CheekyChicago

I recently went to Italy. I wasn’t there for long. In fact, I didn’t even stay the night. It was just a few hours really, where I enjoyed an enchanting European meal, where the food and wine ever-flowed late into the night and those homemade desserts – delicioso! Okay – a flight across the Atlantic wasn’t necessarily involved here – at least on my part. Instead, Italy came to me, for an evening filled with hand-crafted Italian wines, olive oil and pastries (yes – the pastries came along for the trip as well) to a place I like to call my own personal Italy, otherwise known as Quartino.

Cheeky was lucky enough to be invited to Quartino’s very special “Wine Makers” dinner a few Tuesdays ago. It was a rather informal but altogether intimate and special meal where we dined with Italian wine makers from the Azienda Agricola Tiberini vineyards, located in the district of Montepulciano. This award-winning vineyard, with a deep family history, produces a special line of wines sold exclusively at the Gibson Restaurant Group. So, as Cheeky Chef John Coletta served us pizza, polenta fries, cheese plates, gnocchi, scallops, short ribs, lamb, meatballs and more (I meant it when I said “ever-flowing” food), we schmoozed with Luca Tiberini himself and sampled some of his exquisite wines.

The Tiberini family has lived and worked at Le Caggiole estate since 1896. The estate lies over 22 acres of land, 13 of which are vineyards of specialized cultivation. This area is renowned for its production of prestigious wines. So, to carry out the prestige on American soil, we popped open the Pecorino “Armannia”, a fresh and full white wine with notes of white peaches, with the perfect touch of minerality. It was a perfect complement to Chef John’s plates of brie, bleu and asiago cheeses. Another highlight was the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano a full-bodied, slightly tannic red with hints of violets, wild berries, vanilla and cinnamon, which paired perfectly with our gnocchi and cavatelli. The Rosso di Montepulciano, a bright, ruby red wine with notes of sangiovese and violet rounded out the dinner’s end of braised short ribs and tender lamb shank. Did I mention the Tiberinis brought along pure Italian olive oil, bottled right at the source, for our Italian-bread dipping pleasure? I had never seen an olive oil so pungently green, nor tasted an olive oil this fine.

But it was the authentic Italian dessert that truly took our breath away. It’s hard to even describe how delicious the Bono Notto really was, but I am going to try. Soft, buttery, sugary dough (made from pasta) encased a thick, rich chocolate ganache, dusted with powdered sugar, forming a miniature pocket cake that is…making me hungry right now as I write this. The evening was as delicious as it was bittersweet, knowing full well that if we ever wanted to recreate it, we would indeed have to book our plane tickets. Cheeky felt exceptionally honored to have been a part of this transporting night, amongst some of the city’s finest restaurateurs and, perhaps most impressively, the world’s finest wine makers. To Luca Tiberini – let us say, grazie.

Montepulciano, Italy