August 2023 Italian Wine Club

Calabria is, in many ways, the opposite of Veneto, our destination last month. Rugged, ancient and complex, it is the  southernmost region in mainland Italy, less than two nautical miles from Sicily, and the least visited; most of the travelers you’ll meet are either on their way somewhere else, or vacationing from another part of Calabria. Which is feature-not-bug for our purposes: other than tourists, iconic cityscapes, and most photographed piazza on the peninsula contenders, Calabria boasts all the amazingly specific regional (and sometimes village-level)  variants on Italian archetypes - mountains, forests, beaches, food, wine, old stuff - that make endeavors like this club (hopefully) worth the time and investment. The alpine interior contains three national parks replete with waterfalls, lakes and gorges, the coastline is 500 miles of gorgeous beaches and dramatic sea cliffs, and the old stuff, in addition to being  very, very old indeed, helps illustrate the extent to which Calabria, Italy and viticulture have always been co-fermented entities.  

Once known as Magna Graecia ("Great Greece" in Latin) for the substantial ancient Greek settlements on its shores,  Calabria was actually the first part of the country to get called Italy at all, well before the Romans extended the appellation to the entire peninsula. According to Greek legend, it all starts with viticulture: around 1500 BC a tribe called the Oenotri ("vine-cultivators"), settled in the area, their most famous king was named Italus - hence Italy. There are a few slightly more historically sourced explanations wherein “Italia” derives from different ancient terms for “bull” or “calf” but the upshot is nobody knows for sure, it's not definitively not about viticulture - hence, “Italy (ultimately) = wine” remains a living take (if not one I’d wanna defend at length.)   

In any event, it is demonstrable  that vino has been a part of every local crop grower’s daily ritual for millenia, though today Calabria is responsible for less commercially produced wine than almost any other region in Italy. This is due partly to geography - the rough coastline and mountainous interior made it difficult for mass industry to take hold - and also the lamentable history of poverty, corruption and resultant population drain Calabria shares with other areas of the Italian South. The good news:  there are about 11,000 hectares of vineyards in Calabria, with 12 DOCs, mostly concentrated in the provinces of Crotone, Cosenza, Catanzaro, and Reggio Calabria. They span over 250 indigenous grape varietals thriving on distinct soils in diverse microclimates, their final vinous products  filtered through Calabria’s unique ethno-cultural inheritance, bearing traces of all its various visitors/invaders -  German, French, Spanish, Turkish, Austrian, Bourbon, Albanian. 

So this month we are featuring one winemaker who seems to nexus most of these traditions. For starters, his actual  name is Guiseppe Calabrese (Guiseppe from Calabria, essentially.) More importantly, he works with two quite rare and intriguing indigenous varietals, Guarnaccia (also known as Coda de Volpe) and Magliocco, that we’ve yet to feature in the club, via appropriately remote and recalcitrant locations and methodology (see below for details.) Giuseppe also produces and bottles his own Calabarian chile oil, some of which I’d hoped to be able to provide alongside the wine. The timing for that didn’t work out, but we were able to include another brand you can use with this month’s recipe (and much else besides - put it on pizzas, vegetables, shrimp scampi, soup, pasta, whatever.) 

Salud,

Alan Hicks- Wine Buyer PlumpJack Wine & Spirits Noe Valley

Traditional Italian Baccala with Chickpeas

INGREDIENTS

10 1/2 ounces baccala (after soaked)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 onion (chopped)

1/2 stalk of celery (chopped)

1 clove garlic (finely chopped)

1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley

1 can pelati tomatoes (skinned whole tomatoes nothing added) (400 grams)

1/2 teaspoon basil

hot pepper flakes (or Calabrian Chile Oil) 

1 cup water

2 cups soaked chickpeas (approximately 1 cup dried)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. If you are using dried Baccala, then soak it in cold water for 48 hours, be sure to change the water 2x a day.  Once the time has passed then open the fish lengthwise, remove the bones and all plugs and cut it into pieces (about 2 inch pieces).

2. Soak dry chickpeas for at least 8 hours, drain and cook in boiling water until tender.

3. In a large skillet or pan add the olive oil, chopped onions, celery, garlic and parsley, sauté for approximately 3 minutes.

4. Add the can of tomatoes, basil, hot pepper flakes and water.  Stir to combine.

5. In a medium pan add 1 tablespoon of olive oil, lightly coat the baccala in flour and fry lightly on both sides.  Add to the tomato mixture and cook for approximately 20 minutes or until the fish is cooked.

6. Add cooked chickpeas and a little chickpea water if the mixture is too thick.  Stir to combine and heat thoroughly, serve with Italian crusty bread.  Enjoy!