A creamy sauce made with braised fennel, orange, pancetta, and shrimp is a decadent match for Duca di Dolle BRT Prosecco di Valdobbiadene Superiore Brut. Plus, discover #WhatsYourProseccoSuperioreStyle and win.

– SPONSORED POST –

It’s always exciting when I conceive of a pairing, and it turns out EVEN MORE delicious than I expected. 

I created this recipe for a partnership with Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG for an Instagram post to help spread the word about a recipe contest that’s currently underway –– scroll down for details. The pairing turned out so well that I just had to share it here as well. 

I’ve shared several posts in the past detailing the Prosecco quality pyramid, check out this post for more background. To put it simply though, Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG is the original production zone and historical home of Prosecco. It’s a much, much smaller region than the wider Prosecco DOC area, which spans nine provinces in Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia regions. By comparison, wine under the Superiore DOCG zone must come from one of 15 small, specific communes. To make a long story short, over time, the Prosecco zone was widened so that producers could grow more grapes to keep up with demand, but the highest quality wine still comes from grapes grown in the steeply hilly terrain of the original, historical growing area. 

My task was to create a recipe to match Duca di Dolle BRT Prosecco di Valdobbiadene Superiore Brut. Many people might realize it, but Prosecco comes in a full range of sweetness levels ranging from Extra Brut, Brut, Extra Dry, and Dry. Here are the details on the grams of residual sugar per liter  for each of these typologies: 

Extra Brut:  0 - 6 g/l

Brut: 0-12 g/l

Extra Dry: 12-17 g/l 

Dry: 17-32 g/l 

This wine is Brut which is intended to be a crowd-pleasing style that can work easily throughout a meal. When comparing it to traditional method sparkling wines, like Champagne, the main flavor difference is that they will not have the toasty, nutty, brioche notes that you’ll find in those wines. The production method used to make these wines, known as the Martinotti or Charmat method, instead highlights the aromatics of the grapes themselves, bringing out the fruit and floral notes, as well as light hints of herbal flavors. The Brut style will show off the more vibrant citrusy aspects of Glera, the grape of Prosecco,  along with lightly herbal notes, all will a fresh, crisp finish. 

Duca di Dolle 

Blend: 90% Glera, 5% Verdiso, 5% Perera  |  Average Price: $10 | Abv: 11.5%

Duca di Dolle is a young, sustainably-minded company owned by the Baccini family. All grapes are grown on their 100-hectare estate (25 hectares are dedicated to vineyards, and 75 are woodlands and meadows) located in Rolle, in the municipality of Cison di Valmarino. The estate also boasts a 16th-century monastery that has been converted to a relais to host guests. 

When we opened the Duca di Dolle BRT Prosecco di Valdobbiadene Superiore Brut we were greeted with aromas of white flowers, lemons, white peach, and minerals on the nose. The fresh white flowers and crisp fruit notes continued on the palate, and the minerality turned into pronounced salinity. It was a very elegant and refreshing wine.

Find additional details on this wine here.

The Pairing:  Creamy Fennel Pasta with Orange and Shrimp 

Several ideas wound themselves together when I was conceiving a pairing for this wine. In the past, I’ve had good luck pairing Prosecco Superiore DOCG with Pasta Carbonara, and the Brut style works particularly well with creamy dishes since the bright citrusy notes help to cut through the unctuous quality of these types of dishes. At the same time, I was thinking that the combination of fennel and herbal would highlight the fruity, floral, and herbal notes in the wine. If I brought in a seafood element, like shrimp, it might also serve to tease out more of the wine’s minerality. I decided to put it all together.

I took inspiration from a recipe my husband and I fell in love with a while ago for Fennel Braised in Cream from Gabrielle Hamilton’s Prune cookbook. Through this recipe, we discovered the delicious caramelized flavors that can come from fennel when it’s been cooked slowly and just how magically those flavors can work with cream. 

Putting it all of these ideas together, I decided to chop up the fennel and cook it stove-top and basically treated them like I would onions that were being caramelized, adding orange juice during the cooking process. Toward the end of cooking, I added Parmesan, cream, and shrimp then topped it all with pancetta, and tossed it all with fresh linguini. The results were incredibly decadent. We could not get enough and it was fabulous with the wine! The bright, crisp fruit and saline minerality cut right through the richness of the pasta dish and highlighted the citrus and herbal notes from the orange and fennel.   

Scroll down for the recipe. 

#WhatsYourProseccoSuperioreStyle Recipe Contest

As I alluded to earlier, I created this dish for an Instagram post promoting a contest Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG is having to promote the food friendliness and versatility of the wines, in addition to highlighting the different typologies, or categories. 

