Tearing the arse from the chicken.
An old saying in Piedmont apparently which means that something is extra marvellous. As in "our visit to Ca d'Gal tore the arse from the chicken." By Kate
Our final day in Italy
We are off toAsti
There is a chicken theme in evidence, with all manner of chicken statues and paintings adorning various surfaces. It all makes sense when Christian explains that the ‘Gal’ means rooster.
Alesandro, rotund and red-cheeked, gives us a run-down on the history of the winery.
The farm was established in 1864 by his great grandparents and he took over exactly 100 years later, in 1964. They have always been Moscato producers, unlike many of the neighbours who for a long time sold only grapes to the co-op. In 1989, they started bottling their own.
Moscato is apparently very sensitive to Botrytis and so they must work hard in the vineyard to avoid this. 5 days before the harvest, the oldest and most experienced pickers go through and cut out all the botrytised grapes. These are fermented separately and if the resulting wine is good enough, it gets blended with the rest of the must. There will never be more than 1% though, so it is not at all detectable.
Work is very much by hand here. They do not have organic certification because Alessandro feels that until everyone in this amphitheatre of hills changes their philosophy, he cannot possibly claim to be organic due to chemical drift. His dream is to have a vineyard surrounded by woods, so that he does not have to deal with anyone else’s unpleasant irresponsibility. For his part, he stopped using any chemicals 18 years ago and hasn’t touched a drop since.
By this point in the discussion we have a glass of the Moscato in our hands which betrays not a trace of botrytis. This wine is the epitome of fresh gossameriness.
Yes, that is a word. I was not succumbing to a fit of Moscato-induced word invention. Delicate flavours of ripe grapes and fresh herbs with a lemon blossom sorbet edge and finish.
How wines like these are not more popular I will never know. It is the pefect pick-me-up and I certainly feel perkier after a few sips.
If there is a lot of botrytis, most of the must will go into making Cugna, which is really a kind of spiced jam served either with cheese, or eaten over snow in the winter. At first I think I have misheard but no. When people were very poor and could not afford ice cream ingredients, this was the alternative. Apparently, it is delicious.
We taste his Asti Spumante, out of interest more than anything else. As expected, this is not a patch on the Moscato. WhileAsti Asti
It really doesn’t work with the extra bubbles. The wine is very popular inItaly Champagne Asti
We are tasting their ‘Lumine’ cuvee of Moscato and they do another as well. A mere 5300 bottles of Vigne Vecchia are made from only 1 hectare of their best vines, but plans are afoot to buy Alessandro’s sister's vineyard, which will increase the number somewhat.
Apparently, this used to be a region of bottle-fermented sparkling wine but then the mass market moved in, sometime in the early to mid 70's. Today,Asti Champagne
We move to the table and first taste Alessandro’s Sauvignon Blanc (which is fine, but nothing very special) and then his Freisa (delicious – floral fruit with an earthy edge). Lovely as the latter is though, it is not the main event.
We smell it before we see it. Two large earthenware bowls are placed at both ends of the table, surrounded by dishes of chopped fresh vegetables. Peppers and cardoons (a vegetable that looks like celery and tastes a bit like artichoke and celery, which is particularly good with this accompaniment), chicory, fennel, beetroot and what look like baby turnips. In fact, I think they are baby turnips. I should really have taken pictures but I was too entranced by the smell.
Garlic. A lot of garlic. And anchovies. I think when I die, my own private heaven will smell of this. It is one of the most appetising aromas I have ever encountered.
Alessandro very generously gives us the family recipe: First you clean a lot of garlic. Work on an entire bulb per person. Then you remove the green part and cook the cloves in milk for about 10 minutes. This softens the flavour somewhat so if you want to blow yourself and your guests away (and anyone who has the misfortune to have to deal with you the next day), just skip this bit.
Throw away the milk. I would love to have a brilliant suggestion for something you could do with the milk after this step as throwing it away seems terribly wasteful. Keep it for another sauce perhaps?
Then, put the garlic, lots of olive oil and lots of anchovies in a pan. The quantities were not more specific than this. Make sure that at least 30% of the anchovies are whole. You must use the salted kind but do give them a wash first.
