Joanna Simon on the history and preparation of zelten—and the best wines to pair with the once-a-year fruit, nuts, and spice-based cake.

The Italians make the rest of the world look like slouches when it comes to traditional Christmas cakes. I am not talking about quantity. I don’t know which country buys, makes at home, or consumes most per capita. I’m referring to the number of regions in Italy that cherish a tradition of a particular cake, often made at home during Advent ready to eat over the Christmas period.

Other countries tend to have one famous Christmas cake, most containing some permutation of dried fruit, nuts, candied peel, and spices; among them, Germany’s stollen, Portugal’s bolo rei, and Britain’s dense (sometimes leaden) fruit cake coated in marzipan and royal icing, which, eaten at teatime, may well be following the similarly flavored Christmas pudding (or plum pudding) served earlier in the day. France admittedly ploughs a more individual furrow with bûche de noël, a chocolate-flavored yule log, followed at epiphany by galette des rois, a flat, frangipane-filled puff pastry pie. 

Most of Italy’s regional Christmas cakes also depend on fruit (dried, candied, and fresh peels), nuts, and spices for much of their flavor. Two notable exceptions are the star-shaped, sugar-dusted pandoro from Verona and Piedmont’s tronchetto di natale (which is similar to bûche de noël and may have been a recipe brought from France). But after that it’s fruit, nuts, spices more or less all the way from north to south: from panettone, originally from Milan, to Trentino-Alto Adige’s zelten, to Bologna’s certosino, Genoa’s pandolce, Siena’s panforte, and the spicier panpepato from which panforte (or panforte Margherita) is derived, to the frustingolo of the Marche, Rome’s piangiallo, which takes its name (yellowbread) from its saffron glaze, to Sicily’s bucellatto. 

Zelten is not the earliest, most well documented, or best known of these cakes. The prototype of panpepato and panforte can be dated to 1205 in the Montecelso convent, near Siena, while the first evidence of zelten is not until the 18th century, in a manuscript now in the Civic Library of Rovereto in Trentino, which describes a cake very like today’s zelten called celteno. 

But anything zelten may lack in fame or history it makes up for in seasonality and the dedication with which it is prepared throughout Trentino-Alto Adige from October onwards, but mostly in December, for eating sometime over the Christmas period. 

Precisely when it was made and eaten originally is not known. One tradition maintains that it was prepared on December 13, the Feast of Saint Lucia, and was eaten on Christmas Day when families returned from midnight mass. Another says that it was prepared on December 21, the feast day of Saint Thomas the Apostle (until it was moved to July 3 in 1969), ready to be eaten on Epiphany, January 6.

But why these two saints isn’t clear. Saint Lucia was an early Christian martyr who died in Syracuse, Sicily in 304 and came to be thought of as the patron saint of sight (and is the patron saint of Syracuse). Saint Thomas is the apostle who became known as Doubting Thomas. The one point on which there is consensus is that the name comes from the German word selten, meaning seldom or rarely, because zelten is only made once a year. 

Inevitably a recipe that has passed down through families for centuries is made across a large and varied territory and has a long list of ingredients comes with many adaptations, according to taste and what was available. The zelten of Bolzano in the Alto Adige (Sud Tirol) is traditionally richer in fruit than the recipes of Trentino, where less fruit is grown, and Trentino zelten is usually round, whereas in Alto Adige they are sometimes oval, heart-shaped or oblong.

The main difference in preparation, although it doesn’t have as significant an effect on flavor as one might expect, is whether yeast is used or if eggs, butter, and baking powder take its place. The principal flour is wheat, but a smaller proportion of rye flour is often included. The dried fruit is usually led by figs, followed by raisins, sultanas, and sometimes dates or apricots, and these, together with the candied orange and lemon peels and the fresh orange and lemon zest, are soaked in either rum with white wine or water or in grappa. Grappa is less common, but I prefer it, in particular Trentino Grappa di Moscato. 

The nuts are usually led by walnuts, followed by hazelnuts and almonds and sometimes pine nuts. The spices are a moveable feast, but most recipes suggest clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, fennel seed or star anise, and allspice. I have also seen cumin in an Alto Adige recipe and ginger in one from Trentino. Honey is another key ingredient. Almonds and glacé (candied) cherries are widely used to decorate the cake. 

The best wines to pair with zelten

When recipes vary so much and the resulting cakes range from relatively pale, lightly fruited, and spiced, to darker, sweeter, more intensely fruity, nutty, and spicy, it doesn’t pay to be too prescriptive about accompanying wine but, encouragingly, quite a spread of sweet wine styles go well with fruit, nut, and spice cakes of this sort. 

