Craig Camp

Don't forget if you don't have a car that it is very easy to take the "L" from Rosemont into the city and then it is an easy cab ride or walk to a long list of options. The choices in Rosemount are a little - shall we say - of another era.

Actually it is hard to buy anything but sea salt here. If you go to discount stores they have full pallets stacked with 1 kilo boxes of both course and fine sea salt that sells for $.13! I have never actually seen the regular table salt like we buy in the USA available in the stores here.

As I toss a heaping handful of sea salt into my pasta water I am again dumbstruck at the difference in costs between sea salt in Italy and in the USA. I buy a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of lovely, minerally tasting sea salt for about $.15 US. In the USA prices are so much higher than this it is incomprehensible. Why?

Check www.wine-searcher.com

And the makers now want a family desperate to start a fine wine cellar. Producer Dominic Sant told decanter.com, I am interested in finding families who have always dreamed of having a fine wine collection a case of Petrus 1982 or one bottle of Yquem 1921 or a case of 1973 Krug - but never been able to afford it.

Annual exports from New Zealand need to increase from approximately 1.5 million cases to four million this year.

Washington state producer Hogue Cellars is putting its entire Fruit Forward line, 70% of production, in Stelvin screwcaps.

The Alighieri family's move into Tuscany started in 1991 with the purchase of the 80ha Podere del Bell'Ovile estate in the Montecucco DOC. Alighieri is seeing this new purchase, in the heart of the Brunello di Montalcino DOCG, as a completion of a triumphal return for the ancient family.

The Bordeaux authorities have announced they are slashing the amount of wine the region can sell in an effort to stem the deepening crisis in French wine. ...at the very least these lower yields should mean better wine.

Ornellaia director Thomas Duroux has decided to return to his native Bordeaux to head the third growth Chateau Palmer.

lots of strange folks out there. By the way Jim, I had that Giacosa a few weeks ago at Antine. I thought it was fantastic and after about an hour in the decanter it really blossomed.

With all the pricing information available on the Internet now it is really not required to post prices with each note. Often everyone is better served if individual members search out pricing in regards to the area where they will by the wine as pricing can vary significantly. Also as we have discussed before, on wines purchased years ago that price is not very informative - except to make us all jealous! For example Jim's price on the Giacosa Nebbiolo is about half what it costs me

To find Guappo just send a note to the importer at: jens@montecastelli.com ...and glad you enjoyed the article.

Here is a thread from April on rose wines. ...and I mention a few here too.

I don't think these ten wines would quality for anybodys (except apparently this writer) list of great rosé wines. No Tavel? No Bandol? What kind of top ten is this?

The sauce is what I think most people outside of Italy don't understand. A good ragù is more meat and vegetables than liquid and tomato sauce. Also as you point out the concept of "al dente" certainly does not apply to pasta al forno. It certainly does not apply to no-boil pasta. My father-in-law uses any general brand of no-boil lasagna in finds in the stores here and his pasta al forno is always very good. However, this is more a function of his excellent ragù, bechamele and first class parmigiano than the pasta. This I think is right on the mark. Great pasta al forno, done in a Northern Italian style, has this "custardy" flavor. This is not something you would find in baked pasta from Southern Italy, which is delicious in its own right.

Although I'm risking the OT, let me express my opinion about the evolution of Italian wine-making. I think that Italian wine-makers needed to confront themselves with French competitors with "comparable" wines on the international market. By using foreign methods and varieties they have been able to show to the community of wine lovers that Italians were also skilled in wine making and that Italy could produce high quality wines, elegant and reliable. It would have been very difficult to win our present market share by promoting the local varieties, mostly unknown abroad, although I'm convinced that they represent our great treasure. And maybe, we wouldn't have been able to produce wines as we do today without testing ourselves through the methods developed by our cousins. Thanks to the acquired reputation, we can now promote and exploit our "diversity", the wide range of local vines and classic styles of typical Italian wine-making. I don't know who has been pushing in the past and who's bringing back to tradition today, but I think it had to be so. I would agree with this on a commercial level. Barriqued wines from Langhe and Toscana got Italy more attention that would have been possible in any other way. Many of these wines are also very good to great: Sassicaia for example. However, the use of non-traditional varietals, new cultured yeasts, extreme barrel exposure, roto-fermenters and super-mature grapes have buried the regional characteristics and terroir that Slow Food holds so dear and claims to protect. Yes these techniques have made Italian wine more commercially successful, but at the same time it has made some of Italy's most famous and expensive wines boringly the same as wines from anywhere in the world. In the short term this was commercially successful, but it the long term it will be a disaster as it removes Italian character from wines and ultimately educates the consumer that there is no unique reason to search out an Italian wine because they taste more or less like all the world's wines. You can argue that Italy can now promote its traditional varietals and character because of this success, but it is not true. Wines from potentially great varietals like negroamaro, nero d'avola, aglianco, lagrein, refosco and sagrantino (not to mention sangiovese and nebbiolo) are hopelessly buried under waves of oak that eliminate their reason for existence. If you want a wine that tastes like Australian Shiraz you can buy one cheaper from Australia - and it costs them half as much to produce it. The effect on wine is no different than when you pasteurize cheese. It is no longer a living agricultural product.