There are still a few more days left in the contest period, and it’s open for anyone in the US to participate. Simply put, all you have to do is create a recipe – it can be SUPER simple – and share it on Instagram. 

That’s the basic gist, now here are the detailed instructions: 

·  Post a recipe by 11/13/22 featuring wine from Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG – be sure to check the label! Static images and videos are both fine. The full recipe can be shared via the post, or the post can point to a blog post with the complete instructions.

·  Get to know the typologies. Wines should be from the Extra Brut, Brut Millesimato, or Extra Dry typologies, and let us know why you love that style. Find more details on each at www.prosecco.it/en .

·  A successful entry will: A successful entry will: 

1) Share information on the typology. 

2) Describe why the pairing works. 

3) If you use a glass in the shoot, please be sure it is an all purpose white wine glass – it’s best for releasing the wine’s aromas. 

4) Tag @proseccocv, the respective producer, and @alltheswirl. 

#proseccosuperiore

#proseccoelevated

#coneglianovaldobbiadene

#alltheswirl

#whatsyourproseccosuperiorestyle

MUST BE OVER 21 TO ENTER

A winner for each of the 3 typologies will be announced in December.

******

*****

Check out these posts for more on Prosecco:

• Three Nights of Prosecco Holiday Fun: Carbonara, Sabering, Friends, with a Side of Pear Endive Spears
  
• Cooking to the Wine: Sorelle Bronca Extra-Dry Prosecco di Valdobbiadene Superiore DOCG with Poached Chicken with Pears and Gorgonzola
  
• The Wide World of Italian Bubblies
• Wine Geek Thanksgiving
  
• Around the World Pét-Nat Party!
  
• Italian Wine 101 Cheat Sheet
  

I’ve been taking a summer vacation from the blog for a few weeks, and as I’m reemerging this week, I think it’s only appropriate to toast with a bottle of bubbly. 

Today we’re going way, way, way Down Under. We’re picking up our exploration of Australian wine, and we’re going about as far south in the country as you can go to Tasmania. Australia’s Island State is known for its Devils, gorgeous scenery, and incredibly clean air. It’s also a pretty ideal place to make sparkling wine – so let’s go ahead and pop a bottle!

Cheers!

An Intro to Tassie Wine

Map borrowed from WineFolly.com

Tassie wines are still somewhat undiscovered gems. They represent less than 1% of Australia’s wine production, but they’re known for their quality, and as a result, this is one Australian winemaking region where demand outpaces supply. 

Despite the production numbers being small, winemaking history goes back to the early days of Australia’s European settlement. Its first vineyards were planted in 1823 – which gives it a potential claim over the Hunter Valley, which is generally cited as Australia’s oldest region. The issue is that after its early start, winemaking on the island pretty much dried up for about a century starting in the second half of the 1800s and then reemerged in the 1950s, so it hasn’t been continuous. 

Tasmania is way down south – located between the southern parallels of  40° and 44° latitude, about 150 miles (240 km) off the coast of Victoria. As you can probably imagine, things get can get chilly around these parts, so the grapes they focus on as pretty different from much of the rest of mainland Australia. Rather than Shiraz, Grenache, and Cabernet Sauvignon which like the heat, we see grapes that like the cool maritime climate take center stage here. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay take the top spots for plantings, and those are followed by Sauv Blanc, Pinot Gris, and Riesling. (We saw this in the Yarra Valley* in Victoria, and now we’re even farther south.) 

Pinot Noir and Chardonnay also happen to be the grapes most traditionally used for traditional method sparkling wines, and much like Champagne, cooler climates tend to be perfect for making bubbly as the grapes retain lots of crisp acidity. Lo and behold, Tasmania has developed a reputation for making some of the country’s best sparkling wines. Moreover, Australia’s first sparkling wine was made in Tasmania in 1826.

Tasmania’s landscape is dominated by dolerite-capped mountains which give the island its complex geography with many varying terroirs and micro-climates. Most notably, the mountains on the western side create a rain shadow that blocks the majority of rain from hitting the island’s seven major growing areas: North West, Tamar Valley, Pipers River, East Coast, Coal River Valley, Derwent Valley, Huon Valley / d'Entrecasteaux Channel. 

Thanks to the shifting and colliding of continents, plus volcanoes, and the movements of bodies of water, Tasmania’s soils are incredibly diverse. If you have a few minutes to geek out, check out this video for a mind-bending look at their geology.

