COVER STORY: "Chasing Mario"

Mario Batali is a chef who isn’t shy about telling you wine is a priority at the table. In his latest cookbook, Molto Italiano, the first chapter isn’t even about food. It’s a concise overview of the wine regions of Italy with recommendations for recipe pairings. Instead of a fancy quote about food for the frontispiece to his Babbo Cookbook, he emblazoned the Italian phrase: “God created the water, man made the wine.”

Why is this famous chef so obsessed with wine? And what about that wine he produces, the one with the really long name — La Mozza, I Perazzi, Morellino di Scansano?

Though Mario was named best chef of the year at the prestigious James Beard Foundation awards this year, he would rather be called the chef who makes Italian food simple, authentic, accessible and delicious — and the chef who wears orange clogs and shorts throughout the year.

Mario co-owns seven Manhattan restaurants, hosts Molto Mario and Ciao America on the Food Network, writes cookbooks (four already) and sells a retail line of pizza kits, sausages and other items. He also co-owns
the Italian Wine Merchant store in Manhattan and is a partner in an Italian winery producing the Tuscan Sangiovese wine called Morellino di Scansano.

“If it grows together, it goes together,” Mario says again and again in conversation. At his restaurants, he cooks with the freshest ingredients of the season, using products from Italy or with seasonal substitutions from
the Mid-Atlantic/Hudson Valley region. Mario learned this principle as a young chef at a trattoria near Bologna, Italy, where the ripe produce became the evening’s core menu. His Italian mentors also taught him that wine made from local grapes pairs best with local food. This is why, he says, it makes sense for a chef to explore and understand winemaking. Italians, he added, know this concept instinctively; Americans are now learning it.

THE ITALIAN REAL DEAL
Mario grew up in Seattle in an extended Italian family, but when he first appeared on the Food Network, some people questioned his Italian lineage. “Because Mario has red hair, I didn’t think he was Italian,” recalls Rudy Amadio, owner of Dolce Ristorante in Charlotte. “But after listening to him, I realized he really knows his Italian food and how to simplify Italian cooking for Americans.”


Mario Batali poses inside his Manhattan shop, Italian Wine Merchants

Lidia Bastianich — chef, restaurateur, author and host of a cooking show on public television — as well aware of Mario’s roots when she invited him to cook at a prestigious James Beard Foundation dinner in Manhattan in 1995. The culinary profile of the up-and-coming chef was heightened by the dinner at the James Beard House.

At the event, Lidia introduced Mario to her son Joe, wine director at her acclaimed Manhattan restaurant Felidia. Joe had been following his Mom around her restaurants since he was three years old. He assimilated his mother’s passion for Italian wine during family trips to Trieste and as mentored at Spark’s Steakhouse in Manhattan by Pat Cetta, a pioneer who developed groundbreaking wine programs in the 1960s and who was the first restaurateur in the city to serve Robert Mondavi wines.

“Joe and Mario quickly became good friends,” recalls Lidia. “They both have this incredible energy with great passion and commitment for food and wine. They understand flavor, and they know how to create a unique dining environment.”

Joe’s strong background in the hospitality business, coupled with Mario’s talent for serving Italian food with an innovative flair, led to the instant success of Babbo in 1998, followed quickly by other restaurant projects such as Esca, Lupa and Otto Enoteca.

BRING ON THE WINE, ALREADY!
With their mutual love of wine and food, the pair segued naturally into winemaking. Lidia and Joe had already purchased a vineyard in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of northwestern Italy, where the Bastianich family lived before immigrating to the United States. Their Bastianich Vespa Bianco, a Chardonnay-Sauvignon Blanc blend, had garnered a strong following among Italian wine aficionados.

When the winemaker at the Bastianich estate told Joe and Lidia a few years ago that land was available near his vineyard in southern Tuscany, Joe and Mario teamed up with Lidia to buy the 75-acre La Mozza vineyard in the Maremma region. This rugged, hilly area south of Siena and Chianti can challenge winemakers, but the vineyard’s 10-mile proximity to the Tyrrhenian Sea presents a moderating marine influence, which is vital for producing wines of distinction.

“Maremma is the new frontier in Tuscan winemaking,” explains Joe. “With the milder climate, grapes ripen more easily and there is more consistency vintage to vintage.” Joe is so excited about the possibilities of the district that he has coined the term “Super Meds,” short for Super-Mediterraneans, a take-off on the Super Tuscan moniker for high-end wines made in the Chianti area.

WHAT’S A CELEBRITY CHEF TO DO?
Mario’s role in the winemaking project is to provide feedback during tastings and to influence the style of wine to match his rustic Italian food creations. “Our goal is to make a wine that is simple enough to enjoy on its own and to pair with food, not overpower it,” says Batali emphatically.

The grapes planted at La Mozza near the hilltop town of Scansano are carefully cultivated to meet this objective. In Tuscany, the Sangiovese grape is known by several names, from Chianti to Brunello to Morellino, depending on where it is grown. Morellino means “little blackish one,” alluding to the dark color of the grape. Because the grapes ripen more readily in the southern part of Tuscany, says Joe, they are juicier and have more jammy flavors such as plums and raspberries.

But Mario also tastes something else in the wine, which is why it’s time to unveil the full import of the wine’s name: La Mozza, I Perazzi, Morellino di Scansano. We’ve covered the origin of La Mozza (the vineyard’s name) and Morellino di Scansano (little blackish grape from the town of Scansano). What about “I Perazzi?”

“In the La Mozza vineyard, there are many wild pear trees known as perazzi in Italian,” says Mario. “The vineyard manager wanted to take them out. We said no. So now he drives the tractor around the trees, and we put a branch of the pear tree on the wine’s label. You can almost smell those pears in the wine.” When Joe hears what Batali said about the wine’s aroma, he chuckles. “The wild boars like to eat the pears from those gnarly, giant, bush-like trees. But I ’m not sure I can smell the pear in the wine!”

As leader of the wine programs for the Batali /Bastianich restaurants and partner with Lidia in a number of restaurants, Joe is regarded as a wine industry pro. In 2002, he wrote an award-winning book on Italian wine,Vino Italiano, with David Lynch, the wine director at Babbo. Joe has seen the interest in Morellino wines explode in Europe. Since the laws for making Morellino are more flexible than those for other Tuscan wines such as Chianti, Mario and Joe can blend in some cherry-like Ciliegiolo grapes as well a bit of Syrah into the wine.

The greater flexibility of expression in blending and the riper grapes produce a wine that is a hidden treasure, says Joe. Plus, the Morellino Super Meds are less expensive than the Super Tuscans. “Our wines can be sold at half or less than half of what a bottle of Chianti costs. The wines show much generosity — they have rounder tannins and about 60 international wines in the Wines of Consequence section, those like I Perazzi from progressive producers making interesting wines that offer value and top quality,” says Parr. “It’s great for the industry when restaurateurs such as Joe and Mario make wine, because they know what diners want with their meals. Customers are eager to try it and like it.”

Deborah Grossman is a San Francisco Bay Area journalist who enjoys writing about people and places that celebrate wine and food. Besides dining at restaurants with intriguing wine lists, she likes to travel with her husband and cook with her grandson.

 

 

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