An even bigger Barbera than before: Sandhill Burrowing Owl Vineyard 2003

If you're a blogger whose comments initiate intriguing, thread-twisting online conversation that often belie the topic of the post you attach them to, then you are sure to appreciate this.

Last weekend, Joe of Joe's Wine gave me with a bottle of wine. No doubt, a generous thing to do, but how many times does the gift of a bottle of wine answer the exact question you want answered?

It all started about half a year ago. Joe got things rolling with an unrelated comment on my blog post. One thing lead to another, and I was left with an unanswered question. To see what I mean, take a look at this thread of comments:

Joe said...
For the reds, they served the Borgogno Barbera and Don Antonio Nero d'Avola - the Borgogno was nice, but I will blog some better Barberas tonight/tomorrow. The Don Antonio was very cool, but pricey, and I am not yet a Nero believer. Next week is not Italy - switched to a Bouchard Pere et Fils Burgundy tasting. Cheers!
11:49 PM, March 17, 2007

Marcus said...
...As for Barbera, v. intrigued. Such an neat variety. Had Terredavino's Luna i Falo Superiore since it was on sale. Lacks balance and integration. A bit of a freakshow if you ask me. Might post about it later too.
1:43 PM, March 18, 2007

Joe said...
I have had the Luna i Falo before -a Malcolm Anderson recommendation. I'm not sure I recall 'freak show', but let's just say I haven't bought it in a while. I have actually blogged a Canadian barbera...
9:49 PM, March 18, 2007

Marcus said...
Joe beware the new 2004. It got a fair chance, decanted and given time. It's just really not good. And I'm someone who's recommended it before.
B.C. Barbera?
8:12 AM, March 19, 2007

That was the final comment on the post. Time passes. Exactly five months to the day, I meet Joe in person for the very first time and he hands me a B.C. Barbera. What a guy! For the record, it was the Sandhill Burrowing Owl Vineyard Barbera 2003.

I didn't wait long at all to open it up -- I uncorked it at the first Italian dinner that came my way. I'm glad I did.

Our plates of lamb, veal and sausage -- all strongly flavoured meats themselves -- were topped with strongly flavoured seasonal ingredients, like tomatoes and herbs in peak mouthfilling condition. Like I wrote in my Big Babs post, it's the heightened, often bursting deli-style flavours that Barbera is a natural match for.

And in classic style, that's exactly what this robust and delicious Sandhill Barbera wants. So here are the details, to the best of my note-taking abilities. (I wrote on the back of my sales receipt for a Pfaffenheim Schneckenberg Alsace Pinot Blanc 2004, which actually was a pick of another blogging friend, Bill of Wine with Bill Zacharkiw -- his selection was a seductive apricot and lime aperitif to the Italian proceedings.)

Eye: BONNES VACANCES A NOS CLIENTS (whoops that's just the receipt talking... sorry no colour notes taken!)

Nose: Ouch. Smells burnt at first. It's very, very smoky, subsiding eventually into a more friendly aroma. (Joe said it needed time so we left it uncorked for a while.)

Mouth: Wonderful Barbera acidity, and acidity in the best way -- mouthfilling and coarse with notes of chocolate on the finish. You can see what hearty, often fatty foods are a must -- this cuts right through deliciously. The smokiness turns into nice earthy licorice-y flavours. Some raspberry. Cranberry too, which suggests to me that this bottle is peaking.

Stomach: See above for food pairings. Note that this wine is perceptibly oaked but with dinner I actually prefer that to unoaked.

Online: Read the winery's PDF'ed descriptive profile (it also explains how this wine is part of Sandhill's impressive and ambitious Small Lots Program) or Joe's tasting notes.

On the bottle label: High alcohol is not translated to the glass, which means this is a tremendously successly cuvée of balance and structure. (The alcohol that does come off is integrated and enjoyable -- and I don't enjoy alcohol!)

Thanks Joe!

Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. 14.5%.

Marchesi Alfieri La Tota 2004, aka "Big Babs"

And... Weingolb revealed!