Both the main local possibilities, Moscato Giallo Passito and Trentino Vin Santo, usually make good pairings. For a zelten that leans slightly to the panettone end of the spectrum, I would veer towards a Passito. For one that edges a little more towards the panforte end, I would try a Vin Santo, which could be Tuscan, such as Crociani Vin Santo di Montepulciano.

Passito wines tend to work well, particularly Moscato di Pantelleria. Donnafugata’s superb Ben Ryé is multilayered but elegant enough to match even relatively lighter zelten. Late-harvest Muscat/Moscato can also be very good, especially Klein Constantia Vin de Constance, any vintage from 2007–2020, and Chivite Colección 125 Vendimia Tardía Blanco, 2020, 2019, or an older vintage (this is a Moscato that ages well). 

Another wine that can be exceptionally good with zelten, or at least with the recipe I follow—which I would describe as occupying the middle ground, but a little less sweet and a little spicier than some—is Tokaji Aszú. I find 5 puttonyos sweet enough, but with a sweeter zelten I would move up to 6 puttonyos. Either way, I would be delighted to have Royal Tokaji, Disznókő, or Patricius in my glass.  

And in case anyone thinks I have forgotten them, a final word on sweet fortified wines. While Madeira and Marsala can be very good with dark, dense fruit cakes, I find them too heavy for zelten, but the nuttiness of Tawny Port strikes a chord—a Quinta do Noval Colheita or 10 Year Old Tawny by choice. 

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Just because vitello tonnato is relatively simple both in terms of preparation and its limited number of ingredients, it doesn’t mean that there is no discussion over authenticity and how to pair it; not least perhaps because this cold antipasto (appetizer) of sliced, poached veal covered with a tuna sauce is a classic dish in two different and distanced countries: Italy, where there is little doubt that it originated, and Argentina, where its name, vitel toné, is very like the Piemontese original vitel tonné.

In Argentina (where less commonly it’s called ternera atunada), it’s a traditional Christmas dish and is sometimes made with beef, pork, turkey, or beef (ox) tongue, rather than more expensive veal. In Italy, where veal rules, it’s also predominantly a summer dish and often served at family gatherings on Ferragosto, August 15, the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin. 

Dishes of leftover veal with sauces that included various combinations of anchovies, capers, lemon, and oil—ingredients that were traded through Piedmont and coastal Liguria—existed as early as the 18th century. Tuna was a later addition, probably dating from the 1870s or 1880s when the fish began to be canned. 

The first written recipe for vitello tonnato is firmly dated to 1891, appearing in Pellegrino Artusi’s La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiare bene (The Science of Cooking and the Art of Eating Well). 

It’s hard to overestimate the importance and influence of this book. Written by a wealthy retired silk merchant for family cooks, rather than the professionals for whom most cookbooks were written until then, it was both practical and wittily anecdotal. What is also of great significance is that it gathered in one place for the first time regional recipes from all over Italy. By 1931, there had been 32 editions and it was one of the most-read books in Italy, alongside Pinocchio and the novel I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed). It remains a best-seller and there are English, German, and Spanish translations, among others. 

In Artusi’s recipe, the boneless cut of veal is larded with two anchovies before being poached in water flavored with onion, cloves, bayleaf, celery, carrot, and parsley. The sauce, spread over the cold, thinly sliced veal, consists of tuna in oil, anchovies, extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, and capers (drained of their vinegar). What it doesn’t include is egg, either hard-boiled yolks pounded with the tuna and anchovy before the addition of oil and lemon and finally capers, or mayonnaise. 

Although there is no mention of either eggs or mayonnaise in the description of vitello tonnato in The Oxford Companion to Food (1999), it seems to have become popular during the 1980s. Already in 1980, in Marcella Hazan’s The Classic Italian Cookbook, homemade mayonnaise is the first ingredient of the sauce and there’s no suggestion that it can be made without mayo, or with hard-boiled egg yolk. The same applies to the Concise Dictionary of Gastronomy (2001) by Anna del Conte. 

My wine pairings are based on tonnato sauce made with mayonnaise (which I agree with Marcella Hazan has to be homemade) and they are for veal, although I sometimes use the sauce in the same way for cold pork or tongue (pig’s tongue in preference to beef in my case). The pairings don’t vary that much, although tongue seems to make this umami dish even more umami. 

Best wine pairings with vitello tonnato

White wine and rosé

While its popularity is testament to the triumphant combination of relatively few ingredients, it’s not the easiest to match to wine. It’s deeply umami and yet veal—even rose veal—is a fairly delicately flavored meat. There’s also the richness of the mayonnaise and the contrasting sharpness of the capers to take into account. 

