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Winemaker Massimo Alois tableside April 5 @ Sotto

Taste with Italian winemaker
Massimo Alois
Campania, Italy
Thursday, April 5, 2012
5:30-10 p.m.

On Thursday, April 5, 2012, celebrated Italian winemaker Massimo Alois joins Sotto in presenting a flight of some of our favorite wines, Caiatì (made from Pallagrello Bianco grapes), Settimo (Pallagrello Nero and Casavecchia), and Trebulanum (100% Casavecchia).

Massimo will be on hand to speak tableside about his family’s wines and food pairings selected especially by Chefs Zach and Steve.

When the Alois family decided to make wine in the volcanic soils of their family’s estate in Campania, Italy, they could have easily cashed in on the Cabernet and Merlot craze of the late 1990s. Instead they chose to plant native varieties of southern Italy — including Pallagrello Bianco, Pallagrello Nero, and Casavecchia. Since the early seventeenth century, the Alois have been famous for the fabrics they produce (Missoni, anyone?). But today they are also beloved by Italian wine connoisseurs for their efforts to revive forgotten — and delicious — indigenous grapes of the south, like Casavecchia, the old house grape, so-called because it was rediscovered in an ancient Roman country house.

Chef Zach on Sotto’s Neapolitan Pizza

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Pizza

Neapolitan pizza as we know now  originated in Naples in the late 19th century, when a local pizzaiolo served Italian Queen Margherita, a pie in the colors of Italy’s flag: green basil, red tomato, white mozzarella. Since then, pizza has undergone an infinite number of makeovers, rarely, if ever, for the better. At Sotto, we prepare Neapolitan pizza the old fashioned way, as it would have been done centuries ago. The dough is composed of four ingredients: water, flour, salt, and yeast, the last in the form of a biga, or natural starter. We use no commercial yeast–fresh or dried–anywhere in the kitchen. After a long and slow fermentation process, our pizzas are baked in an eight-ton Neapolitan oven, burning exclusively White Oak to reach and maintain temperatures in excess of 900 degrees F. At such high temperatures, liquid water in the dough vaporizes instantly, expanding within tiny bubbles already formed by the yeast -to create a puffed and delicate cornicione, the raised outer crust typical of this style. Pizzas cook in 45 to 60 seconds, yielding a final product that is soft and supple, not dried out and crunchy as is often the case with other styles of pizza. Blistered but pliable, chewy yet delicate, a perfectly cooked Neapolitan pizza unites these seemingly opposite qualities under a tradition that is equally paradoxical: humble yet exalted.

Donkey & Goat: “things not in our wine”

The winemakers at one of our favorite California wineries, Donkey & Goat, recently posted the above image on their Facebook with the following caption:

“A list of things not in our wine.”

Donkey and Goat is a Natural winemaker. In other words, the folks there make “wines to which nothing is added,” as top US Natural wine authority Alice Feiring once defined Natural wine for me.

The image above lists “Materials authorized for the treatment of wine and juice” in the U.S. Click here for a glossary of all those materials in current U.S. Federal code for “Storage, Treatment and Finishing of Wine.”

We are thrilled to offer our guests the 2010 Donkey and Goat Sluice Box — white Rhône grape varieties grown and raised in the El Dorado AVA — by the glass at Sotto with our new 2012 wine list.

It’s bright and fresh, lip-smacking delicious with stone fruit flavors and delicate citrus.

And it’s one of the wines that my wife Tracie P and I drink regularly in our home.

—Jeremy Parzen
wine director

O and what’s a sluice box?

Fatalone, the best Primitivo ever?

Even though I’d tasted the wines previously, I first met Pasquale Petrera, producer of my favorite Primitivo, in June 2011 when I was a judge at the Radici Wines Festival in Puglia, a celebration of and competition between producers and bottlers of indigenous grape varieties of Southern Italy.

That’s the inimitable Pasquale, above, pronouncing the grape (and wine) name Primitivo in Apulian dialect (Pugliese).

Primitivo — an early ripening grape that delivers juicy, naturally fruit-forward wines — has been grown in Puglia (Apulia) for roughly three centuries and is believed to have originated in the northern arc of the Adriatic basin.

A lot of commercial Primitivo makes it to US shores and a lot of is good. But of all the appellations where Primitivo is allowed, Gioia del Colle — the sole hilly wine-growing area in the region — makes for wines with gorgeous freshness and lip-smacking acidity. It’s always a thrill for me to pour Pasquale’s wines for my Italian wine biz friends: even some of the most veteran tasters will admit that they have never tasted a Primitivo like Pasquale’s and the wine is always a winner.