The Wine: Jansz Premium Cuvée Brut Tasmania 

Alcohol: 12%  | Price: $19.99 (Purchased at K&L) 

Jansz Tasmania has been solely focused on sparkling winemaking since 1986. Champagne house Louis Roederer saw similarities between the climate in the Pipers River region, where the original vineyards are located, and that of Champagne, and they decided to partner with the owners of Heemskerk Wines to create Tasmania’s first premium, traditional method sparkling wine house. The Hill-Smith family purchased the property in 1998 and they’ve established it as one of the most highly regarded family-owned sparkling wine houses in Australia. 

The winery’s name pays homage to Tasmania’s namesake, the Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman who first sighted the island in 1642. When the vineyards were first established in 1975, they were named after Tasman’s ship, the Heemskerk. 

Image borrowed from Jansz's website.

The Pipers River region has a maritime climate but also gets a lot of sunshine hours, making it excellent for grape-growing. Cool winds from the Bass-Strait also helps to moderate temperatures in the vineyards from becoming too extreme both in the summer and winter, resulting in a long, cool, sunny growing season that allows the grapes to ripen slowly and develop their flavors.  The Janz vineyards here sit on a bed of free-draining red basalt soils, which also adds to the minerality of the wines. 

The wines are made in traditional method and they've put a little spin on the "Méthode Champenoise" and call their take "Méthode Tasmanoise":

Méthode Tasmanoise is the embodiment of every aspect of our unique place. It goes beyond terroir, beyond winemaking. Méthode Tasmanoise encapsulates our Tasmanian way of life and our respect for our environment, the natural wilderness, our clean air, fertile soils, pristine waters, the untamed oceans. It celebrates our unique crafts and the synergy between our wares and our surrounds. Most of all, Méthode Tasmanoise embraces the people that call our island state their home

The Hill-Smith family owns several wineries around Australia and they are all run sustainably. They lay out quite a few of the details of their practices here. The particular bottling we’re talking about today is certified sustainable and vegan friendly.

We opened the Jansz Premium Cuvée Brut Tasmania NV and were greeted with notes of lemon cream and apple blossom on the nose. On the palate, the wine was crisp and bright with a mixture of crunchy green and gold apples, lemon juice and curd, white peach, a hint of berry, a touch of toast and brown sugar, and lots of salinity.

For the price, this is a lovely bottle of bubbly.

Geeky Details

The Pairing: Lobster Tartines with Leeks and Mushrooms

In looking up what foods are commonly grown and produced in Tasmania, I discovered that it is one of the world’s leading suppliers of lobster and abalone. Pairing this bubbly with buttery lobster seemed like a perfect way to go! 

Lobster need not be fancy. In this case, I decided to serve it on grilled bread as a tartine, or open-faced sandwich, topped with sautéed leeks and mushrooms that I thought would bring out the wine’s more earthy notes and tease out hints of herbal flavors. In the end, the dish I came up with to pair with this wine is more about assembly rather than any elaborate cooking.

I ran into one tiny snag when I went to the grocery store – no lobster. No abalone either. I found my solution in the freezer section via Luke’s Lobster pre-packaged knuckle and claw meat. It proved quite tasty and very convenient. (I was addicted to Luke’s Lobster rolls when we lived in New York.) I simply thawed the meat and tossed it all in warm, melted butter and heated it gently, then sprinkled it with a bit of included seasoning. 

The only thing on this dish that required real preparation was the leeks and mushrooms, and that only requires only a few ingredients and little attention. Despite this, the combo becomes really saucy and flavorful. I use the same mix in many different ways including to top all kinds of proteins, mixed into a grain bowl, on a sandwich, or in an omelet or quiche. If you add more stock or water it becomes a fabulous base for a soup, and if you stir in a touch of cream when it comes off the heat, it's fabulously completely decadent. 

In this case, as I mentioned, I layered the leeks and mushrooms on slices of buttery grilled bread, along with arugula, and the buttery lobster meat. The pairing was just lovely and worked even better than I’d hoped. The wine would show different facets with each bite. With the buttery sweet lobster meat the plumper, riper fruits note would come out. The char on the bread at times brought out the wine’s toastiness. At other times, earthier and more minerally notes came out to play. Mostly, it was simply delicious and refreshing with the tartines. 

