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Meet Bill

bill
Chef + Traveler
Bill Menard is a recovering attorney who left private practice in Washington, DC over a decade ago to pursue his passion for all things Italian. With his wife, Suzy, they founded Bella Italia in 2003, a retail store in Bethesda, Maryland that specialized in artisinal products from Italy, including gourmet foods, hand painted ceramics and luxury housewares. In 2014, they relocated and rebranded, and are now Via Umbria in Georgetown, D.C. Bill and Suzy travel to Italy frequently to find new products to import and to broaden their understanding and appreciation for the Italian culture and lifestyle. In 2008 they purchased a villa in Umbria, just outside the village of Cannara, as a rental property. Those in search of la dolce vita should visit Via Umbria at 1525 Wisconsin Ave NW, or www.viaumbria.com.
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Bill’s Travel Journal

_DSC0382Annalisa Torzilli is the reason we are in this business. Well not literally, but the charming owner of il Molino farm just outside the village of Montefiascone is emblematic of all the things we love about being in the business of discovering, savoring and sharing experiences. She’s got a great smile, too.

_DSC0058We have been customers of il Molino products for a number of years, having been introduced to them by our friend and supplier Andrea Tosolini who raved about and vouched for the quality and authenticity of il Molino’s organic olive oils, olive oil-based cosmetics, sauces, condiments, pastas and more. So this year at the Fancy Food Show in New York, Suzy decided to take the opportunity to meet Annalisa, the owner-operator of il Molino and as fate would have it, Andrea happened to wander by as she approached the il Molino stand, to make a proper introduction. It was love at first sight. Suzy returned to the hotel that day, beaming, and carrying on about how we were going to visit il Molino on our Food and Wine Experience tour. Fate often smiles on us like this and we are grateful.

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Foto-7-Montefiascone

Montefiascone is not exactly close to our farmhouse, but our tour guests seemed as excited as we were when we boarded Simone’s taxi for the nearly two hour drive from Umbria to Lazio. Along the way the scenery changed and transformed from verdant wild hills to rolling, rocky terrain. But the villages that dotted the countryside, perched on impossibly steep craggy hilltops seemed to spring from the same source, each speaking of a long unbroken chain of history and housing cultures and habits as old as the hills themselves. Montefiascone itself is such a walled hilltown, with its enormous duomo squeezed over to one end of town so massive that it feels like the whole place may tip up and slide off the hill. One could say that it is a place of legend, the home of Est! Est! Est! white wine that those legends tell us was the exuberant exclamation of a papal emissary from long ago sent out to find good wine for the Pope on his journey from Rome to Orvieto, signaling his discoveries by posting a note on the doors of taverns with good wine saying ‘est’ (here it is). No offense intended to the emissary, but he should have tried our trebbiano spoletino in Umbria. The Pope would have found the detour completely worthwhile.

_DSC0245Our visit with Annalisa at both il Molino and the nearby Fornovecchino mill lasted the whole day, and started with a visit to the olive mill, where Annalisa was already harvesting and producing new oil. The excitement of seeing fresh, ripe olives being stripped from the tree, the acrid smell of polyphenols that burn your throat as the olives are being crushed into paste, and the glorious stream of almost phosphorescent green oil that trickles out of the stainless steel spigot, bound for a bottle or can, never gets old. And in this setting of over three hundred hectares of beautiful, natural, organic farmland, lovingly maintained by Annalisa and her caring staff it meant even more.

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Lunch was served as though we had been friends forever, which after an hour in her company is how we all felt. There we discovered and savored pasta made from the farm’s farro and senatore cappelli grains, both ancient grains that have been rediscovered and popularized (for a reason) of late. There was much discussion over whether farro and spelt were the same thing (it’s complicated) and the difference between and relative advantages and disadvantages of grano duro (the hard wheat family that senatore cappelli belongs to) versus grano tenero. There was no arguing, however, that both pastas are something different than your ordinary pasta, a distinct cut above in flavor, mouthfeel and satisfaction. (My favorite is the senatore cappelli and I am on a mission to spread the word.)

It tastes even better than it looks!
It tastes even better than it looks!

_DSC0472After lunch and a stroll around the beautifully maintained property we were off to Fornovecchino, the nearby organic mill where Annalisa’s (and other local organic farmers’) grain is transformed into flour and then into bread, pasta and other finished products.   As we arrived, some local customers were negotiating the purchase of several huge sacks of different flours and after they left Annalisa introduced us to the owners who took us on a tour of the mill, hustling us into the inner sanctum where we were shown how the grains are milled into finer or coarser flour. An exposition of beans and legumes, most of them tracing their roots (literally) to ancient forebears and unique to small, particular areas ensued, with our new Chef in residence, Vickie Reh, soaking up this information more readily than the ceci nero would soak up water that evening.

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Saying our goodbyes to Claudio and Romina and to Annalisa, laden with purchases and gifts from both, we boarded Simone’s taxi, for the long drive home. Home to Umbria, having spent the day in Lazio. A day that enabled us not just to understand the connection between man and la terra but to experience and feel it. And that, after all, is the reason we are in this business.

