Brunello » Deep Red Cellar

Picnic On The Beach

Brunello, California, baguette, docg, food, proscuitto, recipes, red wine, tomatoes, wine 2 Responses »

Aug 182010

My husband and I recently celebrated our anniversary. It is amazing to reflect back on a life that started as a couple, grew into a family and now is in the thick of tag teaming raising a child. We’ve shared such a full, fun-packed ride. But this is not a Hallmark card so let’s move on….

I was looking through a MINI Cooper magazine my father gave me when I came across an article on picnics – what foods to take, what wine to drink, etc. It inspired me to buy a picnic basket and take my husband on a beach picnic to celebrate our many happy years together. I thought it might be a fun twist to the typical “get dressed up and go to a fancy restaurant” type celebration we usually do.

I searched the internet for the perfect picnic basket. It had to have wine glasses, real plates (plastic was out), silverware and have an overall cool look about it. I was surprised to see so many sites devoted just to picnic baskets but the options became narrower the more I looked. I ordered one but sent it back for poor quality (the challenges of internet shopping) but then I found a second one that was perfect!

Our date started by going to our wine cellar and selecting a special wine. We chose a 2004 Brunello di Montalcino from Il Palazzone. This is a winery I stumbled on too late in our Italian adventures to visit but sent our current landlords there on a recent Italian vacation. Laura Gray*, the estate manager, gave them the red carpet treatment and our landlords in turn brought this bottle of Brunello back for us! Il Palazzone is a very small winery producing only 8,000 bottles of wine a year. Although American owned Laura and her husband, Marco Sassetti, an indigenous Montalcinese live on and run the estate. After enjoying our bottle, I can assure you the wines Il Palazzone are exquisite and a perfect reflection of why Brunello di Montalcino is a prestigious DOCG wine worthy to be the center of any special occasion (see “Boots And Brunello In Montalcino”). Our Brunello was bold, balanced and complex with a beautiful bouquet of dark cherries and plums along with notes of leather. It was really quite decadent. We were surprised and sad to see the bottle empty so quickly.

Since my husband is into food almost as much as I am, we decided to include shopping for the picnic as part of the date. We went to Boney’s Bayside Market – a quaint market that has healthy and gourmet foods all perfectly wrapped up into one. We spread our blanket on beautiful Coronado Beach and enjoyed our picnic fare as we watched the fog roll in and the dolphins gracefully swim by. It was one of the best anniversary celebrations yet…and we even got to wear flip-flops!

I encourage you to pack your own picnic and spread out a blanket on the beach or a grassy knoll. In fact, I’ll give you our menu as a sample to spark your gourmand within. Don’t forget your wine opener. Now go out there and have fun!

Menu

2 Demi Baguette (perfect size for the basket)

Crackers

Black Peppered Crusted Brie

5 Year Aged Canadian Sharp Cheddar

English Cotswold

Thin Sliced Proscuitto, Coppa & Genova Salame

Pork & Chicken Liver Mousse With Black Truffles

Seafood Pate

Roasted & Marinated Red Tomatoes

Fresh Sliced Strawberries, Blackberries & Blueberries

Chewy Date Nut Bars

Pellegrino And A Great Bottle of Wine

*To make reservations to visit Il Palazzone in beautiful Montalcino, Italy contact Laura Gray at laura@ilpalazzone.com or Tel. (0039) 0577 846142 and tell her Julie from Deep Red Cellar sent you – I guarantee the red carpet will be rolled out for you too!

A Very Nifty Gadget

Brunello, italy, super tuscan, wine 3 Responses »

Jun 072010

I was roaming the streets of Montalcino on a very blustery, cold January day when I stopped in a restaurant for lunch. As I settled into the warmth of the restaurant I discovered something spectacular. At a nearby table the waiter was pouring a glass of wine for a customer using the coolest gadget I’d ever seen! It attached to the wine bottle much like a cork stopper but had an almost Medusa like contraption coming out of it which worked like a mini decanter! That is when I first laid eyes on the “Centellino.”

The “Centellino” decants, oxidizes and pours the perfect portion of wine. The official “Centellino” website (www.centellino.it) explains the process: ”The wine during its flow down into the “amphora” spreads on the walls and frees all its flavors and organoleptic properties.” If for some reason you don’t finish the bottle, leave the “Centellino” in the bottle for unaltered preservation until your next glass. It is a patented design hand-made by blown glass in Italy. Amazing I thought – what a brilliant invention!

Much to my surprise and delight I found one of those nifty gadgets for sale later in the afternoon at an Enoteca as I was buying bottles of Brunello di Montalcino and Super Tuscans. Without a second thought I purchased one for myself and absolutely love it. It works like a charm and is uniquely lovely stirring up conversation at the dinner table.

If you think for a moment that I would let you in on this awesome toy without a chance to own one for yourself then you don’t know me very well. I just happen to have the “Centellino” in my store. You can easily shop for it under “nifty gadgets” or click on this link: Centellino Areadivino Wine Aerator & Decanter.

By the way, this would be a great Father’s Day gift!

source: www.centellino.it

Boots And Brunello In Montalcino

Brunello, docg, enoteca, italy, red wine, super tuscan, wine 1 Response »

Feb 032010

Most people know the Italians are good at making leather products and wine (among other things) so it stands to reason that when my family and I took a trip to Montalcino, those two things were on my mind.