It'll be a strange week in December. There's a chill in the air yet the good ol' standby of this site, of my coterie of friends, of my very own kitchen -- red wine -- is on the backburner. After tomorrow, I will have not opened a bottle of red wine in a week. (Like I said in my post on my favourite new café, my appetite for red wine has all but totally disappeared.)

I'm enjoying white wines in red's place and that adds to my surprise. After all, Christmas is only ten days away. And while there's no rules against a white wine Yuletide season, it does strike me as an odd time to take the vacation I'm taking.

If redlessness describes my drinking these days, why post now about Barbera you ask? The answer is that my wine reviews come from notes lovingly aged in my cave for one full month. There. The truth's out. The wines you see reviewed on this site (not including the wines in WBW events) were uncorked the month prior. I had the wine in today's post on November 14. (Technically I had it on the 13th and 14th. My remarks on it didn't actually change much from the one day to the next. They often do.)

I'M PUTTING THE "RE" BACK IN WINE REVIEWS

OK, so why, you ask? For the year I've been posting my tasting notes on this site, I've routinely found that the energy required to take accurate and thorough notes didn't bode well for the effort I wanted to put into further research, presentation and style. Yes I put hard work into my wine reviews. Can't you feel the 30 days of polish applied to my posts?

So call me Wait-a-while Weingolb (and while we're at it, Weingolb is "blog" spelled backwards and appended to the German word for wine, in case you were wondering).

Onward to the unveiling of Marchesi Alfieri La Tota Barbera D'Asti 2004, a wine that's known in these parts as Big Babs. Check out Alfieri's online profile of it, which in most years is their top cuvée.

Before I reveal the secrets that lie behind the cork, a penetrating look at the label. "La Tota" means signorina in the Piedmontese dialect, or so say the winemakers. And that in English means miss, as in Miss Congeniality. I know. That was the first (and last) Italian title to a Weingolb wine review.

In any case, this wine is a hit, far from a miss, though I was a bit perplexed in drinking such a serious treatment for Barbera, a grape that usually is rendered into simple, quaffable and frequently cheap expressions.

THE JUICY BITS ON "BIG BABS" START HERE

The colour is a very bright magenta and there is a tad of a green aroma to it when you swirl it around your glass. La Tota would easily age perfectly well if you laid it down for a few years.

My first reaction was that this wine was very acidic, very Barbera. I found no trace of oak (though the profile page strangely alludes to it). An oak presence, I would hazard, is quite a nice thing for a Barbera. It seems to me that Barbera -- a rustic, often abrasive, frequently light-bodied varietal -- stands to gain a lot from oak's softening tannins and smoothing vanilla.

If this wine is missing wood, it is certainly not short on extraction and integration, which are really quite fantastic here. I've never had a Barbera like this one. It has medium body and medium length. It's even got a medium level of fruit, but mostly raspberry that has shades of mocha and spice. Its pucker makes for a less-than-great pairing if you've got hearty grilled foods like I had the night I sampled it.

BIG BABS LIKES "LITTLE" FOODS

Instead, try it with cold cuts, white meats, even fish in a fennel-infused relish. I might even like to try it with spice-box dishes like gnocchi made with no shortage of nutmeg or my favourite flourless pasta, a spinach-and-sage malfatti.

Mmmm... Marchesi Alfieri's La Tota Malfatti Night -- sign me up. My appetite for red wine is coming back again as I type this.

San Martino, Alfieri, Italia. 14%.

The legendary Meatloaf Sandwich, Piemonte-style (with Terre da Vino La Luna E I Faló & Michele Chiarlo Le Orme 2003)

I missed my friend Alex's birthday on the weekend. I was out of town. I was out of town last year during this period too. So this year I thought I would pick up something nice while away and make sure that I made Alex and a couple of our friends dinner before I left.

Then I thought I would publish an entry about it all on her birthday. If I couldn't be at her party in person, Doktor Weingolb could at least manage a shout-out during the festivities.

Well, two out of three ain't bad. This post is belated. Happy birthday Alex!

For you Alex, a souvenir of my travels to the Ontario Fruit Belt is on its way: delicious and pure black currant preserves (well what do you expect from a foodie?) harvested from the Moss Berry Farm in Embro, Ontario (which, being near Woodstock, is a bit farflung from the fruit belt -- the beginning of June is still too early for good Niagara tenderfruit).