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy

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Annalisa Torzilli is the reason we are in this business. Well not literally, but the charming owner of il Molino farm just ...

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Bill’s Journal

_DSC0182We’re back in Umbria for our annual fall pilgrimage, our fall Food and Wine tour. This year Suzy and I are hosting two small groups over two week long itineraries, which we plan to punctuate with a brief side trip to Piemonte (for the White Truffle Festival) before returning home to DC. We have the small matter of reopening Via Umbria to attend to back home.

Returning to Umbria, particularly during the fall harvest, is always a homecoming of sorts for us, summoning up a host of emotions and memories. It is a special time of year, with the orange and rust hues of the vineyards, each one in a different state of harvest, combined with the early evenfall to create a sense of quiet and peacefulness tinged with just a po’ di malincholia.

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_DSC0009-2We come to Umbria this year as we have for the past eight, on a mission to offer our Food and Wine tour guests an opportunity to discover with us the Umbria we have come to know and love. A land where the earth gives forth an incredibly rich bounty, coaxed lovingly from nature by men and women who respect nature by taking what it has to offer and leaving it better off than they found it.

But we come this year, too, with eyes even wider open than normal, seeking to put our finger on those elusive sights, sounds and smells that when combined together shout out “benvenuto in Italia.” To identify those iconic details that define Italy so we can bottle them up and bring the back home with us, spraying them into the air on Wisconsin Avenue so that our customers, breathing deeply of them will know what it is to experience Italy.

Our Food and Wine tour this year is not just an exercise in loving the here and now, it is a mission to capture and bring home the essence of Italy so we can share it. For nearly two decades we have been bringing back pieces of Italy to share with our customers. This fall we are tasked with bringing back the nature of Italy itself.

Food and Wine TourHow better to understand Italy than by experiencing the bounty of its land and its people. And so we started our trip, a group of eight, by exploring the Etruscan town of Todi and the Umbrian settlement of Gubbio. By delighting in the recounting of the history of these places by a guide with palpable pride in her land. By lingering over meals of local meats and cheeses, regional pastas and wines that come from here and can only come from here. By getting to know Simone, our driver, and each other.

What better way of exploring what makes Italy Italy and what makes Umbria Umbria than to arrive at the farmhouse on our first day and to discover Ernesto Parziani, the chef and owner of our favorite local restaurant Perbacco, in the kitchen of our farmhouse with his daughter, preparing the first night’s dinner. To spend time in the kitchen with Ernesto and Agata rolling balls of baccala, pureeing broccoli for gnocchi alla romana, of discussing the menu, discussing family, discussing nothing at all.

_DSC0751_DSC0288What better way of enjoying our first evening in Italy than by sitting down over this home cooked feast and culinary history lesson with the new friends we have made, our travel companions for this week, along with Ernesto and his wife Simona. To drink wines that our friends the Pardis have labored over just a dozen miles from here. To talk and eat and laugh and relax deep into the night long after most mortals would have succumbed to jet lag.

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Suzy and I have long maintained how difficult it is to neatly and cleanly and succinctly define Italy and the Italian experience. There simply is no one thing that says it all, no Tower of Pisa, no fettuccine alfredo, no Madonna col bambino that one can point to and say, “ecco qua, Italia!” Yet we keep coming back, time after time, and millions of visitors keep making the pilgrimage to the boot each year for that something special that speaks to them.

In the end, maybe it is just simply its incredible bounty that defines Italy, that makes Italy Italy. Perhaps that is the magic potion Suzy and I are searching for. Italy itself didn’t even exist a little more than 150 years ago, a crazy quilt of city-states, kingdoms, alliances and fiefdoms then and even now resembles less a well ordered English country garden and more the wild, natural orto that we find when we step out back, behind our farmhouse kitchen.

After our first night back in Umbria, following a day of discovery, of enjoyment, of relaxing and of peace and contentment, perhaps we are inching closer to understanding the secret that is Italy. Perhaps it is not one thing that makes Italy Italy, perhaps it is the sweep, the bounty of this place. But those things – the food, the wine, the landscape, the history, the art, the lyrical language, crazy drivers in tiny cars and museum-like cities – they are not the answer themselves. They are the things that satisfy the cravings that Suzy has. That I have. That our tour guests have. That Ernesto and Simona have. Each craving personal, each craving as deep as the soul and each craving desperately in search of satisfaction. Put simply, Italy feeds what you hunger for.

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Italy, with its richness and its willingness to let you live in the here and now, scratches the itch, the longing in our souls for connection and meaning. And as far as we have figured it out, it does it better than any other place on earth.

Perhaps that is the secret of Italy, the ingredient we can bottle up and bring back to Georgetown with us. Suzy and I certainly look forward to testing this hypothesis for the next three weeks.

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy

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We’re back in Umbria for our annual fall pilgrimage, our fall Food and Wine tour. This year Suzy and I are hosting ...

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Delizie!

