Craig Camp

Yes - I was only referring to large format bottles of sparkling wine. Red wines generally age more slowly in large bottles.

The big Champagne houses produce many empty big bottles (dummys) for promotional purposes. I am suprised they are not showing up on e-Bay. You might try checking with large retailers to see if you can buy a dummy. Other ones are siting around on display in restaurants. WARNING: While the Champagne houses do produce many full bottles of these giants - the wines go flat very soon - after a couple of years or less. Avoid buying oversized bottles that have been lying around for a long time.

Welcome Florida Jim to eGullet! we look forward to seeing your tasting notes here. I have heard about the 1998 Cantina del Pino, Barbaresco “Ovello” always with very positive reviews. Is sounds like a steal at $35 - and that includes the shipping right? Its nice to know that there are still Barolo and Barberesco out there under $75.00. I've got to track some down before its gone. Garagiste seems to be doing a good job.

These are about 1/2 hour from the center of Verona (without traffic!) and are two of my favorites. Qui - Pila Vecia Click on the Gabriele Farron link for the restaurant. e - La Peca Via A Giovanelli, 2 36045 Lonigo (VI) (011 39) 0444-830214

The Progressive Wine List Do you like this idea of the a wine list divided by style as compared to geography? Everytime I see one I find wines grouped together that IMO do not match.

Do you know if Bruno is planning to stay on at Sanford after their purchase by Paterno?

The presence of sediment is most often a sign that the wine was un-fined (adding egg whites or bentonite to clarify the wine in barrel or tank) and unfiltered before bottling. This is most often seen as a sign of quality as the wine was manipulated less during winemaking. The sediment is powdery when you feel it. The 'crufty' stuff on the cork was probably tartaric acid crystals which are another sign the wine was minimally treated - in this case not 'cold stabilized’ by chilling before bottling. These feel like grains of sand. Both the sediment or the crystals offer no problem except that you have to let the bottle sit quietly for a while before carefully opening and then pouring into a decanter leaving the sediment and tartrate crystals in the bottle. You can accomplish this for red wines by using a flashlight (or a candle for those traditionalists out there) shining through the neck of the bottle as your pour so that you can see when the sediment starts to pour into the decanter. White wines do not normally throw significant sediment but can have large chunks of tartaric acid crystals from being over chilled. Un-fined and unfiltered wine is not a guarantee of quality, but shows that the winemaker is at least trying. Often red wines benefit from judicious fining which can mellow tannins. Most of the great red wines of the world are fined. Filtration is a totally different matter. Many feel that filtration strips a wine of many important flavor components and that cold stabilization changes the acid balance of the wine . I agree.

We can only hope.

Who ever thought the Brie and Chablis crowd would be thought of as un-American.

Thanks Alex - now I have more places to add to my list. Can't wait for my next visit to Bologna. Posts like this are wonderful and useful. I hope all eGullet people traveling to Italy take the time to post their notes and experiences. So many restaurants so little time! I am building a database of restaurant experiences. May I add your notes to my database Alex? Thanks again.

I still have stains on my kitchen ceiling from one of these I got as a sample.

sorry missed it the first time

Some things we can't stop talking about. Getting the cork out is a very important thing!

What's the best kind, or was this a joke? Everyone else, what is the best kind? It was apparently a poor attempt at humor. I confess to drinking eerrr... tasting them. For me anything other than a good waiter's style corkscrew is a pain in the .... You need a good spiral not auger screw, a sharp knife and a double level lever is best. Laguiole are beautiful, work great and are super-expensive. They are to corkscrews what Montblanc is to pens. They are functional status symbols. Yes, I have one. You can spend a lot less and get a corkscrew that works just as well. Try corkscrew.com to see almost every type available. Corkscrew.com

But you lose the psychological benefits of twenty minutes of stirring in the same direction. It’s like repeating a mantra. I have never done this but find it hard to believe. Can you pass along your recipe so I can give it a shot?

You have to stir risotto or it is not risotto - just boiled rice. I have seen lots of Italian do this - but only ones who really don't know how to cook or those making dishes not traditional in their area. Unless you lived in Lombardia, Piemonte, or Friuli Venezia Giulia grandma probably did not make risotto very often - if at all. Young Italians tend to live at home longer than Americans. In many homes the children are not welcome in the kitchen and do not learn to cook until they move away. My father-in-law does almost all the cooking in their home (Lombardia) and does not welcome us into the kitchen to help cook. He has his way and does not want anyone to make the smallest change in his receipe. My wife did not cook a thing until she moved out of the house. Between her father, grandmother and great-grandmother (all great cooks) there was not much reason for her to cook - it was like living in a great restaurant.

This is bound to start a war - nobody ever agrees on whose got the best Tiramisu. I vote for my mother-in-laws. Si Grazie Pina, voglio ancora!

Alex - PLEASE!!! post your notes. The longer and more detailed you make them the more we love them. One of the great assets of this board are real time and personal restaurant reviews. Don't forget your wine notes! Bore us! We beg you!

i want your job. I don't actually drink them I do research on corkscrews.

