Roll out the red carpet, blow the shiny, loud horns, wear your fanciest dress (you too, men) – guess who’s back? Yes, I am still alive. Yes, Jonny has been keeping this blog afloat for a year now. And yes, I am ready to try to blog again. After a year of figuring out how to be a parent (and how to be comfortable being a mom and finally coming to terms with the fact that my life will never, ever be the same again) and learning to balance everything that comes with this new, crazy world, I finally feel like I want to write again. And what could be better to write about than the grapevine that not only GREW in the soil of our Brooklyn, NY, yard but even FLOURISHED and provided over 20 lbs of sweet, delicious Catawba grapes?

Many of you may have never heard of Catawba grapes before and until researching how to use the grapes for jam, neither had I. One factoid I did learn is that it is a native grape, discovered in 1802, mostly an east coast varietal and is used to produce some wine. I was amazed at how incredibly sweet the grapes were and figured the wine made from them would probably be some sort of dessert wine. In fact, the Catawba grape is responsible for the first American sparkling wine. I thought it was pretty cool to know that little old USA has native wine-growing grapes (in fact, there are about four types of native grapes). In the mid 1800′s, Catawba sparkling wine was even lauded by many experts in Europe (one person shockingly wrote it was better than anything that came from the Rhine!). The Finger Lakes region in upstate New York still uses this varietal to make much of the wine produced there.

As you’ve probably read in earlier posts, our garden bounty has been enormous this year and our two grapevines growing against a beautiful Brooklyn chain-link fence did not disappoint. Never having worked with home-grown grapes before, I realized that they could be used to make delicious jam. After de-skinning (by hand!) 4 pounds of them and making 5 jars of delicious grape jam, I needed something else. We found this wonderful recipe for a sweet flatbread in a Tuscan cookbook and I knew that I had to have it. It was incredibly easy to make and worked well with our morning espresso.

Picture this, if you will: A warm, humid day in Argentina’s early autumn; the last rays of sun slanting sharply through the browning leaves of mature plane trees; myriad dog-walkers rustling quietly by in the litter of those already fallen. In the lee of a giant ficus planted for sidewalk shade, two travelers recline in the canvas-backed chairs of a cafe, unwinding the combined corporeal kinks of a 10 hour overnight flight and a 6 hour stroll around Buenos Aires. As they sit, calm descends over our road-weary protagonists – of the kind unknown and almost unfathomable in their highly caffeinated daily lives up North, yes, a beautiful serenity indeed, interrupted only by a raging thirst.

To repeat the lunchtime libation of a world-class Malbec/Syrah blend seems somehow tyrannous to our relaxed travelers, and the option of the Argentine national drink, the Fernet-Coca, somehow dischordant with the peaceful ambiance. Instead, the distinctly un-Argentine, yet surely appropriate, and broadly contextual, selection of a pair of chilled pisco sours has great appeal.

Made from a tangy combination of lemon or lime juice, pisco, simple syrup, regional bitters, and egg whites, the pisco sour is the national drink of both Peru and Chile, and its origins lie in 16th century Peru, where grapes first planted by Spanish colonialists were distilled into brandy because the Crown, seeking to protect it’s export trade, banned local wine production.

Although it shares its name with a Peruvian coastal town – a title derived from the Quechua word “pisqu”, meaning a variety of “little bird” native to the towns’ surrounding region of Ica – it wasn’t until the 18th century that brandy from Pisco, – having been known previously as simply aguardiente (firewater) or orujo, became synonymous with its home port, as sailors transporting it between the colonies and Spain began to refer to it in that way.

Indeed, it was among sailors and other “ruffians” well-known for being partial to strong liquor that pisco first gained popularity, with the loftier classes generally shunning it as the drink of the unstable and unsavory. And, even when the ban on wine exporting from the colonies was repealed, this down-at-heel reputation did not stop it far exceeding wine in quantity sold.

Today, pisco is still widely exported from both Peru and Chile, and is drunk by all classes both within those countries and across the world. In it’s native lands it is often sipped neat, and aged varieties – in the same way as aged brandies the world over – command high prices due to their complexity and mellow flavors. The “Quebranta” on the front of our bottle of pisco refers to the typical Peruvian grape varietal it’s made from, which is but one of many used in the distillation of pisco. [For more on these grape varieties and distillation techniques click here.] However, the bulk of exported pisco is clear, aged for only the minimum three months (usually in stainless steel), and destined for the cocktail shaker.

The most famous of these cocktails is, of course, the pisco sour. As with many mixed drinks, it’s unclear exactly where and when it was first “invented”, as records of drinks named “punche” containing pisco diluted with lemon or lime juice date from the 18th century, and at the turn of the 20th century the Bank Exchange Bar in San Francisco became famous for its Pisco punch which contained pisco, lemon and pineapple juices. The consensus is though, that in the 1870s an English sailor by the name of Eliot Stubb opened a bar in the Peruvian city of Iquique where he began to experiment with a Latin American version of his favorite cocktail the, then very new, whiskey sour. Quite why he included the egg white in his recipe has been lost in the hazy annals of alcoholic history, but as these pictures amply demonstrate, it gives the otherwise rather ordinary-looking drink a real sense of drama.

