Food and wine – Ivan Brincat

What I’ve been drinking last month (August)

Alsace vineyards — Vineyards just outside Riquewihr, the home of Hugel in Alsace.

Summer in Malta is long and hot, and having spent most of the month on the little island in the Mediterranean, drinking red wine was not really an option except on rare occasions late in the evening when the temperature drops below 30 degrees and the cool summer breeze is welcomed by people who are trying to rest before they face another hot day.

Close to the sea, it is normal to try and eat fish as much as possible and although I am not fixated with having to always match a white wine with fish, the focus for the month of August has mainly been white wines such as Chablis, Sancerre, Falaghina and Zibibbo among others though here I share with you three whites and two reds.

White wines

Hugel Riesling 2008 (Alsace, France): Riesling is a grape you either love or hate. It is one of my favourite grapes for white wine because aside from its intense acidity and fragrance it is very refreshing and easy to enjoy. Many associate Riesling with sweet wines, which is clearly the case, but in the hands of good wine producers, a dry Riesling is exceptional and is one of those white wines which defies logic and can age extremely well. In this case, the Hugel Riesling from the pretty village of Riquewihr in Alscase had all the freshness of a young wine despite its six years. We paired it with a seafood platter made up of a mix of raw and cooked fish dishes.

Meridiana Baltis – Moscato 2012 (Malta): If there is one winery in Malta which you need to remember, this is Meridiana. The winery produces around 140,000 bottles of which there is a relatively new addition, a Passito with the Moscato of Malta grape variety, This wine is made with raisined Moscato grapes. This was the first time I tasted this wine and it was excellent. It had a golden yellow colour and had a crisp finish for a sweet wine. This is clearly one to keep in the cellar.

Lunae, Etichetta Nera 2012 (Liguria, Italy): I find the Vermentino to be a perfect grape for matching with seafood and fish. Grown mainly in Sardegna, Tuscany and Liguria, Vermentino is an easy drinking grape. In the hands of a good producer, however, it can develop complex notes. The black label wine from Lunae is an excellent wine with very pleasant aromas and freshness.

Red wines

Chateau Grand Mayne 2006 (St Emillion, Bordeaux, France): The 2006 blend of Chateau Grand Mayne is made up of 75% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon. Although still relatively young, this wine was already drinking very well. Decanted for over two hours, it was complex on the nose but well balanced for its age. One to try.

Cusumano Noa 2002 (Sicily, Italy): The Noa is a blend of Nero d’Avola, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Served blind, this wine can be surprising for the right and wrong reasons. It is an incredibly good wine which is now perfectly balanced. What it has lost in power, it has gained in finesse. The only negative point is that it is incredibly difficult to guess that this is a Sicilian wine and while the Nero d’Avola is a distinct Sicilian grape, in this case, if it is served blind, many wine experts could easily confuse it for a Bordeaux blend. Nevertheless, this is an exceptional wine.

Links to the wineries of the above wines

What I enjoyed reading this week (9)

This week I have been reading a book about the unlikely story of an American making wine in Burgundy.

As the summer holiday for me comes to a close and I start to prepare mentally for the winter schedule (with the weather and temperature already going down in Belgium), I find that the days start to get shorter but you get to find more time somehow for reading particularly on the longer evenings.

I am currently midway through a book about Burgundy wine written by an American who followed his dream leaving a job in finance to start making wine in France. The book reads very well and I will review it once I finish it probably sometime next week. For those interested the name of the book is The Road to Burgundy, The Unlikely story of an American making wine and a new life in France.

In the meantime as is usual here are some articles which i enjoyed reading this week. Hope you enjoy and have a great start to September.

There is no such thing as a free lunch and this is the perfect rant. It is unfortunately in Italian but well worth going through it because it explains how important passion is if you see quality. Here he has a go at the many bars who ask for coffee machines etc for free while compromising on the quality of the main ingredient coffee.

Here is a great list of 10 food books from Amateur Gourmet. A bit old but I came across it this week.

The following is an article from Jancis Robinson about someone who is taking the wine scene in London by storm thanks to car boot sales with a difference.

A good article on how champagne is made.

Noma needs no introduction. It is probably one of the world’s most famous restaurants. Here you get a glimpse Inside Noma’s scientific food bunker.

Read a very interesting profile about a little talked about female chef Clare Smyth who is coming out of the shadows after scoring a perfect 10 by the Good Food Guide.

If like me you like to read about food, you will enjoy this little article about the allure of imagined meals.

Recipe 7 – Spaghetti ai ricci (with sea urchins)

IMG_5158-0 — My take on the Spaghetti ai Ricci

Rizzi as they are called in Maltese remind me of my lazy childhood summer days. Swimming on the beach at St Paul’s Bay overlooking St Paul’s Islands (see below), parents of young children would go snorkelling to pick up the sea urchins. Time flies and this must have been a good 30 or so years ago.

