Roscoe’s Blog

Menu will include grilled sardines, house-made ravioli, stuffed quail, and a fruit tart for dessert.

Corso, Special Events, Wine

This was quite a day.  I decided to take a day off from all the eating and go and visit one of my favorite Chianti Classico producers, Castello di Volpaia.  They have the highest altitude vineyards in Classico, and these kinds of vineyards always make light, bright wines.  Add in they hand-pick the grapes, ferment on natural yeasts, and don’t filter the wines, and you have the standard recipe for the best quality wine.

The day started badly.   A 30 minute walk to the car rental agency was an exercise in frustration, as I neglected to bring my driver license.  I got a lot of exercise this day.  I headed out with two different sets of directions, because the Italians are notorious for giving poor ones, so I figured a combination was just the ticket.  And you, know I was right.  I missed a turnoff and ended up on the road the second set directed.  Lucky me, right?  Wrong.

I head up the hill to Volpaia, on this rather chilly, sunny day, really looking forward to the promised tour of the vineyards, when it starts lightly snowing.  Yes.  Snow and sunshine.  I head into the office, expecting to find a representative of the importer, as arranged, but who shows up?  Giovanna!  The owner!  Of the winery!  She asks if I’m still interested in the vineyard tour and I’m sheepishly saying yes, so we head out to the vineyard jeep and it starts dumping.  I kid you not, she jokingly says it never snows and the one day it does she has to take me out into the vineyards!  Though it was hard to see because of the snow, I stll got a good sense of the soils and aspects of the vineyards, why they plant the sangiovese here, the chardonnay and sauvignon there, and how the olive trees work into the scheme of the farm.  We get back and it was the first time I’ve ever been warmer in the cellar than out.  It was freezing!  Still, Giovanna gallantly showed me the entire winery operation, fashioned out of an entire hilltop town, where the three churches had been converted to various bottling and cellaring functions.

Then the tasting.  We had five wines, the first a Vermentino from a newly purchased vineyard in the Maremma, the hot (literally) area near the coast where cabernet varietals thrive and prices soar.  But she’s growing a little vermentino, which loves the warm weather and sandy soils of the region.  It was fantastic, no oak, very focused and direct on the palate, a little salty as is typical, but also with a fruity, passionfruit mid-palate.  Tried the newly released 2006 Classico, my favorite of the bunch, as always, no new oak, charming, delicate but fresh.  the 2006s are very exciting, I’m liking them more than the 2004s even.  Also, the Riserva 2005, 20% new French oak, savory and broad-shouldered, a good counterpoint to Brunellos made in the hotter area just south.  The Coltarella, a single vineyard sangiovese from the south-facing plot just below the town, with lots of oak, built for cellaring, and the Super-Tuscan blend, showing lots of cabernet character, again, a cellar wine.

Then the coolest thing, I head into the small cafe in the town, (it’s hard to explain, but the town is the winery, but a few of the buildings had independent businesses in them), walk up to have a cafe for the road and look right onto a Faema E61, the very coffee machine I’m proud to have at Corso! (The Italians don’t call it espresso, just cafe, just like they don’t call it Italian food, just food).   The barista pulled the best shot I’ve had the whole trip and I conveyed with my hands how happy I was with the machine.  And she goes off on it, my only understanding that she too was proud to work with such a fantastic piece of machinery.  I came to understand that it’s been there for 40 years, so was probably bought new.  What she probably doesn’t know is how legendary that machine has become in the years since. If you haven’t had a shot of cafe from our machine at Corso, go there RIGHT NOW and have one.  And I don’t mean an Americano or cappuccino!  Ours is better than any I’ve had so far here.  What can I say?  Proud parent here.

So head down in the hill in the snow and by the time I hit the main road in the valley the snow is over and it seems like a dream.  I head into Classico and see some of my favorite vineyards and wineries, all closed as it’s the off season, but head into Grieve to have a little lunch.  I find an Enoteca that has some excellent salumi, but with a serious cruvinet system, where you purchase a card with a dollar amount on it and go over the the free standing machines, each of which offer tastes of ten different wines at different prices.  I tried a dozen Classicos I’d never heard of so if I can figure out if they’re imported we’ll have some new ones at either Corso or Rivoli.  I also had a bunch of Super-Tuscans, some IGTs (a new classification which allows for different styles of wines) and some grappas.

Typically, the whites were kept in a separate room away from the main area, the cruvinet only had four wines in it, three were from Friuli and Alto-Adige and only featured one Vernaccia, expensive and no doubt oak aged.  It was weird to see whites in the Enoteca displayed almost like porn in a local video store.  Whites are the bastard stepchild of this area: while you see a bottle of wine at just about every table in trattorias and restaurants, none are white, even at Fuor d’Acqua.  And I’m happy that the Fiorentinos have embraced Vermentino, which I found prominent on all lists, though no doubt are slow movers, while Vernaccia has in some cases simply disappeared.   It’s sad for this historic region, one of the first DoCGs in Italy, but sadly deserved as they haven’t kept up with the times.

So I was a little nervous driving back into Florence, but rather easily found our apartment and a parking spot.  I love driving in this town, the narrow streets with pedestrians spilling off the impossibly narrow sidewalks making for quite the sport.  I like to drive, so for those of you who like this too, do not miss Florence.  But of course Florence is patball compared to the championship game in Rome!

We kept the car overnight as we’re headed to Da Delfina tomorrow, the restaurant Craig and Annie Stoller named their San Francisco restaurant after.  Stay tuned!

Italy, Wine