Montalcino is located in the Val d’Orcia portion of Tuscany about 29 miles from Sienna. Settled during the Etruscan times, it was named after the “holm oak” which used to cover it’s terrain. Montalcino was known for it’s tanneries and high quality leather goods before it fell on hard times. It’s economic boost was enhanced due to the production of Brunello di Montalcino, the long-aging, luscious, red wine made from “Sangiovese Grosso” grapes. Brunello di Montalcino was the first wine to be designated as DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita). Today, there are over 200 producers of Brunello di Montalcino (aka “the little brown one” in reference to the color of the grape). In addition, Montalcino also produces Rosso di Montalcino and many lovely Super Tuscans among other wines.

I discovered while doing my research that there are clones of the Sangiovese grape which make up the different types of wine (i.e Brunello di Montalcino, Chianti, Nobile di Montepulciano, etc.). To be honest, I could not find a definitive answer as to exactly how many clones are in existence. I read anywhere from a whopping 650 “presumed” clones, to about 100 or so nationally recognized clones, to as little as 12 types of strains. Regardless of the type of clone, Sangiovese is characteristically known as a quality grape that has the ability to age at least 10 years.

It was incredibly cold as I walked through this beautiful, little town – amazed at the number of Enotecas that lined the streets. I couldn’t help but be excited at the thought of 1,000′s upons 1,000′s of bottles of wine surrounding me! I stopped in two shops (below is Enoteca di Piazza), was given generous tastings at both, and piled the car with cases of wine.

Hungry from the shopping extravaganza, my family and I headed to “Taverna del Grappolo Blu.” A restaurant which came highly recommended from several reading sources as well as my tour guide from “Banfi.” This is a cozy niche run by Luciano and Maria Pia. It’s tucked in a small alley and offers authentic, rustic food. I ordered “Pinci al Ragu di Carne,” a house specialty made of a meat sauce and hand-rolled pasta. The “Pinci” looked sort of like a cross between spaetzle and thick spaghetti. To say it was delicious is an understatement. It tasted so warm and comforting after a day out in the cold. After the extensive Brunello tasting earlier in the day, Rosso di Montalcino was the perfect choice to accompany this meal.

All trips I take are for different reasons but this particular trip had a purpose – to buy regional wines that stood out and begged to come home with me. That was easy to accomplish. And if you’re wondering about the boots…that was also easy to accomplish. As a matter of fact, even my husband purchased some fashion-forward models.

NOTES:

-Wines from Montalcino can be purchased from my affiliates: WineAccess.com, Wine Messenger and Snooth

-Taverna dei Grappolo Blu, Scale di Via Moglio 1, Montalcino, IT +39 0577847150

Castello Banfi – Montalcino

Brunello, barrels, doc, docg, red wine, super tuscan, vdt, wine, winery No Responses »

Jan 272010

My family and I went on a trip to Montalcino recently and took some time to stop by the famous Castello Banfi Estate for a tour and tasting. I am always surprised at how these unique opportunities stare me in the face here in Italy. I scheduled our appointment on the telephone. We arrived to a friendly greeting and a personal tour of the facility followed by a private tasting in their beautiful Enoteca. I realize we were visiting during the “low season;” however, amazed that we were the only ones around to see and experience this wonderful estate.

Castello Banfi is comprised of about 7,100 acres, 2,400 of which are made up of a “constellation” of single vineyards and the remaining acreage dedicated to olives, fruits, etc. The winery was founded by John Mariani, Sr., an American of Italian heritage, and is still run by the Mariani family today. This estate produces 26 different labels, from Brunello di Montalcino, DOCG Riserva to Moscadello di Montalcino, DOC with a smattering of Brunellos and Super Tuscans in between (they also have an estate in Piedmont that produces 15 different labels). As you can imagine, this estate is massive producing approximately 10 million bottles of wine annually! They have a state-of-the-art facility and are leading the way on the experimental forefront.

I was intrigued by their hybrid tanks that they use for fermenting some of their wines. These unique tanks are stainless steel on the bottom and top with wood in the center making for a very eye-catching impression. For traditional aging, they use Slovenian oak casks and barriques of French and American oak. Always attending to detail, Banfi winemakers personally select the raw wood from the forests of France according to their origin and physical characteristics for their French barriques. They season these barriques at the estate for 3 years (instead of the traditional 2 years). According to Banfi, this gives the wood rounder and more persistent aromas. Coopers (or barrel makers) use an indirect and cooler toasting than usual for about 3x longer than the traditional period of time to produce a more uniform and balanced flavor. Their custom-made barrels are larger (350 L.) than the traditional barrique (225 L.) as it is believed to provide ideal wood surface to volume of wine ratio. Their steel tanks are numerous and vary in size but some are by far the largest I’ve ever seen. Depending on the wine, they use various aging methods and combinations. One method has them combining wine aged in Slovenian casks with wine aged in French barriques, another method has them aging wine in various sizes of oak barrels and then of course, they do steel tank aging and bottle aging.

We finished our tour with a tasting at the Enoteca which is just as beautiful in it’s own right. We were given a generous tasting flight that helped us decide on our “souvenirs.” We walked away with Poggio Alle Mura, Brunello di Montalcino DOCG (made from select vineyards producing consistently outstanding Brunello), Summus Sant’Antimo DOC, and BelnerO IGT (both Super Tuscans).

If you would like to try a bottle, or two, or three of Banfi wines, you can shop: WineAccess.com or type “Banfi” in my “Snooth” search window to start shopping.