MARIANI’S

Virtual Gourmet


  JUNE 1,   2025                                                                       NEWSLETTER


Founded in 1996 

ARCHIVE


 
Lauren Bacall in "Woman's World" (1954)

        

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THIS WEEK
A TALE OF TWO BOTINS
By Gerry Dawes



NEW YORK CORNER
FELICE PORT CHESTER

By John Mariani


HÔTEL ALLEMAGNE
CHAPTER  EIGHT

By John Mariani

NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
A MISCELLANY OF NEW ITALIAN WINES

By John Mariani

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AN ANNOUNCEMENT
: There will be no issue of Mariani's Virtual Gourmet Newsletter next week because Mariani will be eating and drinking his way around Spain. Next issue will be June 15.



 



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A TALE OF TWO BOTINS

A Luncheon Epiphany: Botín and The Mythology
of the Legendary Last Roast Pig Meal in
The Sun Also Rises

Part One


By Gerry Dawes

 

"We lunched upstairs at Botin’s. It is one of the best restaurants in the world. We had roast young suckling pig and drank rioja alta. Brett did not eat much. She never ate much. I ate a very big meal and drank three bottles of rioja alta."—Jake Barnes, the lead character in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (1926).


 

 

Madrid’s Restaurante Sobrino de Botín is one of the most famous restaurants in the world. Known and revered simply as “Botín” by every aficionado of Ernest Hemingway’s defining first novel The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway devotees think the famous winey lunch between Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley was set in this restaurant on Calle de Cuchilleros 17.

My own experiences at Sobrino de Botín, date to 1970, when my first lunch there was the catalyst for a series of events that would have a profound impact on my life.  After having taken my U. S. Navy discharge in Spain in October 1969, by January 6, was down to just 600 pesetas in cash (about $5 back then), barely enough to get by on a standup breakfast and a few meager tapas for lunch and dinner. I did have an $100 American Express Travelers Cheque left from the $500 I had when I left the Navy in Rota, but all the banks were closed, because it was the Epiphany, so I couldn’t cash it until the next day.

To pass that morning––soon to be an epiphany indeed––I opted to assuage my hunger for free at the Prado Museum and there met Bostonians Ed Gilmore, a prominent Boston lawyer and art collector, and his traveling companion  Leona Hyde. Gilmore asked me for a recommendation for a good Madrid restaurant for lunch and proposed that I join them. I told him I would be happy to recommend a restaurant, but I was near broke. “Oh, don’t worry about that, we have plenty of money,” he said. “I will treat you. Besides, Leona is feeling tired and wants to skip lunch. I don’t want to eat alone, and you can translate for me.”

I took Ed to Sobrino de Botín, so this was my first visit, forever engraved in my memory. We passed through an old-fashioned doorway with polished brass handles and crossed the small ground-floor tiled dining room with patina-layered vintage artwork on the walls.  I saw an opening in the wall just beyond the reservations station. Inside was the source of that roast-pig redolence, which wafted from a domed stone oven decorated with azulejos, colorful ceramics tiles. The smell of cochinillo (suckling pig) roasting that emanated from  this  hole-in-the-wall  oven-kitchen  primed our  appetites.

The man working the oven used a wooden paddle at the end of a long pole to slide in, position and remove the deep-dish pottery platters of pig from the oven, with four rows of wooden shelves holding dozens of pigs,  their chins resting on the edge of the platter, their mouths slightly open and their unseeing eyes gazing somewhat disconcertingly in your direction.

We feasted that day on white asparagus with mahonesa (mayonnaise),  then the  cochinillo with potatoes roasted in its juices. Just as Jake Barnes did in The Sun Also Rises, we drank a Rioja Alta red wine. For dessert we had out-of-season strawberries with whipped cream.

             Photo: Gerry Dawes
 

Afterwards Ed thanked me for showing him a wonderful time  then invited me to go to Sevilla as his guide and handed me an envelope that  contained my plane ticket as well as $300 in pesetas and a check with a note from Leona saying she was going to send me a monthly stipend of $30 a month, which at the time would have been about half the monthly rent for an apartment.

That lunch with Ed at Sobrino de Botín ignited a firecracker string of events that would change my life dramatically; thus, my fondness for this emblematic restaurant has endured for 55 years. The money he and Leona gave me allowed me to prolong my stay in Spain. On the ticket they had purchased for me, I flew to Barcelona and got the job as an extra on the movie The Great White Hope, spending four weeks in the city.

