The real rose` season is upon us!

It is boiling out there and the best thing I can think of to cool down is to drink lots of Italian Rosato by the pool.

I have just a few cases left of the following:

Favaro 2013 ROSACHEROSANONSEI Rosato (VdT) 180/15

90% Nebbiolo, 10% Syrah Hand-harvested grapes are fermented at cool temperatures and aged in stainless steel tanks for four months. This wines has great acidity and nice tension that backs up a fullish rosato with nice mineral notes. Aromatics are floral with strawberry and raspberry flavors seasoned with mint.

or the

This is a picture of 2012 vintage.  The 2013 is even better!

Cirelli  2013 Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo DOC 144/12

The Cirelli Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo 2013 is tasting great right now.  Lots of cherry fruit and acidity and a little bit of that salty terroir thing going on, too.  It is also a critter wine, notice the beautiful butterfly, which I am sure is recognizable to all as the sign of freedom and transformation (okay, I am reaching here . . .) but whatever.  The wine is good.

The grapes for this wine were grown specifically to be direct press rose` and that has some advantages.  Lower alcohol and higher acidity would be the most obvious.  And now that the weather is getting really hot, and our rose` season is finally upon us, this is a great wine for those hot days.

Ask for them from your local retailer or email me and I can tell you the best way to get them to your door..

Cheers.

Justin

Francesco Cirelli and Michela Palazzo Adriano (of Agricola Cirelli) are married. Tanti Auguri!

From a Southbay magazine article on the perfect outdoor brunch menu . .

Southbay Magazine

Food and wine editor Bonnie Graves teams with

renowned Chef David LeFevre of Manhattan Beach

Post and his good friend, Chef Giuseppe Tentori,

for the perfect South Bay brunch and wine pairing,

hosted in the beautiful outdoor entertaining space

of a private Manhattan Beach home.

THE WINE LIST

Moscato d’Asti, Varja

(Piedmont, Italy—2010) $22

Trebbiano d’Abruzzo, Cirelli

(Abruzzo, Italy—2010) $15

Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, Cirelli

(Abruzzo, Italy—2009) $16

Sant’Antimo Sangiovese, San Polino

(Montalcino, Italy—2009) $22

"In keeping with our theme and in homage to Giuseppe’s roots, we poured some amazing artisanal Italian wines pulled from the portfolio of boutique importer Rinascimento Wine Company. Owner Justin Gallen excels in sourcing small-lot wines that are often made by the farmers who grow the grapes. Standouts from our lunch were the wines from Cirelli, made with organically grown fruit from the Abruzzo region of Italy. The refreshing acidity of the 2010 Trebbiano, a widely planted white in the area, and the easy-drinking red fruit profile of the 2009 Montepulciano, epitomize how Italians view wine—as a condiment to good food and a conduit to good friends. We had plenty of both at our festive lunch." - Bonnie Graves

THE MENU

FIRST COURSE

Sticky buns with pecans and brown sugar

Bacon cheddar buttermilk biscuits with maple butter

Belly button bagel, poppyseed,

cream cheese and strawberry jelly

SECOND COURSE

Beet arancini with shaved fennel,

arugula and Winter Perigord truffles

Turkey sausage patty with sage, cavolo nero and maple

Nueske’s bacon with rosemary, brown sugar and chili

THIRD COURSE

Benedict on a bacon cheddar biscuit with arugula,

La Quercia prosciutto and hollandaise

Chimichanga of scrambled egg, chorizo spiced pork,

pepper jack cheese, yam and Jimmy’s mom’s salsa verde

Blueberry lemon skillet cake

with Noble Tonic No. 1 vanilla maple syrup

FOURTH COURSE

Nante carrot cake with cream cheese icing,

candied walnut and pickled carrot

Polito Farms citrus salad of ruby grapefruit,

blood orange, tangelo and pomegranate

Drink of the Week Profile - Part 1

skyler-brown  Wednesday, February 15, 2012
http://www.drinkoftheweek.com/2012/02/visit-the-hills-of-abruzzo-italy-without-leaving-home-part-1/

This week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Justin Gallen, an Italian importer and one of his producers, Francesco Cirelli, a winemaker from the eastern Italian region of Abruzzo. In the first part of this interview series, Gallen discusses his passion for wine and the qualities it must possess before he brings it to the United States.

