Rugged, ancient and complex, Calabria, our destination here, 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. And that is feature-not-bug for our purposes. Other than tourists, iconic cityscapes, and most photographed piazza on the peninsula hopefuls, 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 winemaking couple that is both inheritor and iconoclast qua these traditions. ‘A Vita (meaning "The Vine" in local dialect) is a 7-hectare certified organic estate in Cirò, Calabria, run by husband and wife team Francesco de Franco (native to Calabria) and Laura Violino (native to Friuli). Cirò is located on the arch of Italy’s boot tip, nestled between the Ionian sea and Sila mountains, a perch which ensures both coastal influence and dramatic diurnal shifts. When Francesco and Laura released their first vintage in 2008, there were only 15 producers of Cirò DOC. Dominating the denomination then and now is one producer, Librandi, who produces over 200,000 cases per year. By contrast, Francesco & Laura make only 2000 cases total in a productive year. 'A Vita has been a catalyst in a movement now known as "Cirò Revolution," which encouraged grape growers to stop selling their fruit to the co-ops or Librandi. One of the first independent producers to emerge on the new Cirò scene which today numbers some 60 winemakers, 'A Vita is a modern day benchmark, and we are very excited to be able to bring some of their lovely and distinctive small production bottlings to your table this month. 

Salud,

Alan Hicks- Wine Buyer PlumpJack Wine & Spirits Noe Valley

Bucatini alla Calabrese

Ingredients:

2 lb. stockfish, cut into pieces
1 lb. bucatini pasta
1 lb. peeled tomatoes
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
4 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
Salt, pepper, and red chili pepper flakes to taste

Instructions:

(If you have an earthenware pan, use it for this recipe.)

1. Heat the olive oil in the earthenware or other pan, and fry the chopped garlic and onion. Add the chopped stockfish and brown it, shaking the pan instead of turning the fish with a spatula.

2. Place the peeled tomatoes in a bowl. Halfway through cooking, remove the fish from the saucepan and set it aside. Add the peeled tomatoes to the saucepan and cook, crushing them with a spoon. Let cook for around 20 minutes over medium heat with the lid on. Add a pinch of red pepper flakes if desired. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add salt. Cook the bucatini until al dente. 

4. Near the end of cooking, add the stockfish to the sauce and let cook for around 5 more minutes. Once the bucatini pasta is al dente, drain and add it to the saucepan, sautéeing everything together for a couple of minutes. Serve steaming hot.