 

I stayed six more  years, before moving to New York at the end of 1975.

Though Restaurante Botín is mentioned only briefly near the end of The Sun Also Rises, the notion that it was the real-life setting for the book’s alcohol-fueled, angst-laden lunch has been promoted by the owners, the González family, for decades, and the legend has largely been accepted without question by generations of Hemingway fans. For nearly five decades I also thought it was “pretty to think so” that Sobrino de Botín was indeed the setting for one of the most famous scenes in 20th century American literature.

Now comes the fly in that vino or, better put, the fly on the roast suckling pig. The González family’s claim that Hemingway was a frequent customer over many decades is based on many family-generated anecdotes about the author. But Botín may not be the restaurant that Hemingway wrote about.


Photo: Gerry Dawes


Could it have, in fact,  been that a different restaurant, La Antigua Casa Botín, located on La Plaza de Herradores, just two minutes northwest of La Plaza Mayor, was the actual location of Hemingway’s story and not the similarly named place? In the early 1920s when Hemingway first started coming to Spain, the Plaza de Herradores Botín was considered one of the best restaurants in Madrid, while the other Botin was not held in such lofty esteem.

Miguel  Izu (right),    a Pamplona  lawyer and author of Hemingway in Pamplona and debunker of Hemingway myths, in his unpublished 26-page treatise, Quevedo, Velázquez, Goya y Hemingway en Botín. Así se escriben las leyendas (Quevedo, Velázquez, Goya and Hemingway at Botin’s. How a legend is written, offered the following discoveries attesting to the popularity of La Antigua Casa Botín during the period when Hemingway was writing The Sun Also Rises.                                        Photo: Iban Aguinaga

Izu sent this to me in January 2024: “Beatrice Erskine, in Madrid, Past and Present (London, Lane, 1922), writes about the “celebrated” Casa de Botín on Plaza de Herradores, noting, ‘There is another tavern, not so well known, where the rich Madrileño and the tourist out for a new sensation never come, the Pasteleria de Cándido, Sobrino de Botin.’”

       Also from Izu: "Miss Alberta Clarke, of Los Angeles, California, sends us the following interesting 1923 account of a Thanksgiving feast in Spain: ‘Tucked away in a side street of Madrid, at the Plaza de Herradores, not far from the Puerta del Sol, is a little old tavern known as El Botin, favorite haunt of all lovers of things typically Spanish, and long famed, not only for its delectable dishes .’”

 

Before Hemingway’s first trip to Spain in 1923, American artist Henry “Mike” Strater, who had traveled extensively in Spain, drew a map of the country  on the back of a menu from the Paris restaurant Strix and wrote down a restaurant recommendation—Botín—in Madrid, which then would have referred to La Antigua Casa Botín, not Sobrino de Botín (below). Once in Madrid, had Hemingway asked directions to “Botín” or had asked a taxi driver to take him there, he would have been taken to La Antigua Casa Botín, so it is clearly the more logical setting for that famous last lunch in The Sun Also Rises.

Soon to be Hemingway’s good friend, John Dos Passos, in his  1922 book of poetry, A Push Cart at the Curb, in the poemPhases of the Moon,” signs off the sixth stanza as written on “New Year’s Day–Casa de ‘Bottin’––which he never learned to spell correctly––but nowhere in his writing does he mention Sobrino de Botín or Sobrino de Bottin.

That Botin (below) was named Pastelería de Cándido Remis–Sobrino de Botín, located at Calle de Cuchilleros 17, founded in 1865 as a bakery owned by José Puertas, nicknamed “Botin” and run by his nephew Cándido Remis. When Puertas died, he passed ownership to his daughter, who died young, and her husband who took ownership.           

The Puertas son-in-law and partner Cándido Remis quarreled, and the disgruntled Remis left the original Botín in la Plaza de Herradores and started his own restaurant “Cándido Remis - Sobrino de Botín” at Calle de Cuchilleros 17 in 1865.     





It is highly unlikely that Mike Strater would have recommended Pastelería Cándido Remis--Sobrino de Botín, whose entire name was prominently painted on the front of the restaurant.  Significantly, by the mid-1920s, at the time Hemingway was writing The Sun Also Rises, the restaurant at Calle de Cuchilleros 17 was not even called Sobrino de Botín, it was named Restaurant (sic) Remis.  Less than four months after the October 22, 1926, publication of The Sun Also Rises, on February 7, 1927 there was a classified advertisement in Madrid’s El Noticiero del Lunes for Restaurant Remis, Calle de Cuchilleros 17. 

