what:
DOCG
Veneto, Italy
made from partially dried grapes
primarily Corvina, but also Rondinella and Molinara
where:
Ristorante Antico Martini
Campo Teatro Fenice, 2007
Venice
when:
late winter
character:
Say you come across a picturesque little antique shop, on some hidden little
by-street in Venice, no bigger than a living room but filled with the most
beguiling array of objects—tiny gilt frames, ornate lamps with beaded
silk shades, an elaborate beaux arts lady’s hand mirror—each
showing the refined taste and discerning eye of an expert aesthete. You
are no doubt expecting the tiny Italian gran in her black shawl to appear
at any moment. You find, instead, an enormous man with broad shoulders,
a full beard, wearing a rough tweed suit and smelling strongly of a thick
woodsy cologne (and not a little of it, either). Meet Signore Amarone, the
proprietor. On the one hand he seems to barely fit in his own shop, always
on the verge of sending this or that priceless object shattering to the
floor; yet he handles each piece with a delicacy—oddly suggestive
of sweetness without actually possessing a sweet demeanor—that
reveals an unaccountable artistic sensitivity. He is machismo, sotto
voce, as much a curiosity as the objects around him.
tastes like:
Sitting by a small warming fireplace on a gray and rainy late-winter afternoon.
pairs nicely with:
The eight windows
depicting the Miracles of St. Thomas in Canterbury Cathedral, Kent; the
sleeper car on an overnight train, a sturdy worsted wool suit, sleeping
in said worsted wool suit on said overnight train, and any European city
in which ‘Ruins’ are listed as an attraction; the rose window
at Lausanne Cathedral, all the windows of Chartres Cathedral, and the entire
Kölner Dom; coming home from a tour of European ruins, and sitting
with one’s father on a gray and rainy late-winter afternoon, offering
poor explanations regarding the creation of said (non-European) ruins; and
a hunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano, preferably from the a wheel aged in the cellar
of an Italian gran who has carefully treated it with homemade olive oil
for many many months.