foreign markets---indeed, these dry reds aren't even marketed locally).

So, getting back to the Primitivo di Manduria Dolce Naturale DOCG thing, the new categorization might help to preserve a traditional style of red wine, which is a good thing for lovers of sweet red wine. However, this new categorization means nothing to U.S. wine lovers, because we just don't like sweet red wines. Why do I harp on it? Well, because it's important to call a spade a spade while reveling in Puglia's magical history. Further, I do believe that the Primitivo di Manduria Rosso DOC category actually means something, which I'll expand upon in my next post.

Time To Party

2011-04-26T12:48:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend completed the first draft of her novel today. That's 124,000 words in just under four months, and what does she want to do? Break out a bottle of Barolo or pop the cork on some Prosecco? No: She wants beer and Korean BBQ. That's just one of the reasons why I love her.

I'm not one for sappy posts, but this one's worth it. Remember the name: Kristin Kearns, American Author.

Proof That Puglia Has Terroir

2011-04-21T12:01:00.001-07:00

It has become almost redundant to describe Puglia’s wines as “sun-drenched.” It’s as common a wine descriptor as “crisp” in regard to New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, as “jammy and spicy” for California Zinfandels, and, what do you know, "elegant" in regard to anything expensive. When living in Puglia, I made a 5-post investigation to answer the question: Does Puglia, Italy have terroir? I found the results inconclusive, but learned that most winemakers believe that Puglia does in fact have terroir, that Puglia's terroir will most likely come out with time and hard work, and, further, that the grape that will express Puglia's terroir is Negroamaro.

Fast-forwarding to the present, Puglia's wines are blowing up, as is the region in general. Wine writers, sommeliers, and restaurant's wine directors are repeatedly describing Puglia's wines in the same way: sun-drenched. I don't think that this is a poor or unimaginative description, as is "elegant." Why? Because Puglia's terroir might come from the sky as much as from the ground. I think that all this -- the fact that so many people describe Puglia wine using the same words -- suggests that Puglia's wines have a geographic identity. Further, that Puglia's wines do in fact taste so particular that they could not be recreated in any other growing environment. What do you think? Do Puglia's wines have terroir? Or is it still too early to tell?

Below are a few photos I took that show what Puglia's terroir means to me:

Absurd Wine Descriptions

2011-04-18T15:57:00.000-07:00

A poet, a novelist, and a screenwriter walk into a tasting room…

Yesterday, tasting my way through Willamette Valley as part of the Passport Tour, my companions and I decided to “geek out” by describing wine using only all-new descriptors. Perhaps it is my love of the literary movement of Russian Absurdism, but as we drank more and more, and our words became more and more absurd, a bright light suddenly shone over the entire language game of wine descriptions: Wine can evoke images and personal associations as valid as any tasting notes.

Four Graces

2006 Dundee Hills Black Family Estate 1.5L Magnum

“Objective” Rating: 9

G: None of these wines quite have the aroma I want. I want the smell of Tanya, a model that I was casting in Paris. Beautiful; she would undress in front of anyone, and her ~~blond~~ brown hair, her big boobs (gestures)… I want this wine to smell like Tanya when she was naked. She was the type of girl who would say, (Parisian accent) “I’m going to the store to buy a guitar; this afternoon, I will teach myself to play.”

Domaine Drouhin

2009 Rosé

“Objective” Rating: 5

K: I love this wine.

Me: I hate this wine. Flabby.

G: It’s a classy French female vocalist… Carla Bruni...

K: Edith Piaf?

G: No, she’s too edgy. She’s a red.

Me: This wine’s more fleshy. How about Barry Manilow?

K + G: Ha ha, you’re disgusting.

G: I’m thinking Brigitte Bardot. What I really want is a Joan from Mad Men.

2008 “Willamette Valley” Pinot Noir

“Objective” Rating: I don’t get it

K: Literally tastes like dirt.

Me: A dirty politician? Dick Cheney.

K: No, like a homeless person. Mel Brooks in Life Stinks.

