Sky is the limit
Olio Secondo Veronelli: pushing the boundaries of olive oil quality.
Yes, beer can age too. Vertical tasting of Chimay Blue Label 2007–2010.
Third installment of my tea and food matching sessions. Italian red mullet fish roe (bottarga) provides a challenge with its huge intensity of umami taste. Will any tea survive this?
Fantastic tasting of extra virgin olive oils from the DOP Chianti Classico area. Controlled appellation oils are really classy – unlike for wine, DOP for oil is a seriously reliable endorsement.
Did you know there’s a chocolate beer?
Some nice festive drinking.
Bosco Eliceo – a confidential wine-making zone on Italy’s Po Delta – is underperforming. But there’s no better wine than its fizzy dry red to match with the famous Comacchio eel.
Well, today’s balsamic vinegar comes quite close. It’s made in Tokaj, Hungary, by one of the leading producers of the region’s sweet wines: Dobogó (mentioned twice in my blog already: here and here). It’s vintage-dated (I’m tasting the 2005 here), and it’s made with must from aszú wine – yes, the incredibly sweet noble-rot affected ‘wine of kings, king of wines’. Even the bacteria that slowly ferment the wine into vinegar are selected from the skins of the estate’s Furmint grapes. Aged a year in Hungarian and Italian oak – and so very much shorter than a good Emilian balsamico – it’s one of the most concentrated vinegars I’ve tasted. While it doesn’t quite match the ageless viscosity of Modenian vinegar, it is very thick, with a wonderfully complex flavour ranging from fresh grapes through molasses to tertiary notes of caramel, dried figs and Marmite. Just a bit less sweet than Modena, the tang of this Tokaj vinegar is a bit more obvious (6%), making this a very good accompaniment with savoury foods. And it’s really inexpensive – 10 € for the 250 ml you see on the photos – though I don’t think it’s exported.
The only bottle I brought from Italy this time: it’s actually beer!
Black turnip – a great ancient vegetable. And the wines that go with it.
