Eating Home

Aaah, back up in the northeast where the weather was as warm as it was in Florida!  It was just glorious.  I decided to give our stomachs a break and eat at home this week.  But here's the question that most ask, 'what to drink with dinner?'

Last Monday, March 19th was St. Joseph's Day, the patron saint of workers.  As such, the traditional Italian meal to celebrate the day is to eat pasta con le sarde, pasta with sardines.  A friend's nonna, or grandma as the Italians call their grandmothers, was kind enough to share her pasta with us and it was delish.  Traditionally, it is a dish prepared with canned or fresh sardines, fennel, bucatini pasta (the fat spaghetti with a hole in through the middle) and finished with toasted bread crumbs (to signify the sawdust of the working man).  Any southern Italian who eats seafood for Christmas Eve would be familiar with this dish.  It's an acquired taste due to the fishiness.  Guiseppe and I happen to like it.  Nonna's recipe was made in a tomato-based sauce, which was not how most recipe books would instruct, but more of a reflection of her southern Italian roots.

I decided to go into the wine refrigerator and pull out something from the archives.  Specifically, a 1994 Flaccianello della Pieve IGT by Fondoti.  This wine comes from the Tuscany region of Italy.  The pronunciation for the wine is FLACH-ah-nello dell-ah Pyev-EH.  This is a 100% sangiovese wine, the same grape used for chianti.  I tend to prefer my wines with SOME time so the tannins (the grippy feeling you feel in your mouth) and the alcohol had time to soften.  What is left is soft, supple, fruit and elegance in a glass.  Flaccianello was definitely that.  The first sip really caught Guiseppe's attention.  He's been into pinot noirs lately.  Why?  More so because all the wines produced these days are SOOOO heavy, alcoholic, full bodied and ripe.  Flacciannello was like a Chanel suit -- timeless and elegant.  It was probably delicious in 1994 and it still is now. 

The Flaccianello complemented the pasta con sarde so well.  The acidity on the wine was still very present.  It married well with the tomato-based sauce.  I ate better that night at home than I did for the past 2 weeks eating out.

The history of Fondoti is pretty romantic.  It's owned by the Manetti family.  They got into the winemaking business in the late 1960s.  The family before that were Florentine terra cotta tile producers.  Sandwiched in the region of Chianti, it is a midpoint between Florence and Siena.  If you have never been to the Chianti region, I highly encourage you to visit as Fondoti also has farm stays.  While the Manetti family has been around this region forever, the winemaking facilities are modern.  The vineyards are 100% organic.  In addition to the Flacciannello della Pieve, pinot noir, Chianti Classico, cabernet sauvignon and syrah is also produced here.  All this commitment doesn't come cheap--I did a quick search on wine-searcher.com and 1994 isn't sold anywhere anymore.  The more recent vintages are 2006-2008 and it ranges from $100-$150 a bottle.  Yowsers.  I think we may have paid $50 back in the mid 1990s.  I'd better check to see how many bottles are left!

Links:
http://www.fontodi.com/eng/default.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Joseph