“In the big, internationally minded ristoranti, the fare is less likely to be typically Roman. The places for real local food are the humbler trattorie, or taverns, where the fare and service are closer to those of a private home.” – Waverley Root, The Cooking of Italy

I had only a few hours to spend in Rome before an early-morning flight back to the States. There wasn’t time for ruins, the Colosseum, or strolling through the Trestevere. It was the last day of my annual trip to Italy for Vinitaly’s wine fair in Verona. That meant I had to be precise and disciplined with my time at the Roman trattoria.

The term “trattoria” gets misused quite a bit in America. A true trattoria is an unpretentious eatery with a limited and seasonal menu of local specialties. Real trattorie still exist, and I managed to find several good ones thanks to the help of Fred Plotkin’s excellent book, Italy for the Gourmet Traveler
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Vegetables are event-worthy in Rome, and you’ll find arugula, broad beans, fresh peas and artichokes on most trattoria menus. I’ve previously written how tricky artichokes can be to pair with wine, but now I’m convinced that a dry, neutral, high-acid white wine is the way to go. Both carciofi alla giudia (flattened and fried artichokes in the style of Rome’s Jewish ghetto) and carciofi al alla romana (artichokes cooked in olive oil with mint and bread crumbs) seemed completely at home with a chilled pitcher of local Frascati, as did fava beans with ricotta and a peppery arugula salad.

One of my favorite trattoria discoveries was the fritti specialist La Matricianella. Supplì al telefono (little fried rounds of rice with cheese) and fiore di zucca (zucchini blossoms) and the feather-light ricotta fritti are not to be missed. The wine list at La Matricianella is an impressive two-volume set: one entire volume is dedicated entirely to the wines of Lazio, and the other volume is dedicated to the rest of Italy. I was impressed by how well a dry and lemony Grechetto served as the perfect foil for the salty-fried flavors of La Matricianella’s cuisine.

Some of the best known pasta dishes have their origins in the Roman trattoria. Spaghetti alla carbonara, fettuccine al burro (fettuccine Alfredo), and cacio e pepe (cheese and black pepper) are common in most Italian-American “red sauce” restaurants. I managed to scarf down a half-plate of each of these during my trattoria blitz, as well as my personal favorite, bucatini all’amatriciana. I’ve written before how I believe a dry red wine with good acidity is essential for cutting through the spicy-pork flavor of bucatini all’amatriciana. But tasting it again with a chilled glass of the white Trebbiano-based Est! Est!! Est!!! has me thinking otherwise.

I was too stuffed to continue, but I’d be remiss not to mention the excellent porchetta (suckling pig), abbacchio (milk-fed lamb), and Saltimbocca that Romans adore, not to mention the ubiquitous Pecorino cheese that seems to be sprinkled over everything. Dessert, liqueurs, and the red wines of Lazio will have to wait for my next visit to Rome’s trattorie.

Elizabeth and I have been busy planning a new online wine retail business that we’ll be launching later this year so I was psyched to see périphériquewine mentioned by Ray Isle, wine editor at Food & Wine magazine, in the July 2010 issue. Ray contacted me about a month ago and shared his concept for the article: He mocked-up up a wine list for “Restaurant Isle” a fictitional restaurant, a small place with a market-driven, New American menu featuring entrées in the $25 range. He then asked some of the top restaurant wine pros for a critique. Click here to read what my colleagues and I had to say about Ray’s list!

A perfect pairing if there ever was one: a picnic of Alsatian Gewurztraminer paired with a wheel of Munster cheese.

While clicking through some of Ray’s older stuff I discovered this excellent 2006 article on food and wine pairing and since that’s what WineToMatch is all about, I thought I’d share it with you here. Ray sums up nicely some of the most important things to remember when pairing food with wine:

Don’t match strong to delicate. Pairing a big, powerful, high-alcohol or high-tannin wine with a light, delicate dish (and vice versa) is rarely a good idea.

Acidity is your friend. People tend to be wary of wines described as “high acid,” like Sauvignon Blanc or Muscadet. Who wants to drink acid, after all? But there’s no better quality in a wine for matching rich, creamy or cheesy sauces, deep-fried foods or fish dishes; in addition, tart wines go better with tart foods, such as a vinaigrette on a salad.

Tannins pair well with fat. That’s because the astringency of the tannins cuts through the viscosity of the fat.