              

After several lawsuits over the course of a century, the last of them ruled in favor of the original, so that only La Antigua Casa Botín in Plaza de Herradores could call itself  “Botín.” Legally, so that the Cándido Remis offshoot at Calle de Cuchilleros 17 could only use the name Sobrino de Botín.     

 

Miguel Izu also noted that in 1924, writer-and-intellectual Ramón Gómez de la Serna wrote, "(Plaza de Herradores Antigua Casa) Botín seems to have always existed and that Adam and Eve ate the first piglet that was cooked in the world there. . . and he “complained about the agglomeration of all kinds of visitors at Botín de Herradores, locals and tourists, rogues and careerists.”

During this same period, Gómez De la Serna also wrote about Sobrino de Botín, where he would go when he couldn’t get a table at La Antigua Casa Botín,  writing, “What all the Botín snobs don't know is that there is another Botín, which I prefer those days when you have to be waiting for someone to finish to find a table; a quieter Botín, lost in a more typical street, and as much Botín's sobrino (nephew) as the more famous one. In the other Botín on the old Cuchilleros street, de cochinillo asado is also good.”

               

          About Hemingway visits to Sobrino de Botín during the 1950s, why are there no verifiable dates or photographs with the González family, and no prensa tosa (celebrity gossip press) reports in such Spanish publications as Blanco y Negro and ¡Hola!?
         This is not to say that the current, now third and fourth, generation family members who run the restaurant are purposefully misrepresenting the Hemingway and The Sun Also Rises connections to Sobrino de Botín.            
    
The stories Antonio González Gómez (left), the English-speaking, front-of-the-house face of the restaurant,  echo what he heard from his father and grandfather, although Antonio has never told any of these stories to me personally. But in reports I have heard from others and read, he seems sincerely to believe the stories he shares about Sobrino de Botín’s connections to Hemingway.


Photo: Gerry Dawes


    However, Allen Josephs, a retired professor, author of books on Spain, on Hemingway in Spain and former President of The Hemingway Society, along with  Joe Distler (right), retired literature professor, are defenders of Sobrino de Botín as the Botín of The Sun Also Rises. Both men cite with utter sincerity––Distler with a hefty dose of stridency called me a "supreme asshole"––that since Antonio González––or in Allen Joseph’s case, even Antonio’s  grandfather  and  grandmother––told them elaborate stories about Hemingway at Sobrino de Botín, and so they must be true.  And if the stories are not true, so what?                        
                                                                            Photo: Gerry Dawes

   

    Investigation of the existence and former prominence of La Antigua Casa de Botín as the probable setting for the scenes in The Sun Also Rises is certainly not in the best interests of Sobrino de Botín. This invites speculation about Grandfather Emilio González’s veracity, which includes the upstairs corner table shown to inquiring tourists as “Hemingway’s table.”

Virtually none of the books and articles mentioning Hemingway at Sobrino de Botín acknowledges the existence of the original La Antigua Casa de Botín in Plaza de Herradores. Very few of these writers even interviewed members of the González family. Those who did repeated what they were told. Some even enhanced the family stories with their own imagined twists such as those about Hemingway escaping down hidden back stairways into tunnels to avoid star worshipers.
         In 1984, award winning author Edward Stanton in Hemingway and Spain: A Pursuit (1990) got the information he published directly from Antonio González Martín. Turning a blind eye to Hemingway’s well-documented work habits, Stanton repeated the tale about Hemingway writing at Botín: “Ernesto used to arrive before we opened, around noon,” Antonio says. “He would ask for a bottle of wine and a glass, spread his books and papers on the table and work until his friends arrived for lunch. In those days, hardly anyone would eat before two o’clock.” “What years were these?” Stanton asked.

“Mid-twenties,” said Antonio. “I was just a boy. Ernesto told my father he had a novel that was probably going to be published, in which the last scene would be set at Botin. This must have been Fiesta—what you call The Sun Also Rises in English—but my father never knew this. He did not read books.”

Huh? The father Emilio González didn’t read books and didn’t know about  The  Sun  Also  Rises,  yet  he  made  “eyewitness”  claims that Hemingway wrote part of the book in a restaurant in the mid-1920s. Such anecdotes as those told to Edward Stanton provide the basis for part of the legend, but this story about Hemingway in Sobrino de Botin in the 1920s contains serious problems of verisimilitude. Adding to this sieve-like fable, Antonio González Martín's parents, Emilio González Sánchez and Amparo Martin did not begin running tbe restaurant until 1930, four years after The Sun Also Rises was published. 

