Pasta Nostra 7/13/13

It was a Pasta Nostra night last night. I’d never been to Pasta Nostra but I’d been told that it was one of the staples of Sono. My buddies Matt and Ashby are fanatical about the place so they invited us for a double date dinner and a bit of tasting with Joe, the gentleman that owns the place.

Dinner started with the 2011 Cantina Tramin Gewurtztraminer—a wine that was amazingly aromatic, sweet spicy (clove, nutmeg, cinnamon) and flavor filled. Admittedly, I’m not a huge Gewurz guy—I think it’s the spices in combination with generally low acidity. Without the right food it can be cloying. In any case, I knew Matt would love this wine (the guy loves spicy Belgian beers and alike) so we ordered the Tramin from Alto Adige and it sang, especially with our Calamari and zucchini flower with goat cheese. It’s logical that you can take a low acid grape and grow it in an especially high-acid region and come up with a balanced wine. And at 15% ABV.

Joe decided that we should follow the spicey Gewurz by nothing other than a 2004 Fattoria Coroncino Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico Superiore Gaiospino Fume. 2004 Verdicchio. Long name. Beautiful label. Stunning wine.  Manzanilla brininess meets White Burgundy minerality with honey, herbs, and a late onset oak profile, a bit buttery but not off-putting. Flinty and floral. This is the best Verdicchio I’ve ever tasted.

The whites were followed by the 2006 Castello di Neive Santo Stefano Riserva Barbaresco—a true stunner. I explained to Matt that Barbaresco is a village not far from Barolo with a reputation for producing Nebbiolos in a generally more elegant style than Barolo. This is a wine that truly lived up to that reputation and was refreshing following the extracted and pruney Barbarescos I’ve tasted lately. I like my Nebbiolo red-fruited, lifted, and floral. Not only did this wine meet those parameters but it delivered a gorgeous tertiary white truffle that didn’t overwhelm the fruit but made this wine my wine of the night. Apparently Bruno Giacosa used to (or still does, I don’t know) buy fruit from Castello di Nieve. Outstanding quality indeed.

We ended the night with a bottle of 1980 Bertani Amarone that Matt and I had brought to share with Joe (and the ladies). The Bertani was very well built, and very much alive but maybe not what it should have been. I think it was a little corked (or absent in some other facet). It was clean smelling, although a bit dull, on the nose with subtle dried cherry, raison, and (as Joe suggested) shoe polish. On the palate it was vibrant and packed with fruit but came short on the back palate and finish. To be fair, it was brilliant beside the entrees that it accompanied but just not what it might have been or could have been. Again, this wine was not ‘corky’ by any means, it just didn’t show up the way I had hoped it would. I also don’t think its lackluster performance was due to age but a shortcoming of this particular bottle. Very pleasurable and nostalgic nonetheless, beside top-notch ingredients and company.