Drink of the Week (DOTW): You’re a sommelier and Italian importer of fine wines. How did this all come about and have you always had a passion for wine?
Justin Gallen (JG): I’ve been in the wine business for about 20 years. I was the kid who wasn’t interested in getting beer. I always wanted a gallon of Burgundy or Bartles & Jaymes or wine coolers or whatever else it happened to be. I’ve always been fascinated by wine.

DOTW: How do you find your producers?
JG:  I’lI go to the organic and biodynamic fairs that take place in Italy a couple times a year and meet the producer and taste their wine. I met Francesco by chance. He was given a list of importers and sent out a blind email with his contact information and website. The website looked professional and the wines looked good. When we met, I tasted the wines, looked at the package, and said “yes,” right away.

DOTW: What do you look for in a wine?
JG: The wine has to be very, very good and at a really good price point. I’m looking for wines that are food-friendly. Wines that have a little less alcohol and a little more acidity, so that it pairs well with a different range of food and won’t overwhelm. I’m also looking for wines that will age well, because it’s important to drink wine at many different times of its life. In its youth, when it’s got a lot of fruit and it’s beautiful and exciting and vibrant, and then at its middle-age, when it’s gained a little bit of sophistication and it’s turned into something a little bit more interesting, and of course, in its older age, when it’s gained a sort of delicacy and wisdom for a wine that you won’t find in a wine that’s youthful.

DOTW: You chose the word renascimento for the name of your business. Why?
JG: Renascimento means renaissance in Italian. It represents the rebirth and revival of the types of wines I would like to find in the market. Hopefully the wines that I’m importing are providing a rebirth or revival or renascimento for the people who taste them, so they discover a new world of wine that they never knew they had.

Visit Rinascimento Wine Company.
Visit Cirelli to learn more about their wine and other products.

Drink of the Week Profile Part 2

skyler-brown     Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Last week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Justin Gallen, an Italian importer and one of his producers, Francesco Cirelli, a winemaker from the eastern Italian region of Abruzzo. This week Cirelli emphasizes the importance of organic and biodiversity farming, a concept he puts into practice back home in Italy.

Drink of the Week (DOTW): What types of wine does Cirelli produce?
Francesco Cirelli (FC): First of all, we are respectful of the sense of place. They have to be wines that are showing the characteristics of the place where the wines are being produced. Second, they have to be as natural as possible meaning that, yes, we are certified organic.

DOTW: Where does your wine come from?
FC: We acquired an estate in 2003 in Abruzzo. It’s an eastern Italian region of Italy on the same latitude as Rome. Whereas Rome is on the west, we are on the east. We don’t have any background in agriculture, but we really wanted to experience something new. We really wanted to change our life and try to focus on different values. Since the beginning, we wanted to have a full farm concept and organic, so we decided to plant the new vineyards, but at the same time we planted the fig trees, we planted garlic, we planted olive trees. This is extremely important if you want to be a real, organic farm. It’s rather better to have different cultivations instead of being a monocultural kind of farm. We also started breeding geese. Now, we have 300 geese going around the farm naturally feeding the soil and controlling the weeds.

DOTW: What are some of your other products?
FC: We produce wines, extra-virgin organic olive oils, fig marmalades, fresh garlic. We also produce hams and salamis from the goose meat and a very nice marmalade from the Montepulciano grapes. We have about ten different products.