I hope you will enjoy it and this retrospective of our Italian-themed meal in your honour...

(Because Alex is Greek, Northern Italy was the mode of the evening, both in terms of food and wine: A Venetian Maculan Pino & Toi to get our juices flowing and then Barbera-based Piemonte wine for an authentic match to the main course, which was a scrumptiously easy meatloaf, seasoned with fennel and nutmeg.)

A Meatloaf, dressed to impress (even its leftovers!)

So as to not insult your guests by serving them ground meat shaped into a log by your bare hands, insert hard-boiled eggs into the centre of the meat mixture before baking. Meatloaf is such an imprecise and forgiving dish that adding the eggs lifts the low standards of the creation and makes for a nice visual feast too. When you slice into it later, your guests will have "I can't believe my eyes" looks on their faces and then follow it up by blurting out questions like "How did you do that?" and "Where did the eggshells go?"

In another twist on the standard, cook the loaf as per tradition on the stovetop in a Dutch oven or other large, heavy, covered pan, which should already be lined with browned onions and carrots -- a kind of Italian mirepoix. Slow-cooking your meatloaf over low heat helps generate a nice gravy that you can serve with it. To determine doneness, use a meat thermometer after you've turned the loaf a few times while it is simmering.

Grilled zucchini and tomatoes are nice garnishes to this dish because they ooze Italiano. While they may be a nice pairing, they're not nearly as essential as celery root (celeriac or céleri rave). When mashed with a little butter and some cream, this celery side will want to cozy right up to the meatloaf.

Except for the zucchini, I served these dishes hot, but they do not need to be. In fact, at room temperature this food really sings. Which means that you should make big batches while you're in the kitchen to ensure you have leftovers when you are done. It's a great idea for summer since it offers a respite from the heat.

WHAT'S "THE ALEXANDRA"?

An even better reason to let your Italian creations cool a bit is so you can make what I call the "Alexandra" -- an incredibly fantastic meatloaf sandwich. What's great about an Alexandra is its meatiness -- the meatloaf is sliced like bread to go on either side of your leftover celery root mash, which, playing the usual role of the meat, is on the inside of the sandwich you've formed. Who says the best part of a sandwich has to go in the middle? It ain't called meatloaf for nothing. Take out your best bread knife and slice away. If you do it right the finished sandwich almost looks like egg salad on rye. Though the taste is entirely something else!

Yet another good reason for leftovers is better gravy. Meat juices, when they sit around refrigerated for a few days, intensify in flavour and thicken in consistency. The extra time also builds up your appetite, or at least I find it does. Then when you are desperate, sprinkle in a little more nutmeg to taste and some sherry. Boil it down to reduce the sauce further. The result is like liquid gold.

CANNOT LEAVE THE CANOLI ALONE

To cap off Alex and the gang's Italian menu, we had ricotta-filled canolis. Summer comfort food is best followed by more comfort food and these fine pastries, when done right, are a perfect way to end the meal. I'm not sure whether these Italian canoli delicacies originate in the north of Italy or not. I can say for sure where they are going though. To the stomach, via my mouth.

WHAT ABOUT BARBERA?

Some tasting notes on the wines that went the dinner. Like Monica, Barbera is a lovely red Italian grape named for a woman. Also like Monica, Barbera, especially Barbera D'Asti, makes for a tremendously food-friendly, fruit-filled wine. Barberas are usually more elegant and less rustic than other regional Italian grapes. Notes of chocolate can bolster fruit flavours and strong acidity punctuates every mouthful. I found that it married particularly well with our rich and flavourful dinner.

Two expressions of Barbera, both from the same strong 2003 vintage in the Asti region of Piemonte are affordable and recommendable:

La Luna E I Faló from Terre da Vino is an oaked and dense red with noticeable chocolate notes. Le Orme by Michele Chiarlo is zestier, lighter, and more simple in style.

Nizza Monferrato, Barolo, Italia, 14%. Calamandrana, Italia. 13%