Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Umbrian delight: Strozzapreti with 2011 Perticaia Montefalco Rosso

In light of the Italian food, wine and travel group (#ItalianFWT) that I hosted last week on Umbria and my article on Immersion into Sagrantino, I wanted to share a food and wine pairing with one of the bottles I found to be quite a value with great quality.

In my preview on the region of Umbria I discussed the food of the region consisting of pork and various beans, but I made a discovery in one of my favorite authentic Italian recipe books, Italy The BeautifulCookbook, a typical Umbrian dish known as strozzapreti. Strozzapreti are dumplings with meat sauce, but it's really a thicker style spaghetti with yeast. I'd love to say I had the time to prepare homemade pasta, but I cheated and actually used bucatini as a replacement. It states that this pasta is also known in the Campanian region as strangolapreti meaning priest strangler. Quite the interesting name for a pasta dish don't you think?
Pasta of strozzapreti by Fugzu
Ingredients of Strozzapreti:
Extra virgin olive oil
Small onion diced
1-2 stalks of celery diced
2-3 cloves of garlic
3-4 carrots diced
1lb of ground beef
1 bay leaf
28oz can of peeled tomatoes
Thyme, salt and pepper
Shaved parmesan

Preparations of Strozzapreti
Heat extra virgin olive oil in pan and once ready add diced onions and garlic.
Once onions and garlic are translucent add diced celery and carrots along with spices. Cook for about 10 minutes.
Add ground beef and cook until brown.
Add peeled tomatoes and bay leaf and simmer for about an hour.
About 10 minutes before begin to boil your water with added salt in preparation for the pasta.
Once pasta and beef are fully cooked combine in pan.
Add shaved parmesan as topping to your dish and I drizzled mine with some white truffle oil.
Buon appetito!
strozzapreti, an umbrian dish paired with sagrantino
A couple weeks ago I was able to sample some wonderful wines made with the sagrantino grape in Umbria provided by the Consorzio of Montefalco and Colangelo & Partners. One of the wines that was a fantastic value retailing at only $25 was the 2011 Perticaia Montefalco Rosso. If you've never experienced the sagrantino grape due to it's pricing at $40+ with the 100% sagrantino produced Montefalco Sagrantino, the Montefalco Rosso is a more affordable way to get a sampling of the grape. Although the Rosso Montefalco is not purely sagrantino as it's a blend of primarily sangiovese and sagrantino.
Perticaia winery in Montefalco
Perticaia by Umbria Lovers
Alessandro Perticaia, winemaker at Perticaia, spoke on the panel discussion a week ago about his 2011 Perticaia Montefalco Rosso. The grapes for the 2011 harvest were matured well and didn't face any stress. Perticaia isn't in favor of using wood so this wine is completely aged in stainless steel. I could totally appreciate the non-use of wood as it demonstrated a purer expression of the fruit and with the power and structure behind the sagrantino grape it had plenty of body and complexities.
2011 Perticaia Montefalco Rosso
Tasting of 2011 Montefalco Rosso
The 2011 Montefalco Rosso is a blend of 70% sagrantino, 15% sagrantino and 15% colorino. The colorino helps smooth out the acidity of the sangiovese grape. Crystal clear ruby red in color it showed ripe red fruit and cherries on the nose. It's a medium-bodied, dry wine with moderately crisp acidity and firm tannins with a persistent finish.

If you're a lover of sangiovese it would be fun to try this wine with the addition of sagrantino and the unique addition of colorino. I would happily grab another bottle of this wine again and recommend if you're never had an Umbrian wine this may be one you want to start with.

Compliments of Perticaia - The Colors of Perticaia


No comments:

Post a Comment