BT#5: Descent Into Bacchanalia...

Well, it was supposed to rain, but it didn't. Instead the sunny afternoon found the crew at Taverna, a casual Italian restaurant opened by Alberto Lombardi,  who has been at the forefront of Dallas Italian restaurants for 30 years. The long table was jam packed with a staggering array of brown bags. Nothing to do but take a deep breath and start tasting and taking notes!

1)  The first wine (NOT in the above photo...) showed aromatics of lemon zest with brisk acidity and a dry minerally finish with a slightly bitter edge. Medium bodied with tons of flavor but a modicum of fruit, the wine had to be Italian. The weight pointed to Cortese and Gavi di Gavi it was. 2008 from Marchesi de Barolo.


2)  Butterscotch and Meyer lemons with nicely integrated toast on the finish. The wine screamed California Chardonnay. John astutely picked up aging notes in the touch of darkness in the butterscotch. Brilliant acidity suggested Sta. Rita Hills. Indeed the wine was Gratis 2004 Chardonnay with fruit from the famed Seasmoke Vineyard.

3)  Layers of citrus oils and rocks inform the aromatics and flavors of the next wine. John exclaims, "Pinot Bianco" and then "or Pinot Gris or Pinot Auxerrois or Riesling or one of those Alsatian..." If only he'd stopped with his first thought. Terlano Pinot Bianco 2008 from the rocky vineyards of Alto Adige. I guess nobody reads my blog.... check it out. Tasting the Rock at the Center at the Center of the Wine.

4)  Whit introduces the next wine as just something fun they brought to stump the group. And stump us it did. Gorgeously floral and complex with both indescribable lightness and depth with a beautiful balance of acidity and minerality. Wow, I really enjoyed this wine. Turns out to be from young producers in Friuli. The main grape is Rondinella Bianca. The grape is normally red, but they found some trending to white in a corner of their Valpolicella vineyard and isolated and developed the clones. Hence the name, From Black to White, Il Bianco, 2008. From Zyme.

5)  Poached pears, apples and hints of citrus. The fruit is sweet, the texture is rich, the finish is dry. Tasting with a fuzzy brain, instead of instinct, I kept trying to fit it into the Hyde Vineyard in Carneros, but no, the wine was French and NOT Chardonnay. If anyone said Chateauneuf du Pape Blanc, it went unnoticed. Les Cailloux, 2008.

6)  Finally a decanter of red wine is passed around and like a sprinter jumping from the blocks, the wine is mowed down. France, YES! Bordeaux, YES! Right Bank, YES! Pomerol, YES! 2000, YES! Vieux Chateau Certan, YES, YES, YES!!!!  The wine is, in fact, quite spectacular and pretty damned perfect in my humble opinion. 2000 Vieux Chateau Certan. Pomerol. Thanks Will, and good luck in Charleston. We'll miss you, that's for sure!

7)  One whiff and the cat's out of the bag on this wine as well. Napa Cabernet redolent with black fruit, a touch of smoke and dark chocolate, well-integrated fine grained tannins. Again, John calls for an older wine. And it was. 1996 Sullivan Estate Cabernet, in perfect condition. In a  perfect state of transition, showing both primary and secondary fruit and only 13.2%

8)  Dark purple in color, showing milk chocolate and dark black fruit with a structured smoky, toasty finish. The wine is pegged as South American, but every variety is called out except Merlot. Santa Ema 2007 Reserve Merlot.

9)  An older wine. The aromatics perplexed some tasters. What's that smell? Hmm. Barnyard or brett, brett or barnyard? You gotta know the territory. Sweet dried fruits on a silky yet grippy finish. France? Most definitely. 1995 Chateau de Fonbel, Saint-Emilion. 

10)   Wow, cherries, chocolate, chocolate covered cherries. Giuseppe yells out "Brach's!" from the other end of the table. Long, lingering finish. Definitely grenache! 2005 Olivier Hillare Chateauneuf du Pape. 