You cook this very gently for a very long time. I seem to have scrawled 15 hours, but can that be right? I was slightly tipsy on Moscato. When the garlic is soft enough, mash it with a fork.
What you are aiming for is a sauce that still has a fairly solid consistency. If some were to drop from a spoon onto the table cloth (yes, that happened more than once), it would plop and not drizzle. The oil is not entirely blended in, kind of coating it instead.
Apparently, this brew is totally amazing with green apples.
I can completely vouch for the fact that it is out of this world with all the vegetables described above (the beetroot was my favourite) and bread. And it went absolutely perfectly with the Freisa which had more than enough acidity to cope with the salt of the anchovies.
We have rabbit to follow although really, all I wanted to do was hug the bowl of Bagna Caude to my chest and finish that instead. I think I could happily eat it as a kind of soup.
This was good but the wine was better. Christian had very generously bought his last bottle of 1997 Roagna Barberesco Pajé which was completely sublime. For that fact alone, he must forever more be one of my all time favourite wine people.
The 2003 Vigne Vecchia came out next. What a revelation. Why don’t more people age Moscato D’Asti? The sugar fades somewhat and the lemon blossom sorbet edge comes out more. It is sensational.
We have this with the local goats cheese – Robiolo – and then with Bunet, a very classic Piedmont dessert. This is a kind of chocolate custard made with eggs, dark chocolate, milk and Amaretto. Apparently, it used to be white and made without chocolate but then people got richer and it got darker.
We had to leave. This was a most unhappy fact although I think my liver must have been offering up prayers of thanks. The airport was 2 hours away and we had a plane to catch.
Only we missed it. An accident on the motorway meant that we arrived with about 3 minutes to spare before takeoff.
I have arrived at airports around that time on other trips and still been allowed onto the plane and since we had all been eating Bagna Caude I felt sure that if we breathed in unison on the check-in and security people a path onto the plane would have miraculously opened up. I forgot though that they were Italian, and so immune.
There was another plane later that evening so it was not a disaster. Nothing could have been a disaster after a trip like this.
I have loved the wines of this region for a very long time but in three days, my passion has moved onto another level. These are truly among the very best wines being made anywhere in the world today, by people who understand the importance of integrity and who really know how to enjoy the sensual side of life.
I will be back. And before I return I will teach myself how to make a Bagna Caude so good, it completely rips the arse from the poor unfortunate chicken.
We are off to
There is a chicken theme in evidence, with all manner of chicken statues and paintings adorning various surfaces. It all makes sense when Christian explains that the ‘Gal’ means rooster.
Alesandro, rotund and red-cheeked, gives us a run-down on the history of the winery.
The farm was established in 1864 by his great grand
Moscato is apparently very sensitive to Botrytis and so they must work hard in the vineyard to avoid this. 5 days before the harvest, the oldest and most experienced pickers go through and cut out all the botrytised grapes. These are fermented separately and if the resulting wine is good enough, it gets blended with the rest of the must. There will never be more than 1% though, so it is not at all detectable.
Work is very much by hand here. They do not have organic certification because Alessandro feels that until everyone in this amphitheatre of hills changes their philosophy, he cannot possibly claim to be organic due to chemical drift. His dream is to have a vineyard surrounded by woods, so that he does not have to deal with anyone else’s unpleasant irresponsibility. For his part, he stopped using any chemicals 18 years ago and hasn’t touched a drop since.
By this point in the discussion we have a glass of the Moscato in our hands which betrays not a trace of botrytis. This wine is the epitome of fresh gossameriness.
Yes, that is a word. I was not succumbing to a fit of Moscato-induced word invention. Delicate flavours of ripe grapes and fresh herbs with a lemon blossom sorbet edge and finish.
How wines like these are not more popular I will never know. It is the pefect pick-me-up and I certainly feel perkier after a few sips.
If there is a lot of botrytis, most of the must will go into making Cugna, which is really a kind of spiced jam served either with cheese, or eaten over snow in the winter. At first I think I have misheard but no. When people were very poor and could not afford ice cream ingredients, this was the alternative. Apparently, it is delicious.