G: It’s like a person who appears to be one way, then turns out to be another.

Domaine Serene

2008 Cote Sud Vineyard Chardonnay

“Objective” Rating: 10

Me: Is this Joan from Mad Men?

G: No, I don’t like this wine.

Me: This wine is fascinating! It’s crème brulée and vanilla, but so much more. Karen McNeil wrote that “a complex wine almost defies you to describe it,” and this wine absolutely shocks me in a way that few wines ever had. I have no idea if I like it, but I find it awesome.

Then, in the Domaine Serene tasting room, we reached a whole nother level of tasting, with the help of the best Tasting Room Lady ever...

2007 “Evenstad” Reserve Pinot Noir

“Objective” Rating: 10

K: It tastes like — and I mean this in a good way — the backseat of a car...my grandfather is driving.

Tasting Room Lady: Is it summer?

K: No, no, and it’s night.

TRL: Are you going to stop for ice cream?
K: No, we’re coming back from a day trip. It’s very comforting.

TRL: You’re safe with your grandfather.

N/V “R” Rosé

“Objective” Rating: 8

G: A French sewing room in an apartment. There are walls and walls of fabric, predominantly satin.

K: I see it. Sun streams in through the windows, and the cushions have faded.

TRL: What color are the cushions?

G: They’ve faded too much to tell. There’s a cat lying in the sunlight.

TRL: What kind of cat? I’m seeing black and white.

G: I think it’s a blue-haired Persian.

A Woman I Admire and 1998 Brunello di Montalcino

2011-04-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

From the What's A Heroine Got To Do With Brunello Department

The complexity of a fine wine is never less than astonishing. I received two bottles as a gift from Francesca Caliolo, one of my Italian students when I was teaching English in Italy. Francesca is an outspoken activist; her husband died a tragic death in the steel mill "Ilva" in Taranto, Puglia, and ever since she has fought for safety and workers rights, both in court and on the street. She's raising two wonderful children, Roberta and Gabriele (he's gone north to college this year), and she taught me a new definition of the word "stolid." She stands up for what is right, even when it's unpopular. If I'm ever given the same opportunity, she will be my guiding light.

I carried one of the bottles in my backpack from Puglia to Verona and back down to Abruzzo, when I wrote the Italy From Bottom to Top Travelogue series for EuropeUpClose.com. I checked the bottle on the flight from Naples to New York. I checked it again on the flight to Portland, Oregon. I checked it again on the flight to Mammoth Mountain, California. Up on the ski slopes, I was as far away from Francesca as I could possibly be, but she remained with me. Her kindness. Her sincerity. When we opened the wine and I toasted with my girlfriend and her father, I said a silent 'salute' to Francesca. Workers have had to fight for their rights forever, and it is sadly true in the region of Puglia, which is still backwards and feudal in far too many ways. Besides agriculture, there are few jobs available outside of the steel mills in Taranto and Brindisi.

Wine Review: Castel Giocondo's 1998 Brunello di Montalcino
Price: $40-$80
Short Review: This wine is awesome
Pairs With: Howard Zinn, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, anything by Kafka
Tip: Decant 5 hours or more
Just to set the mood, Brunello is a wine grape; it is a clone of the Sangiovese grape (which is the most important grape in Chianti); by Italian law, Brunellos can only be made in the growing region around the town of Montalcino, Italy. Sangiovese grapes are great for aging (wine guru Charles Scicolone recently compared several with typical lucidness, including the Giocondo's 2006 Brunello di Montalcino). The wines are so expensive because it costs a lot of money to make a product that you do not sell for 10+ years.

Review of Castel Giocondo's 1998 Brunello di Montalcino:

At 13 years, the wine wasn't in the least bit tired. I tasted everything characteristic of Brunellos: licorice, leather, eucalyptus, boysenberry. The wine was so complex that you could have extracted hundreds of different flavors... or none: the balance was as even as a Keith Moon drum beat. Its foremost characteristic was its structure, which was magnificent and held its own with the coq au vin made with cabernet sauvignon. Each sip was a pleasure, then it was gone.

