The April Edition
Hello to members old and new!
Another month rolls around which means another, delicious box of wine, cheese and charcuterie.
Centered around this lovely drop from Tuscany, this box is Spring inspired…fingers crossed we get the weather for it 🤞
You asked, we listened!
This month, we have some new additions 🤤 We sadly say goodbye to the chocolate but are glad to introduce our delicious juicy slow roasted tomatoes and thyme infused honey. Each month you’ll receive a small jam or honey plus an antipasti product to complete your board.
Let us know your thoughts on the change! We love feedback to develop the Deli Soc community of foodies!
Whack the playlist on with the button below and let’s get going.
Wine Tasting
How to taste wine
The first step of assessing wine is looking at it
Wine snobs like to talk about the legs of wine. In all honestly, this is a bit of a waste of time.
The wine legs (or tears of the wine as the French refer to them) can give an indication of the alcoholic content of the wine. But it’s so difficult to be accurate with a reading from legs,
So we say just read the label!
For appearance, we only ever find it useful to note something if the colour is completely out of the ordinary i.e. it’s a really dark rose
The next step is to smell your wine.
Swirl the wine in the glass. Looks poncy but does release some aromas, and helps it not just smell like alcohol.
Broadly, smells can be broken into three categories.
Primary Aromas: grape-derivative and include fruits,
herbs, and floral notes.
Secondary Aromas: from winemaking practices and easiest to find in white wine. Examples include beer, cheese rind, or nuts.
Tertiary Aromas: from aging in bottle or oak. Normally savoury. Examples include roasted nuts, spices, vanilla, autumn leaves, tobacco, and leather.
Start broad. Is it fruity?
Red wine? Think of red, blue, and black fruits.
White wine? Think of citrus, orchard, or tropical fruits.
Once you’ve identified a scent such as citrus, you can now think if it’s more apple than lemon or more orange than lime.
This is all pretty personal to your own nose.
The same principle can be applied to floral and herb scents, but in our opinion, not many people can tell you the specific scent of geranium.
If you can detect herbs or floral notes, it’s a great start.
Wine Tasting
How To Taste Wine
Finally you get to actually taste the wine. Funnily enough though, tasting is predominantly to detect the structure of the wine.
Body: Think how differently skimmed milk, full-fat milk and cream coat the mouth.
Acidic: How much does it make your mouth drool?
Tannin: An annoying word but an easy one to detect. Imagine sucking on a teabag and how dry it would leave your mouth.
That’s tannin.
Dry or sweet? Tannin can trick you to think there’s no sweetness in a wine. Stick the tip of your tongue in as the best detector of sugar (probably not the done thing to do in a restaurant).
The final part of tasting a wine, is to come to a conclusion about it.
What type of wine did you just have and did you like it?
Was it too acidic or just a bit meh?
If you’ve just tried, for example, a Barolo, log that experience with that wine in your mind so that the next time you have a Barolo, you have a foundation of knowledge to judge it against.
The only way to really educate yourself is to drink more. Poor us.
Wine
Cantalici ~ Cantavento Malvasia Bianca
Name: Cantalici ~ Cantavento Malvasia Bianca
ABV: 13%
Grape: Malvasia Bianca Lunga
Country and Region: Italy, Tuscany
Winemaking: Organic
Tasting notes of Citrus Fruits, Rosemary and Minerals.
Straw bright yellow colour with gold hints. Fruity and spicy aromas accompanied with mineral notes and hints of herbs.
Sweetness (dry to sweet) 1-5: 3
Acidity (low to high) 1-5: 4
Tannin (low to high) 1-5: 2
Body (light to full) 1-5: 2
Producer
CANTALICI Estate
Carlo and Daniele are the latest generation of the Cantalici family to run their estate in Castagnoli in the heart of Tuscany.
Perhaps one of the most stunning wineries you’ll see, built in a 16th century old kiln building.
Though still in its first generation, this winery has been slowly expanding and gaining accolades for its forward-thinking approach.
Since the mid-nineties they have worked together with their father Loris, first in the forestry sector, and then alongside the local wine growers for the creation of vineyards and olive groves and for the agricultural tillage of the land.