There simply is no firm proof or evidence that Ernest Hemingway ever visited either La Antigua Casa Botín or Sobrino de Botín in the 1950s. But as the last line of the novel says, "Isn't it pretty to think so?"

 



Gerry Dawes with be leading a specialized gastronomy, wine and cultural tour to Western and Southern Spain from Tuesday, October 14 – Thursday, October 30, visiting the great cities and towns of Madrid, Segovia, Ávila, Salamanca, Trujullo, Mérida, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Cádiz, Sevilla, Ronda and Málaga. For further information contact gerrydawes@aol.com.

 


 

 


 


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NEW YORK CORNER

FELICE PORT CHESTER

55 Abendroth Avenue

Port Chester, NY

 

By John Mariani




         Restaurant chains are of three kinds: There are the garish global fast food chains where everything is always the same, good and bad; then there are the global high-end restaurants owned or contracted by celebrity chefs that rarely sustain the quality of the original; the third, like SA Hospitality Group, is able to maintain a consistent chain of fine restaurants that acquire a distinct chic about them wherever they open.

         SA was originally known for  its Sant Ambroeus cafés and pastry shops, the first opened in Milan in 1936, now with more than a dozen in the U.S. and Europe, all of them beautifully designed, polished and very Italian wherever they are. They also run the posh Casa Lever in Manhattan, as well as a chain of casual Felice restaurants, the first of which opened in New York in 2007, now with a dozen there and Florida, including the more refined Felice 56, all under the direction of Culinary Director Iacopo Falai.

Menus are pretty much the same at each, and all maintain a kind of cooking and stylistic flair that draw packed houses of regulars.

         The newest in the chain is Felice Port Chester, located in what had been a vast 7,600 square foot warehouse dating to 1903, in recent years converted into a steak house, then a seafood restaurant. Little needed to be done to an extraordinary interior with its high ceiling hung with wide chandeliers, brick walls, patterned carpets, leather booths and banquettes,all artfully lighted and set with linens. To the left is a large bar and lounge where one can also dine. Despite the echoing height of the space, the noise level isn’t all that bad, especially in the booths along the wall.

         The menu is large, and although SA promotes the idea that they feature Tuscan cuisine, there is actually very little that derives from that region. Instead there are items from Rome, Florence,  Naples, Sicily and other cuisines throughout, beginning with starters like the pizzette, which are small and fairly flat, with toppings like Margherita, spicy n’duja pork condiment, and mushrooms and Taleggio.

         Among the pastas I most enjoyed was the hearty fresh ravioli della casa filled with spinach and simply dressed with butter and sage and Parmigiano-Reggiano. A hefty serving of pappardelle with sweet Italian sausages took on nuances from braised endive, porcini, herbs and a truffle sauce, while potato gnocchi were treated to  a springtime pesto and the surprise of creamy  burrata. Disappointing, though, was a dish of spaghetti al vongole that did not use small vongole verace clams but instead larger, pulpy New Zealand clams, a mis-step Falai told me would be remedied in the future.

It was good to see a sumptuous, deeply flavorful duck confit on the menu as a special rarely encountered on Italian menus.  Tagliata di manzo was twelve ounces of medium-rare sirloin with roasted potatoes, at a reasonable price tag of $53. Branzino at Felice is steamed in an aluminum foil pouch to retain all the juices, lemon and olive oil. Pollo pomodoro e lattuga proved to be a lackluster fillet of white chicken that needed seasoning, helped only by sun-dried tomato pesto, Kumato tomatoes, Bibb lettuce, pickled onions and red wine vinegar.

The dessert your table must share is the “Signature Felice Gelato Crema Buontalanti”––a mountain of what seemed a quart of soft vanilla ice cream in a silver bowl with various dried condiments on the side. Four of us could not finish it all.  Otherwise there are the usual tiramisu, cheesecake and a fine pistachio almond cake.

Where Felice does play its Tuscan hand is in the excellent wine list with all the best labels and quite a few unfamiliar ones, with seven whites and eight reds by the glass.

Who knows how far SA Hospitality will carry the Felice brand? What will be crucial is their ability to find the professional kitchen and dining room staff to maintain what it has been so successful doing up until now. In Port Chester, they most certainly are.

 

 

 

Open for dinner nightly; brunch Sat. & Sun.

