The Weekly Word of Vino, Italian Wine & Spirits

In This Issue:

August 2, 2006

•	Nicola Marzovilla featured in Conde-Nast Traveller

•	Wine Opinion: Pasta (and Tomatoes) Made Me Everything I am...

•	Wine Tastings: Tomato Time (wines to pair with fresh tomatoes)

•	Wine of the Week: Fiano di Avellino 2005 Terredora

Nicola Marzovilla featured in Conde-Nast Traveller

Owner of Vino and I Trulli Nicola Marzovilla featured in Conde-Nast Traveller Nicola Marzovilla (pictured to the left with Murray Moss) created Ristorante I Trulli in 1994 and Vino in 2000. Nicola has once again broken new culinary ground in Manhattan with Centovini, the new Soho Italian eatery which features 100 wines selected personally by him. Nicola and his partner Murray Moss, the legendary design guru of Moss and Moss Gallery, were recently featured in Conde Nast Traveller. Centovini is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and brunch on Saturdays and Sundays. THIS WEEK'S TASTING: TOMATO TIME (WINES TO PAIR WITH MARKET TOMATOES AND SUMMER PASTAS) WHERE: VINO, 121 E. 27TH ST. (PARK AND LEX.) WHEN: THURS.-FRI., AUGUST 3-4, 5:30-7:30 PM New Wines Added to Vinositeshop.com Our new e-commerce site www.vinositeshop.com is now live and we've already added a number of new wines, including the wines featured in this week's tasting (see below). For Manhattan customers, delivery is free for orders over $100 ($5 for orders under $100) and expedited shipping is available for outer-borough and out-of-state orders. To shop and browse our wines online, click here.

Wine Tastings: Tomato Time (wines to pair with fresh tomatoes)

This Thurs. and Fri., August 3-4, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Tomato Time: this week, we've chosen wines that will pair well with the market tomatoes and fresh sauces of summer. Enjoy! Next week's tasting will feature 6 sparkling reds. Fiano di Avellino 2004 Terredora New! Wine of the Week - 10% Off See wine notes below. Caluso Spumante Cuvee Tradizionale NV Orsolani (click here to order) The Caluso Spumante Cuvée Tradizione is one of the most interesting Italian wines to reach North America in recent memory. Current owner Gian Luigi Orsolani's father was the first winemaker to vinify Erbaluce as a sparkling, traditional method wine in the late 1960s. Today, Gian Luigi is the president and founder of the assocation of Italian Producers of Sparkling Wines Made from Indigenous Grape Varieties. This traditional or classic method wine is double fermented in bottle like the wines of Champagne. Oltrepo Pavese Barbera 2004 Terre d'Alteni (click here to order) New! The Oltrepo Pavese (Lombardia) appellation lies along the 45th parallel, in other words, halfway between the North Pole and the Equator. This fertile swath of land (which is part of the Po River Valley) has been a center for Northern Italian viticulture since the time of the Etruscans, Italy's first people, who thrived here. Some claim that the geographical outline of the appellation itself reminds them of a grape bunch. While most of the Barbera that reaches North America comes from Piemonte (where Nebbiolo is the top grape), the Oltrepo Pavese has long produced some of the greatest expressions of Barbera. Harder to find in the U.S., it offers a different flavor and aromatic profile than its cousin to the northwest in Alba and Asti. Primitivo di Manduria 2004 Cantastorie (click here to order) New! Which came first? The chicken or the egg? Or more to the point: which came first, Primitivo or Zinfandel? For years now, wine lovers have been scratching their heads as they ponder this conundrum. There is no doubt that Primitivo and Zinfandel are nearly identical (this fact has been genetically proven). It is not clear, however, where the grape originated and were it was first cultivated. Enological debates aside, Primitivo di Manduria from Puglia (the top appellation for Primitivo) is a richly flavored wine with good acidity. A perfect food wine to match with the acidity of tomatoes. The producers of Cantastorie (meaning "bard" in Italian) make this wine in the traditional manner: no barrique and none of the concentration that you find in the California style. Poggio alle Ghiande Rosso 2003 Castello delle Regine (click here to order) Castello delle Regine's Poggio alle Ghiande Rosso is made from 100% Sangiovese grapes grown at one of the winery's top vineyard sites, Poggio alle Ghiande, or "Acorn Hill" (Umbria is famous for its acorns, which are roasted in winter and are often used to make a hot beverage similar to coffee). As our wine director Charles Scicolone has pointed out on numerous occasions, Sangiovese is perhaps the best "food" grape because of its excellent balance of fruit flavor and bright acidity. Gutturnio Frizzante 2004 La Stoppa (click here to order) New! Gutturnio is one of Italy's most noble sparkling red wines. Made from Bonarda (elsewhere called Croatina) and Barbera, it is named after the Latin gutturnium, a Roman drinking vessel. A famous gutturnium was discovered in an archeological excavation in the appellation. The acidity and fruit of the Barbera is matched by the slight sweetness of the Bonarda. Click here to browse and shop our wines online.