Few people would call it "lasagne" here. It is normally referred to as "pasta al forno", which of course encompasses a wide range of possibilities. However, up here by the Alps, pasta al forno is what most people outside of Italy would call lasagne. Down south it has a whole new range of possibilities. So that would be Craig "Garfield" Camp? I agree with you definition, but many Italian-descent people are from the South and their default may be different. Plenty of Lasagna in Sicily, used salted ricotta, never Bechamel or Parmesan. ...the ultimate comfort food. The only problem is my father-in-law likes to serve huge pieces of pasta al forno as a primo piatto, before the meat and potatoes hit the table. This is why the Italian had to invent grappa. In the south you see it in many ways - often with ricotta and often with other pasta shapes, most notable the various tube shapes.

Well, assuming we are doing the Emila Romagna version, that's easy. Fattoria Zerbina Ceregio, Sangiovese Romagna is one of my favorite Italian wine bargains year after year. No oak, zesty acids and bright cherry fruit make it perfect for a rich pasta al forno. ...and yes I think you can find it in Florida as it is represented by a division of Southern Wines and Spirits.

Few people would call it "lasagne" here. It is normally referred to as "pasta al forno", which of course encompasses a wide range of possibilities. However, up here by the Alps, pasta al forno is what most people outside of Italy would call lasagne. Down south it has a whole new range of possibilities.

Sometime in the mid-1990s, when Vegetarian Times did this as its cover story, I played around with the technique. In my opinion it does require some adaptation of recipes. It works best if you start with a wetter-than-average casserole, cook covered for awhile so the retained steam cooks the noodles, and then cook uncovered to release the steam and brown the top -- your overall cooking time will be a little longer. I think this works better than using no-boil noodles, which are pre-cooked and then dehydrated at the factory. The process seems to affect texture adversely. But skyflyer, I think almost undoubtedly the texture you're referring to comes from using fresh pasta sheets. There is a decided difference in flavor and texture between no-boil and normal dried lasagne pasta. ...also the Barilla is pretty lousy stuff and it is worse in the USA than in Italy where it is pretty bad. By the way, the Barilla no-boil is what you would probably be served in most Italian homes. If the rest of the ingredients are good enough it can be pretty good. However, fresh pasta makes this a COMPLETELY different dish. There is hardly an easier pasta shape to make fresh than lasagne is there? Why not make it?

This is, of course, the real thing. I am sure there is pasta al forno from the south that includes ricotta, but they certainly don't use it in Emilia Romagna. The incredients are bechamele (with a touch of nutmeg), lasagne pasta, parmigiano reggiano and bolognese ragu. That's it.

Well in Italy bottled water is cheap unlike the USA where it costs more than gasoline - try to explain that to an Italian paying $6 a gallon for gas. There is no way to justify the prices charged for bottled water in the USA. One question I would have is why there are not more domestic products? The USA is a big place and there must be some good springs somewhere. Why do Americans have to drink imported bottled water? In Italy, 1.5 liter bottles of water run from $.18 US to about $.60 for expensive famous brands. There is very much a health aspect to bottled water here where various waters are considered to have various health benefits. Of course taste is an issue. Once you become accustomed to the taste of pure mineral water the tap water takes on a chemical component. One think I have noticed about having an abundant and cheap supply of bottled water around the house is that I drink much more water. I easily drink a 1.5 liter a bottle a day by myself.

Craig doesn't Slow Food have a part in this too? After all the wine guide is a GR-SF joint effort, each going throughthe production of certain regioni. I'm sure SF does Piemonte for example. I believe the only Gambero Rosso publication published by Slow Food Editore is the Vini d'Italia wine guide. The Gambero Rosso Ristorante d'Italia is published by Gambero Rosso Editore. This causes a lot of confusion. My guess is there is only a legal reason (and thus financial) this situation still exists with Vini d'Italia as I am sure that Gambero Rosso Editore would like to avoid sharing the profits. The Gambero Rosso Vini d'Italia has been pushing wine producers away from everything Slow Food preaches: local tradition and flavors - for decades and have rewarded growers using foreign methods and varieties and ignored (or worse) producers working in classic styles. However, I am sure that Slow Food is making too much money from publishing this guide to seperate themselves from it even though it preaches an anti-Slow Food position. Gambero Rosso Ristorante d'Italia is that organizations statement on restaurant quality while Osterie d'Italia is the Slow Food statement - very different positions.

Extra Virgin is not just one thing. Within this classification quality ranges from extraordinary to less than ordinary. I don't buy plain olive oil just extra virgin. I use good commercial extra virgin for cooking - yes and for deep frying. But then I always have 3 or 4 top quality artisan extra virgin olive oils around from different regions (of Italy) to use as a condiment and on salads as they flavors vary greatly from region to region and from the types of olive used.