 







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HÔTEL ALLEMAGNE
 
By  John Mariani






CHAPTER  FOURTEEN



        As usual in France, most of the conversation was about the food and wine, but David felt that he was now accepted by the two old friends, not least because Catherine loved the gusto with which he ate his meal. After the main course, however, having asked Jacques to delay the cheeses and dessert, they spoke about the hotel events.
         Catherine did not know about what Dr. Baer had told Katie and David, so she took a few notes on a notepad and said she hoped this new information—not otherwise released to the press—might get her a spot on CNN that evening.
         “So,” said Katie, “We’re looking for either a Russian terrorist or someone who’s not Russian but a terrorist from somewhere else.”
         “Or a home-grown French terrorist,” added David.
         “Well, that really narrows it down,” said Catherine.
         “Which groups might we include or eliminate? How about that Green Party the guy in Nanterre was part of.”         “I doubt it. They’re mostly anti-government, not anti-rich hoteliers.”
         “What other fringe groups or nationalists hate the French?” asked David.
         “How much time do you have? It’s a long list. The key to this, I think, is to focus on the hotels themselves, all Arab owned.”
         “How about Israel?”
         “No, relations are good, at least for the moment, even if there are plenty of anti-Semites in France.”
         “Okay,” said Katie, “but the culprits attacked Arab-owned hotels, and Israel is not on good terms with the Saudis.”
         “True, but Israeli underground groups are more interested in blowing things up in Iran, Syria and Lebanon. They treat the Saudis like sleeping dogs. Plus, the Israelis are very careful not to blow up their own people, which would turn the public against them even more.”
         “So, we put the Israelis to the side for now,” said David. “Who hates the Saudis most?”
         “Yemen’s relations are always flip-flopping, depending on who’s in office, but the Syrians are closely tied to Yassir Arafat and the PLO.”
         “You think the Syrians are active in Paris?” asked David.
         “Chirac has tried to isolate Syria diplomatically, and from what I hear, the Syrians want badly to get back into favor with France and Europe, so I don’t think they’d attack Paris properties.”
         “Then there’s Iraq.”
         “Yes,” said Catherine. “Then there’s Iraq. Saddam Hussein (right) still hates the Iranians almost as much as he hates the Saudis. Ever since he got his teeth kicked in in the Gulf War he’s been trying to regain power and influence, but he’s even more concerned with money laundering and sponsoring terrorists. He hasn’t got the balls to mess with the Saudis after the U.S. beat his pants off in the war.”
         Katie was impressed by her friend’s knowledge of diplomatic affairs but also realized that Europe had mutual interests that went beyond oil in the Middle East. Katie was herself a student of history at Fordham University but the focus was far more on the U.S. and Europe than the Middle East.
         “So, who’s the most likely suspect?” asked David.
         Catherine shrugged and said, “I’m leaning towards the Russians. For one thing, the French have put them at arm’s length when it comes to the Russian nouveau riche. Especially the Parisians—and even more so the Parisian Russian community, which is pretty large—who thinks the Russians are boors who spend money without regard to good taste or any concept of refinement. So, the Russians don’t feel in the least welcome, and they haven’t put much money into buying any real estate the way they have in London and Monaco.”
         “But the French don’t mind the invasion of the Asians now flooding in?”
         “The Asians are mostly tourists; they fly in, stay at the nice hotels, line up outside of Louis Vuitton and Cartier and book tables at the Michelin star restaurants. Then they go back home. They’re not investing here. The Japanese haven’t got the cash they used to.”
         David continued down the imaginary list. “And the Arabs?”
         “To the French there are Arabs and then there are Arabs. They don’t trust anyone over there except the Saudis, because they’re always changing regimes, and one day they’re Shia and the next Sunni. The French tolerate the Saudis because they are very stable and are fully supported by American weaponry. The French, by the way, sell some of their own fighter jets to the other Arab countries. Anyway, the Saudis agree to play by all the rules in Paris, so when they bring their checkbooks, the Paris banks know the money’s safe, usually in American dollars. The Saudis can be boorish, too, but they stay pretty quiet.”
         “And the French don’t mind the Saudis buying up their best hotels?”
         “Ah, that’s an interesting point,” said Catherine, cutting a bit of Livarot cheese and putting it on a morsel of bread. “What happened was that when the Arabs first started coming to Paris, they’d book whole floors at the big hotels, bring their own chefs, then cook in their rooms—they had more than a couple of fires—and destroy furniture and carpets then just paid for all the damage on their bill. But the Saudis saw how such behavior was making them look like camel herders, so, in order not to be snubbed at those hotels, they just went out and bought most of them. Mohammed Al-Fayed (left), who owns The Ritz, is Egyptian, and the Plaza-Athenée is owned by the Sultan of Brunei (below), but the three hotels that were hit by the virus are all Saudi-owned by a prince named Nayef.”
         “So, back to the Russians,” said David. “Why in God’s name would they attack three luxury hotels in Paris owned  by the same Arab guy?”
         Catherine shook her head, took bite of the cheese and said, “I haven’t the foggiest idea. Do you?”
         Her friends shook their heads and said they had a lot less knowledge than Catherine on the situation and couldn’t venture a guess.
         Katie said, “Okay, so if it is a Russian job, it would be the first act of terrorism by Russia in western Europe, wouldn’t it? Pretty risky, no?”
         “Very, which is why I don’t think it’s a ‘state operation,’ more of an individual one.”
         “By a Russian who hates Saudi princes?”
         “Maybe.”
         “Or,” said David, “how about a Russian billionaire who wants to buy those hotels from the Saudi prince.”
         “How so?”
         “Well, after the Legionnaire’s Disease incident in Philadelphia occurred, that hotel was out of business for years, even though it was scrubbed down to the bone. No one would stay there for fear of getting sick. Took them years to sell and re-open under a different name. So, what if some snubbed Russian billionaire, who’d been turned down trying to buy such properties in the past, comes along and says he’d be willing to take these condemned hotels, renovate them top to bottom and get them back on line?”
         “For a fire sale price,” said Catherine.
         “Exactly, so he gets his properties, feeds his ego and the French get these landmark hotels back in service, thanks to the Russian they once thought was a boor. Works out well for everyone on every side.”
         Katie and Catherine nodded in agreement.
         “Far-fetched,” said Catherine, “but it makes a certain amount of sense.”
         “Yes,” said Katie, “and maybe that’s why no one has died  from the virus yet or never will. Maybe it’s something like a mild form of the virus, which makes the plot sound a lot less diabolical. Even better than the Legionnaire’s event, which several people did die from, all quite innocently.”
         At that point Jacques came out of the kitchen, having changed his chef’s white jacket, and asked how everyone enjoyed the meal. The trio swooned in unison and asked him to sit down. Catherine gave him a hug.
        “C’est superbe, Jacques! Magnifique. With that, a conversation about the food and how he made each dish ensued. David said he might try that glass of Calvados now.                  







