by Gogo on June 9, 2010
in Wines
This Rosé has a Mediterranean soul – it is sunny and bright at first sight, but it likes to quarrel and bite when you least expect it. Definitely the best rosé in Istria.

The skins of Borgonja (a close relative of Gamay) were left in contact with the grape must for 2,5 hours. No selected yeasts were used. The color is cherry red, captivating in its vivacity and intensity.
It flows slowly in the glass, your eyes tells you a lot of extract is hiding inside. The nose is dominated by red flowers, roses and hibiscus, but the sensation gets more elegant and complex when the scent of Mediterranean garrigue, grass and dry hay/straw gets on the scene.
The mouth reveals a crisp, dry rosé, full bodied, warm (13,8%!), with juicy, strong acids that provide a strong skeleton to the wine. Then, you get a soft, velvety mouthfeel, it sticks to your mouth and you start to feel minerals in abundance, creating enjoyable refreshing finish and leaving clean mouth. Tannins are barely perceptible but it give a gentle bite that makes rosé different from whites and reds. It is fascinating how a 3 years old bottle of a rosé can show such agility and dynamism.
It surprised me a bit me that flavors are more intense than aromas, usually it’s the opposite. These intense flavors make that this is not a easy rosé wine made to satisfy your thirst on a hot summer day. This wine demands time and attention.


I see it perfect for an aperitif where Mediterranean based finger food is served – stuffed olives, Istrian charcuterie, prosciutto, salted or marinated anchovies, sheep or goat ricotta and all kinds of fresh cheeses. Its strong taste does not make it suitable for some delicate fish from the Adriatic Sea, but char-grilled sardines, tuna steaks and salmon why not? At the end, I imagine a perfect pairing with a pizza with mozzarella buffala, basil and fresh tomato on top.
85pts
Have you ever eaten flowers? Probably yes, artichokes flowers on your Four Seasons – Quattro stagioni pizza.
Artichokes with peas
As the season of wild asparagus slowly fades away, another vegetable appears on our spring table in all its glory – artichokes. We have few plants in our garden that two weeks ago started to give us their first flowers. They are really easy to prepare.
Here I present a traditional recipe of artichokes with peas usually served with pan-seared chicken. For me this dish is an ultimate delicacy, my madelaine that brings me back to my childhood right in the season when the school was ending and summer holidays were close.
You need for 2 persons:
4 artichokes
300 g green peas
3 tbs breadcrumbs
4 tbs extravirgin olive oil
few cloves of garlic
few branches of italian parsley
1 dl white wine
Remove all but 1-2 cm of stem and the tough outer leaves. Cut away about a quarter of each scale with knife. Finally, trim the tip of the artichoke so that it can stand upside down. Finely chop garlic and parsley, add breadcrumbs, salt and with the aid of some olive oil make a paste. Put about 1 teaspoon of the paste in between the leaves and in the cavity from which the inedible choke was previously removed. In a deep pan heat the olive oil and arrange the artichokes so that they stand upside down. In other words, the pan should be narrow enough to not give them room to fall over. After 1 minute add wine, a pinch of salt and water until the liquid level is half the height of the artichokes. Cover and simmer on low heat for 30 minutes, then add the green peas and cook until they are done.
Pan-seared chicken with white wine
Usually the artichokes are eaten with chicken that was slowly pan-seared with the addition of aromatic herbs and white wine.
Again heat the olive oil in a deep pan, put on low heat. Pass the chicken pieces in the flour, add to the pan, fry until the meat gets a nice golden crust. Then, when the juices almost evaporate, add a 1/2 glass of white wine, a glass of water and aromatic herbs of your choice (rosemary, sage, thyme…). Simmer for another half an hour, adding more water if necessary. At the end you should have few spoons of thick sauce that you will pour over the meat.
After a great success last year, Punishment Party is back again with the slogan “The home is the humper”. If you love this blog, and you happen to be in Istria, you are more than welcome to join the party (more details below). There won’t be much of Istrian gastronomy and wines, but dancing until the dawn is guaranteed.

