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Corti Brothers Newsletter for December 2007 Page 6 Every so often, traveling is enlightening. In Honolulu for the Sake Appreciation tasting in August, I was taken to one of Honolulu’s fine specialty stores, R. Field, and bought something I had never seen before. It was improbably called Pastilla Nash Prune and Walnut Log. When I tried it, it hit me as superb and definitely a must for Corti Brothers. At times, the simplest things are remarkably enticing. Made in Sydney, Australia, since 2002, from organic prunes, walnuts, cane sugar, lemon juice and honey, it is rolled into silver dollar sized logs, five inches in length. The fresh walnuts are mixed with the prunes and then rolled to produce an interesting mosaic effect when sliced. Perfect for celiacs, since it is wheat and gluten free, here is a dessert which will certainly please. Its balance of flavor makes it very more-ish! This will delight even the most satiated diner over the holidays and beyond.
Corti Brothers sells a number of different salts. Probably the only one I cannot do without for normal cooking is a special salt made from Sicilian sea salt blended with fresh herbs from the Vignalta winery just outside of Padova, Italy. Here on a plain in front of the winery, growing wild are herbs--rosemary, sage and a few others. They are cut fresh then blended fresh with sea salt which preserves the herbs. Hence, Sale alle Erbe. For use with any cut of meat, beef, lamb, pork, poultry, Vignalta Sale alle Erbe is what I immediately grab to season whatever meat before cooking. Sprinkled on a steak or lamb rack, this is virtually all the seasoning needed. Wonderfully well balanced, this herbed salt is a necessity in my kitchen. It should be in yours also. Here is a wonderful example of a product, used as a gift, that will show your good taste and will have your friends clamoring for more.
Several years ago, Corti Brothers offered the Reserva Sherry vinegar from the old firm of Garvey in Jerez de la Frontera. Sherry Wine Vinegar has become the darling of the culinary crowd ever since Paul Bocuse used it in his seminal nouvelle cuisine dish, chicken sautéed with vinegar. At first, the Sherry producers were embarrassed by sherry vinegar since it was, well, vinegar. A wine producer does not want to be famous for vinegar, yet this really is the end product of wine. It is by the way, much more difficult to make. At times in the very special fermentation of sherry wine, some casks acetify and are carefully nurtured, becoming the secret possession of the cellar. Just such a product is the Reserva Vinegar of the Garvey bodega. This Reserve is very well balanced. Not thin and young, it is old enough and not tarted up with Pedro Ximénez wine to make it a type of imitation balsamic vinegar. It has 8% acidity, high enough to be very flavorful, but not cutting, and balanced so that it does not overpower good oil. In making salads, balance is a must. Because of intermittent stock supplies, this is your opportunity to lay in some really good vinegar, since it is a long time between shipments. If you tasted the first shipment, do not miss out on this one.
Since I took over the Corti Brothers’ wine department forty years ago, we have been famous for our sherry list, which at one time counted 39 different wines, without duplicating a style. Unfortunately, times have changed both for our tastes and for the sherry producers. Sherry, remember, is a white wine. The world gave a white wine revolution and forgot to invite the sherry producers. But there is probably no finer wine, including Madeira, that matches sherry for its quality, age and price. The interesting thing is that there are sherries for every purse and taste. But I want to introduce you to some of the finest. These are the Sacristía, VOS and VORS wines that we have just received from Garvey. Not so many years ago, it was possible to go to a sherry firm and buy extraordinary wines of great age for very little money. This has all changed, and I think for the better. The wines have become known for their extraordinary quality, longevity in bottle, and welcomingness. These bottles do not have to be drunk at one time like vintage port. They will last open for several months so that you can nip at them when the spirit so moves. In this regard, they are downright cheap. More than 30 years ago, Maynard Amerine and Ed Roessler at U.C. Davis showed that the average age of a 100 year old solera sherry was 30 years. This implied that the “saca” or removal of wine to be replaced with slightly newer wine was done properly and at the same rate every year. This has now been codified into law so that the regulating body in Sherryland, will now taste wines and authorize the bottling of not more than 400 liters per year of these old wines. These have passed into commerce as the VORS wines with a minimum age of 30 years. The VOS wines are those when tasted, correspond to more than 20 years of age. Sacristía wines are those butts kept separate from the rest in a cellar, used to regale special guests, and generally are wines of great age, sometimes older than the VOS and VORS wines. Can you imagine the investment in material and time this kind of wine requires? Expensive table wine seems just artificially inflated! Sacristía wines: (listed in order of dryness from drier to sweeter)
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Corti Brothers
Sacramento CA