White wine would seem to be the obvious choice, but the savory character of the dish can overemphasize fruity and floral notes. Equally, its richness can make mineral, high-acid whites seem blade-thin.

The “when in Rome…” principle points to white wines such as Roero Arneis and Gavi di Gavi, but these are often too floral in the face of vitello tonnato. Instead I would head for the sort of Verdicchio that has ageing potential, such as Tenuta di Tavignano Misco Riserva Castelli di Jesi, or Soave Classico, especially wines such as Pieropan’s La Rocca and Calvarinho. Fuller versions of Vermentino, including Clos Culombo from Corsica and Rolle-based white Provence, are another option. 

Other whites to consider from outside Italy include Godello and Verdejo from Spain; Chablis Premier Cru (as so often), although not in its steeliest, tautest manifestations; dry Furmint from Tokaji, such as Barta Öreg Király Dulo; Santorini Assyrtiko with an oak component; South African old-vine Semillon; and Chenin Blanc from both South Africa and the Loire. 

I’ve left Chenin until last, but over the years the complexity, fruit purity and mineral tension of serious Chenin Blancs, especially from old vines, preferably with a few years’ age, have proved some of the best pairings, among them Savennières, such as Domaine aux Moines Roches aux Moines, and Cape Chenins such as Old Road Wine Company Anemos 2020 (Coastal Region) or Mullineux Old Vines White from Swartland.  

Complex Provence rosés that improve with age, above all Garrus from Château d’Esclans, are another favourite match. Corsican rosés based on Sciaccarellu have also been successful, too. 

Red wine

There are some red wine pairings I like, too, and here the “when in Rome…” approach works for Nebbiolo d’Alba and other Langhe and Alto Piemonte Nebbiolos, served cool. Another grape variety that has worked well down the years, again served cool, is Cabernet Franc from the Loire, although climate change and improved viticulture and winemaking mean that some wines are now too ripe and full—not for their own good, but specifically to accompany vitello tonnato. The dish needs some of the grape variety’s leafy freshness and no overt oak or tannin: a good producer’s entry level Saumur rouge or Saumur-Champigny from a medium-ripe vintage does the trick.   

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After I had spent a disproportionate, although enjoyable, time researching the famous Sicilian cold vegetable dish caponata, I was glad that one of the first sources I had turned to, before losing myself down many a rabbit hole, was British chef Jacob Kenedy’s cookbook Bocca di Lupo. In it, he recounts asking the four Sicilian waiters at his then newly opened Bocca di Lupo restaurant what they thought of his caponata. 

“They detested it,” he says. More than that, they vehemently disagreed with each other about its ingredients and preparation. While “they came close to killing each other,” he felt like crying, he writes. Finally, he put a stop to it by telling them, “This is how I make caponata. And everyone else is wrong…” (For the record, I have eaten and enjoyed Kenedy’s caponata.)

Perhaps Sicilians are more extreme in their defense of their culinary traditions, but caponata is the story of most of Italy’s regional recipes. Every city, town, village and household unbendingly upholds its version of a recipe as the authentic one, the one truly traditional rendition. 

The reality is less rigid. As chef Giorgio Locatelli says of caponata in his book Made in Sicily, “The  truth is it is made with whatever vegetables the people have, depending on the time of year.” He goes on to give four of his favorite recipes, including an artichoke caponata and a Christmas one based on celery, but it’s the aubergine-based, caponata d’estate, or caponata Palermitana, that has traveled the globe and which can be served as an appetiser (first course) or as a side dish, in Sicily usually alongside fish. Either way is is served at room temperature, never hot.

The origin of caponata

It may be well traveled, but where the recipe came from, and when, isn’t clear. The name is first documented in an eighteenth century etymological text. Food historian and writer Clifford A Wright dates this text to 1709; elsewhere the date is given as 1759. Whichever it is, the description is not very illuminating: “a dish made up of various things.” 

Wright says that the earliest recipe he knows of for “a kind of caponata” is cappone di galera alla siciliana in Francesco Leonardi's Apicio moderno published in 1790. It’s a dish of vegetables garnished with various fishes and seafood, capers and olives and a sauce that includes pistachios and vinegar. In typical cucina povera tradition, the dish lost its expensive fish element to cheaper vegetables along the way. Today, the only fish sometimes included is anchovy. 

Other than aubergine, the ever-present vegetables are celery, onions and tomatoes, which may be fresh, canned, passata, or a combination. The other essentials are wine vinegar (usually red); sugar; capers, although not in Locatelli’s recipe; green olives, although Locatelli specifies black and Kenedy, unusually, doesn’t include olives at all; parsley, or occasionally basil or mint.

