Italian Gourmet Wine, Dine and Stocks Seminar 2007

…Lunching on fresh risotto blanketed with white truffles just snared from their forest lair…salad laced with 100 year old balsamic vinegar aged in the cellar of a 500 year old monastery and ANOTHER cheese I’ve never had and now will be smuggling into the US.

…Slices of culatello, the Lamborghini of cured ham from the banks of the Po River, washed down with another glass of Gaja Barberesco to make the meal complete.

And then doing this tomorrow and the next day and the next.

If this sounds like heaven on earth to YOU, join me in our next culinary adventure supreme in Piedmont/Emilia-Romagna this November 11-16. Our guide Tom Hamilton has used his 25 year history in this region to gain access to a dozen or more experiences that you and I could NEVER arrange on our own but will treasure for life.

We’ll have lunch and dinners that you will always remember…always. Gnocco frito draped in black-pig culatello, cotechino sausage drowned in a rich but light zabaglione sauce, matched with a 20 year old Barolo that will make you forget just about every wine you’ve ever had.

I have traveled much of Italy-but when it comes to the greatest food, people and wine, Piedmonte and Emilia-Romagna is the ultimate.

The Slow Food movement was born in Bra, in the Piedmont region…so in the spirit of doing everything slowly, savor our menu of rich and rare experiences and see for yourself why I predict this years Wine Dine and Stocks seminar will be our greatest yet.

1. Tonino Verroe

Furbo is the Italian word to describe Tonino. Sly like a fox. Playing the clown, joking, smiling but always watching, always doing business in his own relaxed style. The local police come into the bar. “Have a glass of wine”. The owner of a local factory drops by. “Please try the ravioli, my treat.” Everyone loves him, everyone trusts him and that’s why on most days about $50,000 worth of truffles come through the door delivered by the elusive nighttime hunters. We’ll taste his wonderful wines from Barbaresco, make bread, grissini and schiacciata with him upstairs in front of the wood burning oven, lunch with him and his wife, and listen to his tales of building the biggest truffle empire in Italy.

2. Cooking with Claudia Verro

Hidden in the tiny hilltop village of Neive is one of the finest restaurants in Italy, La Contea. Not fancy, not a pretension in sight, just exquisite meals every season of the year. And the driving force behind the kitchen is Claudia Verro. Since it’s November and the white truffles will be coming in from the hunt she will concentrate on the best dishes to put with them. Fonduta, a creamy fontina cheese-based fondue poured over toast. Raw beef chopped thin and piled into a tiny mound. Creamy scrambled eggs. Fresh taglietelle noodles made with 30 egg yolks and 1 kilo of flour. And risotto. All generously shaved with truffles.

3. Hunting White Truffles

In Alba the white truffle is king and at $2500 per pound, it’s easy to see why! The scent is penetrating, unforgettable and it only takes a few thin shavings to turn a plate of ordinary pasta into a memorable occasion. But first you have to find them! And we’ll do just that. With legendary truffle hunter, Anselmo (no last names since no revenues are ever declared by the truffle community) we will head out with his mongrel dog, Maria to tramp through the forests in search of these elusive uncultivable mushrooms. Working as a team, dog with her nose and claws, man with his bare hands and tiny trowel, the treasures will be uncovered. And we’ll take them all home to lunch.

4. Parmesan Cheese

Parmigiano Reggiano is made from top quality milk that can only come from fed strictly on grass and hay within the provinces of Modena, Parma and Reggio Emilia. And although this granular type of cheese is made all over Italy, unless it comes from within this tightly regulated zone, then it doesn’t have the right to be called parmesan. Every day, 365 days a year, the whole milk of the morning milking is mixed with the naturally skimmed milk of the previous evening's milking. The milk is pumped into copper lined vats that hold 1,100 liters of milk and produce two cheese wheels each weighing around 100 lbs. The remaining whey is used to feed the pigs from which Parma Hams (Prosciutto) are produced. After 12 months of aging, a Master Grader of the Consorzio Parmigiano Reggiano inspects each and every cheese by tapping it with a hammer and listening to the sound. By tapping the wheel at various points, he can identify undesirable cracks and voids within the wheel. Those cheeses that pass the test are then heat branded on the rind with the Consorzio’s logo. Cheeses that are not so selected used to have their rinds remarked with an X all the way around so consumers would know they weren’t getting top quality Parmigiano Regginao. Now they are simply stripped of all markings. According to the legend, the Parmigiano was created in the course of the Middle Ages in the village of Bibbiano where we will have a visit and taste various normal, old and extra old cheeses.