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This was going to be the year Suzy and I did not make our annual summer visit to Italy. Instead of hot summer Cannara days and cool Umbria Jazz under starry skies, taking the place of rocky Ponza beaches and breezy Ischia sailboat trips we would remain in steamy, sultry Washington, our attention focused squarely on completing – or at least moving forward – the renovation and reopening of Via Umbria as an Italian market.

But life often has other plans for you. Plans that do not align perfectly with the gantt charts and timelines that get you from demolition to grand opening. And so this week life threw us a curveball that said “I want you to come to Italy.” A fat hanging curveball that we swatted all the way from Washington to Bevagna. Life told us that our friend Simone was going to have his own grand opening, the reopening of his restaurant le Delizie del Borgo and we decided, emphatically, that were not going to miss it.

So with progress at Via Umbria slightly stalled and the opportunity present to sneak away for a few days we scoured the online travel websites, landing a perhaps too-expensive but unassailably priceless pair of tickets that would take us from home to Bevagna for Friday’s grand opening. We were on. And no one knew we were coming.

Suzy and I have been boarding flights to Italy three or four times a year now for the past decade, and we always feel a sense of excitement about the possibilities that lie ahead. What new adventure will we discover? What new friends will we make? What unforgettable dish will we eat or bottle will we drink or fresco will we see? But boarding the non-stop flight to Rome, in fact getting into the car for the two hour drive to the airport was an experience so filled with excitement, made us so downright giddy, that you would think it was the first time we’d ever flown.

Upon our arrival in Rome we were met with cobalt blue skies and a blazing sun that our Italian friends have reminded us all summer long has scorched the Italian peninsula this year. But carefree we settled into our little rental Fiat 500, cranked up the air conditioner and hit the autostrada, making record time thanks to carry on luggage. After a brief stop in Todi to explore a little bit and enjoy lunch, by early afternoon we were in Bevagna, home of le Delizie and our home for the next four days.

 

The terrazza

When seven o’clock rolled around (the hour the celebration was slated to begin) we got sidetracked on a call back home, finally emerging from our albergo about an hour late and hoping we hadn’t flown across the Atlantic only to miss the celebration. But as we exited Bevagna’s city gate and made our way up the path that leads to the Campo dei Frati public park that houses the new Delizie, the overflowing parking lot and the music gently wafting through the trees told us that a celebration was going on.

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Our first glimpse of Simone and Ombretta’s new restaurant was one that will be hard to forget. When we departed Italy last November the pair had opened their restaurant in Bevagna’s public garden, taking over a humble kiosk that served ice cream to park dwellers and served as a simple snack bar for the locals. But that simple edifice included the bones for a kitchen and over the winter Simone and Ombretta planned and cajoled and tirelessly worked toward constructing a permanent outdoor structure to house their dream. That first glimpse confirmed what we already knew. Simone and Ombretta are excellent dreamers. And tonight their dream had become a reality.

 

Built around the old snack bar kiosk was a beautiful glass structure, a sort of winter garden lit from within by a soft golden glow that cast its warmth onto the outdoor patio seating which was itself covered by two enormous umbrellas. Under the umbrellas, crowded inside the pavilion and lounging on park benches a hundred well wishers were laughing and chatting, eating and drinking and sharing in the moment of triumph for their friends. Just as we had arrived to do.

About fifty feet from the restaurant entrance we were recognized and discovered by Simone’s partner Desiderio, whose eyes bulged Marty Feldman-like and who threw his hands to his face Macaulay Culkin-like. As we stepped into the dining room Ombretta spied her surprise visitors with a look of shock that immediately turned to tears. And a moment later, Simone working in the kitchen spotted us through the window, matching Ombretta tear for tear. Within seconds the entire group was engaged in a speechless hug, our anticipation finally being realized, their surprise just now being processed. It was indeed a magical moment that exceeded anything we had or could have imagined.

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Delizie Grand Opening 023Our second visit to the new Delizie del Borgo was likewise a surprise affair. Two days after our arrival and Simone’s grand opening we had booked a table for lunch for 20 at the restaurant, but under the guise that the party would be the family staying at our nearby farmhouse la Fattoria del Gelso. In the meantime our colleague Marco had invited a bunch of our local friends to join him for lunch to celebrate Simone’s reopening. Instead, as they assembled in the parking lot outside Bevagna’s Porta Cannara we surprised them with our presence and then paraded up the pathway and into the park where our little fraternity (which had swollen to 25) congratulated and paid their respects to Simone. And then proceeded to spend the next six hours enjoying a casual lunch and many, many bottles of wine under the giant umbrellas in the warm breeze of a hot Umbrian summer day.

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The magic of sharing Simone’s triumph and the opportunity to laugh and spend time with those we hold dearest in Italy made our impromptu surprise visit to Umbria a memory that will last a lifetime. And it reminds us why we love coming here, for here in Umbria, the “green heart of Italy” renowned for its fertile soil bursting with bounty, the thing that grows best is friendship.

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy

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This was going to be the year Suzy and I did not make our annual summer visit to Italy. Instead of hot ...