Locatelli also uses courgette (which the nonna who first explained the recipe to me in Sicily was adamant was wrong – a French perversion), as well as fennel, pine nuts and either sultanas or raisins. The sweet dried fruit, a typically Sicilian ingredient in savory dishes since Arab occupation, together with sugar and vinegar give the dish its classic Sicilian agrodolce (sweet and sour) signature. 

Ana Del Conte, in The Concise Gastronomy of Italy, includes bittersweet (minimum 70%) chocolate and a garnish of sieved hard-boiled egg. Other ingredients occasionally seen are dried chili or harissa, and garlic. 

How to make caponata

As far as preparation is concerned, there is relative harmony, except over whether the aubergine, which is always fried separately from the onion and celery, should be pre-salted, whether you can shallow-fry rather than deep-fry it (I don’t advise it) and how long you cook caponata once all the ingredients have been added. Whether for 15 minutes or an hour, it should be left for at least two hours to allow the flavors to infuse. 

Where there is a lack of unity—one that makes a critical difference to the accompanying wine—is over the amounts and relative proportions of vinegar and sugar. Some recipes use three times as much as others. Some list equal quantities of vinegar and sugar; others use nearly seven times as much vinegar as sugar. 

The individual vinegar also has a big impact. I like Forvm (aka Forum) Cabernet Sauvignon, an aged vinegar and grape juice blend. And I taste as I go, usually ending up with 50ml of vinegar and one tablespoon of sugar for 500g aubergine, one medium onion, two to three sticks of celery 250–270g tomatoes, and 35–40g each of olives, capers, and sultanas. 

Best wines to pair with caponata

It gives an agrodolce balance that works with the dark fruit and cherry intensity, herb, spice, black olive, black pepper, and vital acidity of Cerasuolo di Vittoria (Nero d’Avola/Frappato blend). Conveniently, if you are serving caponata alongside fish, it’s often one of the best reds to have with fish. It’s also good with salumi. The Santa Tresa estate is consistently good at achieving the desirable bright, precise fruit, soft tannins, and juicy acidity in its Cerasuolo di Vittoria. 

Well made Nero d’Avola in a lighter, crunchier style can also work, as can Etna Nerello Mascalese, youngish Chianti, and some Primitivo di Manduria. But it’s always a tightrope walk with caponata’s sweetness and acidity lying in wait on either side. 

The same applies to white and rosé—and whatever the color I would avoid wines that show their oak. I have had some success with Etna Rosato, but most are a bit too elegantly dry. The exuberance of Tavel has been more successful, including recently Arbousset Tavel 2021. 

White wines need forthright acidity as well as fairly bright fruit to handle the sweetness. Sicily fields whites such as Carricante and Catarratto Lucido, varietals and blended, but, again, a note of caution: Etna Bianco, like Etna Rosato, can be overpowered. That said, Firriato’s 2019 Le Sabbie Dell’Etna Bianco went very well this week. It had retained its acidity and minerality while acquiring a touch of honey. I am fairly sure that Forza della Natura Orange Catarratto would work, too, although I have yet to try this pairing. 

A wild-card white is the vivid fruit and acidity of a good Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. It walks alongside but in step with the caponata, both wine and dish retaining their integrity. Recommendations are probably superfluous, so I’ll stick to one: Greywacke. 

Returning to reds, but outside Italy, others that have made the grade include Saint-Chinian (Syrah/Grenache), Côtes du Rhônes from the ripe but fresh 2019 vintage, a Swartland Mourvèdre/Carignan/Grenache, and a Peumo Carmenère—ripe but with sweet, fresh green-leaf intensity. 

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Joanna Simon offers some trenchant views on the preparation of the Italian bean and pasta soup pasta e fagioli and the best wines to serve with it.

Once I started researching pasta e fagioli, which I thought I knew well, I discovered I was under a misapprehension. I thought that this rustic, chunky Italian pasta and bean soup was Roman in origin. It may be, but there are other claims, including for the Veneto and Tuscany, and there’s a strong case for saying that it originated further south in Naples, in the province of Campania.

There it’s called pasta e fasule (or pasta fasul or fazool in New York Italian dialect), and it has long been popular, although, as a peasant dish, it was not written down until relatively recently. The first documented Neapolitan bean soup is a recipe in the iconic 19th-century cookbook, La Cucina Teorico-Pratica by Ippolito Cavalcanti (1837). 

Wherever pasta e fagioli comes from, beans have been a staple of Italian cooking for thousands of years, although they wouldn’t have been borlotti until after the discovery of the Americas. 