Now, rejoining our two travelers, who, having been served, now sip contentedly on their pisco sours over frothy upper-lips as the sun, as if sharing their relaxed ambiance, slips lazily below the horizon giving-up a magnificently pink dusk sky…

Why not make yourself a couple of pisco sours this evening and raise a toast to (arguably) the most famous of Argentines, Eva Peron, aka Evita, who would be 90 years old today.

Tradition
Now, it’s very common — almost traditional, some would say — for the British, when visiting another European country, to buy a bottle or more of the local tipple as a souvenir. This tends to the eaux-de-vie / grappa-type firewater, often distilled with herbs from the surrounding hills, that the locals swear has health-restoring powers, but in fact is the cause of the blindness and insanity in endemic communities. And, just as commonly, once back in the UK, said bottle is placed in a dark recess of ones’ liquor cabinet and only ever reached for if, say England win something, anything, at football (soccer), and everything else in the house has already been drunk in the course of celebrating. Such was my thinking when we bought this curiously slim bottle of vin santo.

Even when I learned that it was in fact a dessert wine and not a paint-stripper, I remained cautious. After all, during the 1990s and the early years of this century, dessert wines had consistently been given a bad rap. People looked down their noses at sweeter wines as dry, crisp wines like chardonnay were all the rage. My theory (based on no research at all) is that skinny southern Californians are to blame for this. You see, the 90s power lunch diet of a “dinner salad” sans bread, expensive mineral water, and glass of something dry and white seems to have persuaded the rest of us that not only was dry white wine somehow sophisticated, but it was also lower in calories than a sweeter wine, and therefore better for us.

Research, Kinda
However, some recent actual research on the shelves of Gary’s Wines and Liquors (Flatbush Ave. and Sixth Ave., Brooklyn, NY) confirmed that wine stores which had previously been stocked almost exclusively with chardonnay, chenin blanc, and sauvignon blanc, are now burgeoning with viognier, gewurztraminer, albarino, riesling and several others whose names I forget. Clearly, there is some of sort of change in tastes afoot.

Taking this research a step further, I also noticed sweeter dessert wines are appearing on menus in my neighborhood and amongst them, in at least one restaurant, I found vin santo. All of which convinced me to find out more about this unusual beverage and, hell, give it a try!

Some Facts
Literally “holy wine”, vin santo is made from malvasia and trebbiano grapes that are left on the vine late to develop their sugars. The derivation of name vin santo is subject to some controversy since some believe that it had miraculous properties that cured plague in the 14th century. Others attribute it to a certain Greek Bishop who in the 15th century proclaimed upon drinking it “This is the wine of Xanthos!” — a pressed raisin wine from Santorini, which his fellow diners mistook for “santos”, i.e. “this is the wine of the saints”. Dismally though, it’s thought that the most likely derivation is its sometime use in Tuscany as a sacramental wine during mass.

The third most planted grape in the world by area, trebbiano grapes have usually received a bad reputation because they (when unblended) tend to produce very rough and ready wines (mostly white, some red) that have usually only been drunk young as table wines. Some chianti producers use them as a blend with sangiovese grapes, but again due to their inherent instability, they are being phased out in favor of 100% sangiovese these days.

Similarly, malvasia grapes are mostly used to make young and fairly rough white table wines, and are widely planted across the world too — most famously on the Portuguese island of Madeira where they are used to create the eponymous sweet wine. And, it is when trebbiano and malvasia are allowed to age that they become spectacular and display their real talents – both are commonly used as the base for other fortified wines like sherry, brandy and port.

Once picked, vin santo makers allow their grapes to dry and develop even more sweetness as they hang from rafters in well-ventilated rooms until they are pressed. Then the sweet juice is extracted and placed into small, cigar-shaped barrels called caratelli. After an initial open-barrel fermentation, and in a similar method to aging balsamic vinegars, these barrels are sealed and then stored in garrets or attic spaces and left to age, the best for as long as ten years.

It is because of this extended aging and sweetening process, as well as the deliciousness of the final product, that vin santo is so highly prized (and priced). It’s comparatively low yield per kilo of grapes picked and long production time means that not only is it a scarce commodity but it requires a lot of patience and care before it is ready.

So, erm, what does it taste like? 

At the end of this 10 year period, the wine is a beautiful golden amber color with a slightly nutty flavor. It is certainly sweet but not in a honeyed or saccharine way. Rather, it has a perfectly balanced flavor that works wonderfully well at the end of a savory meal without completely coating the palate with sugar.

Vin santo is typically served with almond or hazelnut biscotti-type biscuits/cookies (“cantucci e vin santo”) which are often dipped into the wine to soften them and accentuate their taste as a dessert combo, but it may be drunk as an accompaniment to other desserts or by itself as a digestive. However, and probably because of its sweetness, it is never served with cheese.

Since first trying it and realizing that, like so many of my typically English preconceived notions about all things “foreign”, it’s actually very good and those “foreigners” know much better than the English when it comes to food, we’ve drunk it mostly by itself without biscotti. But you should get yourself some and drink it any which way you choose. Sadly, after squeezing as many small nips from it as we could manage to prolong its life, we have just finished the bottle we bought in Italy. Like many of the best things in life, you have to be sparing and savor it in order to get your money’s worth.

Now, depending on where you live vin santo may be harder to find, but it’s easy to get hold of online, if a little expensive. So I encourage you to give it a try, perhaps at a restaurant first so your initial investment is limited, but I’m sure you’ll find, as I did, that re-evaluating ones prejudices towards sweet wines is a rewarding exercise.