They would go snorkelling for an hour, fill up a plastic bag with sea urchins which were caught from the rocks or seabed and then come back to the beach were the mothers and fathers would get a knife, gently cut open the sea urchin in half and give it to the children with a spoon to scoop out or else serve on top of bread like a very rustic version of bruschetta. These memories still make my mouth water given the sea urchins would have an incredible but delicate taste of the sea.

It is said that the presence of sea urchins at sea reflects the cleanliness of the sea water. I am not sure whether this urban legend is to be believed or not but over the years this tradition has since been lost and there was even a time when sea urchins were becoming rather rare.

I remember going many years without tasting rizzi although in Malta they have now found their way to many restaurants served the Italian way with pasta, mainly spaghetti or linguini. Since many years now, any fish restaurant in Malta worth its salt serves this dish when the sea urchins are available. In many cases the sea urchins are imported from Italy.

And whenever I return to my home country, nearly nine years after leaving, the only thing I crave is pasta with sea urchin which is nearly impossible to find in continental Europe.

There are a few restaurants which prepare it in the simplest of ways which is the best approach to dealing with sea urchins (we used to eat them raw when I was young and some of the most delicious sushi I have tasted in Japan were with raw sea urchins).

So here is my take on the Spaghetti bir-rizzi as the dish would be called in Maltese. This is a very quick and simple dish to make. But it is delicious and worth trying if you can find the ingredients.

Ingredients (serves 4)

500 grammes spaghetti
1 clove of garlic
Best quality extra virgin olive oil
Sea urchins (you will need a tub or two depending on the size)
12 cherry tomatoes
Chopped parsley

Method

1. Boil the water to cook the pasta. Once the water is ready and you are ready to boil the spaghetti, you can start preparing the sauce.

2. Add three to four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil to a pan and fry the chopped garlic to give the oil some fragrance. I normally retain the garlic but if you find it overpowering, you can crush it to release the aromas and then remove it once brown. As the pasta starts to boil add the chopped cherry tomatoes to the pan and cook for a few minutes.

3. The cherry tomatoes should not be overcooked. Just as the pasta is about to be cooked add half the sea urchins and stir into the sauce with a ladle of the cooking boiling water to melt the sea urchin.

4. Drain the pasta and throw it into the saucepan and cook for an additional one minute adding the remaining sea urchins and chopped parsley. Finish off with a drizzle of the best extra virgin olive oil you can find. Serve immediately.

Wine serving suggestion: This is a Southern Mediterranean dish so I would pair it with a fragrant wine from the South of Italy or even Malta if you can find it. A Falanghina from Campania or an Insolia from Sicily would work very well. I would also try it with a Vermentino from Sardegna or Malta.

Book review: Palmento – A Sicilian Wine Odyssey (At table)

As the holiday season in Europe slowly starts to come to an end, one starts to think of the cooler months but also about what books to read to remind oneself of the summer.

Palmento, A Sicilian Wine Odyssey has been earmarked as one of my summer reads after I read Corkscrewed by Robert V. Camuto about wines in France (I will review the book later).

But I can imagine myself reading this book on a cold winter evening, with the rain knocking on the windows maybe with a glass of wine to accompany the reading. In fact, I am sure that this coming winter, I will come back to read this book given I have rarely read a book so beautifully written about the subject of wine, the region and its people.

Now, I may be biased because as you may have seen, my interest in wine more than 15 years ago came from the discovery of Sicilian wine and its many facets.

As the author itself wrote, Goethe wrote in the eighteenth century “To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything.”

The same can be said about its wine. For many years, Sicilian wine was sold up north to add more body to Northern Italian wines and even French wines. Over the past years, however, Sicily has developed into one of the most interesting wine regions in the world, with many winemakers describing it as a ‘continent’ because of the many terroirs which one can find on the largest island in the Mediterranean.

The book starts with a dinner at Sakalleo in Scoglitti (a fishing village in the very south of Sicily) which is probably the closest point that can be reached by boat from Malta. And again, maybe it is for nostalgic reasons or because the memories of eating at this place (probably the finest fish restaurant that I have been to) but the author describes the meal he had there in perfect detail reminding me of the three times I have been to this place.

Camuto says “Even before the arrival of the sixth dish – sweet steamed mussels – Sakalleo had earned a place in my personal pantheon of most remarkable restaurant meals ever eaten… The most inspiring food, I’ve learned, comes in simple packages without the self-consciousness that accompanies critics’ stars. Sakalleo was turning out to be an orgy of the sea in an impossibly plain brown wrapper: not so much comfort cuisine as it was comfort itself.”

This is pretty much my philosophy about food so as soon as I started reading the book I knew that I was in the right company.

Camuto has a deep passion for wine. He visits Sicily when he turns 50 and spends a year chronicling his journey from Ragusa to Palermo, Marsala to Pantelleria with trips to the rugged interior of Sicily and the heights of Mount Etna.

Here he stops to meet winemakers, Sicilan and not, including the renowned Belgian winemaker Frank Cornelissen who has taken Sicilian wines by storm making natural wines from the Mount Etna region which are world renowned.