One thing I’m sure I’m not wrong about is that it’s a very easy recipe of few ingredients but one that can easily be spoiled in the usual way: seeking to improve it by adding other ingredients. Pasta e fagioli is definitely a case of less is more. In my view. 

And now that I’ve expressed a view, I think I should let you have the rest of mine on the subject. I’m not saying that this is the one authentic—there are regional variations and internecine variations within families—but it’s what I do and naturally I think it has an aura of complete authenticity.

Starting with the beans: they have to be borlotti. So that’s no to cannellini beans. Borlotti have a deeper, richer, earthier flavor, with a hint of the nutty sweetness of chestnuts. Fresh or dried are infinitely preferable to canned, but I have been known to resort to cans (no one is perfect). 

For the soffritto (sautéed vegetables) prepared while the beans are cooking, I use onion, celery, and olive oil. Some people also include carrot.

Tomato: I favor a good passata, but some cooks prefer canned plum tomatoes crushed roughly in the pan. Others use fresh tomatoes—and perhaps I would if had the abundance and quality available in southern Italy. Others choose tomato purée. Your choice. 

At the table: Caponata

As I have already suggested, pasta e fagioli should not be a kitchen sink of a dish weighed down with a list of ingredients of which Ottolenghi would be proud. So that’s no to additional vegetables such as cavolo nero and chard, no to a herb-garden’s worth of herbs, and no to prosciutto or pancetta, although I concede that the latter occur in regional variations. And it’s a big no (or “No, no, no,” as one notable British prime minister might have put it) to Parmesan. For herbs, I use a couple of bay leaves, but you could add a sprig of rosemary or thyme or some parsley stalks. 

As for the cooking liquid, I use the water in which the beans, fresh or dried, were cooked, but you could opt for stock/broth (either vegetable or meat). Indeed, it may be a good idea if using canned beans. What isn’t a good idea is wine: it’s a waste of wine and may add unwanted acidity. Adding the liquid bit by bit as if making risotto is also entirely unnecessary, but it’s worth having some boiling water ready at the end in case it needs thinning. 

The pasta, added once the beans are cooked, should be short and tubular, such as ditalini, cavatappi or tubetti, or maltagliati (small, flat, irregular square or rhomboid shapes), or mixed shapes (pasta mista).

Although you should be ready to thin it if necessary, pasta e fagioli should be a thick soup-cum-stew—the consistency achieved by taking a cup of beans and a little of the liquid once they’re cooked, puréeing them (I use a stick blender), then returning the purée to the pan immediately before adding the pasta. I’m sure I don’t need to say that you should remove the pan from the heat while the pasta is still properly al dente. 

I serve it drizzled with single-estate extra-virgin Tuscan or Sicilian olive oil, which isn’t strictly authentic but is delicious.

Pasta e fagioli: Simple, rustic matches?

Can such a simple, rustic soup require anything but its equivalent in wine terms? In answer, I would ask: how often have I been served chunky, peasant-style cabbage soups at leading Tuscan estates with the estate’s wines, sometimes entry-level Toscana or a Rosso di Montalcino, rather than the flagship Chianti, Brunello, or Super-Tuscan, but not always. 

The question was rhetorical, but the answer is: enough to feel vindicated in doing the same if I feel like it. If I had a good supply of Tignanello (two vintages of which I was tasting last week at London’s new Cantinetta Antinori), I would be happy to pair one bottle with pasta e fagioli, followed perhaps by lamb. The point is that the simplicity of the pasta e fagioli ensures that the wine is the star. 

But far more often I choose a simpler, young Italian and am not confined by Sangiovese-based Tuscans. To give a few examples: Avignonesi Rosso di Montepulciano, Ciacci Piccolomini d’Aragona Toscana (2020), Ceretto Bernadina Nebbiolo d’Alba (the 2020 is particularly food-friendly), Brigaldara Casa Vecie Valpolicella Superiore (here, too, the 2020). Barbera, when it’s not an ambitious, oaky style, can be another good call; likewise, Aglianico, if it’s not overly tannic.

Biondi-Santi Riserva 2016: The more things change …

Beyond Italy, I look for youngish reds with a savory rather than a predominantly sweet-fruit accent, characteristics that may derive from soils, grape varieties, age of vines, altitude, biodynamics, and any number of other variables. We see more and more of these: wines such as Mencía from Bierzo’s schist soils; Marcillac from a pocket of iron-rich soil in southwest France and other wines from the southwest’s distinctive local grape varieties, including good, entry-level Cahors; red blends from Swartland’s schists and granites; and Lebanese red blends. 

