Winemeisters Weekend: Nicoletta Canella of Casa Vinicola Canella

Ever since the wonderful “Vino in Villa” Prosecco tasting I attended in San Francisco last week (see recent posts), I’ve been introducing you to this fine Italian sparkling wine and its producers. www.prosecco.it Today we’ll meet the gracious, *simpatichissima* Nicoletta Canella, whose family (like the Bortolotti/D’Anna family, whom we met last weekend) is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year as pioneers in Prosecco. www.canellaspa.it

At the Vino in Villa tasting, Nicoletta welcomed me to her table, pouring herself a taste of her lovely Prosecco, the “synonym of conviviality,” after filling my glass. (BTW, this is quite rare at “trade” tastings: winery principals hardly ever kick back and sip along with their guests. I felt tremendously flattered!)

We took in the knockout view of the Golden Gate and the splendid city below us, raised a toast to all good things and sipped the delicious Canella Prosecco together as she modestly described her family’s history and wine production.

Nicoletta’s father Luciano established the family winery in 1947, in the Conegliano hills. (Luciano had started very young: as a ten-year-old, when his father died, he helped his mother keep her restaurant in business, and in his teens, began to seek out wine to serve alongside her specialties.) Today he remains at the reins of the company, joined by Nicoletta and her three siblings.

Since the beginning, the Canella family has been instrumental in establishing and elevating the quality and reputation of Prosecco throughout the world. Luciano is renowned as an innovator in wine technology, and even the highly distinctive graphics of the Canella brand have won acclaim. The Canella Prosecco is the first sparkling wine, in fact, to win the “Gran Medaglia d’Oro” (Grand Gold Medal), in 1994, at Vinitaly’s international competition. And at the 1997 Vinitaly, it took the “Best Packaging” award.

A visit to the Canella website reveals a “who’s who” of Italian notables (including Oscar-winning composer Ennio Morricone) enjoying Canella’s Prosecco, and an array of glowing articles about the wine, in Greek, Japanese and Spanish as well as English and Italian.

Nicoletta Canella may travel the globe, but her heart remains in the Italian countryside. While we were talking about Prosecco, she kept returning to descriptions of the hills, the vineyards, and her home. She mentioned a favorite peach orchard, then asked me if I had ever tasted a Bellini. “Yes,” I answered. (I have very fond memories of enjoying a Bellini or two—it’s the quintessential local afternoon sipper—in a canalside café in Venice.)

As it turns out, the peach orchard has more than sentimental value for Nicoletta. She and her family grow a special variety of white peach to blend with their Prosecco, and they bottle it in a single-serving size. (The label reads: BELLINI—Il Cocktail di Venezia.) It’s immensely popular; Canella even hosted a “Bellini Bar” in Piazza San Marco during Carnevale this year.

Canella also produces a Bellini peach eau-de-vie, a strawberry-flavored “Rossini” sparkler (continuing the motif of Italian bel canto composers), and a rosé sparkler in addition to their top-flight Prosecco.

Mille grazie, Nicoletta Canella—I enjoyed our conversation tremendously, and I continue to enjoy your lovely wine. Splendido!

Arrivederci, e salute—
Cheers,
Rosina
gilded fork, wine, wine writing, Welcome to Wine Country, Rosina Tinari Wilson

FoodPairing Friday: Winemakers and their Pinots (Noir and otherwise…)

Yesterday we visited with several Pinot producers at Pinot Days in San Francisco, www.pinotdays.com and tasted a few of their wines. (Podcast(s) soon!) Today I’ll fill you in on their food-pairing suggestions—and we’ll also tie up a few loose ends from earlier posts.

Let’s start with the pink stuff! Quite a few of the winemakers at Pinot Days also produce a rosé of Pinot Noir, and we all agree that it’s one of the most food-friendly wines on the planet. Milla Handley (founder/proprietor of Handley Cellars in Mendocino County and a frequent guest on CPN, www.handleycellars.com) enjoys hers with everything from roast chicken to Asian food (“not too spicy!”) to pork to “just plain sipping with cheeses.” In the South of France, she noted about a recent trip, they drink their rosé with everything, including lamb. Her astute summary of Pinot rosé: “It’s the essence of Pinot without all the oak… you’re getting the fresh-fruit flavors of Pinot Noir, and it’s really versatile with a lot of things.”