The place is the same as last year – on a farm with an olive grove, located on the outskirts of Medulin, just 800 m from the sea. Here is a PDF which explains how to come to the party (right click, save as) http://manjada.org/arrival-punishment.pdf

Here is also the google map that will help you find the party place. Remember, when you arrive in Pula, follow signs to Medulin, then once you arrive in Medulin follow signs for Hoteli/Hotels. The last hotel will be Hotel Belvedere and from there you can use the map below.
View Arriving to the Punishment party in a larger map
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Two DJs from Trieste are coming with their vintage vinyls:
DJ Barbara Loden
DJ Renato
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This year we have a novelty – a VJ (Video Disc Jokey) will take care of your visual enjoyment.
VJ Kaze from Pula/Zagreb




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Official party drink – Sangria made according to an old Catalan recipe. Free for everyone!
PLEASE BRING SOME DRINKS TO THE PARTY! No high gastronomy and fine wines this time. Some good vodka is highly appreciated to be mixed with some good frozen fruit shake.
Foraging for wild asparagus near Nature Park Cape Kamenjak was a great fun, but now it’s worth to think of what can be made with these gentle vegetables apart a simple omlette or a more elaborate risotto.
Pasta? Sure, but I want a juicy and creamy dish, with full taste of asparagus. To make it a real challenge I want to use one of my favorite pasta – bigoli – fat Venetian spaghetti with a rough surface that tend to absorb a lot of sauce (if you cannot find bigoli, choose some thicker spaghetti instead). So, we need a lot of sauce, you got the message!
Bigoli is great pasta, but it needs a lot of sauce
The creaminess is easy to achieve with risotto. Take rice of good quality (arborio or vialone nano), a good vegetable stock, excellent extravirgin olive oil and a lot of patience, and you will easily get asparagus risotto with a nice creamy texture even without adding any milk cream or butter – the starch from rice does its job.
With pasta thing get more complicated if you want to avoid these two ingredients. No, I’m not a strict traditionalist that discards them just because they are never used in Istrian cuisine, or because I joined a Weight Watchers program. Here cream, and in a lesser extend butter, would just overwhelm subtle vegetable taste of asparagus and make the dish unnecessarily heavy and less digestible.
The trick is to use the stalks to make a thick soup that will give us a lot of juice. Here are the details.
Wild and cultivated green asparagus
I had both wild and cultivated green asparagus. The wild ones have stronger taste while the cultivated ones we will basically use for the soup. You might have only the cultivated ones, but this is also fine, only the taste of the sauce will be less intense. Chop by hand soft and tender shoots of both species in 2-3 cm long pieces and put them aside.
Peel the remaining woody stalks of the cultivated asparagus (this is an important step!) and chop it in 1 cm pieces. Chop also the stalks of the wild asparagus but throw away very fibrous stalks that can not be easily chopped by hand. Put these stalks in o.3 L of vegetable stock and cook for 10-15 min. Blend the soup and return it to the heat until it get thick like some good cream.
Woody stalks are for the soup, tender green shoots are fried with onions
While the soup is cooking, fry finely chopped onions in some good extravirgin olive oil for 2-3 minutes. Toss in the tender shoots and fry for another 5-10 minutes on low heat, constantly mixing the veggies in the pan. Pour few spoons of vegetable stock if the water evaporates. Do not overcook the asparagus, they need to remain al dente. The same is true also for bigoli that needs to be boiled separately in a lot of salty water.
Add the bigoli in the pan with asparagus, mix everything. At the end, pour the warm soup inside until you get the right level of creaminess/juiciness. Do not exaggerate, we want a good pasta, not a soup. Return to low heat and cook for another minute until everything is nicely unified.
Shock your guests by serving steaming hot pasta directly in the pan. Some good Parmigiano Reggiano grated over and few turns of pepper mill will give that final touch.
PS: Please let me know if also in your kitchen asparagus pasta finally won the battle over asparagus risotto.
What's better - asparagus with pasta or rice?