It doesn’t have to be red wine, but whites tend to get lost. I would urge orange wines or Sercial Madeira instead. Chewy, grippy Georgian orange wines work, but so do the gentlest orange styles, among them Calmel & Joseph Amstramgram Pomone 2022, a Roussanne, Marsanne, Terret Gris blend of quiet textural charm. A Madeira that shines with pasta e fagioli is Henriques & Henriques 10 Year Old Sercial, with its walnut and sultana warmth braced by the defining salty, smoky, orange-peel tang. It’s also a fine match for smoked salmon, but that’s another story.

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Joanna Simon explores the history, preparation, and wines to pair with Coniglio alla Ligure, a popular Italian rabbit dish that is near-ubiquitous in its home region of Liguria.

Nowadays you might find Liguria’s signature rabbit dish anywhere in Italy, with occasional regional adaptations such as Sicily’s typical agrodolce version with vinegar, sugar, and local Nocellara olives, but in its home region Coniglio alla Ligure isn’t so much anywhere as everywhere, or at least in every trattoria’s and every nonna’s repertoire—together, of course, with pesto and, on the coast, seafood. 

Why rabbit? Think of the vineyards of this narrow, crescent-shaped coastal strip of north west Italy and it points towards the answer: vertiginous, rocky hillsides, often terraced and held up by dry-stone walls, frequently dropping straight down to the sea. Vines can thrive in such conditions, and poor soils are no barrier to olive trees either, but this is no kind of terrain for animal grazing or grain growing. 

There are more hospitable parts of Liguria, especially to the west where, sheltered from the winds by the Maritime Alps, flowers and early vegetables are cultivated, but this densely populated, mountainous region was never going have much land to devote to livestock. 

Rabbits are different: they can be reared in limited space and are famously reproductive. Rabbit farming became a feature of Liguria long ago, especially the western hinterland, and families reared their own. So this is a recipe of farmed rabbit, not the tougher flesh of the wild.

Coniglio alla Ligure: Simple and local

The ingredients are simple and local. In addition to the rabbit, there are Taggiasca olives (which I’ll come back to), pine nuts, extra virgin olive oil (quite a lot, although less in some modern recipes), dry wine (more of which in a moment), stock (broth), fresh bay leaves, thyme and rosemary, onion (usually) and sometimes garlic and/or celery. 

The method is equally simple. The rabbit pieces, including, traditionally, heart and kidneys, are sautéd, as are onion, garlic, and celery if used; the wine and broth are then added together with the pine nuts, herbs, and olives and the dish is cooked over a low heat for about an hour. 

The Taggiasca olive, known as Niçoise in France and Coquillo in Spain, is a small, firm-fleshed variety of varying colour, but often brownish purple. It’s been grown in Liguria for centuries, valued for the intensity of its aroma and taste as a table variety, as well as for the quality of the oil it produces. 

As for the wine, most recipes use dry white, which in Liguria means Vermentino, or the local Pigato clone, but in the west, where the dish is said to originate, more red wine is produced, namely Rossese di Dolceacqua and Ormeasco de Pornassio (Rossese is the Tibouren of neighbouring Provence’s rosé wines and Ormeasco is a clone of Dolcetto). 

Locally, the wine drunk with Coniglio alla Ligure is almost invariably the same as the one used in its preparation and I would do the same when there. Beyond Liguria’s borders, I don’t feel the need to toe the line, although I would happily drink Rossese di Dolceacqua if it was easier to find (one to look out for is Terre Bianche).

Although I cook this dish with white wine (Vermentino, out of respect more than anything else!), I usually drink red with it. Medium to light-bodied, fresher but not overly fruity styles, rather than powerful or tannic reds, can pick up the umami notes of the olives and fall in with the aromatic herbs without overpowering the rabbit. 

From Liguria to the Loire

More than 25 years ago when I was researching Wine With Food, I concluded that the best reds for rabbit were Loire Cabernet Francs such as Saumur-Champigny and Chinon, Chiroubles, Aglianico del Vulture, Fronton, and, for those who wanted to go with Burgundy, Côte de Beaune rather than Nuits. Today, I would recommend the Hautes Côtes de Beaune, in particular (producers such as Domaine Boris Champy and Thibault Liger-Belair.

Red Loires have become riper and fleshier in the intervening years, but the Cabernet Francs still have the characteristic green sweetness and freshness that hits the spot with the rabbit and olives, especially Saumur-Champigny from the likes of Château du Hureau. Similarly, Beaujolais Crus have evolved—indeed quality has soared—and it’s all to the good with this dish, although I now favour Chénas or Juliénas (from Pascal Aufranc, for example—notable for value) or a Morgon (such as Domaine Mée Godard). 

