Background: Dottore Jeremy Parzen on vino duty Foreground: Anxious dude waiting for his date
With great pleasure, I dined last night at Sotto, near Beverly Hills. An iconic and perfect margherita, hitting all the right notes, and the pork meatballs made with pecorino and mint, on a bed of bitter greens, roasted lemon leaf, and ricotta.
Jeremy Parzen, aka Do Bianchi, wrote the wine list for Sotto, whose owner is a study abroad pal from Italy. The list is tidy and dominated by Southern Italian wines, and there are a few boutique Cali wines, like Donkey and Goat's "Sluicebox". I had the Magliocco from Terre di Balbia, the Calabrese project of Venica & Venica...it's a rare variety, earthy and high medium to full bodied, stainless steel vinification. I then had a chance to taste the Cerasuolo from Gulfi...I'd say it slots in between the lightness and rusticity of Arianna Occhipinti and the more interesting and powerful version by my favorite Italian producer, COS. As Dottore Parzen said quite aptly, it is a "pretty" wine. Lots of pure cherry fruit, clean, uncomplicated and balanced.
Every now and then, Jeremy flies out to CA from his ATX home base to pour at Sotto. If you are in LA and he's in town, make it a point to dine at Sotto. And if you're not reading Do Bianchi (www.dobianchi.com), then you should...it is more than a wine blog.
Buona bevuta a tutti!
Team Culatello (a team of one)
3 comments:
hey man, just stumbling across this now! thanks so much for coming in to see me and to support Sotto! And thanks for the kind words here! I'm so glad you liked the wines. It was great to see you and get to taste with you. un abbraccio j
Ciao J...it was great seeing you in action at Sotto and can't say enough about how 2B gets better and better. You've influenced me a great deal, how I think about wine, especially Vino Italiano. Likewise un abbraccio, Adrian
Adrian- you are one of My People. I know we have never met or anything, but I just know it. Great post!
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