***** 

*****

The rest of the World Wine Travel blogging group (#WorldWineTravel) is exploring the wines from Tasmania, as well as other Aussie Sparklers and Stickies this month. Check out the rest of their posts:

• Lori is tasting “Tasmanian Sparkling and Egg Rolls” at Exploring the Wine Glass
• Camilla is showcasing “Tasmania + Hawaii: Celebrating with an Island Wine and Island Eats” at Culinary Adventures with Camilla 
• Jeff shares how we can “Discover Rutherglen Stickies” at Food Wine Click!
• Robin is pairing “Sparkling Wine from Jansz Tasmania and a Tassie-inspired seafood curry pie” at Crushed Grape Chronicles
• Kat has a “Surprise! South Australia Pét-Nat is on the Rise” at The Corkscrew Concierge
• Susannah is featuring “Tasmanian Chardonnay” at Avvinare
• Deanna is popping an “Australian Sparkling Wine from Deviation Road” at Wineivore
• Linda is having “Sparkling Aussie Shiraz as summer draws to a close” at My Full Wine Glass

A bottle of rich Cremant d'Alsace from Pierre Sparr makes an excellent accompaniment for an elaborate cheese and charcuterie spread.

This bottle was provided as a media sample. As usual, all opinions are my own and no other compensation was received. 

We’ve started an accidental trend of bringing bottles of Cremant d’Alsace on vacations. Last year I shared two bottles that went on the road with us, and we recently continued the tradition by taking a bottle of Pierre Sparr Cremant d'Alsace Brut Reserve to share with friends at the Culinary Cabin in Tahoe. 

Our trips to the Culinary Cabin are epic feasts that go on for days. Occasionally, our friends Lucy and Drew invite us, along with a few other friends, to their family’s vacation house for little getaways that basically turn into cooking camp where we all switch off making amazing meals. In addition, there are often some pretty delicious cheese hours – happy hour, but with cheese. Our friends Dee and Drew joined in on the most recent trip, and these two turn out some phenomenal cheese spreads. (That’s not a typo, they’re both Drews. We refer to them as Northern Drew and Southern Drew respectively based on where in the state they live.) When combined with the tidbits and extra treats that the rest of us added in, the cheese hours were taken to another level this trip. 

In addition to a slew of cheeses, we also had quite a bit of charcuterie, condiments, and other goodies like olives on the table. On the night we opened the bottle of Pierre Sparr, Northern Drew also conjured up a couple of extra appetizers with the other guys as sous chefs to enjoy including crispy chicken skin, roasted mushrooms, and saucy tomatoes with grilled bread. There were also  two pots of rillets on the table, one made of rabbit and one of the pork rillets I shared in this post.  (I can now affirm that these freeze quite well.)  In the end, this cheese hour was so abundant that it completely did away with the need for dinner. 

  

Pierre Sparr Cremant d'Alsace Brut Reserve

12.5% ABV | Average Price: $21 

I’ve shared quite a few bottles of Cremant d’Alsace here over time, so I’m not going to go into a long description here, but very simply put, Cremant in sparkling wine that is made in the style of Champagne (aka traditional method or méthode traditionnelle) that come from regions other than Champagne. In this case, the wine comes from Alsace in northeastern France. 

Image borrowed from Pierre Sparr's website.

Maison Pierre Sparr has a long history spanning many generations. The family’s winemaking origins date back to 1680 under Jean Sparr. Starting in 1785, François Pierre Sparr began increasing the vineyard holdings. Jump ahead a few generations, and Charles Sparr turned his attention to developing the business, trade, and winery’s wine aging practices. His son, Pierre, became the head of the company at the age of 20 and developed the business further, and became a pioneer in estate bottling in Alsace. His motto was: “invest, progress and maintain.”

Map borrowed from WineFolly.com.

Alsace was one of the French regions most devastated by the World Wars due to its location right on the border with Germany. The domaine’s vineyards were completely destroyed during WWII. Pierre Sparr worked very hard to rebuild the domaine back to its previous prestige. His sons René and Charles continued the work and increased the vineyard holding and developed European markets for the company. The winery is now in its 9th generation in the family, and they have Corinne Perez as the current winemaker.

Today the domaine owns 15 hectares of vineyards, and they source from an additional 130 hectares supplied by well-experienced winegrowers. I couldn’t find much on the winery’s vineyard practices, however, their site does note that they do not use chemical fertilizers and they limit their yields for quality control. 

Image borrowed from Pierre Sparr's website.

Their Cremant d'Alsace Brut Reserve is a blend of 80% Pinot Blanc and  20% Pinot AuxerroisGrapes for this wine are whole-cluster pressed, with the varieties being handled separately. The wine is fermented and held in stainless steel tanks, then the still wines are blended and bottled, and then the wine spends 12-16 months on the lees before release. Find tech sheet on this wine here and here for additional details.