Ramona Nicholson of Nicholson Ranch www.nicholsonranch.com also makes a wonderful Pinot rosé—“delicious, refreshing, and dry,” and she too finds it tremendously versatile. With her husband Deepak, Ramona recently hosted a winemaker dinner featuring Indian food, and she singled out their pairing of tandoori chicken with the Pinot rosé. Although the wine isn’t actually sweet, it’s fruity enough to balance off the spice—“almost like chutney in a glass!”

While I was in between Pinot-tasting tables, I ran into Ty Mahler, the executive chef at Roy’s in San Francisco. www.roysrestaurant.com We agreed that Pinot Noir is an excellent red-wine candidate for the Asian, East-West and “Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine” specialties that are the hallmark of the Roy’s “restaurant family.” Chef Ty made my mouth water as he described an innovative seafood entrée on his current “specials” menu, with a Bing cherry, goat cheese and Pinot sauce. Pinot is one of his favorite wines too; like me, he loves it with fish as well as meat, and we shared stories while we waited to taste at the next table.

There, Craig Haserot of Sojourn Cellars www.sojourncellars.com described an “Asian spice” component in his Sonoma Coast Pinot. (Craig, like Milla Handley, is a CPN regular: see Chef Mark’s videocasts from Pinot Days New York, as well as several of my upcoming Welcome to Wine Country podcasts.) When I mentioned that I love to pair Pinot with Chinese take-out roast duck, he grinned. “Duck, as most of my friends know, is one of my favorite foods,” he said, agreeing that the Asian spice on the Chinese-style duck and the Asian spice “that’s (also) aromatically present in the Sonoma Coast (Pinot)” make a truly great match.

Now for the “loose ends.” First, about the food-pairing ideas from the SF International Wine Competition: www.sfwinecomp.com In random conversations, several fellow judges and I kicked around some thoughts about what would taste good with the wines we were tasting. (At this point, you may recall, all we knew about any given wine was its varietal/vintage.) Rosemary lamb for the slightly herbaceous Cabernet. Meaty braised shanks in spiced tomato sauce for the brawny Petite Sirah. Duck with berry sauce for that jammy Zin. Steak with mushrooms for the black-peppery Pinot. (Guess we were hungry…)

The second loose end is Prosecco. www.prosecco.it But instead of looking at food pairings for it now, why don’t we save ‘em for next Friday, the eve of Bastille Day—an ideal time to talk about bubbles. I’ll fill you in on some great matches for Champagne and other sparklers, including the tasty Prosecco that we’ve been enjoying together this past week. Meanwhile, as always,

Cheers,
Rosina
gilded fork, wine, wine writing, Welcome to Wine Country, Rosina Tinari Wilson

Foodpairing Friday—Pairing Shrimp with Wine-Award Giant

Last Friday we had lobster. Mmm. Today, we’ll have a look at the king-size crustacean’s compact cousin. Call ‘em shrimp, prawns, scampi (yes, there are lots of different species/sizes/flavor-texture profiles, but basically they’re similar enough). They’re hugely popular all over the world; they take to lots of different prep methods (from raw ceviche all the way to toasty char-broiling or grilling); and they slurp up whatever flavors you team ‘em with.

What that means when it comes to beverage pairing is that there’s no one wine that “is perfect with shrimp/prawns/name of choice.” It all depends on what you do with the little fellers.

Stack ‘em with avocado slices, minced cilantro and fresh chile pepper, and a lime-juice dressing (to “cook” the protein), and an off-dry Riesling or Gewurztraminer hits the spot. (So does a beer! I did say “beverage” pairing, after all…) Ditto with spicy Asian or East/West “fusion” dishes.