Camuto captures the personalities and flavours and the traditions of this old world which is Italy’s largest and oldest wine region but the world traveler’s newest discovery. He goes to among others, Azienda Agricola COS, Benanti, Tenuta delle Terre Nere, Marco de Bartoli, Planeta, Tasca d’Almerita to mention just a few.

A full immersion into Sicilian wines and cuisine, Camuto portrays Sicily at its best. He speaks to some of the largest wine producers in Sicily as well as to the small producers which are experimenting with traditional methods of winemaking which have to a certain extent been lost.

If you love Sicily or are curious about getting to know more about Sicilian wines, then this is a must read. If you love wine, this is also a must read. I actually wish there were more books like this about other wine regions in the world.

Two quotes from the book:

“To be Sicilian is not to be a son of consumerism. It is to be direct and human – a son of real life. Sicily tells us: You can be rich from a noble family or poor. We are all the same.”

“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” Originally from Il Gattopardo and quoted many times by Sicilian wine producers.

Recipe 6: Tuna with a Mediterranean salsa

The season for lampuki (a typical Mediterranean fish that is incredibly popular in Malta and one of the most traditional fish you can find at this time of year) has just started but the fish at the fishmongers were still small so I opted for tuna steaks.

The temperature is still extremely high in Malta making cooking anything elaborate a bit complicated. The fishmonger was making brisk business as queues lined up to get fresh fish for lunch or dinner.

To beat the heat in the kitchen, there is no better way then to get fresh tuna steaks that cook in minutes and prepare a very quick ‘salsa’ which needs no cooking and which is mouthwatering.

I therefore prepared the quick sauce to accompany the tuna steaks. I chopped one shallot and added sherry vinegar to the shallots to add some acidity. Then I seasoned with Maldon sea salt. I chopped some green olives in, added some pine nuts, a clove of garlic (finely chopped), some cherry tomatoes and chopped parsley. Once all the ingredients were in the bowl, I started to add some extra virgin olive oil to create an emulsion. Once the sauce was ready, I adjusted the seasoning by adding some freshly ground pepper and was then ready to cook the tuna.

I heated a griddle pan on a high heat, seasoned the tuna on one side and drizzled just a bit of olive oil. I then put the seasoned tuna on the seasoned side on the hot griddle pan and left to cook until the sides started to cook. I like my tuna rare. If rare is too much for you, then go for medium to medium rare but do not overcook the tuna because it will not taste well.

I then topped each plate with the quick Mediterranean salsa and served with some pan-fried potatoes and roast vegetables.

Ingredients (serves 4)

Four tuna steaks
Extra virgin olive oil
Maldon sea salt
Sherry vinegar
One shallot
10 cherry tomatoes
A handful of green olives
Chopped parsley
1 garlic clove, crushed and chopped
A tablespoon of pine nuts.

Method

1. Prepare the Mediterranean salsa. Chop the shallots. Place in a bowl and soften with the sherry vinegar (I used around 4 tablespoons). Season with salt. Leave the shallots in the vinegar while you chop the other ingredients. Chop the green olives and add to the shallots. Then add the pine nuts, cherry tomatoes, the garlic and the chopped parsley. Add extra virgin olive oil and mix the sauce until you get an emulsion which turns the sauce golden. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning.

2. Heat the grill on a high heat. Season the tuna steaks and cook on the first side for around 5 minutes (depending on the thickness). Season the fish on the side which is not being grilled and turn the fish for a few more minutes.

3. Serve immediately.

Wine suggestion: Tuna is a versatile fish when it comes to wine pairing but given the summer heat and the cold sauce you need some acidity. I opted for a Chablis Burgundy which worked perfectly with the tuna.

What I enjoyed reading this week (8)

A week without internet last week relaxing on the island of Gozo was an excellent way of winding down but meant that the ‘What I enjoyed reading this week” series of articles got interrupted.

You can therefore find a few interesting finds from last week as well as some from this week here.

Michel Roux Jr is no longer the presenter for the next series of Masterchef on BBC. This is a pity because he was an integral part of the show. Nevertheless, renowned British chef Marcus Wareing, who has been featured many times during past Masterchef editions and who is known for seeking perfection takes over. Here he is interviewed by the Financial Times.

An interesting read about wine pairing rules which no longer seem to work and where therefore versatile wines are key.

Foodiva is the sister of a very good friend of ours with a great food blog on the Dubai scene. Being Cypriot, her culinary guide to Cyprus is not only mouthwatering but it also makes you want to visit this Mediterranean island.

Do you have what it takes to try the world’s most dangerous foods? Which one would you try?

Here is a great guide about tasting young wine from Decanter’s Steven Spurrier.

A great article about productivity by learning tricks from chefs. And as a bonus watch the video at the start of this blogpost. It is a fantastic trailer of a documentary about the world’s best sushi chef who continued to work at the age of 82 in search of perfection. He was the first ever sushi chef to get 3 Michelin stars.

A great article about innovation at Bordeaux’s Chateau Palmer.

Here is why bitter makes food better.

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