11)  MORE cherries, this time with brilliant acidity, a long leathery finish and surprising tannic grip on the finish. I'm thinking Sangiovese, but I'm told to go west. Rioja, tempranillo, time in barrel. It all adds up. Marques de Murrieta Reserva Reserva, 2005.

12)  Is my glass just stained with flavors? Am I really tasting more cherries? Yes. This time they turn dark and perfumed, rich and spicy. Pinot Noir? Yes it is! Is Pinot's long run started to fade? We've tasted 11 wines before the first Pinot Noir. The group pegs this wine. It's been at just about every one of these groups. 2007 En Route Pinot Noir.

13)  More bright red fruit. The name Hermitage is kicked around, but this didn't taste like Syrah from the Northern Rhone, not enough meat, no bacon. Just clean red fruits with dark edged minerals. But Hermitage it is. Definitely not Australia and the acid's high for California. From Betts and Scholl, 2005.

14)  "98 points Robert Parker," announces Giuseppe as he walks around the table with a decanter. Dense, dark, cloudy and opaque. Monolithic notes of licorice, violet, black and blue fruits overlay minerally asphaltics, underbrush and roasted meats with a dense structured finish. This wine didn't come within 100 feet of a filter. Glasses are stained with grit, but that doesn't compare to the sludge in the bottom of the decanter. 2001 Clos Mogador, Priorat. (Hmm. Someone needs to buy really expensive unsold wine. 98 Point Cellars. Make some real money!)

At this point, we start to become aware of the time. It's a large group and many people brought numerous wines and everyone's getting a little loud and rowdy. But we've got to be out of the restaurant before the evening crowd starts to arrive and we've still got 7 or 8 wines to go. So we pick up the pace and cut back on examination and conversation (such as it is at this point) about wines. Which is a real shame and not very fair to the people whose wines are at the end of the tasting. Wines are chose with a lot of thought and often at considerable expense and now they're not receiving reciprocal attention. Some great wines are going to be overlooked.

15)  Case in point. The next wine was opened and double decanted around noon. (Maybe a little early, as John is very disappointed at how the wine is showing. We probably should have tasted it much earlier.) Still, it's magnificent wine, the fruits are a little muted, the aromatics are dried and dusty, but the perfumes are still delicate and beautiful. But the boisterous setting does the wine no favors.  A treasure, 1994 Diamond Creek Cabernet. Volcanic Hill. 

16)  Spicy cherries, wild berries, brilliant acids, long complex finish. Gorgeous wine. Sounds like the theme of the day. Whit offers 5 bucks to anyone who gets close. Didn't matter. A hundred bucks wasn't going to get me any closer. Another wine from Alto Adige. Bressan Schioppettino, 2004 from the Bressan winery in Fruili. And yes, Schioppettino is the local name for the grape. You might know it as Ribolla Nero. I do now.

17)  Hmm. Lush black fruit, hints of eucalytus and vanilla. Rich, full-bodied, integrated tannin. Balance and integration hint at some bottle age. Napa Cab anyone? Yes, by golly! Rudd Oakville Cabernet, 2001.

18)  More big dark fruits, rich tannins and a kiss of barrique on the finish. California, NO. France, NO. Italy, YES. Super-Tuscan, YES. About as far as anyone gets. Will calls out Montpulciano and yes, it's Montepulciano, with Sangiovese, Marselan, and Alicante. Eneo, 2006 from Montepeloso.

19)  Wow, another older Cabernet. Need more time for this wine as well. Structure is a little atypical for Napa, but it's a beautiful, well aged wine from a great producer in a much maligned vintage. 1998 Pride Cabernet Sauvignon.

20 & 21)  A couple of 2006 Barbera's from Marchesi di Barolo, Ruvei 2006 and Maraia 2006. By this time, we were paying checks and people were starting to leave. No notes were taken.

So, 14 people, 21 bottles of wine. Not many empties. There's some left in a bottle I brought, but I put a pour restrictor on the bottle, which made the pours a little stingier.