©
John Mariani, 2024



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NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR


                                                A MISCELLANY OF NEW
                                     ITALIAN WINE RELEASES
                                                                                By John Mariani


 The vineyards of San Leonardo in the Dolomite Mountains


With summer on the wing, one yearns for outdoor dining and perhaps a bit more adventurous spirit when it comes to drinking wines. Here are several Italian wines I like very much and give good bang for the buck.

 

KALTERN KALTERERSEE CLASSICO SUPERIORE  2024 ($14). True, it doesn’t sound very Italian but this splendid red wine is made in Alto-Adige in the north, from vineyards around Lake Kaltern from Alpine Schiava grapes  (called Tollinger in Austria).  The vintage weather was perfect and allowed for early ripening.  With just 12.5% alcohol., it is recommended as an apéritif with light foods, but I found it delicious with grilled chicken and vegetable-based pastas.  



 

FAMIGLIA COTARELLA FERENANO BIANCO  LAZIO 2119 ($25). Named after the ancient Etruscan town of Ferento in Lazio, this 100% Roscetto (similar to Trebbiano and Greco) uses grapes from planting averaging 17 years of age. Vinified in stainless steel and oak tanks after an eight-hour cryomaceration, it then spends four months in French oak and six months aging. It emerges at an alcohol level of 12.7%, making it an easy to drink wine with lots of tropical fruit notes, very good with dishes like salmon, branzino and Gorgonzola cheese.

 

 

 



BOLLA AMARONE DELLA VALPOLICELLA CLASSICO  2018 ($56). This was the first Amarone I ever had, way back in the 1970s, and I was impressed with its big, leathery, slightly sweet flavor that is a classic profile of this Veneto wine. Since then Amarones have become lighter and less distinctive, but Bolla’s blend of Corvina and Rondinella still maintains the boldness of the wine, making it excellent with red meat on the grill and in autumn with venison.