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A (Very) Short Guide to Visiting Umbria

Umbria Travel 012Summer is upon us and with it the summer travel season. And I just love it.

I was one of those kids who was “shipped away” to summer camp every year just weeks after school ended. And I loved it. Well at least after a few weeks of homesickness. It helped to have my older brothers at camp around me, if only that first year.

And as I grew older, being the youngest in the household afforded me the opportunity to travel the world with my parents. Just me and mom and dad. On those trips I learned how fascinating the world outside your backyard can be. And I learned too that spending every waking hour (and in the case of my parents, every sleeping hour, too) with the same people, sitting around small dining tables together (at least) three times a day, crammed together in a small rental car trying to pretend you were not lost or that you really didn’t care too much if you were, can induce a certain amount of stress. But by the time our plane landed back home and the bags were loaded in the car we would be reminiscing about the good times and planning our next trip.

Travel – seeing that world beyond your back yard, challenging the assumptions that color every one of your everyday activities, hearing strange sounds, smelling intoxicating smells, tasting flavors and combinations your mouth has never known before and feeling the warmth of strangers who go out of the way to lend you, the true stranger (the Italians call foreigners stranieri) – a helping hand when you are lost or tired or just don’t know how things work – is a powerful reminder of how connected we are to each other and to our world. And I love it. Especially because we lose sight of those connections so easily in our day to day lives.

With so many distractions and enticements around us as we motor through our daily lives, we can find ourselves alienated from our very selves, too easily running off here and there instead of enjoying the moment and what the moment affords us. This alienation can happen when we travel, too, but for most of us it doesn’t. And I have yet to meet anyone who has traveled to Umbria who hasn’t felt that he or she reconnected with something inside him or herself and with others in that magical place.

That is the magic not just of travel, but of travel in Umbria.

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So just what is so special about Umbria? Umbria by its very nature encourages you not to visit but to experience.

Umbria has that natural ease, that comfort of an old pair of jeans or a favorite old shirt. It may be a little frayed around the cuff here or there, but you wouldn’t trade it in for anything.

Approachable. Accessible. Authentic.

That is Umbria.

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Loaded with history. With culture. With tradition. With every step you take, with every glance at its rolling landscape, you could write a semester-long curriculum. Here is where Hannibal defeated the Roman legions. And there is where struggling medieval tradesmen took a middle eastern art form – majolica (ceramics) – and made it their own. Over there is an arch from the Etruscans, inscribed with a tribute to the Roman emperor Augustus. History piled atop history serving as a fascinating foundation for a modern world.

The rolling hills burn orange and red in the fall, blanketed by gnarled vines issuing forth grape varieties that were first introduced hundreds of years ago, when Vannucci (better known as il Perugino) was training his pupil Raffaelo, and even today those wines – wines that are as much a part of this place as Lake Trasimeno or Monte Subassio – are served with the same rustic fare that was created a millennium ago by peasant farmers who were poor in material wealth yet rich in lifestyle, grace be to the even richer soil of this place. Towering mountains and rolling green hills thrust their peaks into the sparkling clear sky as cool streams and rivers tumble over stones and boulders on their way to Rome. Il cuore verde d’Italia. Umbria truly is Italy’s green heart.

 

Umbria is known as the land of saints, boasting more native born saints than any other region, including Saint Claire and Santa Rita, Saint Valentine and Scholastica, Europe’s patron saint Benedict and the granddaddy of them all, Saint Francis. Is there something mystical and sacred in Umbria that has spawned all of these saints, or were they simply inspired to greatness by this place? In the end the answer really doesn’t matter. But to be in Umbria, finding yourself under a carpet of stars blazing in a sea of blackness on a perfectly quiet night, is to be powerless to resist pondering that very question.

Even today you feel it in Umbria, that sense of the sacred, of the possible. You hear it on the wings of the birds that flutter from cypress to cypress. You feel it on your skin during a steamy summer sunset or a crisp spring noon. You smell and see it on a foggy autumn morning.

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But most of all you see it in the faces of the Umbrians themselves. Faces that look unflinchingly toward the future with confidence and hopefulness but who never fear to pause and make eye contact with the present. Who open their doors and their hearts to their families, friends and to strangers alike. Whose roots run deep into the soil and reach all the way to their glorious past. Gaining nourishment from it and keeping it alive and fresh and relevant.

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I have long tinkered with the idea of writing a guidebook to our Umbria. And I am sure that it would be a long and interesting guidebook indeed. But in my opinion it would be a far, far better thing to visit Umbria yourself – to experience Umbria – and to inscribe that book in your mind and in your heart. And when you do, I will be the first one to invite you to give a private reading.

 

 

Umbria Travel 001Thinking of traveling Umbria?  Don’t plan your trip without talking to us first.  It could the difference between visiting Umbria and experiencing Umbria.

And be sure to check out our blog – Dolce Vita – for stories about our experiences in il cuore verde d’Italia.

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Summer is upon us and with it the summer travel season. And I just love it. I was one of those kids who ...