These tastings started with a group that wanted to taste wines blind and try to reason through the wines as an interactive group. That requires a little self-discipline. Every glass, every bottle does not have to be consumed. There is nothing wrong with spitting or dumping (even the staggering high quality wines people have generously brought to share.) It's always fun to be able to go back and retaste favorites. OOPS. Sorry. Didn't mean to lecture, so please forgive this old man's rant.

We've had a great thing going, let's keep it.

Just Black Bean Ravioli and Yesterday's Wine

Many years ago, while Susan and I were both exploring the counter-culture of the late Sixties and early Seventies our parents met and became best of friends. Particularly the Mom's. One of the common traits of both women was their unfailing ability to make friends with every shopkeeper with whom they did business. Since these relationships are reciprocal and they lived in the same neighborhood, it is not surprising that they did business with the same shopkeepers. One of those businesses was an automotive repair shop run by the Lucido family. Susan and I continued to business with them for years after we met and were married.

The story continues at the local White Rock Local Market which has started near our house. Susan has been buying pasta from Lucido's Pasta and Herbs and last week she finally popped the question. Sure enough, it's the same family. I've maintained for years that Dallas is the largest small town in the world. So tonight we had their Ravioli filled with Black Bean and Jalapeno. Tossed it with olive oil, butter and garlic; coated lightly with tomato sauce and it was delicious. The jalapeno was not spicy while eating the pasta, but the heat did aggregate and the mouth began to tingle. We washed it down with a cool, refreshing bottle of dry Rose'.

Spring brings many wonderful things. In the wine world it means rose' wine. Specifically dry rose' wine. Young, fresh, the first serious offerings from the harvest of the previous fall. (Apply your choice of metaphor for the magical rotation of the seasons here.)

In the retail world it means "get rid of last year's rose's!"

Conventional wisdom tells us that the fruit fades as the wine grows older and certainly no one would choose to pay full price for last year's wine when the new wine is on the shelf. So down come the prices. But what's in the bottle?

In the name of science, I picked up one of last years' bottles and that's what we had with our Ravioli. 2008 Mas Carlot. Mas Carlot is located in the Costieres de Nimes, on the Western Bank of the Rhone River. The wine is made from the typical Provencal varietals, Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre and from grapes ripened for red wine. The juice is bled from the tanks during maceration when the desired color and flavor is attained, and then fermented to dryness. (Usually the same alcohol as the red wines.) Arrested maceration leaves higher apparent acidity which gives the wines their fresh crispness and creates dry, delicate fruit flavors of strawberries and raspberries, which can range as deep as black cherries, depending on the length of the maceration.

Interestingly, the Mas Carlot was a little disappointing when it arrived last spring. But it really showed well tonight. The fruit was clean and bright and the wine was crisp and refreshing. Color was pink with no hints of amber. It's possible that it's just been a long time since I had a bottle of rose, but the wine seemed better tonight than it did a year ago!

Anyway, at the drastically low prices, last year's wines are selling briskly. When the new container hits town, we'll be thirsty and ready for the new harvest to see us through the hot summer months!

Tasting the Rock at the Center of the Wine

It was a gorgeous day. Gentle warm sun, cool breeze, no clouds and it was time for lunch. 

There was an Italian portfolio tasting downtown. I could go. Time was tight, I had to try to be back at the store on time. Transportation, parking, negotiating the changes of elevators necessary to get to the 42nd floor. Taste wines. The winery reps were there from Italy, you have to show some interest and respect and then there's always people you know. It's tough to be quick!

On the other hand, I had a sandwich, I could just go park my car in the sun and nap.

I fell asleep at my desk just thinking about it. Whatever it was that was in my hands fell on the floor. The noise woke me up and I went to the wine tasting. Good decision.

Emerging from the third elevator, I gave myself 30 minutes and plunged into the wines. The first table found Petra Egarter pouring the wines of Cantina Andriano from Alto Adige. What caught my palate was the Pinot Bianco. Very lean, very mineral with suggestions of green pears and apples barely defining the precise edges of the wine. Hello! I love this wine! Theme of the day.