Wine of the Week: Fiano di Avellino 2005 Terredora

Terredora's award-winning Fiano d'Avellino is one of the best to come out of Campania in recent years. Among other accolades, it won the Gold Medal for still white wine at the prestigious Torgiano competition in Umbria for the 2000 vintage. The same vintage was listed by Burton Anderson in his top 100 white wines of Italy. Fiano is one of Italy's oldest grape varities and was highly praised by Latin writers. The Roman soliders often remarked that the fruit was so rich that it was difficult to keep the bees away. Thus, the grape became known as apiano meaning "loved by bees," from the Latin apis or "bee." Over this centuries, the name was transformed from apiano to affiano and finally fiano (Avellino is the name of township outside Napoli where the grapes are grown for this appellation). Pliny marveled at the wine's great aging ability. Terredora lets the wine sit on its lees for up to three months before bottling, thus giving the wine greater depth, character, and aging potential. Click here to order.

Wine Opinion: Pasta (and Tomatoes) Made Me Everything I am...

A few years ago, while Michele and I were researching our book on pizza, Pizza Anyway You Slice It, we spent a considerable amount of time in Naples both eating pizza and watching pizza being made by the Neapolitan pizzaioli. In Naples they use San Marzano tomatoes, which come from the area around Mt. Vesuvius. You can see them hanging in bunches in the pizzerias. They're smaller than you would imagine, slightly bigger than cherries. They have a wonderful flavor and aroma. When using these tomatoes, the pizzaiolo takes them off vines and just squeezes them onto the pizza. This brings out the wonderful flavor of these tomatoes. They do not cook them before firing the pizza. Another way they are used is sliced and put on the pizza before it goes into the oven. The flavor, again, is wonderful and the tomato is one of the reasons why pizza may be called the "perfect food." We are talking here, of course, about Neapolitan-style pizza and pizza Margherita in particular. It's difficult today to think off southern Italian cooking without tomatoes. Tomatoes, however, were brought from the new world and were thought to be poisonous until fairly recently. The southern Italians, however, took the tomato and used it on almost everything. In fact, it became so popular that it has even made its way to the north. Once, we spent a month in Roma and would go to the same restaurant three or four times a week for lunch. Every time we went there, another couple would be seated in the same seats and they, too, like us, would order the same thing. The dish that stands out in my mind is pasta, in this case penne, cooked by itself and after it was done, chopped tomatoes and mozzarella were added. This is a great dish and a wonderful dish for the summer. Tomatoes, in all their forms, go very well with wine. In Roma, I would drink Frascati with my pasta and tomatoes and sometimes a light red like a Bardolino or Valpolicella. In general, the grapes I like with tomatoes are Sangiovese, Barbera, Piedirosso, and Dolcetto. The thing that these grapes have in common is that they have good acidity and a fruity flavor that goes along with the tomatoes, which are tart and sweet at the same time. One can have tomatoes and mozzarella, eggplant and tomatoes, squid and tomatoes... in fact, the combinations are endless... The season for tomatoes is now so use them while they are ripe and fresh and drink a good bottle of wine. To paraphrase Sofia (Scicolone) Loren (no relation), "spaghetti with tomatoes made me everything I am today."* --Charles Scicolone, Wine Director, I Trulli and Vino * Few know that Sofia Loren's real name is Sofia Scicolone. Charles would love to hear from you. Please email him at charles@vinosite.com.