2008 Ajello Grillo-Catarratto
“Characteristics: Straw yellow in color with green tints, broad aromatic impact with fruity nuances. Full and dry, underpinned by a fresh acidity.”
The wine media will bombard you with empty statements like this one if you let it. While each of these points may be at least subjectively accurate, taken as a whole I've always found these “characteristics” to lack character. They always seem to me as if they were written by a chemist in a lab describing some new compound rather than by an ordinary person sitting on a deck or by the fire sipping a glass of wine.
Nonetheless, these particular attributes are the ones used by the winemaker (or at least its marketing arm anyway) to describe the 2008 Grillo-Catarratto (roughly $13 a bottle; $141 a case) from Sicilian winemaker Ajello. And they are not, strictly speaking, incorrect. Nor are they all that inviting though, and this wine deserves higher praise.
read the rest at Iowa City Press Citizen.
When researching the history and lore of a particular food, something I do with perhaps more frequency than the average person, one of my favorite resources to turn to is the late Waverly Root, an American journalist assigned to Paris for most of his career, and his indispensable Food: An Authoritative Visual History and Dictionary of the Foods of the World. And, honestly, how could I not turn to Root when writing about three often overlooked winter vegetables: turnips, parsnips and rutabagas? Despite the fact that in our modern day they play second fiddle to carrots, these three are wonderful, hearty winter fare, delicious in a mash with other root vegetables, in soups and stews, or roasted in the oven until crisp and savory. They are also well appreciated in the lean months because of their long shelf life and low cost.
