Please note! Many of our past newsletter items came from a very limited stock and are no longer available. Please check our products page or contact us for availability.
The famed late harvest oil from the highest reaches of the Ligurian Alps, Biancardo, has again been produced by the famous old firm of Ardoino. This is a very light fruit intensity oil which is only made in years when small Taggiasca olives grown at 1,600 feet are able to ripen fully without being knocked off the trees by severe winter, early spring storms. Harvest is in late April, early May, and the oil is bottled unfiltered. In the last 24 years, BIANCARDO has been produced only thirteen times. Now we have the newest production, 2005, harvested in early May 2005, from olives that grew in 2004.
Biancardo was so highly thought of in France during the 19th century, that it would be paid for with solid gold louis d’or coins. Its name comes from the oil’s slightly whitish, opalescent color. It is an extremely difficult oil to make–very risky from a grower’s viewpoint and always subject to problems in the press house. For these reasons, the world’s latest harvested oil is only produced by Ardoino, the firm which revived the style in 1981.
We have only 75 cases of 6-500 ml bottles for sale of Biancardo‘05, which we have had airfreighted to Sacramento. Our traditional customers have always stocked up, but this is not an oil to lay down. It should be used up, and one hopes for the best for the next season. BIANCARDO is the best example I know of a truly exceptional light fruity oil, to be used where you want delicacy and softness, rather than a powerful flavor. This is the perfect oil for “pesce crudo,” the current vogue for “Italian” sashimi. BIANCARDO is the rarest oil available.
Ardoino Biancardo ‘05 500ml (#6125)
Regulation Olive Oil Tasting Glasses: The Assaggiaolio Blue Glass
Every craft has its special utensils. In olive oil production it is the Assaggiaolio, a special flat bottomed, 2 ½ inch high, blue colored glass required, since July 1991 by EU regulations, to be used in all of the tasting sessions done in member oil producing countries. The objective is for this flat bottomed glass to be held in the palm of the taster’s hand, to be warmed slightly by the hand. (Oil should be tasted at about body temperature.) The glass is colored blue to obscure the natural color of the oil being tasted so as to not influence the taster by its color. (In tasting extra virgin olive oil, color does not play a role at all, only aroma and flavor do.)
With its squat, 2 ½ inch high, incurving rim shape, the glass is stable and not easily tipped over, (a good thing when tasting oil!) and easily holds the 15 ml of oil necessary for tasting. Now you can have these very special tasting glasses for your own oil tastings just by ordering them from Corti Brothers. If you want to be professional about oil, then the Assaggiaolio glass is a must.
A History of Wine in America: From Prohibition to the Present
Thomas Pinney, U.C. Press, 2005
This work is the second volume written by Professor Thomas Pinney, now retired from Pomona College in southern California and brings up to the present his history of wine in America, the first volume of which came out in 1989. This second work deals with wine from Prohibition (1919) to the present (2002) and has 532 pages of text to deal with less than ninety years of history, while the first volume which dealt with the beginnings of wine making in the 16th century to1919, a scope of some three centuries, has 553. A lot of tightly woven history is covered in an exceptionally readable style with characters and positions described lucidly and with admirable economy. Anyone interested in wine in the US should have both volumes of this magisterial work. They put every other history of American wine into the shade.
A History of Wine in America V. 2 : From Prohibition to the Present
Out of stock.
A few copies are still available of the first volume, From the beginnings to Prohibition.
A History of Wine in America V. 1 : From the Beginnings to Prohibition
Out of stock.
Illa Corti 1943-2005
On May 2, 2005, my sister Illa left us after having waged a valiant, eight year battle with metastatic breast cancer. A lot of our customers have spoken to her not knowing who she was since she frequently answered the telephones and took orders from our newsletter. Illa was the heart of Corti Brothers. She made it tick. She also kept it in order. Illa was my sister, my business partner, traveling companion, gatekeeper, staunch promoter, chastiser, and confidant. Illa, like our father Frank, enjoyed our business. She liked it to run well and enjoyed the great satisfaction that came with selling good products that people delighted in. Illa knew this because she herself was the consummate shopper and enjoyed the permutations of shopping. Finding some aspect that pleased her at other places, Illa would then implement it (or try to) at Corti Brothers.
My other partner, my brother-in-law Allan Darrah PhD., Illa’s husband, and I will continue Corti Brothers in the firm belief that a small business such as ours can still offer interest and value to an ever growing world of knowledgeable consumers. Now we just have to work harder because our heart is gone.
Ardoino Biancardo ‘05 500ml (#6125) 