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Buona Pasqua

Pasqua 001Easter arrived early to la Fattoria del Gelso here in Umbria this morning.  Nine o’clock early, with the arrival of chef Simone and his colleague Amadeo.  It promises to be a buona Pasqua indeed, as they brought with them three large bundles of wild asparagus, foraged from the countryside by Amadeo.

Just one of the traditions that Umbria is so rich in and which enrich the lives of its people and those, like us, with whom they share.

We’ll keep you posted throughout the day.  Until then, buon appetito!

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy

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Easter arrived early to la Fattoria del Gelso here in Umbria this morning.  Nine o'clock early, with the arrival of chef Simone and his ...

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Easter Presence

Famiglia 011One of the things we have found so appealing about Italy and the Italians throughout the years is their ability to slow down and enjoy the life that is right before their eyes, noses, ears, tongues and fingers. Often summed up in the phrase la dolce vita, we have built our business and our lives around spreading the gospel of slow. And we even sum it up in Via Umbria’s tagline – Discover | Savor | Share.

Italians don’t just pay lip service to savoring life, they simply cannot ignore this genetic predisposition, ingrained as it is in their DNA. More than once when involved in business negotiations or getting to know a new supplier we would break for lunch and rather than continuing the negotiations over the meal all talk of business would be banished until the last grappa was consumed. Usually three or four hours later

But despite being ambassadors for this way of life, we have always had a difficult time walking the walk. Anyone who has travelled on one of our tours and who has gotten to take a peek behind the curtain knows that in organizing these apparently carefree experiences, the reality is anything but. It’s not just that the candle is burnt on both ends, the leftover wax is literally doused in lighter fluid and until the table itself is set aflame and the house afire.

And so as we returned to Italy last week, the first five days to be shared with both our daughter and one of our sons, we resolved to be truly Italian. To slow down and put aside all thoughts of work or business, anything that would distract from enjoying the here and now of being with our family. And despite not just a mountain, but a whole range of Everests that demanded our attention – more than you, dear reader will ever know – we did a pretty good job of staying focused on the things that matter. Family. Friends. Connections.

And what a memorable and meaningful five days it was.

  • ♦  Arrival lunch at Trattoria da Oscar in Bevagna, our first visit but definitely not our last.
  • ♦  First night’s dinner at Perbacco, a homecoming every time we see Ernesto and Simona.

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  • ♦  Our first visit to the winery at Villa Sobrano near Todi, learning about how the sandy soil in that part of Umbria imparts a mineral characteristic to their Grechetto and then getting to taste the proof over a simple but delicious lunch with the owners.

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  • ♦  A sunset visit to Diego’s farm, Calcabrina, where a local Franciscan monk was offering his Easter blessings (in exchange for a sack full of Diego’s caprino cheeses), washing down the milky freshness with some light rose and some fresh sagrantino.

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  • ♦  A home cooked dinner at the farmhouse with Simone, where we welcomed in the spring with a bistecca and a menu of fresh artichokes prepared four ways (grilled, steamed, fried and raw in salad).

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  • ♦  An Eastertime visit to the artisanal chocolate producer Ellegi, where they are lovingly working overtime to create chocolate Easter eggs filled with surprises.

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  • ♦  Lunch and a winery visit at Terre Margaritelli, where our friend Federico defied the odds and shook of the pressure of being told he gives the best winery tour in all of Italy by delivering the best winery tour in all of Italy while his wife Jennifer prepared the best porchetta in all of Umbria.
  • ♦  Dinner at casa Simone e Desiderio with our new best friends Roberto and Elena DiFilippo (and their daughter Bianca Maria).
  • ♦  A leisurely lunch of “leftovers” at home by the pool, under cool spring skies.

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  • ♦  A visit to Birra Perugia, where the owners not only kept the doors open for us an hour and a half after closing, but shared stories and glasses of each of their beers with us.
  • ♦  Carlo Magno pizza eaten fireside at home, followed by a late night movie viewing in the upstairs sitting room.

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  • ♦  A day trip to Florence featuring lunch at the Birreria Centrale, our original haunt on our first trip to Italy, and an enormous dinner of bistecca and Brunello at Francesco Vini, capped off by a tour of the restaurant’s cellar, built into the original Roman amphitheater that occupied the spot nearly two thousand years ago.

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  • ♦  An early morning send off of our youngest son as he embarked on what would turn out to be a 24 hour journey back to the west coast and college as we pulled up stakes and headed to Verona with our daughter for VinItaly.
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Five short days with family. But when you slow down and savor each moment as we did this week, it seems like a blessed eternity. The Italians definitely have gotten something dead on right.