 


 

 


VIGNE SURRAU SCIALA VERMENTINO DI GALLURA SUPERIORE 2022 ($29). “Sciala” comes from an Arabic word for an abundant harvest, and this is a prime example of Sardinian Vermentino , made by Mariolino Siddi, planted in sandy, granite-rich soil that provides minerality. Aged for six months, it is released with 14% alcohol. The Demuro family produces about 90,000 bottles. Ideal with linguine with clam sauce.

 

 







OLIANAS VERMENTINO DI SARDEGNA 2023 ($20). Here’s another fine Sardinian Vermentino, this from the  southern region of Sarcidano. The Olianas estates’ 35 hectares of vineyards  are planted exclusively with native Sardinian grape varieties such as Cannonau, Vermentino, Tintillu, Nasco, Bovale and Carignano. This Vermentino comes from the Murvonis vineyard with a clay loam texture and the Porruddu vineyard, with a dark brown loam texture soil and sandy marl. About 20% of the grapes are harvested slightly in advance and allowed to ferment with maceration on the skins. The result is a complex example of this all-too-often bland varietal.

 

 

 

 

 




“VETTE” DI SAN LEONARDO SAUVIGNON BLANC 2024 ($25). Sauvignon Blanc is not rare in Italy though vintners have only recently been making examples that show off Italian rather than New World terroir, in this case from the Dolomites. The estate, since 2012 run by Anselmo Guerrieri Gonzaga,  is known for its Bordeaux-like blends but the Sauvignon Blanc “Vette” (“peaks”) comes from a high elevation site to the north of the winery, v
inified in stainless steel and aged on fine lees for five months. It has just enough vegetal flavor, kept in balance with its acids and floral components.

 

 

 



 

LIVIO FELLUGA FRIULANO SIGAR ($63). Long among the finest producers of Italy, Livio Felluga named this wine after his enjoyment of a cigar while inspecting his Rosazzo estate in the evening. Today, the 500-acre winery is led by Livio’s son, Andrea. Vines were planted in 1963. The grapes are hand-picked and undergo maceration on the skins for a few hours, then racked into terracotta jars towards the end of alcoholic fermentation, to permit proper temperature control. There is a fine citrus and aroma of herbs, making it wonderful with all seafood.









 





TENUTA CASADEI FILARE 18 2022 ($65). An IGT venture by Tuscan Stefano Casadei and Californian Fred Cline, both  dedicated to organic crops. The wine is from the estate in Suvereto, made from 100%  Cabernet Franc planted in 1999 and grown on medium texture soil. Spontaneous fermentation and maceration take place within buried amphorae, and the wine is then aged in new French oak barriques for 18 to 20 months.   The producers say this has a potential to age for twenty years but I found is  very good now in its youth especially as an accompaniment to pork.























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AND IF THAT DOESN'T
WORK JUST THROW A BREAD
ROLL AT HIS HEAD


“When you want service, call for it. Don’t sit there like a lemon hoping they’ll come by, because they won’t. They’ll be over at some Russian’s table, grovelling like spaniels. Michael Winner’s thing was to wave his napkin furiously in the air, but those were the days of big, white linen napkins that could really be seen across a busy room. These days, likely as not, you’ll have a tiny scrap of hessian that won’t work at all. This leaves only the finger snap, which not everyone can do, or my personal favourite, the double handclap, high above your left shoulder, like a Sultan summoning the belly dancers, à la Bernard Bresslaw in Carry On Up the Khyber. Until recently, the rarity of such a move commanded instant attention, but with the arrival of Gulf money in Notting Hill, a busy night in Dorian can sound like a roomful of people playing the maracas.”––Giles Coran, “Want to Be a Star Diner? Use My Etiquette Menu,” The Times (3/25)





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 Any of John Mariani's books below may be ordered from amazon.com.



   The Hound in Heaven (21st Century Lion Books) is a  novella, and for anyone who loves dogs, Christmas, romance, inspiration, even the supernatural, I hope you'll find this to be a treasured  favorite. The  story concerns how, after a New England teacher, his wife and their two daughters adopt a stray puppy found in their barn in northern Maine, their lives seem full of promise. But when tragedy strikes, their wonderful dog Lazarus and the spirit of Christmas are the only things that may bring his master back from the edge of despair. 

WATCH THE VIDEO!

“What a huge surprise turn this story took! I was completely stunned! I truly enjoyed this book and its message.” – Actress Ali MacGraw

“He had me at Page One. The amount of heart, human insight, soul searching, and deft literary strength that John Mariani pours into this airtight novella is vertigo-inducing. Perhaps ‘wow’ would be the best comment.” – James Dalessandro, author of Bohemian Heart and 1906.


