Food, Wine & Friends Page 226
On a warm, summer Saturday in May we gathered in the kitchen at Carlo &
Beatrice's little palazzo in Milano for some vittles and vino.
Beatrice, forever young.
We had a really nice bottle of Garganega from Mathilde Poggi's Le Fraghe
winery...she's best known for Bardolino, but Garganega is a lovely, dry, fairly
crisp white wine...perfect chilled with sliced salame and olives!
The Chiaretto from Le Fraghe is also showing
beautifully...lots of fruit and it's dry.
Barbara Ferri had brought two kinds of ravioli for this
dinner...
I think these first ravioli are stuffed with Borage...
...and these with Spinach.
"Senti, io sono la mamma della sindaco di Milano, sai?"
Mayor or Prime Minister, this wine was fit for a king!
2007 San Fabiano Calcinaia's Riserva Chianti...Cellole.
Braised Beef a la GiovAntonio.
Carlo then opened the first of two different Brunello wines...
2004 Capanna Riserva.
Giovanna
Then trouble arrived!
Monica!
The Capanna was a great, formidable Brunello with many years ahead of it...they
make cellar-worthy wines of great intensity.
The Casanova di Neri is a medium-bodied wine which was a bit more developed and
open on this occasion. It offers dark fruit, too, but softer tannins and a
more woodsy, cedary quality.
I started speaking about American baseball and at this moment, everyone fell
asleep.
Barbara and Monica, then, dialed up their sports app and found the current
standings...
The Giants were in second place in the National League West.
Silvia, then, got things going, though...she brought out some of her homemade
sweet treats!
Kids love chocolate-covered strawberries!
Three dessert wines appeared on the table...
Capanna's killer 2011 Moscadello from Montalcino was fantabulous...hugely
aromatic and nicely acidic to keep it from being too sweet.
Silvia brought a fantastic "Chocolate Pie."
Unbelievable.
Our dear friend Giampaolo Chiettini gave me a little bottle of liquid gold to
try...
This was remarkably good Vin Santo...sweet, unctuous and yet balanced...sunshine
in a glass.
Soon all the strawberries had disappeared...
And the bottle of Vin Santo was just about empty, too.
Silvia then had another platter of treats for us, so we opened
a Montellori Vin Santo...
Much drier than the Castelvecchio Vin Santo...
Someone then had the idea to Skype Andra...and sure enough,
she was on the line, joining the party!
Late in Milano, not-so-late in New York!
The party came to an end...
A Big
Many thanks for hosting such a splendid festa and I hope you all will come to
California for some
Vittles & Vino at Casa Mia in Burlingame.
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