In 1998, however, they wanted to make their products, their wines and take advantage of all the experience gained over many years in which they shared the sunrise with the black rooster and the sunsets with bunches of grapes ready for the Chianti Classico harvest.
Cantalici’s vineyards, in particular, extend between the villages of Gaiole in Chianti, Monti, Radda in Chianti, Castelnuovo Berardenga and Vagliagli and are Fagnano, Valtellina, Casa Vecchia and Casina del Girasolino.
The cellar for wine tasting, however, is in Gaiole in Chianti, 5km from the center, on top of a hill overlooking the valley.
Vinification is done by manual harvest in little crates. Followed by the soft pressing of grapes selected by hand. Fermentation then takes place. After starting in stainless steel tanks, the process continues in barriques and is followed by ageing in the same barriques on thin lees of yeast.
Cheese 1
Pecorino Truffle
Country + Region: Italy, Sardinia
Milk Type: Ewe
Pasteurised: Yes
Strength Of Cheese: 3
Style Of Cheese: Hard
Texture: 4
A classic Italian cheese made in the traditional way by family firm Villecco, in the heart of Sardinia.
Made using only the finest sheep’s milk from the island, this classic hard Pecorino style is then aged for a minimum of five months to give it the pleasant spiciness and sharpness associated with the best Pecorinos. It’s made using 4% real fresh truffle, which is added at the beginning of the cheese making. There are no truffle essences, flavourings or oil used here, just real fresh truffle!
After hearing in the late 18th century about an excess of sheep’s milk on Sardinia, the Villecco family journeyed to Sardinia to make cheese seasonally through the spring when the milk was plentiful, before returning to the Italian mainland with their finished cheeses to sell in the summer and autumn. In the 1920s, the family decided to settle for good in Sardinia and eventually set up their dairy in the central town of Serrenti, so they could source milk from the island’s small sheep farms as easily as possible.
Remaining dedicated to traditional recipes, using the milk from Sardinia’s finest sheep on the small farms, helps keep this Pecorino with Truffle head and shoulders above its counterparts!
Cheese 2
Mozzarella di Bufala
Country + Region: Italy, Campania
Milk Type: Buffalo
Pasteurised: Yes
Strength Of Cheese: 1
Style Of Cheese: Soft/Fresh
Texture: 1
Directly from Campania.
These stretched curd cheeses from La Baronia embody the purity and goodness of buffalo milk. It is this fertile pasture, rich in wetland species, that gives the milk its delicate taste and unique aroma. The Cutillo family started La Baronia 30 years ago. They began by researching the working methods of the buffalo dairymen, practices that had been handed down since the 8th Century, when buffalos first arrived in Campania. Animal husbandry is everything to the family.
To keep the buffalo happy and healthy in the hot Summer climate, the animals “swim” several times a day in large water tanks. How cool is that? The fresh, stretched curd cheese is composed of very thin layers. It is yielding in texture, porcelain-white in colour and has a slightly sour taste. It is thought that mozzarella takes its name from the verb mozzare, meaning ‘to cut’ referring to the way that the cheese makers cut each ball by hand from the large mass of stretchy curd formed when the cheese is immersed in hot water and kneaded by hand.
Cheese 3
Taleggio
Country + Region: Italy, Val Taleggio
Milk Type: Cows
Pasteurised: Yes
Strength Of Cheese: 3
Style Of Cheese:
Washed Rind
Texture: 2
Made from the raw milk of several small local farms, by the village co-operative, right in the heart of Val Taleggio, the valley from which the cheese takes its name. Made by hand in tiny batches, it is a world away from its mass-produced cousins.
The rosy, sometimes mould-mottled rind, encases a fruity silky paste, which may break down at the edges but remains crumbly and fresh-tasting in the centre.
Charcuterie
The Deli Society Salami Pepperoni
The Deli Society partners with artisan producers that put animal welfare first.
Country & Region: Italy, Tavernerio
The Deli Society partners with artisan producers that put animal welfare first. Produced in partnership with a fourth-generation family-owned business.
Seasoned with fennel seeds, chilli pepper, paprika and garlic, this salami offers a true piccante flavour!
The crushed chilli pepper in this salami beautifully enhances the subtle spice notes in this month’s wine.