Aglianico del Vulture can be too robust for rabbit, but one such as Basilisco’s Teodosio has contemporary elegance and perfume allied to the savoury, volcanic minerality and freshness. 

Wines that have come onto my radar for Coniglio alla Ligure more recently are Arbois Trousseau, especially Benedicte & Stephane Tissot’s Singular, young Chianti with finesse rather than richness, and modern Blaufränkisch with minimal oak influence. 

Finally, a white: Le Soula Blanc from the Côtes Catalanes. 

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In the latest in her series exploring classic wine country dishes, Joanna Simon explores the history of a much-loved, pungently flavored Siclian dish, sarde a beccafico, and suggests some of the best wines to serve with it.

Almost every description and recipe for the classic Sicilian dish sarde a beccafico starts by explaining (and I’m following convention) that it is so named because the sardines (sarde)—boned, stuffed and rolled up to leave their tails standing up—look like a dish of figpeckers (beccafichi). These small, wild birds, which fed on ripe figs on the island in summer, were hunted and eaten, stuffed with their entrails, as a delicacy by the nobility. Sardines, in contrast, were abundant and cheap and therefore ideal for a making a poor-man’s version, cucina povera as opposed to the cucina baronale, a distinction which was already taking hold in Sicily in the early sixteenth century.

Sarde a beccafico: An alternative explanation

I have never doubted this explanation, first given to me by the elderly nonna who cooked and served me sarde a beccafico in Monreale on my inaugural visit to Sicily decades ago, but I have come across one alternative explanation. It’s entirely different and I haven’t been able to verify it (if any Sicilian dialect speaker can, I would love to know), but it’s a colourful one and bears repeating. In her book The Italian Cookery Course (2009), Katie Caldesi says: “Beccafico is the Sicilian word for two people who are having an argument and are face to face in conflict, just as the sardines lie in the roasting dish.” The fact that recipes don’t usually say the sardines should be laid facing each other is perhaps an argument against the theory.

When the dish first appeared is unclear, but it may have been early in the early 19th century, when beccafico was known to be a favourite dish of Maria Carolina, wife of Ferdinand, King of Naples and Sicily and later King of the Two Sicilies (Sicilian history is nothing if not complicated). Ordinary Sicilians were not only prohibited from eating beccafico, they could not have afforded to.

Just as it's not known exactly when sarde a beccafico was created, it’s not certain where for the same reason: cucina povera was seldom documented until the twentieth century. Nevertheless, it seems likely that it originated in or around Palermo, where the royal court was based from 1805 on. Today, it’s a dish made and eaten with many variations throughout Sicily, but sarde a beccafico alla Palermitana is the most characteristic and usually thought of as the classic, although not in Catania on the east of the island, where, the stuffing of the alla Catanese version includes cheese, either Caciocavollo or Pecorino, and the sardines are deep-fried.

Sweet-sour accent

Cheese is used in many variations. Others incorporate almonds or pistachios, some add parsley or wild fennel, some include orange zest or saffron or a pinch of sugar, but they all have the punchy, agrodolce (sweet-sour) accent that seems so quintessentially (but not exclusively) Sicilian. In sarde a beccafico alla Palermitana the essentials are sultanas, anchovies, pine nuts, black olives, capers, olive oil, lemon zest and juice, breadcrumbs, olive oil, and bay leaves to tuck in the dish between each fish.

It goes without saying that the emphatic flavours—oily fish, sweet, salty, sharp stuffing—can challenge accompanying wines, but they also give plenty of scope. There isn’t one wine or style that is the clear winner. Red might not seem an obvious choice (except perhaps to devotees of red Vinho Verde with sardines) and I’m not advocating red wine over white or rosé, but Sicilians often drink red with fish. Both Vittoria in the south east and Etna provide opportunities.

From Sicilia to Galicia

A fragrant, light, sappy Frappato, such as Santa Tresa Rina Russa from Vittoria makes a more than companionable match, as does the tang of a more powerful Cerasuolo di Vittoria (Nero d’Avola leavened with Frappato), as long as it isn’t an oaky example. Planeta is a favourite producer—although, here, too, you need to take care to avoid too much oak. Among white wines, Santa Tresa Rina Ianca Grillo Viognier pitches salted-grapefruit persistence, wild fennel, and roast almond against the apricot notes of Viognier, and almost seems to echo the stuffing.

