How To Drink "Flowers" - Nebbiolos from Valtellina

Most people, myself included, think of Piedmont in Northwestern Italy when they think about wines made from the Nebbiolo grape. The Langhe area in Southern Piedmont produces great, complex Barolos and Barbarescos, as well as simpler wines known as Langhe Nebbiolos. Barolos and Barbarescos are some of the most sought after and prestigious wines in all of Italy, commanding quite high prices. But there are also wonderful, more affordable Nebbiolo wines to be found in other areas of Northernwestern Italy, like those in Lombardy, the neighboring region just to the east of Piedmont.  This region of Italy is home to some of the most beautiful lakes of Northern Italy, such as Lake Como and Lake Garda.  There is an alpine valley in the far north of Lombardy called Valtellina which has been producing wine for over 2,000 years.  This mountainous area with very steep slopes produces red wine made mostly from Nebbiolo grapes, but they can also contain a small percentage of other locally grown grapes. These red wines, know locally as Chiavennasca, are lighter and less tannic than their counterparts in Piedmont due to cooler temperatures and higher elevations.  While young, these wines are bright crimson in color with aromatics of bright cherry, tar and rose water. As they age, they slowly transform into a crimson color with a brick orange rim and present more gamey, leather-like notes on the palate, but are still very floral and delicate.  

I recently had a Valtellina red wine at Republique, a fun, lively restaurant on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles.  The food there is modern French and the wine list has an interesting collection of off-the-beaten-path, mostly French and Italian wines.  The 2001 Balgera Valtellina Superiore from the village of Valgella was a perfect choice to accompany the wide variety of spices and flavors. To my delight, this wine went perfectly with every dish, from the hamachi crudo with a thai curry sauce to the hearty rotisserie chicken with mustard and chilis.  It never overpowered any of the more delicate flavors of the food, yet it stood up to some of the bolder ingredients.  Fifteen years in the bottle had mellowed the fruit somewhat, but what remained was still fresh and vibrant with enough lingering structure to compliment and support the fruit. Over the course of our meal the flavors kept blossoming. It felt like we were drinking flowers...delicious, delicate flowers!! 

The next time you're dining out I would suggest asking the sommelier if there are any Rosso di Valtellinas on the wine list.  For the best experience, try one from one of the following DOCG areas: Grumello, Inferno, Maroggia, Sassella or Valgella.  You can also go to www.wine-searcher.com to see if any of these wines can be found at a local wine shop. You won't be disappointed!

A FEW RECOMMENDED PRODUCERS OF ROSSO DI VALTELLINA:

Aldo Rainoldi, Nino Negri, Balgera

Two dishes which went well with the Valtellina wine:

Hamachi Crudo with a thai curry sauce

Casarecce Pasta with dungeness crab, sea urchin, tomatoes, basil and lemon.  Fantastic with the wine!

Banana Bread With Dessert Wine

A good banana bread recipe is something that will serve you and your loved ones well over the years.  When my youngest daughter was little she could hardly wait for me to miscalculate (sometimes on purpose) the amount of bananas that we would eat that week. That meant that there would be two or three overripe, mushy bananas, perfect for banana bread.  For breakfast, she loved a warm slice with a little butter or cream cheese melting on it. She still loves banana bread, and at any time of day.

The Late Harvest Grand Cru 2009 Pinot Gris from the Alsacian producer Francois Baur was the perfect accompaniment to a warm slice of Banana Bread heaven!

When a friend of mine was in college, his mother mother once sent him a loaf of banana bread to help get him through those long nights in the library.  Little did she know, on the way to the library, he ran into a buddy holding a full pitcher of beer (don’t ask!) and within a few minutes, the two of them were sitting in the warm autumn sun devouring banana bread with beer.

Most recently, I discovered the delights of drinking wine with banana bread, specifically a Vendange Tardive (which means late harvest) from Alsace in France.  The grapes used for this type of dessert wine are left to hang on the vine until they start to dehydrate and shrivel up. The grapes’ juice becomes very sweet and concentrated, and the flavors become more intense. Serving the banana bread with a late harvest pinot gris makes it more like an evening dessert, rather than a breakfast item or an afternoon snack.  You could even toast a slice and serve it with vanilla ice cream with any number of dessert wines: port, sauternes or cream sherry. 

