3 Frappatos to Drink Right Now

For Saturday dinner, Wine School’s NYC chapter tasted a 9-d-o Occhipinti (Vacu-vin’d; opened 2x). Nowhere near as intensely floral as on night one, but still plenty of spunk. Ali liked its dustiness, its minerality and its “humble” character (meant as a compliment). It was enjoyable for its own sake with a lemon oregano swordfish tinyurl.com/ybsg2cth but, for me, didn’t plus the food any. We also tried a ’14 Valle dell’Acate. Its loud sour cherry, with the swordfish, was cringe-inducing, undrinkable. Pass the fiano, please! For our Sunday lunch, grilled eggplant with two sauces, lemon walnut tinyurl.com/y8udaw9d and a vinegar-y anchovy mint tinyurl.com/y9wup7pj , we reopened the night before’s Vd’A and a new COS. Best was the C and anchovy mint. The wine easily calmed the salt and provided a delicious drying effect with the juicy eggplant. The V did pretty well too with that sauce, but louder-talking and less self-assured. The walnut was too lemony for either wine, but especially for the V. (From the peanut gallery: As we nit-picked over which wine went better with this, worse with that, one of our significant others observed, “Maybe you two just don’t like frappatos that much?” Hmm.) Some surprises: the V was good with a simple arugula salad (Ali: “neither overpowers”); not the C. With grilled tomatoes, the C was dignified and nice; the V, truly poor. And later, with an almond biscotti, the C was as bad as you’d guess, and that sour sour cherry V was crazy contrasty fun.

What a pleasant time of year to try a new, slightly chilled, light, ready-to-drink red from Italy. This wine was a new experience for all of us. We have put it down as the perfect red “patio wine” for this season. The COS was light on the color and somewhat musty and barnyard on the nose and palate. It was served with a Scottish Salmon Crudo, pesto and brussel leaves that made it less tannic and dry and showed its black currant flavor. It overwhelmed the salmon but the brussel leaves were a great match. The Occhipinti had a nice summer chill that enhanced the tart, barnyard body. It had great texture and showed a slight cocoa powder flavor. When served with flatbread topped with eggplant, pepperoni, fresh mozzarella and garlic confit, the pairing soared. The lightness of the wine and flatbread cut any tannins and made a wonderful finish for both offerings. This was our favorite wine and food pairing. Unfortunately, the Valle dell’ Acate had a brownish hue and was raisiny and somewhat “cooked.” It had no follow thru. We tried to replace it but none was available. Ah, the perils of order wine deliveries in the summer. George Erdle, Harper’s Fine Dining, Charlotte, NC

Enough with the Frappatos. They are not that great a wine to deserve two weeks in the NYTimes. Cmon.

We enjoyed the COS Frappato 2016 with Florence Fabricant’s Grilled Seafood Salad https://tinyurl.com/ybcejtak (I added a leg of octopus to the recipe) https://instagram.com/p/BlTb1tqB4VK . This food was very complex with the flavors of sweet scallops, swordfish, calamari with a perfect texture and the bitterness of seared radicchio and fire roasted sourdough bread. That bitterness must have masked the bitterness that is often described in this wine, because we didn’t taste any bitterness. To us the wine was light and fragrant, singing along with the food so nicely, I didn’t really want to overthink it. But it reminded me of something. The fruit was cherry-like the, mouthfeel limestone-chalky giving it an elegant, smooth roughness. I think the wine was bringing red burgundies to mind.

Frappato has always been one of my favorite grapes. Being from Atlanta and having spent 11 years with a Sicilian from Catania, I have lived much of my life in the intense heat. However, I prefer red wine with food and have therefore been drawn to Frappato for quite some time, with it's bright fruit, low tannins, and juicy fruit. I've always drank it a bit chilled and enjoyed it immensely, but it's been about a year since I've had any (my last glass was in Noto and I was served the wine at a local bar at 85F). This time, I had the Valle dell'Acate at appropriate temperature and the wine had all of what I remembered - fresh red fruit, bright and juicy raspberries and cherries - but it also had an element that I hadn't noticed before. It was that dustiness, that slight grounding element that makes a wine a bit more serious than just light and bright. It's strange and fascinating because isn't Sicily often like that? Beautiful, bright sights, people, and food, but with a deep history that doesn't allow that brightness to lack seriousness. Such a wine of terroir. In terms of food, this and Etna Rosso's are my favorite examples of how reds with lighter foods work. Sicily is an island - they eat a lot of fish - and their reds match these fish. This goes perfectly not only with heavier fish such as salmon, but its lack of tannins make it ideal for any fish that is not too salty (no oysters - doesn't have quite the minerality to stand up to it).