You are right - there is no single answer it depends on the wine. The wines SFJoe mentions are certainly a good bet for standing up well but beyond that it's up for grabs. What it comes down to is that some wines will oxidize very quickly while others improve dramatically. Big, fat, oaky, 'internationally styled' wines tend to fall apart the fastest, while wines with higher acids and tannins handle oxygen better. As a general rule if the wine won't age well it also won't hold up well in the open bottle - even overnight. The first thing to go is the fruit flavor – so if the only thing a wine has going for it is big fruit and big oak it will probably not hold up well. I open about 50 bottles a week at home so I have bottles sitting around everywhere in various states of exposure to air - much to the pleasure of my wife. I currently use the Zepter vacuum pump VacSy or the Vacuvin, then refrigerate wines that I think may not store well. Cold slows down the oxidation process. One thing I would disagree with from some of the posts here is the idea of pouring the wine into a different container. The act of pouring the wine out of the bottle is the single greatest thing you can do to mix the wine with oxygen. This is one of the main reasons your pour a wine into a decanter instead of just opening the bottle. Remember oxygen is the enemy if you want the wine to last. If you don’t finish the bottle you will end up with some winners and losers in the next days. Some decline after one night while some are improving for days. Good luck – they still surprise me – some I think will keep don’t and vice versa. I have had bottles that I seal and refrigerate fall apart and wines that I forget even to re-cork end-up tasting great. Don’t forget older wines will not usually hold up well after opening. Then of course there is the factor personal taste. You may like a wine better after a day while another preferred it when just opened. Gee ... why do people who are not into wine think we are wine geeks?

Sorry for the long winded answer to the wrong question! Try Orata - I think it is called Gilthead in England. I also like Branzino (sea bass) for this dish.

The current statistic for time between purchase and consumption is 4 hours. Does this take into account Restaurants or merely Wine Store purchases? retail purchases only

Peter -More than you wanted to know about the pompano fish: Types of Pompanos Of the 30 genera that constitute the family, the 6 most important are the leather jacks, the amberfishes, the cavallas or jacks, the moonfishes, the casabes, and the pompanos. 2 Best known of the leather jacks is the pilot fish, a slender variety rarely over 2 ft (60 cm) long. Pilot fish, Naucrates ductor, often follow ships and sharks, feeding on the scraps left behind. Another species also called pilot fish is an amberfish. The amberfish genus, Seriola, (whose members are also called amberjacks and coronados) contains often beautifully colored fish that are of moderate to large size. The genus includes the streamlined California yellowtail, a popular game and food fish, weighing up to 40 lb (18 kg). Amberjacks are common off the Florida coast. They are grayish purple on the back and golden on the sides, and average 12 lb (5.4 kg) in weight, though specimens may reach 100 lb (45 kg). They prefer deeper water and feed on smaller fishes, as does the rainbow runner, strikingly colored in blue, yellow, and silver. Others of this group are the mackerel scad and the saurel, 2 ft (60 cm) food fish of commercial importance in San Francisco. 3 Most abundant and valuable of the cavallas (genus Caranx) is the crevalle, or common jack, C. hippos, found in dense schools on both coasts of tropical America and as far north as Cape Cod and the Gulf of California. Crevalles have olive backs, silvery and yellow sides, and reach 2 ft (61 cm) in length and 40 lb (18 kg) in weight. The kingfish, or king cero, is an important food and game cavalla of tropical Atlantic waters. The blue runner, or hard-tailed jack, 1 ft (30 cm) long and 1 lb (.45 kg) in weight and found from Brazil to Cape Cod, is an important food fish in the West Indies. The horse-eye jack is found in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. It is most abundant in the tropics, where its flesh is reputed to be poisonous. The Cuban jack, or African pompano, averaging 2 ft (61 cm) in length and 12 lb (5.4 kg) in weight, is a beautiful fish with an iridescent silvery sheen, similar in coloration and in its compressed, angular body to the moonfishes, silvery marine fishes of the genus Vomer. 4 Two moonfishes are the lookdown and the silvery moonfish. Both average from 7 to 9 in. (17.5–22.5 cm) in length and 1/2 lb (.25 kg) in weight and are important food fishes. They frequent sandy bottoms, feeding on small fish, crustaceans, and marine worms. The lookdown differs from the moonfish in its elongated dorsal and anal fins and in its rainbow iridescence. The casabe, or bumper, a smaller fish (up to 1 ft/30 cm) found from Brazil to Cape Cod, is of little value as food. 5 Commercially the most important of the family are the pompanos, species of which are among the most delicious of all food fishes. Prized as a food and game fish, the common pompano, found from the Carolinas to Texas, reaches a maximum length of 18 in. (45 cm) and weight of 8 lb (3.6 kg). It prefers sandy bottoms and feeds on small crustaceans, especially shrimps and sand fleas. A warm-water fish, it migrates to avoid cold, and an unseasonal cold spell will kill it. Of similar habits and distribution are the round pompano, named for its shape, and the gaff-topsail pompano, or palometa, a beautiful fish with a cerulean blue back and silvery yellow sides. Its counterpart in Pacific waters is the pompanito. The permit, or great pompano, of the Florida reefs is the largest of the family, weighing up to 30 lb (13.5 kg) and reaching a length of 3 ft (91 cm). 6 Classification Pompanos are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Osteichthyes, order Perciformes, family Carangidae. 7 The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2002 Columbia University Press

Pesce Arrosto in Sale is a dish that I associate with regions futher south than Roma - although you can find everything in Roma. Certainly Napoli but even more in Puglia and Calabria. As Bux noted - all areas that were under the Spanish crown.

With as much as I have spent on them I feel obligated to keep them looking good. I have some 25 year old Le Creuset that I think I have developed a close personal relationship with - they've been with me longer than my wife or kids. Am I spending too much time in the kitchen?