No matter how you eat it, or what you drink with it (perhaps an ice cold glass of milk?), you will be left with a big smile on your face, along with a glow from the love that was put into it.

MY FAVORITE BANANA BREAD RECIPE

I discovered this recipe several years ago in Martha Stewart's Entertaining Cookbook.  Over the years, I have adapted it and made it my own.

Makes one loaf

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups unbleached flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 medium sized bananas, mashed with a potato masher

1/2 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1) While preheating oven to 350 degrees, cream butter, sugar and eggs.

2) In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.  Mix together well with butter, sugar and egg mixture.  Stir in bananas, sour cream, vanilla and walnuts.  

3) Pour into a buttered 9x4x3 inch loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes.  Test for doneness by inserting a bamboo skewer or wooden toothpick and checking that it comes out clean.  You may need to bake an additional 10-15 minutes.  The loaf should be lightly browned.  

4) Turn out onto a wire rack.

Wine Pairings:

In additon to the Francois Baur late harvest Pinot Gris, following are a few other suggestions for sweet wines to go with the banana bread:

Lustau "Solera Reserve" East India Sherry - $27

Fonseca 10 year tawny Port - $30

Chateau Suduiraut Sauternes - $75

Graham'sVintage Port 2000 - $125

Why You Should Drink Champagne From A White Wine Glass

We all know that consumer trends will come and go.  Whether it’s fashion (the psychedelic, tie-dyed 60s), technology (the popular Sony Walkman from the 1970s!) or food (every 1980s dinner menu had blackened fish on it!  Thank you Paul Prudhomme).  The list could go on and on.

The popular NYC restaurant Charlie Bird serves Champagne in white wine glasses.

The world of wine is no exception.  For example, the popular California white wine back in the 1980s and up until recently was the big, buttery, oaky style.  Consumers are now desiring wines that are more complementary to the food they are eating.  Many California winemakers are changing the style of their wines to a leaner, more focused one, which means more time in stainless steel and less time barrel aging, especiallly in new oak.   

Trends in the wine world extend beyond grapes, winemaking and the final product as well.  Recently I popped open a bottle of Pol Roger Vintage 2004 champagne (a gift given to me at that esteemed Champagne house itself!).  When I handed a glass of this liquid gold to my husband he asked why it was being served in a white wine glass instead of a flute.  My answer was that hardly anyone in the wine business would choose to drink champagne from a tall, narrow flute.  A white wine glass, especially a tulip shaped one, is a better choice because of its wider bowl and narrower opening which lets you swirl the champagne and smell more of the aroma.

A Champagne Tower must be made of coupes regardless of current drinking trends!  This is Vitale Taittinger pouring her Nocturne Champagne at an event in NYC last summer.

But then I remembered the popular champagne coupes which were in fashion here in the US from the 1930s right up until the 1980s.  Can’t you just picture Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman clinking their coupes together and looking so glamourous in the 1940s movie Casablanca?!  Why did the coupe go out of style?   Well apparently it took all those years for people to realize that the shape of the glass lets the bubbles dissipate too quickly and that the short stem meant people were holding the bowl and warming the wine too quickly. 

The resulting popularity of the champagne flute addressed these issues but was mostly about the visual effect and designed to retain carbonation.  Certainly, Champagne flutes are still very popular with consumers.   But at most of the Champagne houses they serve their champagne in white wine glasses as the best means to preserve and enhance the delicate aromas.  It seems to me that consumers are starting to follow this trend begun by wine professionals.  In general, the average consumer nowadays is more sophisticated about wanting to maximize the taste experience from their food and beverages and that is a good trend in my book!

So there you have it!  Enjoy your champagne out of a glass slipper if that’s how you prefer it, but you will get the most of the delicious aromas if you simply serve it chilled, in a white wine glass.

Here are some of my favorite Champagnes ranging, on average, from $34 to $225:

Duval-Leroy Brut Non Vintage $30

Bollinger Special Cuvee Brut Non Vintage $35.00

Francoise Bedel L'Ame de la Terre Extra Brut Millesime $80

2004 Pol Roger Vintage Brut $85.00

Alfred Gratien Cuvee Paradis Brut $105

Krug Grande Cuvee Non Vintage $175.00

2002 Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs Brut $225