Wine Snobs Suck vs. It's An Acquired Taste

2011-04-14T12:13:00.000-07:00

This BBC article was absolutely noteworthy, not only because it showed unbelievably low standards of journalism, but also because it received over 216 comments in less than 15 hours. The article Cheap wine as "good as pricier bottles" - blind taste test reports that random people, when given wines of contrasting prices, can only identify expensive or inexpensive wine correctly 50% of the time (the law of chance). As one astute commenter said:

“Who funded this? [...] a survey that proves people who most likely know nothing about wine, know nothing about wine. Really groundbreaking research.”

Is it too much to ask the guy on the street to identify good wine? Can a person who is unfamiliar with wine be a fair judge of quality? Comments like this suggest not:

“I find that decanting a bottle of 2.99 red improves the flavour no end and everybody drinks it quite happily”

But then again, I'm probably a wine snob; that loathsome creature who dwells in the dark corners of fine-dining restaurants. And everyone hates wine snobs:

“Just goes to show how pathetic and snobbish the whole wine process is.”

and

"The comments from the wine snobs are hilarious. 'They didn't understand the complexity'? Much like the little boy didn't appreciate the fine stitching of the emperor's 'new clothes'!"

Damn straight! Don't-know-much-about-art-but-I-know-what-I-like common sense! In the words of Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Go out and find 50 others that are rich enough to take pleasure in this facade. It seems that us wine drinkers are caught in at crossroads. Is it true that "price is no indication of quality," and that "There is no such thing as good or bad wine it all depends on what you like?" As one Freudian said, it's all about "perceptive expectation, which simply put means that paying more for something creates the expectation you will enjoy it more and you actually do enjoy it more."

Wait a minute. No. Wine is an acquired tasted, and there is definitely a difference between expensive and inexpensive wine. How do I know? I’ve worked in the wine business and know what goes into wine. Low-end wines have additives in them that shouldn’t be there and wouldn’t be there if winemakers were not trying to produce large quantities of wine. Do these additives taste good? Of course, why else would you put them in there? But you don’t have to be a genius to recognize the fact that a wine produced with little pieces of arobois (oak dust) in it results in eating wood. Some wines are absolutely crammed with sugar to get higher alcohol levels. This means that the wine is mostly water and that it needs to be given both alcohol and flavor through additives.

The difference between high-end wines and low-end wines (the extremes) is the difference between eating a grape and sucking on a grape-flavored Jolly Ranger. I like budget wines, and nothing makes me happier than finding that amazing wine that’s great tasting and cheap. It’s totally possible to find good wines for cheap, but high-end wines usually taste better because they have fewer additives and more natural flavor. Low-end wines can make us happy, but after you’ve drunk enough good wine, you really can taste the differences. It's sad but true and it deeply wounds your wallet. It takes time to develop a good taste for wine.

Puglia Week on Do Bianchi

2011-04-13T11:01:00.000-07:00

Just a quick shout out to Jeremy Parzen and his blog Do Bianchi, which is dedicating a week to Puglia wine, food, and travel stories. He's got some great photos and videos, so check em out!

The Puglia Wine Review

2011-04-11T15:40:00.000-07:00

If you've noticed the ads for WineChateau.com at the top of my posts, you've noticed that I've found a sponsor. Visit the web site if you get a chance; they have a great selection of Puglia wines. Which brings me to the difficulty I've been having: It's difficult to find high-quality wines from Puglia in Portland, Oregon. I've noticed that the super market chain Fred Meyer carries Taurino winery's Notarpanaro, one of my favorite wines from Puglia, for a mere $18. However, the best Puglia wines are still in Puglia.

As a result of Wine Chateau's sponsorship, I'm going to begin a monthly search and seizure of Puglia wines in Portland. Once a month, I'll post reviews of Puglia wines and tell you where I found them in Portland. If you're in Portland, it might be fun to follow along, and maybe we can organize a wine tasting in connection with my supper club, Hip Nana.