DOTW: Can you talk a little bit about the winemaking process?
FC: It really depends on the style of wine. Now we are producing two different styles. The first is a little bit more of a daily wine. A little bit easier, great drinkability and low in acidity. Those wines are fermented in stainless steel tanks. The second style is a little bit more, I would say, philosophical or a little more complicated. We decided to use a very old container for fermentations which is clay. They are 800-liter clay vessels. Two different winemaking processes, two different styles.

DOTW: Can you choose a favorite?
FC: The favorite is the amphora-fermented wines. They are the more artisanal containers. Those are the containers where you are obliged to intervene manually and you can use nothing except for your body. If you have to clean, you have to go inside with your swimming suit and clean the vessel. You cannot use anything else. This makes for a more emotional process. It’s the one that requires more effort. It’s you and the clay vessel, that is all.

DOTW: Mr. Gallen, on your website you’ve said something very beautiful, “Every time I open a bottle, I want to be taken on an adventure of the mind. I want to be transported to another place and another time… another world.” Where does Cirelli’s wine take you?
JG: The reason why people are fascinated by wine is that it does transport you. When you taste the Montepulciano, the Cerasuolo, the Trebbiano d’Abruzzo, you can feel yourself being taken to the Italian countryside. You smell the flowers, you smell the herbs in the soil, you smell the flavors that are coming from the grapes and you can feel the sun on the grapes and the sun that, then, is on your shoulders as you are transported into that environment. It truly is the one alcoholic beverage that provides you with a sense of place and a sense of history and a sense of being in the moment… and Francesco’s wines definitely do that.

http://www.drinkoftheweek.com/2012/02/visit-the-hills-of-abruzzo-italy-without-leaving-home-part-2/#.Tz9K_NTRqbI.blogger


Visit Rinascimento Wine Company.
Visit Cirelli to learn more about their wine and other products.

http://www.drinkoftheweek.com/2012/02/visit-the-hills-of-abruzzo-italy-without-leaving-home-part-2/

By S. Irene Virbila

Los Angeles Times

This is a zippy Trebbiano from an estate in Italy's south dedicated to organic farming. I can remember when it was nearly impossible to find a crisp white from that region. But Cirelli's 2010 Trebbiano d'Abruzzo is as refreshing as lemon sorbet. The fruit tastes ripe and golden, but the wine is bone dry.

It's just what's needed if you're serving a seafood salad or pasta. It's great with vegetable soups, beans with tuna and grilled salmon. Who knew easygoing Trebbiano could have this kind of elegance and balance? At $13, it's a small miracle.

Region: Abruzzo

Price: About $13

Style: Crisp and dry

What it goes with: Seafood salad and pasta, soups, grilled fish

Here are some harvest notes from Cirelli in Abruzzo . . . .

(The view from the farm.)

Montepulciano: harvested on sept the 10^th, sept the 15^th, sept the 16^th. Please note that montepulciano is averagely harvested during the first 2 weeks of October…

High temperatures during the day (30 degrees), little bit lower and fresher at night (22-24). Was very hard to harvest with that warm climate but we did and I am quite happy because I lost 5 kilos! Now I look like a model and I am seriously thinking about changing job eheh!

I decided to harvest so early because I want to continue focusing on freshness, acidity, finesse, lightness. In that way I hope I’ve been able to partially save all these fundamental elements to my wines. Of course I was obliged to loose a little bit of poliphenolic maturation but I hope that aging and refining will smooth tannins. I am not worried at all by the colour since I don’t like deep dark wines.

The musts have been fermented by piede de cuvee and it is now resting in amphorae, cements and steel tanks.

Trebbiano: lovely vintage. I am sure I will love the white wines from this year. I harvested on sept the 20 and the grapes were at 19 babo therefore I am expecting a long life trebbiano.

Beatiful grapes, beautiful colour, perfect wellness. It is still fermenting and there are 3-4 days more.

Francesco at Cirelli has gone crazy! He bought some amphorae and I don't even know what they are for . . .