Follow the don’t-upstage-the-star rule. If you have an amazing bottle of wine you want to show off, especially an older vintage (they tend to be more subtle, their flavors less flamboyant), don’t serve a wildly complex dish with it. A simple dish will allow the wine to be the center of attention.

Hearty California red wines like Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon are ideal with grilled Lamb.

Italian cooking was arguably born in Tuscany at the Medici court. Today, Tuscany represents Italian cooking at its most simple and rustic. Tuscans have been nicknamed “mangiafagioli” (bean eaters), but I eschew the assertion by some that Tuscan cuisine is only about “beans, bread, and more beans.” I’ve highlighted some of the regional specialties of Tuscany below. We also wanted to take this opportunity to introduce you to nine new Tuscan wines to our WineToMatch arsenal. Look for this trend to continue in coming weeks and look for some surprises along the way!

Hearty soups are a signature of Tuscan cookery.

Bread is the foundation of Tuscan cooking. Many Tuscan classics begin with a rustic loaf of unsalted pane toscano. Bread, sliced thick, grilled, and rubbed with garlic is known as panunto. It is the basis of several classic Tuscan dishes. Fettunta is panunto but served with the year’s first olive oil, and is a specialty of Tuscany. Panunto and fettunta are the most basic type of bruschetta “grilled bread” as it is known in other Italian regions. Bruschetta can also be topped with an array of ingredients. When I’ve eaten bruschetta in Tuscany, it’s usually been referred to as crostoni (a larger version of crostini meaning “little toasts”), to which lentils, stewed tomatoes, liver, salumi, etc. is added as a topping. Bread can also be torn apart and added to a salad with tomatoes, onion, and basil, creating a dish known as panzanella. Bread thickens Tuscan soups such as ribollita, pappa al pomodoro, and zuppa di pane. Seafood prevails along the coast, where Livorno’s cacciucco is a delicious fish stew and is the inspiration behind the San Francisco classic cioppino. Tuscans are not particularly white wine drinkers, but these dishes would be well accompanied by two excellent Tuscan white wines: Vernaccia di San Gimignano and Vermentino.

Freshly made wide-ribbon noodles like pappardelle and tagliatelle are the pastas of choice in Tuscany.

While soup plays a primary role, pasta is no stranger to Tuscany, especially when topped with a rich ragù of duck or wild hare. Meat ragùs of game are also served over polenta or faro, the ancient grain, especially those made from cinghale (wild boar). The southern half of the Tuscan coast known as Maremma is densely populated with wild boar. Here in the trees and hills of the Tuscan coast, the cinghale hunt is a celebrated event. Hunters and their dogs eagerly sniff out the boar in orchestrated hunts and transform their bounty into grilled ribs (rostinciana), roast loin (arista), spit-roasted livers wrapped in bay leaves (fegatelli), or as porchetta. It is also used for sausages, prosciutto, and salame known as finocchiona (flavored with wild fennel seeds). Stewed or rich ragù di cinghiale is served over pappardelle or polenta or faro. Sangiovese goes by many names in Tuscany. In Chianti, it is simply called Sangiovese, but in Maremma, a special clone of Sangiovese is grown known as Morellino di Scansano. Both are considered classic with this hearty fare.

Massive Chianina cattle are the source of prized Tuscan steaks including bistecca alla fiorentina.

Tuscans are Italy’s great meat-eaters. The indigenous white Chianina cattle that graze in Tuscany’s Val di Chiana are butchered into two-inch-thick steaks called bistecca alla fiorentina. These steaks are grilled over coals and are served blood rare and are often accompanied by stewed cannellini beans or roasted porcini mushrooms. Another popular dish, Tagliata di Manzo con Rucola is rare steak sliced into thin strips and served with Arugula and shavings of Pecorino Toscano and lemon. Fresh ricotta, by the way, is excellent when served with fava beans in springtime with a simple drizzling of oil. These steak and vegetable combinations are ideal partners for several traditional Tuscan red wines known as vini da arrosto (wines for roasts), including Chianti Classico Riserva, Brunello di Montalcino, and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Of course, modern Tuscan reds such as Sant’Antimo and Super Tuscans are worthy steak wines as well.

Sipping wine at Bacchus Wine Bar in Montalcino.