Inspired, my next stop was Cantina Terlan, also from Alto Adige, where I saw an old friend, the Terlan Classico. I used to sell a lot of this wine when I first got into the wine biz. It's a blend of Pinot Bianco, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc that's a fresh, clean alternative to the standard California expressions and especially to the ubiquitous Pinot Grigio. The brand has changed suppliers a couple of times and I'd lost track of the wine, which showed well, gentle aromatics, easy viscosity and the characteristic mineral finish.

But before I go on to the Pinot Bianco's, let me put these wines in their geographic context.

Alto Adige is located in the foothills of the Dolomites (Alps) in Northeast Italy. The vineyards are located on the south and east facing slopes of the valleys at altitudes between 800 and 3000 feet.  Soils are decomposed dolomite and calcareous rock. The high mineral content gives these wines their signature intense mineral core. The warm days gently ripen the grapes, the cold nights give them their brilliant acidity.

The Pinot Bianco Classico was very lean. Notions of lemon oil infused the hints of green apple and pear that surrounded the intense mineral core. Technical notes inform the wine: fermentation in stainless steel, no malolactic, aging on the lees in steel for six months. Very direct, very focused. (Now in stock at the store!)

The Pinot Bianco Vorburg was next. Fruit for this wine comes from older vineyards higher up on the slopes. Yields are lower and the juice more concentrated, the wine is fermented in large oak casks with full malolactic and twelve months aging sur lees. Again, the signature polished river rock provides the rich, mineral core. The wine is still lean but the acids are not as crisp and prevalent as the Classico. A thin veil of elegant richness wraps the tongue. A burnished patina colors the bottom of the rock.

Sales Director Klaus Gasser had a couple of treats under the table...

The 1993 Pinot Bianco was made from the same fruit as the Vorburg. Like the Vorburg it was fermented and aged for 1 year in barrel, but this wine had been racked back into steel and aged for 9 years on the lees before bottling. Aromatics were a melange of delicate floral perfumes. The wine was a delicate fusion of flowers, citrus and cream. Emphasis on delicate veil, the acids keep the wine from heaviness. As always these notions are wrapped around the rock at the center.

Klaus then pulls out a dirty, crusty bottle, a 1955 Vorburg, recorked about ten years ago. The wine is the color of old gold. Flavors and aromatics are difficult to analyze. Complex notions of toasted nuts, dried fruits and citrus peels inform the aromatics and expand on the palate where they, yes, they coat the rock at the center. It's a visual thing, this round rock, dark on the bottom where it rested in the soil. Years of handling impart an amber burnish and rich layered patina.

Tasting old wines is time travel. In 1955, in the Italian Alps, the grapes were transformed by the sun from earth and water. They were preserved through fermentation, then stored in cool, dark caves until they were revealed in Dallas, Texas on a glorious spring afternoon in 2010. In 1955, I was five years old. My youngest sister was born in October, about when the wine was being made. Elvis arrived in 1956 when the wine was bottled.

2010 finds us both alive. I don't know about the wine but I've had some dicey moments along the way. We both have replacement parts. I have a new kidney, the wine has a new cork! I only wish I was as alive, vibrant and healthy as the wine.

Anatomy of a Wine Dinner

A big wine dinner looks easy enough. Snag a winemaker looking to show his wares, book a restaurant on a slow night. Come up with a menu that delivers enough panache to entice the buyers. Send out an email, do some publicity and voila. Everybody shows up, enjoys some good wine and some good food and goes home happy. Maybe even some wine is sold. As one might expect, there's a lot of work putting it all together.

 

Monday night a sold out room enjoyed a magnificent evening of great wines and great food to welcome Jean-Guillaume Prats, managing director of the great Bordeaux estate Cos d'Estournel to Dallas. The amazing food was prepared by Chef Bruno Davaillon and Sous Chef Eric Brandt of The Mansion on Turtle Creek.

One of the perks of my job is that I get to work these dinners. Work? You might ask. Yes, work.

I showed up about 4:30 to find that Randy Mclaughlin, one of the masterminds behind the event was already opening the bottles. It wasn't as complicated as the big Bordeaux dinners we host in the fall, but that just meant we were able to pay more attention to the preparation of the wines.

