I Love Italian Wine and Food - The Bascilicata Region

If you are seeing for fine Italian wine and food, think the Bascilicata region of southern Italy. You may find a bargain, and I hope that you'll have fun on this fact-filled wine education tour.

Bascilicata is the instep of the Italian boot. This hilly and great region is placed in the southwest corner of Italy on the Ionian Sea. Parts of Bascilicata have been placed since the Stone Age. It was conquered by the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, and Normans. When the pirates came, the local inhabitants were forced to flee into the interior. Historically the region is quite poor. Its people is slightly more than 600 thousand.

Aged Beef Steaks

Agriculture products comprise barley, citrus fruit, corn, potatoes, oats, olives, and tomatoes. While meat is relatively scarce, more and more sheep, pigs, goats, and cattle are raised. There is some manufactures together with a major Fiat (automobile) factory. Tourism is becoming more popular, in spite of, and perhaps in part because of a lack of infrastructure.

I Love Italian Wine and Food - The Bascilicata Region

USDA Prime 21 days Aged Beef Rib Eye Steak Bone in 2- 1.3/4"Thick Free Bottle Peter Luger B-B-Q- Sauce Best

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USDA Prime 21 days Aged Beef Rib Eye Steak Bone in 2- 1.3/4"Thick Free Bottle Peter Luger B-B-Q- Sauce Overview

USDA Prime 21 Days Aged Beef Rib Steaks. Avg. weight is 16 oz per inch thick. The rib eye or ribeye, is a beef steak from the beef rib. When cut into steaks, the rib eye is one of the most popular, juiciest, and expensive steaks on the market. Meat from the rib section is more tender and fattier (the meat is said to be "marbled") than most other cuts of beef. This extra fat makes rib eye steaks and roasts especially tender and flavorsome. The ribeye can be cut boneless or bone-in; a "bone-in rib eye" (sometimes called a "cowboy rib eye") is synonymous with a rib steak. The cuts are otherwise identical; a justification sometimes used for leaving the bone in is that extra moisture and fat alongside the bone will enhance the flavor. Always fresh, never frozen. All our USDA Prime meat is custom cut to order, wrapped in trays with film paper and double wrap in wax paper. Not vacuum pack.( it loses the flavor ) We chill the meat to preserve the freshness for shipping only

Customer Reviews

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Feb 08, 2012 10:30:40

Bascilicata's executive town is Potenza, a city of about 70 thousand. It is known as the coldest city in Italy and sometimes has snow. The city of Matera has at least two reasons to be proud. In September, 1943 it was the first Italian city to rise up against the German occupation. And Matera contains a prehistoric settlement, caves that have been occupied by people for at least 9 thousand years. In some places, the streets are honestly rooftops. Parts of this area are now classified as a World heritage Site.

Bascilicata devotes about 60 thousand acres to grapevines, it ranks 17th among the 20 Italian regions. Its total every year wine output is less than 13 million gallons, also giving it a 17th place. About 73% of the wine output is red, leaving 27% for white. The region produces two Doc wines, Aglianico del Vulture, reviewed below, and Terre dell Alta Val d'Agri. Doc stands for Denominazione di Origine Controllata, which may be translated as Denomination of Controlled Origin, presumably a high-quality wine. Only 2.4% of Bascilicata wine carries the Doc designation. Bascilicata is home to about two dozen major and secondary grape varieties, half red and half white.

Widely grown international white grape varieties comprise Malvasia and Muscato. The best-known strictly Italian white variety is Malvasia Bianca di Basilicato. Virtually no Bascilicata white wine is exported to North America.

Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot are international red grape varieties that originate the Terre dell Alta Val d'Agri Doc wine. The best-known Italian red variety is Aglianico, which may have honestly originated in Greece.

Before we reviewing the Bascilicata wine and Italian cheese that we were lucky adequate to buy at a local wine store and a local Italian food store, here are a few suggestions of what to eat with indigenous wines when touring this gorgeous region.
Start with Acgua e Sale, Soaked Bread with Sweet Onion, Tomato, and Basil. Then try Grano con Ragù de Maiale, Savory Pork Ragout.
For sweetmeat indulge yourself with Grano Dolce, Plump Wheat with Pomegranate, Chocolate, and Nuts.

Our Wine describe policy While we have communicated with well over a thousand Italian wine producers and merchants to help get ready these articles, our policy is clear. All wines that we taste and describe are purchased at the full retail price.

Wine Reviewed

Cantine di Palma Doc 'Il Nibbio Grigio' Aglianico Vulture 2000 13% alcohol about

Let's start with the marketing materials. "Medium ruby in color with aromas of dried berries, leather, figs, dried flowers and spice. This medium-bodied wine has a rustic style, it's quite assertive on the palate with some dusty tannins. It would be great with lamb chops or braised pork ribs and could repaymen 2-3 years added cellaring. (August 2005)."

This was a wine that I was rooting for, prior to occasion the bottle. It is a hard life for many people in Bascilicata; perhaps that's why the residents live longer than in most other Italian regions. But I didn't have to cheat to like this wine. Interestingly enough, my victualer has dropped the price by a bottle, which may be a first for the wines in this series. I might buy a half case and taste it over the years. And now to my review.

The first pairing was with meat balls and potatoes. The wine had a fine nose. It was quite full-bodied, and tasted of tobacco (I'm not a smoker) and cherries. While the wine was very pleasant it was shorter than I had hoped. It was quite enjoyable on its own.

My reactions were basically the same when tasting this wine with beef ribs, except that the wine was gently long. It was easy to drink but not light.

Then I drank this wine with a grilled rib steak in my spicy, homemade barbeque sauce that included ketchup, Dijon-style mustard, horseradish, fresh garlic, and black pepper. The accompaniments included potatoes cooked in chicken fat (a specialty of a local supermarket) and a tomato and red pepper salsa. The wine was honestly excellent. It held up well and tasted of dark fruit and tobacco.

I didn't have any Bascilicata cheese so I had to decree for two other Italian cheeses. Isola is a Sicilian fresh cheese made from sheep's milk. The Isola cheese was powerful, strong smelling and strong tasting, especially when you crunched into a peppercorn. Even though it was getting a bit long in the tooth, the cheese intensified the Aglicano's fruitiness. Montasio is a cooked, full-fat, semi-hard cheese made from cow's milk and aged for several months. It has a pungent smell and a strong, pasty taste. It comes from the Friuli-Venezia Giuli of northeastern Italy. This time the wine and cheese pairing was not as successful, but the mixture was still satisfying.

Before giving my verdict, which I believe you can guess, I do have one final comment. In spite of what I have read, this wine is not very tannic. I would not suggest keeping it until 2020, or even 2015, as some others suggest. But I do suggest buying it now, and even storing it for a few years.

I Love Italian Wine and Food - The Bascilicata RegionZimmern on Steak: At-Home Aging and Freezing - A Good Idea? Tube. Duration : 2.28 Mins.

Does freezing steak ruin its flavor or texture? Can you safely dry-age beef at home? Zimmern visits Byerly's to get to the meat of the issue. August 19, 2007

Tags: food, steak, dry-age, Byerly's, Andrew, Zimmern, freezing