“John Mariani’s Hound in Heaven starts with a well-painted portrayal of an American family, along with the requisite dog. A surprise event flips the action of the novel and captures us for a voyage leading to a hopeful and heart-warming message. A page turning, one sitting read, it’s the perfect antidote for the winter and promotion of holiday celebration.” – Ann Pearlman, author of The Christmas Cookie Club and A Gift for my Sister.

“John Mariani’s concise, achingly beautiful novella pulls a literary rabbit out of a hat – a mash-up of the cosmic and the intimate, the tragic and the heart-warming – a Christmas tale for all ages, and all faiths. Read it to your children, read it to yourself… but read it. Early and often. Highly recommended.” – Jay Bonansinga, New York Times bestselling author of Pinkerton’s War, The Sinking of The Eastland, and The Walking Dead: The Road To Woodbury.

“Amazing things happen when you open your heart to an animal. The Hound in Heaven delivers a powerful story of healing that is forged in the spiritual relationship between a man and his best friend. The book brings a message of hope that can enrich our images of family, love, and loss.” – Dr. Barbara Royal, author of The Royal Treatment.




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The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink by John F. Mariani (Bloomsbury USA, $35)

Modesty forbids me to praise my own new book, but let me proudly say that it is an extensive revision of the 4th edition that appeared more than a decade ago, before locavores, molecular cuisine, modernist cuisine, the Food Network and so much more, now included. Word origins have been completely updated, as have per capita consumption and production stats. Most important, for the first time since publication in the 1980s, the book includes more than 100 biographies of Americans who have changed the way we cook, eat and drink -- from Fannie Farmer and Julia Child to Robert Mondavi and Thomas Keller.


"This book is amazing! It has entries for everything from `abalone' to `zwieback,' plus more than 500 recipes for classic American dishes and drinks."--Devra First, The Boston Globe.

"Much needed in any kitchen library."--Bon Appetit.




Now in Paperback, too--How Italian Food Conquered the World (Palgrave Macmillan)  has won top prize  from the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.  It is a rollicking history of the food culture of Italy and its ravenous embrace in the 21st century by the entire world. From ancient Rome to la dolce vita of post-war Italy, from Italian immigrant cooks to celebrity chefs, from pizzerias to high-class ristoranti, this chronicle of a culinary diaspora is as much about the world's changing tastes, prejudices,  and dietary fads as about our obsessions with culinary fashion and style.--John Mariani

"Eating Italian will never be the same after reading John Mariani's entertaining and savory gastronomical history of the cuisine of Italy and how it won over appetites worldwide. . . . This book is such a tasteful narrative that it will literally make you hungry for Italian food and arouse your appetite for gastronomical history."--Don Oldenburg, USA Today. 

"Italian restaurants--some good, some glitzy--far outnumber their French rivals.  Many of these establishments are zestfully described in How Italian Food Conquered the World, an entertaining and fact-filled chronicle by food-and-wine correspondent John F. Mariani."--Aram Bakshian Jr., Wall Street Journal.


"Mariani admirably dishes out the story of Italy’s remarkable global ascent to virtual culinary hegemony....Like a chef gladly divulging a cherished family recipe, Mariani’s book reveals the secret sauce about how Italy’s cuisine put gusto in gusto!"--David Lincoln Ross, thedailybeast.com

"Equal parts history, sociology, gastronomy, and just plain fun, How Italian Food Conquered the World tells the captivating and delicious story of the (let's face it) everybody's favorite cuisine with clarity, verve and more than one surprise."--Colman Andrews, editorial director of The Daily Meal.com.

"A fantastic and fascinating read, covering everything from the influence of Venice's spice trade to the impact of Italian immigrants in America and the evolution of alta cucina. This book will serve as a terrific resource to anyone interested in the real story of Italian food."--Mary Ann Esposito, host of PBS-TV's Ciao Italia.

"John Mariani has written the definitive history of how Italians won their way into our hearts, minds, and stomachs.  It's a story of pleasure over pomp and taste over technique."--Danny Meyer, owner of NYC restaurants Union Square Cafe,  The Modern, and Maialino.

                                                                             








              

MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET NEWSLETTER is published weekly.  Publisher: John Mariani. Editor: Walter Bagley. Contributing Writers: Christopher Mariani,  Misha Mariani, John A. Curtas, Gerry Dawes, Geoff Kalish. Contributing Photographer: Galina Dargery. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.

 

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