Where the COS had been lean and muscular, the Occhipinti was delicate and strongly floral, almost perfumey. Also, compared to the COS, more cherry-fruity, less tannic and, especially on the attack, sweeter. Fading in and out were aromas of herb and mint. It’s a more complex wine, but, to my taste… too cherried and too floral. Paired it Friday night with David T’s anchovied, tomato-less, super-cheesy baked eggplant tinyurl.com/ydhblodg . It was only ok. The wine’s cherry was too much. It managed with the food’s salty anchovy but didn’t add, nor did it have any great affinity for the food’s delicious, gooey cheese. With a sharp, acidic tomato salad, it was no fun at all. Next night, Saturday, we had leftovers of the same dish with a relatively light and raspberried Aglianico, a 2010 Concarossa. What an improvement! Its lively acidity cut through in a way the O could not, and its berry flavor was more compatible. To recheck, I reopened the night before’s O. It had gotten a bit chalkier, a bit less cherry-fruity, and a bit better. But only a bit. I’m looking forward to retrying the Valle dell’Acate, of which I’ve had a few over the last three years. I remember it as louder than the Occhipinti, and way fruitier than the COS. I also remember it as, like those two, a difficult pair. It has both wowed and disappointed.

As you sip, you may wish to reprise "In Sicily, Making a Name for Vittoria"; (NYT) By Eric Asimov, Aug. 11, 2016 https://nyti.ms/2aZy6ym

We enjoyed the Occhipinti Il Frappato Terre Siciliane 2015 with the recommended Eggplant Caponata https://tinyurl.com/ycqd4xm6 . Already the nose sensed interesting tannins. I found this wine fascinating, notes of dark fruit, plum, and dark cherry developed, later some sort of bitter orange. The tannins were beautiful, energetic, structured, dynamic, electric almost cabernet franc-like but lively. My wife described the wine as spicy and somewhat dirty. I would not cool this wine under 60 F or it would lose some complexity. Then while the wine was warming up in the glass, I got the floral bouquet. This wine was great, both with the many flavors of the caponata and the orange Julia Moskin’s Best Gazpacho https://tinyurl.com/yctzjdaa which has become a staple in our house during the hot summer days.

We enjoyed Valle dell’Acate Il Frappato Vittoria 2016 with Melissa Clark’s Creamy Corn Pasta With Basil https://tinyurl.com/y8b2hx76 . My family voted for that recipe out of all NY Times summer pastas. Before food, the wine was reminding us somewhat of sangria but not in a bad way. It was a very light summery red, refreshing and fragrant. The pasta burst out into a firework of flavor of fresh corn, homegrown basil, red pepper flake kick and the crunch of scallions rounded with lemon juice. The wine answered that citrus note with orange, blood orange and note of cardamom, all surrounded by nice elegant tannins (very much like blueberry tannins). This was a very nice summer wine that went well with this summer pasta.

After its poor showing with a savory anchovy dish, I wanted to give the COS, a wine whose flavor I very much enjoy on its own, a pairing do-over. Several online sources mentioned frappatos and big, muscular “deep sea” fishes (as opposed to wimpy little anchovies and sardines). Made sense to me. The COS is a lean, muscular wine. So Saturday dinner was a Sicilian, pistachio-crusted tuna steak (alas, not “Sicilian pistachios,” as Ms. Fabricant might have recommended tinyurl.com/y9q6u3nz ), with balsamic-glazed onions tinyurl.com/ydx4zxks. I also thought the wine’s bitter edge would do well with the bittersweet balsamic. Yes, yes and yes. It all worked exactly as hoped, with fish, glaze and nuts. Very nice. But I still find the COS finicky. It’s a leathery, hard wine, too much so for what I figured to be easygoing, no-brainer sides. With lime-dressed roast broccoli, a reliable partner for so many reds, it was surprisingly poor. And it had no patience at all for an oily, gentle pasta aglio e olio tinyurl.com/y84tbxfg .

Good Morning: Very easy to find Frappatos here in San Francisco. Found the Valle dell'Acate 2016 for the second Frappato of the month and decided to experiment. Thoroughly chilled the wine, then opened after 30 minutes out of the refrigerator. Served on the Fourth with fried chicken, roast potatoes, spinach and basil salad with sundry vegetables and bleu cheese buttermilk dressing, marinated grilled artichoke hearts, chilled curried cauliflower, and a peach, blackberry and raspberry pie. Music: my 259-song Bruce Springsteen mixtape because America. Color: clear dark garnet. Nose: blackberry, cherry, strawberry, fig, perfume, tea, and this was new--blueberry! First time ever noticed that in a wine. Taste: same as the nose (including blueberry), plus tobacco, cedar, a little herbal. But this wine is all about fruit and body. Huge hit of fruit in the mouth, full-bodied, velvety smooth, viscous, long finish. One of the freshest, fruitiest wines I've sampled. Marinated the chicken thighs 18 hours in buttermilk with lots of spices. The wine and chicken got along famously. Potatoes went well with the Frappato. Nice surprise: the Valle dell'Acate held up against the spicy and vinegary vegetables, cutting through the tanginess. The fruit of the wine even paired well with the fruit of the pie. One flaw: at normal red wine temperature, the Frappato became bitter and thin, lost most of the fruit. Will serve thoroughly chilled next time to keep it cooler longer. Great month!