I found this to be a rich style of Cremant d’Alsace with lots of baked pear and apple notes. On the nose, there were pretty floral notes as well. On the palate, there were also flavors of toasted nuts and honeyed mead-like notes, at the front, and then move into fresher notes of lemon towards the mid-palate and finish. There was a creamy feel to the texture of this wine. 

This was generally a very friendly wine when it came to pairing. I can’t think of anything it clashed with on our extensive cheese and charcuterie table. Sparkling wines in general tend to pair well with fried foods, and following in that tradition, this wine paired really well with the crispy chicken skins. It also matched particularly well with the two types of rillets spread on grilled buttery bread, managing somehow to both mirror the richness of these meaty spreads, and then cleanse and lift the palate at the finish. Sweet items that you tend to find on a cheese plate like fruit, jams, confitures, and mostarda can be tricky to pair with dry wines in general, but this wine worked better than most in my experience, perhaps thanks to the richness of the fruit and the nutty flavors. This was particularly true when these sweeter items were accompanied in a bite with savory charcuterie or salty cheese. 

The wine worked generally well with most cheeses, but as there were too many on the table to discuss them all individually, I’ll just spotlight one that I really enjoyed with the wine – Brillat-Savarin Affine. We’ll take a closer look at the cheese momentarily, but I really enjoyed how these two worked together. Similar to how the wine worked with the rillettes, the wine matched the cheese’s decadent texture, but then refreshed the palate at the close of a sip.

See this post for more on Cremant in general and this post for more on Cremant d’Alsace specifically. For more on the region of Alsace, check out this post. 

Brillat-Savarin Affine

Brillat-Savarin Affine is a bloomy-rind, soft-ripened triple cream cow's milk cheese that is soooooooooo silky, creamy, and delicious that Dee refers to it as the “unicorn cheese.” 

This version comes from Fromagerie Delin and they give the following description of the cheese and its history on their site: 

This cream-enriched cheese has a rich and varied history. In fact, it was to pay tribute to Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826), an illustrious figure in the French Revolution and above all a lover of fine gourmet foods, that Henri Androuet had the idea of naming a cheese after him around 1930.

It is a soft cheese made from a lactic curd that has been enriched with cream before maturing. It can be eaten fresh, in which case the softness and creaminess will dominate with creamy notes and a hint of acidity and freshness.

With the maturing process, its attractive bloomy rind appears after a few days and will give it a more assertive character. But once again, it is the creaminess and suppleness of the cheese that are the dominant characteristics. Nuances of hazelnut and mushroom coming from the rind complement the creaminess, imparting all its aromatic complexity.

Brillat-Savarin has been a PGI since 2017, with a production area extending from the south of the Ile-de-France to Burgundy. We are fortunate to have a production site in both these areas. You’ll really be able to taste the difference.

I think it can occasionally be hard to find – adding to why Dee calls it the “unicorn cheese,” but you can find this version here.

In terms of flavor, I found it to be mild in flavor with a pleasant sour tang, but the true joy of the cheese is the luscious texture. As I mentioned, It was a lovely match with our bottle of Pierre Sparr Cremant.

Cheese this good has a tendency to disappear!

*****

Both Pierre Sparr’s website and VinsAlsace.com have many more pairing ideas for wines from the region – check out their websites for more inspiration. 

I received two additional bottles of Cremant d’Alsace as samples for participation in this month’s French Winophiles event. Sadly, Greg and I got stranded on vacation on the east coast with COVID (luckily not too bad) and the other bottles are waiting for me at home. Perhaps the bottles of Cremant were a lucky charm on previous trips, as we had managed to avoid the plague up until now.

*****

• Cremant Wine Battered Perch; Michigan and French Classics Collide on A Day in the Life on the Farm
• A Thai Green Curry Lesson + Willm Crémant d’Alsace Brut Rosé on Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Crémant d’Alsace: An Elegant Sparkling Wine from France on Grape Experiences
• Crémant d’Alsace - Exploring the Nuances of France’s 2nd Favorite Sparkling Wine on Crushed Grape Chronicles
• Crémant d'Alsace: A Candidate for Your House Bubbly on Food Wine Click!
• Crémant d'Alsace Paired with Summer Fish Menus on Always Ravenous
• Crab Crêpes Compliment Crémant d'Alsace for Summer #Winophiles on Wine Predator
• Cheese Hour at the Culinary Cabin with Pierre Sparr Crémant d'Alsace Brut Reserve on Somm's Table
• Porch Sipper of the Year: Crémant d’Alsace on Keep the Peas
• Crispy Fishwich + an Organic Cremant d'Alsace from Charles Bauer on Wineivore
• Try This Traditional French Sparkler For Modern Drinkers on L’Occasion