Randy handed the job of opening the bottles over to me and he began the tedious task of double-decanting 32 bottles of wine. Double decanting involves splash pouring the wine into a decanter and then carefully pouring the wine back into the original bottle. Splash pouring puts bubbles of air into the wine. The double pouring exposes the wine to air twice. The surface area of the bubbles combined with the double pour pulls the aromatic and flavor molecules to the surface and increases perception of the fruit characteristics of the wine. (Here's a link to a scientific study of this process as it relates to champagne.)   We double decanted all the younger wines three hours before they were poured. The 1995 was carefully decanted and served from the decanters.

Of course sediment is the other reason to decant. The 2006 and 2007 wines were pretty clean. The 2001 threw a lot of clunky sediment. So much that we had to rinse all the bottles before they could be refilled. The 1995 appeared to have been stored upside down! The necks contained a sticky sediment which stuck to the corks. Pouring these was tricky indeed. The good news was that each decanter of the '01 had a little wine left in the bottom. Hmm. It didn't take much ingenuity to aggregate the dregs into one decanter. We wound up with enough for two small glasses. A nice reward for a couple of hours of tense and tedious work.

Oops! Not yet. More work to be done. We lay out the menus and wine lists. Then check each place setting, making sure the glasses are clean and no stray glasses have made it onto the tables and that they are arranged correctly so every place setting is identical. 

Now we can sit for a minute and enjoy the wine. The 2001 is magnificent.

Then, back to work. Randy meets with the wait staff and I start opening the white wines. It's the first time I've seen a bottle of white Bordeaux from Cos. The label is the familiar Cos label, but where you expect maroon ink, it's pale green. Interesting. The aromatics are tart and redolent of lime.

By now guests are starting to show, so it's on with the jackets and on with the show!

Dom Ruinart 1998 Blanc de Blanc Champagne is poured as hors d' oeuvres are passed. The pale gold wine is still in the glass, but lively on the palate. The silky mousse delivers citrus oils and honeyed hazelnuts with a touch of lemon right on the finish. Goes beautifully with the Gougeres stuffed with goat cheese and the skewers of lobster tempura with tamarind sauce and a bite of watermelon.

John Rector, who pulls these evenings together, welcomes everyone and introduces our guest, Jean-Guillaume Prats. Jean-Guillaume is just in from a tasting in Shanghai with Angelo Gaja and Opus One and is "happy to be back in civilization." They both lament the absence of the 2009 barrel samples that had been bottled for tonight's tasting. Jean-Guillaume had personally consigned them to the air carrier, but the Iceland volcano intervened and the samples have yet to arrive in Dallas. Nice. It's not everyday that you can legitimately use a volcano as an excuse!

The 2006 Cos d'Estounel Blanc is poured with the Tuna Tartare and Chilled Pea Soup. The wine is produced from grapes grown at the very northern tip of the Medoc where the Gironde meets the Atlantic. 2006 was just the second vintage the wine was produced. The wine is crisp and voluptuous simultaneously with lime and guava notes. It's fantastic with the bright green fresh pea soup and the curry seasoned raw tuna. (Sorry, no photos of the food, it just seemed too rude. But the dish was spectacular in the big white bowl!)

The 2006 Chateau Goulee 2006 is from the same area. It is good solid wine with notes of black fruit and cassis leading to a gently gripping finish of vanilla and spice. It doesn't overwhelm the rich delicacy of the braised veal cheeks, which just melt in the mouth.

A rare slice of Kobe beef with Duck Fat French Fries came with the 2006 and 2007 Cos d'Estournel's. The 2007 was silky smooth with round juicy fruits. The '06 was much more powerful and structured and was a great match for the rich sticks of potato.

A spectacular trio of cheeses chosen from the cheese case at the Sigel's Addison store accompanied the 2001 and 1995 vintages. I've heard the story from both Rector and Monsieur Prats of the discussion of elevating the quality of Cos d'Estournel after the 2000 vintage, so it must be true. It was a fateful breakfast when John gave his blessing to the reduction of yields (and increase of price) to transform Cos from very good wine to great wine. 2001 was the first vintage to reflect this change in vineyard management and the proof is in the bottle. While the wine is ripe, concentrated and built for the long haul, it sure is fun to drink right now with its exuberant dark fruit and seamless integration of powerful flavor and powerful tannin. 

