Two Takes on Tuscan Bread

From my own traveling, I’ve learned that every place has a specific cuisine or beverage that all tourists must try at least once before leaving. In Gruyere, it’s the fondue. In Barcelona, it’s the paella. New Orleans has shrimp and grits, and, of course, you’ve never really been to New York until you’ve tried the pizza.

This commonplace holds true for the small Tuscan hill town of Montepulciano. Embodying the charm of a traditional town of Toscana, Montepulciano is known for its “big” Sangiovese-based wines and delicious, yet simple, food.

Most of Montepulciano’s traditional dishes encompass fresh, local ingredients—and this combination of locality and seasonality means really spectacular cuisine. However, as much as it’s known for its lamb stew and pasta with rabbit—and Vino Nobile wine—Montepulciano is particularly known for its bread. When searching for a great summer recipe, one dish in particular caught my eye: panzanella. A very easy dish, panzanella combines everyday ingredients—and in doing so, it gets its nickname of “leftover salad” or “bread salad.” Panzanella is mostly made of cubes of bread that are combined with ripe tomatoes, peppers, basil, onions, a touch of mint, olive oil and traditional seasonings. I could see this dish as an accompaniment to a hearty steak on the grill with a delicious glass of any of the region’s wines, especially a nice Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.

My interest was also piqued by another traditional Tuscan dish called Ribollita. This dish also focuses on the Ciabatta bread of the region, but it serves as a comfort food and is soaked in bean soup and often topped with freshly squeezed olive oil. I thought it would be perfect on a cold, rainy day, perhaps complemented by a glass of Il Macchione Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, a full-bodied wine that would go nicely with such a hearty soup. I’d also add some slow roasted meat to add a little more substance and flavor.

This summer, I sadly don’t have any trips planned. Therefore, I’m traveling to Montepulciano through some traditional recipes and wine in the comfort of my own home. It’s the next best thing to being there.

Cheap, Good, Delicious

Reflections on generic wine lists

One of my favorite descriptors for my least favorite things is saltine. You may not be familiar with this use of the word. I like to think I invented it as a child, having grown tired of boring descriptors like vanilla, plain, and bland. Yes, the word is the name of the simple square crackers often paired with soup, or given to nauseated children as a snack by their parents. I do not dislike saltine crackers. In fact I like them very much when I am in the mood for them, but their very purpose is to be bland.

I value originality, almost above anything else. That’s not to say that I only go for something different. Sometimes a vanilla ice cream cone is exactly what a hot July afternoon calls for. My favorite writer happens to be Ernest Hemingway, whose prose style is considered simple and, his unadorned, quick sentences show that they were written by a trained journalist. Sometimes all I will eat for dinner is a bowl of arugula with lemon vinaigrette. And most Sundays I will wear jeans and a white t-shirt, nearly the simplest of outfits. But, I find originality to be very refreshing—in people, in food, in literature, and in wine lists.

Eric Asimov’s April 1^st The Pour posting “On Generic Wine Lists” came at an appropriate time for me to reflect on an experience I had this past weekend. I went for a glass of wine Friday night with a friend near Columbia University, and I was met with a list of wines by the glass that was marred by being the quintessence of saltine. The list looked a little like this:

Cheap $8

Good $12

Expensive $18

When the waitress came over to take our order, I asked for a little further information. She told me she thought the cheap was Merlot, the good was Malbec, and the expensive was Sangiovese, or something along those lines. I hoped she could clear up the varietals for me, as well as perhaps vintage and even country of origin. I told her I needed a few minutes.

At first, I had been somewhat intrigued by this wine list design. How unusual! How different! I had never seen this anywhere before! But the more I thought about it, the more I had no idea what I wanted. When presented with a wine list with six different Chardonnays by the glass, I often feel completely torn. But this was far worse because they were offering me only three unidentified beverages. I felt I was being forced to make an uninformed choice.

Composing a restaurant’s menu is difficult, so is making a wine list. There are so many choices, so many customers, so many palates, so many restaurants, and so many of them fail. When restaurants make their lists, they have to consider so many questions: Who will the audience be? What price range can we offer wines in? How large do we want the list to be? What is the concept or theme? All things considered, the wine list needs to be at the very least informative, and if it isn’t, the staff should be. Otherwise, the patrons end up feeling like me last Saturday night, and I don’t think that’s a good thing.

In the wake of this last experience on the Upper West Side, I’m wondering about what’s valuable in wine lists. Is it better to go off the beaten path and try to do something wildly creative? Or is it better to play it safe and run the risk of being saltine?

Dinner and a Bottle

BYOB in the city

Last Saturday after a long day of hosting tastings throughout the afternoon, all I wanted to do was sit back, relax, and open a special bottle of wine. I chose the Luce 2006, a blend of Merlot and Sangiovese from Toscana, to enjoy with dinner that evening. It’s a very full-bodied and concentrated wine, so I thought that it would go really well with a rich meat. The original plan was to stay at home and cook a nice steak dinner with my boyfriend, but when I got off work I was so tired that I didn’t want to invest time in cooking. Since the focus of the evening was the wine, my boyfriend and I decided to look for a BYOB restaurant in the area. BYOB restaurants are not so easy to come by in the best circumstances, but on a Saturday night at 8:00pm, it’s an even greater challenge.

Amazing! Almost immediately, we found one called Catch de Fish, just two blocks away from work. I was slightly disappointed that it was a seafood restaurant because the wine we had was so bold, but I was even more surprised that it was a Thai Seafood fusion restaurant. But as long as it was BYOB, I was sold. We ended up ordering a crab cake with spicy mayo, shrimp tom yum soup, Chilean sea bass with vegetables, and baby back ribs with honey and Thai spices. None of these dishes were a “textbook” pairing with the wine that we brought, but everything was delicious, and the evening turned out to be wonderful.

The experience we had that night really reminded me of Jane’s blog “The Power of Context.” Our wine and food pairings certainly weren’t what one would expect or even choose, but I’ll always remember the night for the good meal and even better company. If you said I could rewind time and make a different, more appropriate choice, I would tell you that I wouldn’t change a thing.

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