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy

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Menard Musings

As February gives way to March (and aren’t we all looking forward to the prospect of non-Arctic March temperatures?) I can’t help but reflect that this young new year has for me featured a heavy dose of wine.  January was spent with Chef Simone crisscrossing the continent doing a series of promotional dinners that featured food/wine pairing nearly as much as the food itself.  February saw a return visit of our friend Daniele Sassi from the Tabarrini winery for a special winemaker’s dinner at DC hotspot Casa Luca.  And just a week ago we said our goodbyes to our friend Roberto DiFilippo, owner of DiFilippo and Plani Arche wineries who spent five days hosting winemaker dinners at Via Umbria and tasting events at the store.  Playing apprentice to and spending time around the table (always with glass in hand) with these professionals surely upped my wine game.  It was pretty darn enjoyable, too.

IMG_1072Chef Simone listens in at the Tabbarini Dinner at Casa Luca. IMG_1095

The first Tabbarini white wine is poured. IMG_1101

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I am happily in a wine – induced haze after the first course. IMG_1360

Daniele meets with guests to personally talk about his Sagrantino wine. 

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Suzy of Via Umbria gazes at the second course. 

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And so it was with heightened interest that I read Wednesday’s Washington Post’s Food section article on terroir (“You can’t define terroir, but you can taste it,” Wash Post 25 Feb. 2015, p. E5).  In the article Wine columnist Dave McIntyre noted that terroir “is a word with almost mystical charms for wine lovers,” holding that wine shows terroir “if it tastes like it came from somewhere.”  Wine exhibiting terroir contrasts with most wines, which McIntyre rightly points out taste “as if they could have come from anywhere.”  McIntyre opines that wine enthusiasts love the idea of terroir and wines that taste as though they could have only come from where they actually came from.  If love of terroir makes one a wine enthusiast, send us our membership cards.

Our relatively recent journey into the world of wines has been heavily influenced and shaped by the concept of terroir because the wines we have come of age with are wines that define the term terroir – Umbrian wines and in more cases (no pun intended) than not, wines from the tiny D.O.C. wine region of Montefalco.  Look up the word terroir in the dictionary and it wouldn’t be a stretch to think you might find a map of Italy with Umbria highlighted in red.

In Umbria and in Montefalco a number of factors – relative isolation, local consumption and a fierce pride in local culture (which includes their food and wine) – have led wine makers to produce traditional wines that represent the region, that utilize indigenous grapes (so long, cabernet sauvignon) and that pair sublimely with the region’s food.  Put simply, the wines of Umbria taste as though they could have only come from Umbria.  What a wonderful attribute for a wine to have!

If, like Suzy and me, you cut your wine teeth in a deep dive of a particular region’s wine (e.g., Bordeaux, Napa, Australia) your wine chops are highly developed but only with respect to a small sliver of the universe of wine.  This has truly been the case for us, and our next challenge in this relatively unusual situation has been to transfer and apply our Umbrian wine knowledge more generally to other regions.  And so we have been working to learn and appreciate the wines of California, of Washington State, of France.  It is a pretty good challenge to face.

Aside from the blessing of terroir, our Umbrian wine experience has offered us the blessing of accessible winemakers.  In Umbria winemaking has not been mystified and deified.  It is a simple act carried out by real people.  And these real people – farmers – don’t intimidate and try to make what they do into something it isn’t.  Instead they gladly invite you into their world, show you the grapes in their fields, talk to you about how they entice the best fruit possible from the vine.  They let you put your head in a stainless steel vessel to see grapes fermenting, to smell the yeast and the offed gasses.  They pour you a glass of cherry red juice that is still two to three years away from maturity, explaining how a winemaker can judge how this awful liquid will transform itself into sublime beauty.


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Roberto Di Filippo discusses his Grechetto with a guest. 

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Roberto speaks from the head of the table in the Via Umbria Galleria. IMG_1795

Terroir paired with access to real people, wine people.  It is something that sets Umbria and Umbrian wine apart in our minds, something that has made our journey along the strada dei vini unique.  And it has made the new year a truly enjoyable one.

We can’t wait to see how the next months unfold.

Ci vediamo!

Bill and Suzy

If you are interested in experiencing Umbrian terroir and Umbrian winemakers at their source, join Bill and Suzy on their first annual Vinopalooza wine tour, March 26-April 1, 2015.  For more information click here or call Suzy at (202) 957-3811.

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As February gives way to March (and aren’t we all looking forward to the prospect of non-Arctic March temperatures?) I can’t help ...

Dinner, Dinner Parties, Entertain, Experience Italy, Food & Drink, On the Table, People
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I Came, I Sausaged, I Conquored

Sausage 007

Laws are like sausages.  It is best not to see them being made.
— Otto von Bismarck

With all due respect to the Iron Chancellor we couldn’t disagree more.  Maybe he’s correct with respect to law making, but certainly not with respect to sausage making.  It is better to make them yourself.

It is January, the beginning of the New Year, when thoughts turn to resolutions, diets and exercise.  It is also the time of year, for the past five years, that we welcome back chef Simone Proietti-Pesci for his annual US visit.  Yesterday marked the beginning of his return, a three week tour and tour de force that begins in the Napa Valley of California and will take him (and us) to Washington, DC, New York, South Florida, Boston and the Cayman Islands.  We’ll chronicle Chef Simone’s daily activities here on Dolce Vita for those of you who cannot get together with him in person.