Tonight is the second time I've had the '95 at a Cos dinner and both times I've been surprised by the blend. 50% Merlot. The most ever. The wine is maturing. The color is showing some notes of amber and the aromatics are powerful and complex, dominated by cedar and dried fruits and flowers. It's like opening an old chest full of exotic smells.

Dessert was accompanied by a rich 1996 Chateau Coutet. We were to open  the wines after the entree, but when I was getting up to go, Randy was standing by my the table, looking exhausted. He had already opened the wines. All the corks had crumbled under the pull of the corkscrew and had to extracted piece by piece.  He then carefully decanted the wines. I remembered the dinner I'd worked last fall. Randy was feeling bad that night and went home after opening the wines. It was my first time opening wines solo at a big event and the corks had crumbled. I was crumbling as well, but managed to keep the wine clean, pour it back into the bottle and everything was fine. Moments like these can shake your soul!

Finally, the guests have left. We pack up the unopened bottles and the ever generous staff helped load the cases into Randy's car.

10:30. Time to go home.

Following Dreams: Robert Craig and Tor Kenward

I'm not sure when it was that I realized I was not going to do something else when I grew up. That this is it. The pinnacle. End game. Thirty-five years ago a series of decisions inadvertently landed me in the packaging industry. After being down-sized ten years ago, I answered a want-ad in the newspaper and became a wine consultant. Bingo! And here I am. Not a bad gig really. I taste wines and then sell them.

Robert Craig and Tor Kenward took a slightly different path and wound up with significantly different end games. Theirs would truly be considered pinnacles as they have small family wineries producing extremely high quality wines.

Tor developed a passion for wine and moved to Napa, where he spent 27 years working for Beringer. Most of those years were spent working with Ed Sbragia and Bob Steinhauer developing and marketing the Private Reserve program, wines which have one of the longest track records in Napa for quality, style, and aging.

Together, these men walked vineyards and tasted grapes both in California and Europe in pursuit of quality. And made the wines. For twenty years, Tor's bonus was that he got to make a barrel of wine for himself. That's a lot of wine-making! And when Beringer did their deal with the Australians, Tor sold his stock and retired. And now he makes his own wine, in small lots, a few barrels at a time.

Robert Craig came from the Texas coast. With a degree in accounting, he joined the Coast Guard to serve his then required time in the armed service. Which took him to San Francisco where he discovered wine country and his passion. The only problem was that the only way he could crack into the biz was to have been born into the action or be a field worker. So he became a banker and started putting together land deals in Napa. He sold Donald Hess vineyard land on Mount Veeder and that was his ticket. He built Hess Collection into the Napa winery it is today. And now he makes his own wine.

I knew a guy thirty some odd years ago who dropped out of law school and eventually started selling wine for Sigel's. He had a passion for wine then as he does to this day. John Rector is now Executive Vice President for Sigel's and he's the guy that brought Tor Kenward and Elton Sloan, Robert Craig's Managing Partner to the Greenville Avenue store last week for a portfolio tasting. A huge enthusiastic throng of passionate wine-loving customers showed up to taste and buy the wines produced by these men who had spent their lives following their passion.

Oh yeah, John sold me a few bottles of wine through the years as well. And here I am. Passionately selling wines.

Just a Friday Night: Pizza and Wine (but special!)

We finally made it out to Il Cane Rosso last Friday night for the first night of celebration for significant birthday for my wife Susan. We started with a trip to Love Field to pick up our eldest son Travis (her first surprise of the weekend) and then onto the pizza.

Il Cane Rosso is a guerrilla attack on Dallas' notions of pizza started by Jay Jerrier. Jay had a wood-burning oven made in Italy and then had it mounted on a trailer so he can pull it from location to location. Having a really big party? Give him a call. 