Two reviews of Puglia wines:

Terravecchia’s 2007 “Lámia” Primitivo

Rating: 4

Price: $11.50

Where to Buy: Pastaworks

Short Review: This wine shoots itself in the foot

Terravecchia is a brand of Alberto Longo Winery, which is located in the north of Puglia. With a nose of plum, chocolate, and a some cola, I thought the wine was going to be a great example of a typical Primitivo. At first, the mouth was silky and rich. Sadly, about nine tenths of the way through, a sharp sour-cranberry acidity breaks out, leaving my mouth to pucker and my mind to wonder: why the hell did that happen? This wine would otherwise be excellent. I’ve experienced the same disappointment drinking Alberto Longo’s 2004 Cab Franc/Merlot blend, which also had too much total acidity.

Note: Alberto Longo’s 2006 “Capoposto” Negroamaro is a winner if you can find it. It was one of my Top 10 Negroamaro Wines from Puglia of 2010.

(Photo: Cantele's masseria-styled winery, located on the Salento Peninsula in southern Puglia)

Cantele Winery’s 2007 Salice Salentino Riserva

Rating: 5

Price: $12

Where To Buy: Pastaworks

Short Review: Dependable, but nothing special

Salice Salentino wines are predominantly composed of the Negroamaro grape, around 80-90%, and Malvasia Nera usually fills in the rest. Nose of plum and dried cherry; mouth of cherry fruit, cedar, and smoke; the finish is thin. Overall, the wine is great with food but lacks oomph. It is not a typical Salice Salentino either: If you asked me to identify the wine I might say Montepulciano.

Note: If you’re going to buy Cantele wines, go for the 2009 or 2010 rose (one of my Top 5 Rosés from Puglia of 2010), the 2008 “Teresa Manara” Chardonnay, the 2008 “Alticelli” Fiano, or the 2006 “Teresa Manara” Negroamaro.

Tomorrow I'm bottling wine at Brooks Winery in Willamette Valley. Can't wait!

(Note on Rating System: I balance my rankings between quality and price, both elements go toward 50% of the rating)

Puglia Spotting: Enzo's Caffe Italiano

2011-04-08T13:46:00.001-07:00

Two nights ago I met with an Italian language group in a newly opened Italian restaurant on NE Alberta Street. Called Enzo's Caffe Italiano, it features traditional Pugliesi food. Chef Enzo Lanzadoro is from Puglia, and he grew up near the city of Matera (pictured above and below), which was made famous by Mel Gibson's movie the Passion of the Christ. The region is best known for making wines with Negroamaro, Primitivo, and Aglianico.

Walking into the unpretentious restaurant immediately took me back to Puglia. The Italian language group, with 15 or so people, looked like an Italian family at Sunday dinner. The table dominated the small restaurant, leaving only two other tables for the other diners. The components of the restaurant's antipasto were on display, from marinated peppers to salami. Some of the traditional dishes that Enzo serves are orecchiette con rape (orecchiette pasta with broccoli rabb) and Spaghetti Carbonaro alla Bari (spaghetti carbonara is known as a dish from Rome, but the people of Bari will strongly disagree: the Baresi version includes carmalized onions). Enzo's wife explained that she makes the orecchiette daily and that she uses 90.999 percent semonlina flour; the remainder is a secret.

Especially awesome was seeing the wine list, which almost exclusively featured Pugliesi wines (prices between $19-$30). There are wines by Castello Monaci, Vincenzo Vita, Paolo Leo, and others. If you want to go to Puglia for a decent price, I definitely recommend Enzo's Caffe Italiano.

Two Excellent Cabernet Sauvignons for Under $15

2011-04-03T12:49:00.000-07:00

Italian wine - buy 6 or more bottles and get 1/2 off shipping with code "tun39"

I find inexpensive Cabernet Sauvignons pretty hit or miss, and sadly, most of the time when I buy an unknown Cabernet Sauvignon for less than $15 it's just no good. I recently found two very popular Cabs that you can probably find everywhere in the United States. They suit my tastes, are exceptionally delicious with all of the typical characteristics that I expect from a Cabernet, and they're cheap.