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Our first activity, just hours after connecting with Simone at SFO (he having flown from Rome, we having taking the shorter trip from Washington) was to set up camp at our friend Pete’s in Napa Valley where Simone (and his able assistant Austin) will prepare an Umbrian dinner party this evening.  With nothing formal on the day’s schedule (other than dinner at Bouchon) Pete suggested that we organize a sausage fest, relying on our expert Umbrian sausage maker to help make Umbrian sausage and Pete’s family recipe from his Sicilian aunt.

 

Pete had prepared in advance, laying on provisions, including ground pork (for the Umbrian variety) and ground pork and veal (for the Sicilian).  He also trotted out his new toy, a LEM sausage packer that looks like a cross between Pinocchio and the Tin Woodsman.  This gadget would make Chancellor Bismarck particularly happy, packing the sausage filling seamlessly and without mess into the casings that are loaded onto the spindle.  Having watched Julietta, our local butcher in Cannara hand pack sausages at a cooking class earlier in the year, we even more appreciated the crank it and forget approach afforded by the LEM.

Much weighing of ingredients and calculations of salt percentages were made by Pete and Simone and the ingredients mixed and massaged by hand.  Help was enlisted from Pete’s parents and the rest of our assembled group and then magically, from a mass of ground meat and simple spices emerged from the LEM not Neil Armstrong, but an unending array of dirigible shaped delicousness.

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Houston, we’ve got a sausage.
Close your eyes, Bismarck!
Close your eyes, Bismarck!
While many of the links will be consumed at Simone’s Saturday Umbrian open house in San Francisco, we did sample enough, including a generous portion added to a pizza Pete threw together, to attest that home made sausage beats store-bought any day of the week.

Including (if not especially) Wednesday, the day we started Simone’s three week US adventure.

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy

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Laws are like sausages.  It is best not to see them being made. -- Otto von Bismarck With all due respect to the Iron ...

Entertain, Holidays
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Happy Slow Year

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As we crack open a bottle of champagne for the New Year (or for a more Umbrian twist, how about some Scacciadiavoli Brut Rose instead?), we can’t help but think about the New Years resolutions we should and could be making…and then breaking.

An old Italian tradition, practiced more in the South than the North, is to throw your old unwanted dishes and any other small items out of the window on New Years.  Out with the old!  Better to break a dish than a resolution.  (Yes, we realize we may be a bit self interested in perpetuating this tradition given that we sell ceramics, but hey, tradition is tradition.)

But kidding aside, it can be helpful to give some thought about what we want to metaphorically toss out the window, to shed in the new year. It’s a whole lot easier to get rid of something than to resolve to add something new to our already too busy lives. Instead of focusing on what we want to improve upon in the New Year (go on a diet, go to the gym, get up earlier, drink less!), perhaps it would be more helpful to recognize what is weighing us down, holding us back or cluttering up our life.   And resolve this year to slow down a little.

Perhaps by sweeping away just a little of the bad, the old or the unnecessary we make room for just a little bit more of the good in our lives.  As this New Year arrives, we are busily setting out plans for the ambitious 2015 that lies ahead of us.  It promises to be every bit as busy, complex and financially risky as this year was – even more so. But part of our ambition is to make 2015 and the next phase of Via Umbria enjoyable – for all of us as well as our customers.

So while we can’t promise to exactly live the slow life in 2015, you should expect us to stay focused on the truly big things, the things that really matter and not to “sweat the small stuff.”  And while you won’t find us throwing Geribi dishes out the window on New Year’s eve, we will be resolving how we can slow down and smell the espresso more in 2015 than we did in 2014.

We hope you’ll join us.

Buon anno!

Bill and Suzy

As we crack open a bottle of champagne for the New Year (or for a more Umbrian twist, how about some Scacciadiavoli ...

Comings & Goings, Holidays
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Happiest Holidays

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One of the nicest things about the holidays – other than having an excuse to get together with family – is having an excuse to reflect on what you are thankful for.  And as the holiday rush – with its hordes of customers, non-stop gift wrapping, packing for UPS, restocking the shelves and starting all over again every morning – comes to an end, we have so much to be grateful for.

Here are a few of the things we want to give thanks for:

* For really being able to do it.  The idea of Via Umbria has been in our minds for a year or more.  To be able to purchase a building, move in, receive inventory from storage, from Italy, from who knows where, to unbox it, add it into inventory, get labels on it, arrange it on shelves and be able to sell it with out any (a slight exaggeration) kinks along the way.  Remarkable.

* For getting licensed to open our doors, to allow the public inside, to operate a business.  There is a feeling that DC is not a friendly place in which to do business.  That has not been our experience.  Challenging for sure, but eminently possible if one has a great deal of determination and is transparent and up front with people .

* For the opportunity to host three wonderful Food and Wine Tours in Umbria just a week after opening our doors in Georgetown.  Perhaps not the most prudent use of time, but our month in Italy was a great reminder of why we do what we do and why we’re doing it in Georgetown.  Our slogan – Discover | Savor | Share – is more than just words to us and returning to Italy often reminds us of just what is worth discovering, savoring and sharing.

