All this talking and tasting with winery principals and wine makers is not always fun and games. Sometimes the wine traveler has to take a break, and stop to eat as well. Yes I know, it’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it.
Here’s a tip that never fails to deliver: If you’re traveling in a new (for you) wine region and want to know where best to eat great local food, ask a winemaker. After a hard session of talking, tasting and spitting wine at whichever winery I’m visiting, I invariably ask my host where they eat: the advice I receive is seldom off the mark, and has resulted in some of the most memorable meals I’ve had when travelling in wine country.
And so it was when Marco Nicolosi at Barone di Villagrande sent us for dinner to 4 Archi, a modest osteria at the edge of Milo village on the eastern slopes of Mount Etna. Owner Saro Grasso presides over a series of interconnected rooms decorated with what appears to be an eclectic collection of signs and objects he’s picked up on his global travels (a California number plate and a street name sign from Paris, for example).
More to the point, Saro is a big-hearted, garrulous host who knows a thing or two about eating and living well, and an avid proponent of the Italian Slow Food movement. His chef Lina Castorina manages the burners in a kitchen from which emerged some delicious, deeply authentic dishes, made with locally sourced, seasonal ingredients.
Our visit this past May coincided with the brief availability of a local green called ‘cavolo trunzo‘, a type of cabbage or kohlrabi that is only grown in a small patch of Mount Etna’s lower slope volcanic soils around the nearby coastal town of Acireale, and is harvested in May-June and again in October-November, frost permitting.
Taking the advice of our knowledgeable (and english-speaking) server, we ordered up two first course pastas:
Maccheroni di pasta fresca con ragù di suino nero dei Nebrodi (macaroni with ragu of black pig from the Nebrodi Mountains); and Linguine with cavolo trunzu and pork cheek. Both delicious, hearty mountain dishes.
Next up was my wife’s Stinco di maiale al forno (roast pork cutlet with julienned fresh cavolo trunzo) and my Coniglio alle erbe aromatiche con purea di patate (braised rabbit with mashed potatoes and a fresh aromatic herb sauce). I’d learned about the presence of bunnies in the local vineyards previously, when Marco and I had watched a large hawk fly overhead and land on a post in his Carricante vineyard and he’d mentioned that these raptors played an important role in, um, ‘managing’ the local rabbit population, which would otherwise eat him out of grapes.
From a long and impressively deep wine list, I picked out a couple of Etna Rosso options and asked our host to make his recommendation. Ignoring my choices, he instead offered us his very last bottle of I Vigneri Vinupetra from the highly rated 2014 vintage, a classic blend of Nerello Mascelese and Nerello Cappuccio which is made by Salvo Foti, a key (if controversial) local leader in resuscitating traditional Etna winemaking techniques. I recall a haunting bouquet of perfumed notes, forest floor, black berries and mushrooms, with a silky smooth mouthfeel, soft tannins and that signature minerality that is classic Etna. A wine that spoke powerfully of its origins on these cool volcanic slopes. Unforgettable. Thank you Saro.
Grasso’s generosity was not yet over, as it turned out. But first a surprise visit by a duo of older musicians, straight out of Sicily central casting, who suddenly appeared to serenade the room with sweet renditions of traditional Italian tunes on their violin and guitar. Of course I could not resist asking them for the theme song from The Godfather. Cheesy, yes, but also somehow perfect for the occasion.
Then, perhaps under the influence of the soulful music, Saro came over and offered us each a glass of La Gelsomina’s prized Moscato Passito, a Terre Siciliane IGT from Etna. Passito is the Italian word for wines made by the ancient appassimento process in which grapes are partially dried on straw mats in airy rooms, concentrating the grapes’ flavours and sweetness prior to vinification. It slipped down smoothly with our shared pistachio semifreddo. Delicious! Bellies full and deeply content, we stumbled out into the cool Etna night.
If you go:
4 Archi Osteria
Via Francesco Crispi, 9
95010 – Milo (Catania)
tel: (+39) 095 955566 / 368 7237933
info@4archi.it
www.4archi.it