Unlike Wes, who seems to have opened a good many more frappato’s than my 8 or 9, I’ve found it a challenging wine to pair. A few ingredients have been consistently poor (olives). Many more have been good one time; not so much another (mushrooms, sardines). So for Tuesday’s COS dinner I went with what I thought was a proven winner, an anchovy, almond and fresh tomato pasta tinyurl.com/yd5t68nv that had once been stellar with a 2012 Valle dell’Acate. By chance, I’d sampled the COS just a month ago, at a store tasting (“Island Night” at Some Good Wine, with bottles from Sicily, Corsica, the Canaries and the North Fork). I found it delicious, in part for its muted cherry, far mellower than I remember the Vd’A’s, and bitterer. Same last night, before food. But with the flavorful pasta (capers, basil, pecorino, anchovy, almond, garlic, yum!) and its acidic raw tomatoes, the COS was too quiet, especially so the half bottle I’d decanted for three hours. Its dry and sophisticated fruit seemed to ask for careful contemplation, while the pasta was talking loud. When I did try to focus in, the wine’s bitterness seemed ill at ease. With a side of marsala carrots, on the other hand, the bitterness contrasted nicely. Or did at first; over its long, long finish (I really do like this wine) it became overwhelming.

Oh yes, Frappato! What an excellent choice for Wine School, and one with which I’m already quite familiar. The suggestion of Arianna Occhipinti‘s excellent Il Frappato is the one I’d pick. It never disappoints, but it can be quite difficult to find. (When I do, I always grab some.) It’s not inexpensive; in my area, about $45 a bottle, and worth every penny. Arianna is also the driving force behind the Tami Frappato, which was actually my first introduction to this grape back in 2015. A bit more economical (about half the price of the Occhipinti here), but equally hard to find. With the Tami, the nose is very delicate and light, with cherry and plum, and a somewhat vegetal background. The palate has elements of red licorice and raisin, with some barrel notes emerging on the finish. The notation about the versatility of Frappato is dead on... For me, it’s good on its own, it’s good with lighter fare, and stands-up to something more bold as well. One of those rare “go to” wines where you just can’t go wrong very easily. Definitely one to keep around.

Good Evening: A surprisingly common wine in SF. Found one of the second choice Frappatos, the Planeta 2015. Dined al fresco on the fire escape tonight with a simple dinner of coppa, salami, olives, pepperoncini, two cheeses and nectarines. Tonight's music, a mixtape of Yes classics because sometimes you just have to revert to childhood. Big question: how long to chill? Tried 30 minutes, which worked, but perhaps 45 is even better. Color: brilliant ruby. Nose: very rich and complex, strawberry, cherry, mint (surprising!), cedar, grenadine, jammy, hints of apricot. Taste: same as the nose, plus seaweed (!). Long finish, well balanced, good acid and structure, can perhaps age 5 years. Compared with Lambrusco, another Italian red that benefits from a chill, the Planeta is a still wine, more complex and interesting, more medium weight than lightweight, and stands up very well with food. Had never even heard of Frappato, this month's selection has proven so enjoyable I want to try a few more bottles. Thanks, Mr. Asimov, for an great choice.

I am sorry I was late turning in our homework for the aligoté. It sounds like more whiners than enthusiasts responded in time. I would drink the Bouzeron from de Villaine again quite happily as often as I had a chance. So this time I will be early. Dinner was under way, salad and pasta with mushrooms and fresh herbs from the garden. I looked at the food section and saw the assignment. I hit wine-searcher and low -- Princeton Corkscrew had the Valle Dell'Acate 2016 and they were still open. Husband circled the block while I went in and bought a slightly chilled bottle. Thank you Corkscrew. I will definitely buy a bottle again. My husband is especially happy to have a red lesson. It went perfectly with the already planned dinner. If we don't polish off the bottle we will try it with other foods. The texture is smooth and of medium body. The freshness is what makes you want another glass. It seemed to sing with the first basil clippings on the pasta.