As so often, the distinctive elegance and minerality of Etna wines scale the heights with food. And with sarde a beccafico you can pick your colour: the Pinot-meets-Nebbiolo litheness and perfume of the Nerello reds, the energy of the Carricante whites with their citrus, orange blossom, fennel and saline notes, or the spicy, briny, red fruit and orange zest charm of a rosato. Pietrodolce and Donnafugata produce very good wines in all three colours.

Just as I’m not advancing reds over whites or rosés, there’s no need to stick to Sicily. Albariños that have been lees-aged, often stirred for a year or more, have an intensity, freshness and depth that cuts through and complements the sardines and their stuffing. Just one? It has to be Pazo de Señorans Selección de Añada.

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In the first of a monthly series exploring classic dishes from the world's great wine regions, the award-winning wine and food writer Joanna Simon reflects on the Piemontese rice dish, Risotto al Barolo—and selects some accompanying local wines

We may think of Italians as pasta eaters but, in the north, rice rules. Italy is Europe’s leading producer of rice, most of it is grown in the Po basin, in the so-called rice belt stretching from Piedmont through Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna, and more than half of the country’s 220,000 ha (543,630 acres) under rice are in Piedmont. No wonder, then, that rice, not pasta, is the staple of the north and that the classic Italian rice dish, risotto (which was first documented in the nineteenth century) should be a feature of every northern province and just about every restaurant and home. And no surprise that there should be many regional variations. Of these, alla Milanese, flavoured and colored by saffron, is unusual in that it’s not only served as a primo piatto but is traditionally served alongside osso buco as a main course, and the Veneto’s risotto al nero di seppia, made black by the ink of the cuttlefish, is arguably the most striking looking. But the regional version that stands most decisively apart from all other well-established variations is Piedmont’s risotto al Barolo, made with red not white wine.

There’s no need to ask why. There have always been white grapes in Piedmont— although sometimes in the past more valued to soften Nebbiolo red wines than for making still whites in their own right—but it is unquestionably preeminently a red wine region.

Probably because of the bigger flavor profile of red wine, the traditional variations of risotto al Barolo tend to be with substantial ingredients. Among the most common are sausage and borlotti beans, one or the other or both together. Slightly more unusual is Valentina Harris’ recipe for risotto al Barolo, which she describes as "a very old recipe for making a traditional Piedmontese dish”: It includes stewing veal as well as borlotti beans. Porcini are the key addition in risotto al Barolo con fungi. I have also seen bone marrow in a recipe for risotto al Barolo.

In terms of making risotto al Barolo, the only difference from other risotto recipes is the colour of the wine. The other ingredients are the same: butter, finely chopped onion, round grain Italian rice (ideally carnaroli, but arborio or vialone nano, if not), good stock and Parmesan or a local Piedmont cheese such as Castelmagno. Whether you are a purist and stick to Barolo or use a cheaper Piedmont red (Langhe Nebbiolo, Barbera, which will give more colour, or Dolcetto) or another red altogether is your choice. I like to use a Piedmont wine, but I have had success with others as disparate as Crozes-Hermitage and high-altitude Côtes du Roussillon. Whichever wine you use, it needs to be pretty decent quality and in irreproachable condition.

The method, too, is the same as for any risotto. Soffritto—softening the onion in butter—is followed by tostatura—adding the rice and turning it in the butter to ‘toast’ it. The next step is adding and evaporating the wine, followed by the stock, a ladle at a time, each ladleful evaporated before the next is added and all the time stirring the rice to release its starch, the starch that gives risotto its quintessential creamy texture. After roughly 15 minutes, the rice should be al dente—retaining just a little bite—and the consistency should be creamy, but not soupy. The last step, with the heat low, is the mantecatura: beating in cold, diced butter and then cheese. I then do one final, optional stage that I learned from Giorgio Locatelli: I make a little well in each serving of risotto at the table and pour in a splash of Barolo, or whichever red wine I either used or am serving with the risotto, and then grate some more cheese over it.

Now to the accompanying wine. For me, it has to be red; whites all seem to taste thin or are too aromatic. Barolo works very well, but so does Barbaresco and, perhaps perversely, I favor Barbaresco with this risotto. Sottimano’s Pajoré, or any of the family’s other single-vineyard wines, would be ideal, from 2010 or a more recent vintage (there have been a lot of good ones recently ).

Other Piedmont wines to consider are Langhe Nebbiolo, Ruché di Castagnole Monferrato, the wines of Alto Piemonte, such as Gattinara and Lessona, and Barbera, although be wary of the more heavily oaked Barberas. In general I haven’t found Dolcetto as successful. Outside Piedmont, Etna Rosso has worked well and beyond Italy, medium-mature Burgundy is my wine of choice, or top Pinot Noir from Germany or Oregon Pinot Noir.

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