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A few years
ago, I was lucky enough to spend a week with Michele and a few friends at the
Regaleali Estate in Vallelunga, Sicilia. Michele and Anna Tasca Lanza, the
daughter of Count Giuseppe, have the same literary agent.
We were there during the Festa di San Giuseppe, which is a very big event in
Sicilia. For San Giuseppe's day, the locals all compete with each other by
making tables full of food dedicated to San Giuseppe for his past blessings.
As we went from house to house, viewing these tables, some of the owners
would whisper to us, "Everything here is homemade." "But next
door," they would tell us, "a lot of the food was store
bought."
The Regaleali estate is very picturesque and the rolling hills remind one of
California. We stayed in bungalow-type houses arranged around a large
courtyard, or baglio, as they say in Sicilia. We had fresh ricotta, we
had fresh bread, and they prepared stigghiole, which are the innards
of grilled lamb, a Sicilian delicacy. One day we had pasta with tomato sauce
and there was a lot left over and we were told that it would be fried the
next day, which reminded me of something my grandmother used to make. We had
to hide the pasta so that the kitchen workers would not fry and cook it
themselves.
I asked if I could buy old vintages of Rosso del Conte. I started drinking
this wine more than twenty years ago, when it was made from 50% Nero d'Avola
and 50% Perricone, and aged in chestnut casks. Anna Tasca Lanza told me that
the older vintages were gone. I said to her, "what about the bottles of
'85 and '87 lining the walls of my room where I'm staying?" She looked
at me and said, "Sure, I'll give you a very good price." I bought
all I could carry and still have one 1985 left. The vintages before 1990 were
very interesting because they had a berry and leather flavor to them and you
knew you were drinking a Sicilian wine. Today, they stay very close to this
idea, but the wine is now made up of 90% Nero d'Avola and 10% Perricone, aged
in French oak. These wines can last a very long time and to me, it is one of
the great examples of Sicilian winemaking.
The highlight was the meal in honor of Count Giuseppe whose name day was
celebrated in the courtyard of the winery with great fanfare: they built
large pits in the middle of the courtyard and filled them with firewood and
started fires and then placed a grill on top where they cooked artichokes,
chickens, pork, and all of the classic Sicilian foods. It was amazing. The
Regaleali estate is one of the few remaining great houses of Sicilia that
continues to use the services of a monsu, a Sicilian chef who prepares
Sicilian ingredients in the French manner. This tradition began a few
centuries and has all but died out. It was great to see it still alive today
at Regaleali.
Standing around the courtyard there was the count, the countess, the marquis,
and marchioness, the prince and the princess. We were all talking and the men
were smoking di nobili. When I was introduced to the prince, without blinking
an eye, he said to me - and I'm not kidding - "you must be the Baron
Scicolone." Not wanting to disappoint him, I said "certo che
si."
Please join us on Thursday for Mary Taylor Simeti's talk, a great day for
sharing a glass of one of Sicilia's greatest wines.
- Charles Scicolone, Wine Director, I Trulli and Vino
Charles would love to hear from you. You can email him at charles@vinosite.com.
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