It’s important to note some sweet specialties of Tuscany. Siena is famous for its chewy fruit and nut cake called panforte. And finally, the crunchy biscottini or cantucci cookies are ideally served with Tuscany’s notable sweet wine, Vin Santo.

What is WineToMatch anyway?!!! WineToMatch is a sophisticated iPhone app designed by a Master Sommelier to give you wine suggestions for your next meal! Download it now on iTunes! Many thanks to Elizabeth for her excellent “hand acting”. Also, a big thanks to YoungCarson3000 and The Sandwich Technique for their musical contribution: Heat 4 Illuminate!

This post pretty much wrote itself! From our Facebook Fan Page February 25, 2010:
WineToMatch:  makin’ butternut squash soup 2nite, w/aged balsamic + croutons. thinking good sangio (like Montevertine good) for wine. any other thoughts?
Joy Lindholm Patton: I made a Mediterranean-influenced butternut squash soup a few weeks ago with ginger, cardamom and rosewater - it was unbelievable with a Gewurztraminer from Alsace.
Paul Bacino: Geez.. I would be more inclined to have a white wine?
Sandy Lemke: Pinot Gris
WineToMatch: I like all those ideas. Gonna’ try Alsatian Pinot Gris side-by-side Chianti. forgot to mention crumbled pancetta so we might be on the edge of a red wine prep. I will report back!
WineToMatch: Joy…that soup sounds insane! love those flavors!
Frederic Ballario: Montlouis Les Tuffeaux 05 Chidaine
WineToMatch: Fred, you sent that just in time. Changed to Chidaine just before I got the the register @FPWM!
Caleb James Lorensen: how long is the balsamic aged?
Caleb James Lorensen: joy…i need the recipe!!!!!!!!!
WineToMatch: First time ever, skipped the pancetta and went for the white wine. Happy to report 2007 François Chidaine Montlouis “Clos du Breuil” is a lovely wine to match Butternut squash soup with aged balsamic!

Puréed butternut squash soup garnished with aged balsamic vinegar and homemade croutons was perfect with this Loire Valley Chenin Blanc.

This delicious soup is easy to make. Just cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds and set them aside. Cut each half into quarters and steam them until fork tender (about 30 minutes), then allow the squash to cool. Sweat some minced shallot or onion in butter in a dutch oven, then add the reserved seeds. Once fragrant add about six cups of water and simmer. Strain into a bowl then pour back into the dutch oven. Scoop the flesh of the squash from its skin and add to the dutch oven. Purée this with a immersion blender until smooth. Mount with cream and butter and season to your taste with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and cayenne. The way you garnish this soup will dramatically change the wine pairing. With the addition of sautéed swiss chard and crumbled bacon I can easily see this being an excellent soup to pair with a sangiovese-based red wine like Chianti Classico or Barbera. Another approach is to play up the sweetness and crumble a little amaretto cookie and add a little cinammon. In that instance, I’d probably start thinking about a rich, textural white like Alsatian Pinot Gris. This version, with homemade croutons and a drizzle of balsamico, was spot-on with a delicious, dry Chenin Blanc from the Loire. Thanks Facebook Fans!

Jeremy Parzen’s well researched post on the etymology of “sugo alla puttanesca” (“whoreish sauce”) is so good that that I’ll skip the colorful story and focus in on the ingredients and wines to match this Neapolitan classic. Like many Neapolitan dishes, puttanesca features the bright, and in my opinion, unmatched flavor of San Marzano tomatoes. A few additional ingredients such as olives, capers, salt-cured anchovies, garlic, and chili flakes are added to the San Marzano tomatoes to create an aromatic and strongly-flavored dish.

With so few ingredients, spend some extra cash for salt-packed anchovies and capers, and use high-quality olives. You will be able to taste the higher quality in the finished dish, and it’s worth it. My other piece of advice is to practice good mise-en-place by having your ingredients prepped and ready to go. The goal is to bring out the flavor of the tomatoes by cooking them for only a short time over high heat, so you should start to assemble the sauce at the same time as the water is coming to a boil for the spaghetti (or vermicelli as is common in Naples).

Lidia Bastianich, in her book “Lidia’s Italy,” also recommends cooking this type of sauce “in a large skillet over a hot fire, at the same time as the pasta cooks al dente.” This will help allow you to heat the sauce quickly while controlling its consistency. Finally, Lidia adds that “pasta in Naples defines the term ‘cooked al dente’ and that “no city is more in tune with the texture of cooked pasta,” so you really want to be able to focus on the flavors and textures that are happening in a very short (about 10 minute) period of time.

