The bottle that became a parody of itself -- the fiasco -- is still seen everywhere in Tuscany
Last week, I shared food highlights of a recent ten-day tour of Tuscany; this week, I want to share an overview of the top wines and chocolates we discovered.
One of the chief reasons one heads to Tuscany, of course, is for the wine. We made a point of tasting, swirling, slurping and spitting many wines over the course of our visit. My favorite discoveries follow.
Additionally: One tip I can offer if you are heading to Italy, any region, and have a laptop with you; after you discover a great wine at a restaurant, or at a winery, and know in your heart that you don’t want to schlep cases back to America (assuming that is where you live….sorry for the geocentric generalization…)… here’s a recommended practice:
Check out the internet before you commit to buying wine IN Italy. We visited several wineries and also found wines, which we really liked, at restaurants. Liked enough to buy, but not to schlep back.
Each evening, I tracked down US distributors, or retail merchants, handling wines that we had tasted and wanted to buy… and bought cases online while still in Tuscany. I had the wines shipped and we are just now receiving the bounty of our discoveries back in Napa Valley and we didn’t have to schlep a single bottle home! Even better, the prices I paid in the US are equal to, or better than, the Euro-priced wines in Italy.
Wine Highlights – Wines to consider buying
1999 Anfiteatro, Vecchie Terre di Montefili (100% Sangiovese), served at Cibreo. Our most expensive restaurant wine of the trip – 53 Euros ($80). Lots of red fruit, Asian spices, violets, vanilla, earth, soy and graphite. Oh, and lots of pleasure, too. 95 points, our highest scoring wine of the trip.
2001 Torrione Petrolo (95% Sangiovese, 5% Merlot), enjoyed at Osteria del Caffe Italiano in Florence. Starts with lush roses and red fruits on the nose, and spills red fruit, raisins and spice onto the palate. After a half-hour the flavors of this wine finally integrate, presenting a fleshy, focused drinking experience. 93 points.
2004 Don Tomasso Chianti Classico, produced by Fattoria Le Corti, (85% Sangiovese, 15% Merlot). Enjoyed at Alle Murate, in Florence. A delicious, rose-perfumed wine with immediate appeal. Lots of new world charm, intensely cherry with juicy, fleshy textural properties. 92 points.
2001 Il Poggio Monsanto, a stunning Chianti Classico Riserva, served at Il Latini. A deep, nearly brooding, wine upon opening, it softened and offered meat, prune and soy sauce notes after half-an-hour. A classic Classico. 92 points.
2001 Rocca di Castagnol, a Chianti Classico. Soft, easily accessible, filled with roses, strawberries and a hint of tar. 91 points.
Fattoria di Felsina, Castelnuovo Berardenga
We dropped in on Giuseppe Mazoccolin, the owner of this heritage property, without an appointment and were accorded a tour, a tasting and a chance to take some memorable photos.
The highlights of our tasting were wines that I liked so much that I hunted them down on the internet while still in Tuscany; they are just arriving this week. The wines were less expensive ordered off the internet, with taxes and shipping included than they were at the winery priced in Euros!
2004 Felsina Berardenga Rancia (a single vineyard Chianti Classico Riserva). 100% Sangiovese from a 15-acre plot on the estate. A generous wine, a gorgeous wine, filled with ripe fruits and a hint of bramble. 94 points.
2004 Fontalloro Felsina (an IGT, or Super Tuscan, red that cannot officially be called a Chianti because the grapes come from the both geographic appellations that comprise Chianti – and by law, grapes must come from one, or the other, half to be called a Chianti – but not from both!). 100% Sangiovese. A stunning wine filled with red fruits, vanilla, and tar, with a pleasant finish and loads of complexity. 93 points.
The Feslina property
Chocolate Highlights – For aficionados of superior cacao
While scouting out dried porcini and unusual salts in the indoor central market in Florence, we happened upon a stall called Boroni. (Check out their offerings at http://www.baronialimentari.it) We’d seen the Amedei and Domori chocolate bars sold here at other stores, but shopkeeper Carolina walked us through the offerings and we bought nearly a dozen bars at $10 apiece.
Let’s be clear about one thing: both these brands make chocolate that ranks with the world’s finest. Now, in the same breath as Belgium, Switzerland, France, and the US, you can add Italy as a producer of extravagantly good chocolate.
The Amedei Chuao tablet is as exciting, as thrilling, as any chocolate coming out of Michael Recchiuti’s kitchen in San Francisco and I say that with chocolate consulting experience. I rank Michael as one of the world’s top chocolate makers.
Amedei is the brainchild of a brother and sister team, Alessio and Cecilia Tessieri, who have been at this gig for 17 years.
The 1.75-ounce Amadei brand Chuao bar is $10 – the equivalent of $92 a pound – and, for the record, worth it!! This bar is a showstopper; made from Venezuela’s best cacao, it offers extremely complex flavors that linger long after you’ve swallowed. There are dried fruits, ripe red and black fruits, plums, coffee and tobacco along the melting highway… and then an off-road tweak of caramel at the finish. Definitely my favorite new chocolate of the year.
Then there are the Domori bars, which also make you slap your forehead, exclaiming, “Oy! Is this good!” The chocolate works were started 14 years ago by Mack Domori, who is committed to producing a world-class premium chocolate and he appears to have succeeded beyond even his wildest dreams.
At Boroni, I counted no fewer than six SKUs of Domori and bought all of them to try.
In the gold label series marked Cacao Cult, the chocolate I like most is called Puertofino, a 70 percent cacao bar that is sub-branded “Ocumare 67,” and made from Venezuelan criollo cacao beans. Upon biting off a square, one tastes red fruit, followed by a cornucopia of flavors, ending with cigar tobacco. Chocolate doesn’t get more complex, or sensuous.
Obtain more information on these two stunning chocolates at their respective sites: www.amedei.it and www.domori.com.
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