Saute ‘em in olive oil, add a squeeze of lemon and Mediterranean-type herbs such as parsley and marjoram, and you can happily pour a “green”-tasting Sauvignon Blanc (see yesterday’s post).

Use butter instead, add ginger and/or saffron and/or vanilla, and a rich Chardonnay can step in. And if you step up the intensity level of the add-ins and/or the cooking method, the critters can actually handle a full-flavored rosé or light red.

What I’m leading to here is a lovely shrimp appetizer that we enjoyed at the Friday judges’ dinner at last week’s San Francisco International Wine Competition (see pic). www.sfwinecomp.com Notice that we were served both a pink and a white wine alongside. (And notice also the empty flute. That was from the reception; it had contained some crisp, fruity Prosecco. We tried that with the shrimp too. Thumbs up!)

The wines, a Grenache Blanc and a Grenache Rosé from the “Epiphany” collection of Rhone-style wines, came courtesy of the Fess Parker Winery, www.fessparker.com in Los Olivos (Santa Barbara County). The very charming Ashley Parker Snider (whose dad won my heart as the coonskin-capped Davy Crockett and who made his mark once again as a hotelier and vintner) was the evening’s guest of honor, and she presented the wines for our multi-course dinner. (We’ll meet Ashley in a future podcast, when I visit the winery later in the summer.)

Last year, the Fess Parker wines did so well in this competition that their winemaker, Ashley’s brother Eli (that’s Fess Elisha Parker III) earned our “Winemaker of the Year” honors. In line with SF International’s annual tradition, Fess Parker wines were featured at the judges’ dinner, with a family member presiding.

More on shrimp with wine, along with the lobster lore I promised you last week, coming next week. Join me then, or any Friday, for my latest in food-and-wine pairing.

Cheers for now,
Rosina
gilded fork, wine, wine writing, Welcome to Wine Country, Rosina Tinari Wilson

Everything’s Coming Up Roses (and Rosés)

Recently, I pulled into one of my favorite wineries just as a group was finishing its tour. During the Q & A, I overheard a gal ask why there were rose bushes planted at the ends of the vine rows.

Before the guide could answer, the guy she was with puffed himself up and pontificated, “That’s just to make it pretty for us tourists!” The tour guide managed a diplomatic reply, “Actually, Sir, there’s a bit more to it than that.”

You bet there is! Those roses are actually performing a highly valuable service for the grape vines, one that could potentially save the health, or even life, of the vineyard.

Ever hear of “the canary in the coal mine?” (No, not the joke that starts, “So this canary walks into a coal mine…”) Pre-technology, miners would bring caged canaries into the mines with them as living air-quality monitors. The birds are susceptible to the same toxic gases we are, but they react faster. So if the miner saw the canary keel over, that meant it was time to get the heck out of the mine.

What does all of this have to do with roses and vineyards? Well, the rose bushes are the canaries. They’re susceptible to a lot of the same pests and diseases (e.g. mildew and insects such as leafhoppers) that can plague grapevines. (The vines are, well, the miners.) When problems show up in the roses, the grapegrower gets an early warning and can take preventive action in the vineyard.

And as a bonus, the rose bushes make the vineyards – which are quite gorgeous all by themselves, thank you Sir – even prettier.

Thinking of roses on a warm day brings to mind one of my favorite kinds of wine for this time of year – rosé.

Yeah. The pink stuff. Too bad it has a reputation as a sweet “beginner’s wine.” The truth of the matter is that whatever the label calls it: rosé, blush, vin gris, or a proprietary name coined by the winery, there are dozens to choose from, at an excellent quality level and price point, from all over the world. They’re easygoing sippers by themselves, and they’re really versatile with food. Any time you’d think of popping open a beer – with a ham sandwich, some BBQ chicken or even take-out Thai, think pink instead and pop the cork on a rose’ for a new taste experience. Try it – and let me know what you think!



gilded fork, wine, wine writing, Welcome to Wine Country, Rosina Tinari Wilson