2006 Hogue Cellars "Genesis" Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
Price: $11 at Safeway
Pairs With: Charles Bukowski, Russian Absurdism, Stephen Elliott
Like many Columbia Valley cabs, this one has a nice herbaceous character. It's medium to full bodied with good spice. It has tannins but nothing over the top. Most importantly, it has neither bright fruit or jamminess. This wine was one of the top picks at a recent blind-tasting party. Wine Spectator Score: 88/Robert Parker Score: 85

2008 Rodney Strong "Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon"
Price: $13 at Safeway
Pairs With: Dostoevsky, George Bataille, Truman Capote
I prefer this one just a tad. Full bodied all the way, it is as silky as they come. Fruit takes a back seat to earth. Strong tannins: You can pair this bad boy with anything robust. Long, long finish. No reviews out yet.

Hood River Wine Tasting in the Columbia Gorge

2011-03-30T10:32:00.000-07:00

From the What's the Difference Between Zinfandel and Primitivo Anyway Department

The wine tasting trip began with a bang. We passed the tallest waterfall in Oregon, Mulnomah Falls (pictured in the post below), and the I-84 took us along the Oregon bank of the surging Columbia River. The dramatic landscape continued until we arrived in the small town of Hood River, where signs advertised wineries with clear driving directions. I most wanted to visit Marchesi Winery, which features Primitivo, Barbera, Sangiovese, and Dolcetto wines, along with Pinot Noir and Pinot Grigio. Unfortunately, our wine tasting trip hit a road bump: the winery is only open Friday-Sunday. Bummer.

Cathedral Ridge Winery was just a couple minutes away, offering a massive selection of wines and a tasting of any 6 for $5. It was nice to see Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Zinfandel, and others alongside Pinot Noirs. Next, we visited Pheasant Valley Winery (also $5 for 6 tastes), which also offered a large selection of wines. Interestingly, the winery was getting ready to bottle its first vintage of Primitivo. I asked the guy behind the bar why the winemaker decided to label the wine "Primitivo" instead of "Zinfandel." "The vines are certified Primitivo vines," he explained, which is a pretty curious concept: Zinfandel and Primitivo are genetically identical grape vines. I've always assumed that the real difference between them is the fact that Primitivo vines are grown in Italy and Zinfandel vines are grown, primarily, in California. This was a rare opportunity to get to taste a Primitivo wine made from a vine sourced from Italy (likely from Puglia) then raised in Oregon's the highly unique environment (check the bottom part of this blog post to learn more about Oregon's strange growing environment).

Luckily, our man took off into the winery with a glass and returned with some unfiltered Primitivo. "It's going to taste a little thicker since it hasn't been filtered," he explained. Tasting it side by side with winery's Zinfandel, the differences were clear. The Primitivo was medium bodied and jammy with dark fruit, while the Zinfandel was lighter, spicier, and brighter. I don't think the Primitivo had a larger body simply because it hadn't been filtered. So, the different vines, the Zinfandel from the US and the Primitivo from Italy, clearly resulted in different wines even though the vines were genetically identical (Even wines and vines for ya?). If you make it to Pheasant Valley, make sure to try the 2007 Estate Organic Pinot Noir, which is drinking excellently right now.

If you're ever wondering where to eat in Hood River, I can't recommend the White Buffalo Wine Bar & Bistro enough. It is a hole in the wall with class, cafe-style tables with wine-store style wine racks on every wall, and everything it serves is made from scratch. They recommended a strange but good red blend by Erin Glen Vineyards called Tantrum ($22) and the chicken pot pie had a lattace-work of homemade crust. Mmmmm. "We have to make sure the servings are large enough because a lot of truck drivers pass through," explained our waitress. Now that's what I'm talking about!

We ended it all with a drive along the Historic Columbia River Highway and a short hike.