We taste his Asti Spumante, out of interest more than anything else. As expected, this is not a patch on the Moscato. While
It really doesn’t work with the extra bubbles. The wine is very popular in
We are tasting their ‘Lumine’ cuvee of Moscato and they do another as well. A mere 5300 bottles of Vigne Vecchia are made from only 1 hectare of their best vines, but plans are afoot to buy Alessandro’s sister's vineyard, which will increase the number somewhat.
Apparently, this used to be a region of bottle-fermented sparkling wine but then the mass market moved in, sometime in the early to mid 70's. Today,
We move to the table and first taste Alessandro’s Sauvignon Blanc (which is fine, but nothing very special) and then his Freisa (delicious – floral fruit with an earthy edge). Lovely as the latter is though, it is not the main event.
We smell it before we see it. Two large earthenware bowls are placed at both ends of the table, surrounded by dishes of chopped fresh vegetables. Peppers and cardoons (a vegetable that looks like celery and tastes a bit like artichoke and celery, which is particularly good with this accompaniment), chicory, fennel, beetroot and what look like baby turnips. In fact, I think they are baby turnips. I should really have taken pictures but I was too entranced by the smell.
Garlic. A lot of garlic. And anchovies. I think when I die, my own private heaven will smell of this. It is one of the most appetising aromas I have ever encountered.
Alessandro very generously gives us the family recipe: First you clean a lot of garlic. Work on an entire bulb per person. Then you remove the green part and cook the cloves in milk for about 10 minutes. This softens the flavour somewhat so if you want to blow yourself and your guests away (and anyone who has the misfortune to have to deal with you the next day), just skip this bit.
Throw away the milk. I would love to have a brilliant suggestion for something you could do with the milk after this step as throwing it away seems terribly wasteful. Keep it for another sauce perhaps?
Then, put the garlic, lots of olive oil and lots of anchovies in a pan. The quantities were not more specific than this. Make sure that at least 30% of the anchovies are whole. You must use the salted kind but do give them a wash first.
You cook this very gently for a very long time. I seem to have scrawled 15 hours, but can that be right? I was slightly tipsy on Moscato. When the garlic is soft enough, mash it with a fork.
What you are aiming for is a sauce that still has a fairly solid consistency. If some were to drop from a spoon onto the table cloth (yes, that happened more than once), it would plop and not drizzle. The oil is not entirely blended in, kind of coating it instead.
Apparently, this brew is totally amazing with green apples.
I can completely vouch for the fact that it is out of this world with all the vegetables described above (the beetroot was my favourite) and bread. And it went absolutely perfectly with the Freisa which had more than enough acidity to cope with the salt of the anchovies.
We have rabbit to follow although really, all I wanted to do was hug the bowl of Bagna Caude to my chest and finish that instead. I think I could happily eat it as a kind of soup.
This was good but the wine was better. Christian had very generously bought his last bottle of 1997 Roagna Barberesco Pajé which was completely sublime. For that fact alone, he must forever more be one of my all time favourite wine people.
The 2003 Vigne Vecchia came out next. What a revelation. Why don’t more people age Moscato D’Asti? The sugar fades somewhat and the lemon blossom sorbet edge comes out more. It is sensational.
We have this with the local goats cheese – Robiolo – and then with Bunet, a very classic Piedmont dessert. This is a kind of chocolate custard made with eggs, dark chocolate, milk and Amaretto. Apparently, it used to be white and made without chocolate but then people got richer and it got darker.
We had to leave. This was a most unhappy fact although I think my liver must have been offering up prayers of thanks. The airport was 2 hours away and we had a plane to catch.
Only we missed it. An accident on the motorway meant that we arrived with about 3 minutes to spare before takeoff.
I have arrived at airports around that time on other trips and still been allowed onto the plane and since we had all been eating Bagna Caude I felt sure that if we breathed in unison on the check-in and security people a path onto the plane would have miraculously opened up. I forgot though that they were Italian, and so immune.
There was another plane later that evening so it was not a disaster. Nothing could have been a disaster after a trip like this.
I have loved the wines of this region for a very long time but in three days, my passion has moved onto another level. These are truly among the very best wines being made anywhere in the world today, by people who understand the importance of integrity and who really know how to enjoy the sensual side of life.
I will be back. And before I return I will teach myself how to make a Bagna Caude so good, it completely rips the arse from the poor unfortunate chicken.