5. Balsamic Vinegar

This condiment has recently become very trendy but the typical dark brown liquid found on gourmet supermarket shelves for $5 or $10 has absolutely nothing to do with the real stuff! True aceto balsamico can only legally be produced in Modena and Reggio Emilio, minimum age 10 years and the good stuff is 25, 50 or more years old costing $100 - $500 per tiny 3.4 oz. bottle.

Balsamic vinegar is produced from the juice of white trebbiano grapes boiled down to 50% of their original volume to create a concentrated must which is then fermented with a slow aging process to concentrate the flavors. Aromas intensify over decades with the ever thickening liquid moving among different small casks made of oak, mulberry, chestnut, cherry, juniper, ash and acacia woods.

There are a few excellent commercial producers and the packaging with small fancy-shaped bottles, gold seals and red wax is very impressive but the legends are created by the meticulous individuals who experiment up in their attics coddling their personal blends over decades and even generations. A special wedding is about to happen and the 100 year-old will be brought out of hiding for the occasion. Birth of a grandchild can even merit the 150 year-old version. Poured into the crevice between thumb and wrist is the traditional way to taste but we’ll also experience it dripped over risotto, wild duck, fresh parmesan, strawberries and even vanilla ice cream.

6. Barolo

Barolo, “The Wine of Kings and The King of Wines”. Made from 100% Nebbiolo grape, it can be strikingly different from vineyard to vineyard due to terroir and from producer to producer due to philosophy. The “Barolo Wars” pitted Traditionalists (large casks and long fermentation) against Modernists (small oak barrels and shorter fermentation) and we will learn all about the battles by tasting the results from Bruno Giacosa, Aldo Conterno, Luciano Sandrone, Cerreto and Domenico Clerico. You can decide for yourself which approach you prefer.

7. Barbaresco

Barbaresco is a powerful wine made from 100% Nebbiolo grapes and nowhere else in Italy does this grape approach the level it attains here in Piedmont. “Piedmont” means literally “foot of the mountain,” and as the scenic hills roll and twist in the vineyards, each turn produces a change in sun exposure, soil type and drainage which in turn expresses itself in different qualities in the grapes. The French would call these “crus” but the local term for such a vineyard is “sorí.” And there are so many wonders to taste that to stick with one producer would be a crime. And so in the beautiful cantina of the producer Ripa Sorita we will taste all the greats – Angleo Gaja, Bruno Giacosa, Prunotto, Albino Rocca. Wines with names like Rabajà, Sorì Tildin, Montefico and Bric Balin may not stick in your mind but they’ll certainly linger on the palate.

8. Culatello and Trattoria La Buca

Everyone has heard about Parma ham, salami, prosciutto but almost no one knows about the precious culatello from Zibello. The hind muscle of a pig’s thigh, usually reserved for prosciutto, is boned and only the best part is preserved. It is salted, spiced and then tucked into a pig’s bladder, bound with string and dried for two to three months in a well-aired attic where the mist of the village of Zibello plays a key role in the aging process. The meat is then transferred to a humid, dirt-floored cellar for at least 10 months of aging and the culatello loses about half of its weight. The final product is in a distinctive pear-shaped ham with uniformly red meat, speckled with pieces of white fat between the muscle fibers, an intense scent and a sweet and delicate taste. The cost is pricey, about $60 per pound, about 4X more than a normal prosciutto. The European Union in its senseless attempt to “normalize” everything is attempting to wipe out culatello production but at our lunch spot, the Trattoria la Buca in Zibello, we’ll taste the last of a disappearing phenomenon.

9. What I left out was...

a great experience this will be for you to meet your fellow ChangeWave self-directed investor/gourmet/explorers. You will meet people on this trip that you will travel with for life…trust me. You and I will get to know each other as well—I proudly call friend many of our co-explorers who have gone to Italy and France with us on previous adventures.

We will sing and laugh and drink and laugh our way through this wine and food heaven in an intimate and joyous week that you will never forget.

Warning:15-20 couples is our maximum…and this invitation goes out to the entire 40,000 ChangeWave subscribers and Alliance members.

If this trip sounds like you, molto bene—which means GET your registration in NOW or your seat in paradise will be gone.

Yours in pursuit of all things wonderfully Italian,

Toby