Arthur Schwartz, in his book “Naples at Table,” says that “there is an old Neapolitan habit of not draining pasta in a colander at all, but lifting it out of the pot with a fork,” which is done to preserve some of the starchy, salted water which can be used to loosen a sauce that has gotten too thick. However, this is unnecessary in the case of puttanesca. Instead, I like the technique demonstrated in this video by Mark Bittmann where he drains the pasta water into the serving bowl, thereby warming the bowl which keeps the pasta warm while serving. One final thought: skip the grated cheese and sprinkle on some freshly chopped parsley instead.

Greco from Molise and Aglianico from Basilicata are excellent partners to spaghetti alla puttanesca.

I thought that a dry, earthy, and higher-acid red was necessary to stand up to all of the strong flavors of tomato, garlic, and cured black olives. My first instinct was to try some dry, but lighter-styled, Campanian reds based on the piedirosso grape, such as the Feudi di San Gregorio Trigaio, but a wine from Basilicata caught my eye and I went for it. The Macarico Aglianico del Vulture “Macari” 2006 was rich and delicious and unexpectedly polished, and I found it to be almost too good for such a rustic and pungent dish. It seemed like it would have been more at home with roasted lamb or goat. So we went back to a dry white we had been drinking earlier in the evening, a 2008 Greco Terre Degli Osci (IGT) from Cantine Borgo di Colloredo from Molise. Greco is a prized varietal in neighboring Campania and is known for its grapey character. This Greco was dry but had almost a rich texture that nicely countered the spicy heat in our puttanesca. This is another dish where I would also suggest a Dry Fizzy Red like Gragnano.

Roasted chicken is so wine-friendly that it might seem like a no-brainer to some, but for the sake of completeness, and because we had it for dinner last night, here’s a short post on pairing wine with this classic French bistro staple.

In France, the experience can range from mundane to extraordinary. At an indifferent bistro in the 7th your poulet rôti might be flabby and greasy, and when paired with a dubious glass of “cuvée du restaurant,” you might wonder what all the fuss is about. But you’ll understand when you taste an expertly roasted Poulet de Bresse from a restaurant like Place Bernard de Georges Blanc in Burgundy and pair it with a top Mâconnais.

The famous blue-footed Poulet de Bresse are reared to exacting standards of their own appellation d’origine controlee, and are prized by French chefs for their taste and texture. Equally delicious is the bird at San Francisco’s Zuni Café, but I prefer to cook this dish at home. Julia Child said it best in “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” that “The most important aspect of chicken cooking is that you procure a good and flavorsome bird.” So I bought a Mountain Ranch Organic Chicken from a farmers’ market. The recipe from Julia’s book is the only recipe for roasted chicken I’ve ever used because it’s written for the home cook, and I always get succulent chicken with crispy skin. And always serve roasted chicken with a strong Dijon mustard. Always!

Roasted Poulet de Bresse at Place Bernard de Georges Blanc in Bourg-en-Bresse.

Roasted chicken is extremely wine-friendly, pairing well with both reds and whites. Julia Child suggests Médoc or rosé, and I see red Bordeaux with some age being a great match. In a Paris bistro, the vin rouge is likely to be Cabernet Franc, like Chinon or Bourgueil from the nearby Loire Valley. These wines are medium-bodied and aromatic, and I crave those wines whenever I plan to roast a chicken. Both red Burgundy and white Burgundy are spot-on here, and our sommelier at Georges Blanc suggested an excellent Pouilly-Fuissé. A dry Italian red from Sangiovese would also be perfect.

I poured two wines with our bird: 2008 Damien Delecheneau Touraine-Amboise Blanc, and a 2007 Trenel Morgon Côte du Py. The vineyards of Touraine-Amboise AOC lie next to those of Vouvray and Montlouis, and the white wines are blends based on Chenin Blanc. The 2008 was dry and fresh with racy acidity which cut through the richness of our chicken. Côte du Py is a small, high-quality subzone in the Beaujolais cru of Morgon. It was dry and aromatic with tons of minerality, and delicious with our poulet rôti.

The village of Bourg-en-Bresse.