Three nights a week, he sets up in the parking lot front of the Chocolate Angel at Preston and Forest in North Dallas and uses their dining room. Voila! Table Service. And best of all: NO LIQUOR LICENSE!!! They totally encourage BYOB as long as you don't linger at your table while people are waiting. (Just kinda not in the spirit of the place...) Pizzas are one size and are strictly Neopolitan.

Now Travis has spent the last few years in Brooklyn conducting intense investigations into the state of Pizza in New York City and qualifies as an expert. As he perused the list of pies, he noticed many references to New York pizza culture. Notably Paulie Gee (noted fanatic who just opened his own place.) So why was I taking Travis to eat pizza in Dallas, of all places? Because Il Cane Rosso is getting serious notice on NYC pizza blogs. Check out the dialogue between Jay and Paulie here on Slice, a most influential NYC blog.

The place was hopping, but service was friendly and welcoming. We ordered a series of pies, starting with basic tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil and then moving on to artichokes and mushrooms. We finished with the Super Mario, featuring the chef's choice of ingredients, usually involving multiple meats and usually spicy. All the pies were spot-on. Very correct and quite delicious!

The oven is wood fired, and gets to 900 degrees. The thin pies cook in around two minutes which gives some char to the crust and melts the cheese. There's not a lot of bulky, stringy masses of cheesy glop to hold  the heat, so they cool quickly and it's a rush to eat the pie while it's still hot. Tough to do! Everyone wants to talk about how good they are, but there is no time. The pies came quickly, allowing just enough time to have a little wine, savor what you just ate and get ready to move on.

Oh. The wine. Yes we did have a bottle of wine. The 2007 Rosso di Montalcino from one of my favorite producers, Casanova di Neri. I posted a note about the Brunello in February. The Rosso is all Sangiovese and usually comes from younger vines and from vineyards not used in the main estate wines. Required aging is just a year and the wines, while complex, are not as austere and structured as the Brunello's. Still, the wine's savory dark cherries with hints of soy punctuated the cheeses, toppings and the char of the crust and primed the anticipation of the next pie.

Until the middle of the third pie, when we started to slow down. But not much, no. We finished.

Travis had noticed bags of marshmallows under the table of ingredients. Turns out the dessert pizza is a S'mores Calzone. Good not-too-sweet chocolate folded with marshmallows inside a pizza crust and baked until slightly charred and gooey. And yes. It was every big as good as it sounds.

At the end of the evening, our waitress had mentioned to Jay that he had a customer who had been to Paulie Gee's in Brooklyn, so Jay came over and we had a good visit after dinner. Even if there had been doubts, they were erased. This guy is serious about his pizza. Thanks for a great evening.

I'm sorry, the overall rush was so great I forgot to take pictures. What you see was taken from the Il Canne Rosso Facebook page. Check 'em out!

But come by the store. I'll fix you up with some good Italian wine before you go!

Pizza and Carmignano? No.... Crabcakes and Viognier!

We had planned to finally make it to Il Cane Rosso for their guerrilla restaurant quick-fired Neopolitan Pizza, but Mom called and said she was making crab cakes. 

'Nuff said! 

She does ethereal minimalist cakes! Just beautiful crab meat with just enough mayonnaise to bind. Chill, pack crushed saltines on top of the cake and then into a hot saute pan (crust-side down). While the cakes are browning she packs more crushed saltines on the cakes and after initial browning, she loosens the cakes from the bottom of the pan and lets them finish cooking. Tension is high as she manages to turn them over. I don't understand why in the hell they're not sticking, but the cakes are a little loose and maintenance of shape is somewhat tenuous. Somehow they come out of the pan onto the plates and then it's straight to the table. (I look longingly at the browned stuff in the bottom of the pan and say a prayer for the unborn sauce...) 

Served simply. A little tartar sauce, Meyer Lemon wedges. Crispy potatoes, asparagus, tomatoes and mozzarella.

I took a bottle of Melville Viognier. The wine's rich flavors of honeysuckle, peaches and Meyer lemons set the sweet crab on a pedestal and the long mineral finish let all the flavors fade into a beautiful sunset.