Pasquale employs chemical free farming and spontaneous fermentation (with native yeasts) and his wines reward me with the freshness, the technical fruit, and the acidity that only Natural wines can.

We’ve featured his reserve wines for some time here at Sotto but tonight, with the launch of our new list for 2012, we’re debuting his entry-tier Primitivo by the glass.

If you come down to the restaurant tonight or tomorrow, I’ll pour you a taste and you’ll see what higher elevation and slopes can deliver — even in sun-burnt Apulia.

It’s one of my favorites and it’s also a staff favorite.

—Jeremy Parzen
wine director

Naima, a red as big as John Coltrane

That’s Bruno de Conciliis pronouncing the grape name Aglianico in the video above. Bruno is one of Italy’s most famous winemakers and he’s a campano (i.e., from Campania) 100%. You’ll note that he pronounces Aglianico using the campano dialectal inflection. It’s slightly different from the way it’s pronounced in “standard Italian.” But here at Sotto, we like authenticity over “standard.”

We’re thrilled to be offering our guests one of Bruno’s flagship wines, his Naima (named after the celebrated John Coltrane composition; Bruno is a HUGE fan of classical American jazz).

Naima is made from 100% Aglianico grapes grown biodynamically and then vinified with long maceration time and aged in large Slavonian casks. In many ways, the winemaking approach echoes the style of some of our favorite old school Barolos and the resulting wine is BIG, tannic, with muscular structure and rich, profound aroma and flavor, spanning an arc that ranges from red fruit and wild berry to earth, mushroom, and mineral.

Like Coltrane’s music, it is dense and complex, not easy to understand but rewarding for those who have the patience to dance with this giant of Italian reds.

And it’s one of my personal favorites from Campania — for the man, the music, and the wine.
—Jeremy Parzen

wine director

A thrilling wine from Campania…

From the department of “new wines on our 2012 list”…

Wine captain Rory Harrington and I have been tasting so many great wines come from southern Italy right now, especially from Campania and Sicily.

But the wine that sticks out in my mind this morning is the 2008 Nanni Copè created by revered “taster” Giovanni Ascione from Caserta (Campania).

The wine — as I learned reading this excellent post by colleague Monica Piscitelli — is named after Giovanni’s preferred appellation as a youngster: Nanni (diminutive of his Christian name) and Copè (an infantile corruption of his mother’s maiden name, Cioppa).

It’s made primarily from Palagrello Nero, with smaller amounts of Aglianico and Casavecchia, raised on 2.5 hectares of semi-pergola-trained (yes!), meticulously curated vines in Caserta.

Tongue-splitting acidity, fresh bright red fruit, and earth, earth, earth… Gorgeous black earth…

We’ve tasted a lot of awesome wines over the last few weeks as we prepare to launch our new list. But this one — its first vintage on the market — stands out in my memory this morning as an original wine, a wine that surprised me and taught me something new about the grape variety.

—Jeremy Parzen
wine director

Lamb Showdown: Manzke vs. Pollack/Samson Mon Feb 20th!

On Monday, February 20, Food GPS presents the inaugural Lamb Showdown. It’s Walter Manzke from upcoming Republique and Factory Baking Company vs. Zach Pollack & Steve Samson, the chefs and co-owners of Sotto. Guests will enjoy a six-course meal, with the talented chefs going head-to-head on four savory courses featuring American lamb, and two desserts starring sheep’s milk dairy. Every diner gets a vote on which chef delivers the boldest flavor, most originality, and best presentation. The winning chef earns $500, and of course greater glory.

The American Lamb Board is sponsoring the lamb as part of Lamb Lovers Month. Eagle Rock Brewery will be pouring three beers for each guest throughout the course of the dinner.

15% of event proceeds benefit the Special Olympics, an organization that provides year-round sports training and athletic competition for children and adults with intellectual disabilities.

The Lamb Showdown starts at 7:30 p.m. and the location is Guelaguetza in Koreatown. Tickets cost $75 per person, all-inclusive, for six courses of lamb and three Eagle Rock Brewery beers. Seating is limited, so Buy your Tickets now.

For people who prefer beverages other than beer, the full Guelaguetza bar will be open, and attendees can bring wine and pay the restaurant $15 corkage per bottle.

Guelaguetza offers $2.50 valet parking behind the restaurant, or you can fend with street parking. Remember that February 20 is a National Holiday, Washington’s Birthday. Meters off.

If you have any additional questions, please contact Food GPS founder Joshua Lurie at Joshua@foodgps.com.