* For our team of paid and unpaid staff who share our vision, our love of all things Italian.  They are the ones that toiled with the price tags, figured out the balky POS system, who arranged and re-arranged merchandise endlessly, carried boxes from trucks, trudging through the snow.  Who set up display after display only to tear it down, move it and begin again.

* For our neighbors in Georgetown who have not only passed through our doors in an endless stream since we opened them at the end of September, but who have told us just how much they appreciate having us in the neighborhood.  Not just with words but with monetary support and by spreading the word to their friends and neighbors.  Via Umbria is about savoring the connections that common interests can engender and it is clear that we and our neighbors share a lot of common interests.

* For DC ABRA and the ANC and CAG and OGB and CFA all giving us fair hearings and approving our concepts, ideas and validating our existence.  And especially for granting us a license to sell the most incredible, undiscovered and under appreciated wines produced in Italy.  Be sure to stop by to learn a bit about our selection of hand selected and imported Umbrian wines.

* And for Suzy and me, thanks for our wonderful, supportive children who lined up shoulder to shoulder with us to get this store open, to celebrate its rebirth and to keep it on course during the busy holiday season and who bore with us when we came home late at night and left early in the morning.  Merry Christmas to Austin, Lindsey, Davis and Teddy.

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There are so many things we are thankful for as Christmas day approaches and we’ll take another stab at completing the Thank You cards before New Year’s.  But as you and we turn our attention to family and sharing the joy of the holiday season together we also want to reflect briefly on our ambitions and vision for Via Umbria.  It is easy to get wrapped up in the logistics of running a small business (sometimes quite literally in a ream of price tag stickers).  But at Christmas, we’d like to look forward and share with you what we really aim for with this store in the coming year.

What we have discovered in Italy and through Italy, the essence that we believe is the crown jewel worth sharing with all of you isn’t a thing at all.  What we truly cherish and find over and over again in Italy is a sense of connectivity.  Connectivity with  place, with people, with time and history.  And that connection is inspired by, catalyzed by and engendered by experiences that often take place around objects and food.  Our ceramic plates are without doubt works of art.  Our olive oils are without equal.  Our kitchen appliances provoke the mind.  But these things are just things, no matter how beautiful they are.  Their iconic status, their spirit comes from knowing who made that bowl, and loving that story.

In Italy, you know the shopkeeper who sells you a kitchen towel, and the man at the bar who serves you your espresso, and the woman who you always check out with at the grocery store. And although we cannot replicate exactly that closeness of an Italian community, we hope that a visit to Via Umbria will mean more than just finding a beautiful object. We want to stop and talk with our customers, explain where we found the objects that we stock and why they are special to us. We hope that Via Umbria will be a place that people come visit because that yearning for connectedness is satisfied here.  We think we’re off to a good start.

Because as beautiful and interesting as our merchandise is here at Via Umbria, perhaps we should all take inspiration from one of this season’s own iconic characters – the Grinch.  For in our opinion he put his long, gnarled finger right on what makes Via Umbria Via Umbria when he came to his epiphany:

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.

Well said, Grinch.  Well said.  Merry Christmas to all.  And to all a good night.

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy

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One of the nicest things about the holidays - other than having an excuse to get together with family - is having ...

Comings & Goings, Entertain, Events, Holidays
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December Delights

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We waited in anticipation for our shipment of cakes, candies, and chocolates from Italy to be cleared at customs. Would it arrive on Thanksgiving, making us skip the big meal?  Or Black Friday, causing chaos and clutter?

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But our boxes and boxes and boxes of joy would come through during the first snow of the season in Georgetown, and just as Teddy and Davis, my sons, flew in from sunny Los Angeles to help. A flurry of activity, and huge, fat flurries from the sky.

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As we tore into the boxes and unpacked, the scents of Italian Christmas wafted out of the containers.  Panettone smells like Christmas. Gianduia smells like mid afternoons in December. And torrone smells like a diet in the New Year.

 

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As we unpacked box after box of panettone, we remembered that this we have a good handful of flavors in stock, including chocolate, candied chestnut, and prosecco. New as well is the ability to order them though our website here. Loison makes their panettone with only real ingredients and no preservatives in the same way they have produced them for centuries, by hand in Venice. Their panettone does not taste like sugary bread, they way some American products do, but instead a rich and soft holiday treat.

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But what I always fall for are the torrone. Years ago I toured the Sorelle Nurzia factory (you can find the old blog post here, and became obsessed.

To see exactly how they handcraft the torrone we have stocked in store see this excellent video (it is in Italian but stick through it for the “sensual” ending).

Though the unpacking was wet and cold, the reminders of beautiful Italian holidays past made opening up every cardboard box akin to tearing through gifts on Christmas Day. And what better gift then being able to bring a little bit of and Italian Natale to DC.

  We waited in anticipation for our shipment of cakes, candies, and chocolates from Italy to be cleared at customs. Would it arrive ...