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Corti Brothers Newsletter for December 2006 Page 6 A new bottling of XSR 120 Finest White Port from the Cockburn lodge has arrived. This is probably one of, if not the finest, white port available in Portugal. It was found for Corti Brothers in 1980 by my former assistant Kevin Hamel when he worked for Cockburns in Porto. We have sold the wine since that time. Kevin has since gone on to fame and fortune both as winemaker for noted Sonoma wineries and for his own label. XSR 120 is a sweet white port made just as red port is, by treading white grapes, fermenting them and then fortifying the lot. There are 16 pipes of this lodge lot in Cockburns’ lodge. We are its only customer. So the slow turnover we give the wine keeps it fresh since there are no other outlets for it. We probably also keep the wine from being done away with. Old: the last notes I have on the wine are from 1970, when it was considered at that time to be 30 years old and impossible to re-create. It is thus kept refreshed by our purchase of it. A pretty, medium dark golden color-- Kevin’s original note in 1980 read “(it) looks like an old Ch. Suduiraut,”--there is a lovely fruitiness with a soft, caressing, aged flavor that is too easy to drink. This is one of those bottles that disappears quickly once tasted.
In our Fall 2006 newsletter, I wrote about Paolo DeMarchi’s new/old Piemontese property’s delicious Proprietà Sperino Rosè 2005. Uvaggio 2004 is the first red wine to be sold under the Proprietà Sperino estate name. Composed from the same varietal blend as the rosè, nebbiolo, croatina, and vespolina, the local varieties making up the classic wines of north-eastern Piemonte, Proprietà Sperino Uvaggio is 75% nebbiolo, the remainder vespolina and croatina. Uvaggio in Italian means a blend of grapes, generally done before fermentation as opposed to a Vinaggio, a blend of already made wines. Proprietà Sperino Uvaggio is the first red wine since 1952 to come from this old property in the village of Lessona, one of the villages producing nebbiolo based appellation wines in north-eastern Piemonte. Lessona must be aged a minimum of two years, the aging period beginning with January 1 of the year after the harvest. Uvaggio has a slightly different appellation, Coste della Sesia, (the banks of the Sesia river) which comprises those wines watered by the Sesia river descending from Monte Rosa in the Italian Alps. The entire area of this part of Piemonte has been dramatically impoverished with vineyards in the last 100 years or so. At that time, in the area comprising land from the border of the Val d’Aosta to Lago Maggiore, there were more than 40,000 hectares (roughly 100,000 acres of vines.) The current total planted surface is only 800 hectares, (less than 2,000 acres.) But this area in the 1830s, produced what was recognized as being the best red wines of Italy, or as they were then called, “vini da rosto,”(roast wines.) They are now on their way back. Nicely dark in color, with a lovely, spicy scent with great flavor finesse; not thin bodied, but not coarsely heavy, Proprietà Sperino Uvaggio 2004, shows what careful grape selection, exacting vinification and the moderate use of wood to lend balance, but not cover flavor, can achieve with the combination of sandy and granitic soils of the Alps. This is the first offering of Uvaggio 2004 and the next wine in line is classic Lessona 2004, a blend of nebbiolo and vespolina, of which there are only 3,000 bottles. If you are a fan of Italian wines, you cannot afford to miss the Proprietà Sperino wines, either the Rosè, Uvaggio or Lessona.
Shin Mai, newly harvested and milled short grain rice, is eagerly awaited in Japan with as much enthusiasm as Beaujolais Nouveau is in France. It is a seasonal specialty that has a wonderful flavor and scent and is available only for a short period with these specific characteristics. In two harvests, 2001 and 2003, we offered Shin Mai from Japanese cultivars. Now, we offer Hitomebore, grown in the ricelands north of Sacramento by the LaGrande family mill, Sun Valley Rice Co., in Arbuckle, CA. Five generations as rice growers, they have a state of the art mill including a KAPIKA polisher, used at the end of milling where the grains themselves remove more bran without using water. This creates a highly polished rice increasing water absorption and promoting the freshly milled rice character. Although our Hitomebore is a premium rice, meaning that the grains are very glossy after cooking, sticky with a smooth texture, and remain soft after cooking, this is not a rice for you if you do not want rice that sticks together. Having important scent and flavor characteristics, this is rice primarily for Japanese cuisine. Hiroko Shimbo of New York, author of The Japanese Kitchen, sent the following tasting note on Hitomebore. “Hitomebore: This rice has a very fragrant, perfume-y aroma and good taste. The texture was the most pleasant–plump and tender...This flavorful, aromatic rice even served alone...is an ‘active’ constituent of the meal. When it comes to sushi rice preparation, this is the rice. I do not recommend serving this rice in a preparation...requiring flavoring or serving with richly flavored sauces.” A CAUTION: It sticks together!
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Corti Brothers
Sacramento CA
