As I wrote in my latest column — which went up today in The Japan TImes — Casa Vinitalia has many more strings to its bow than just a well stocked cellar. Such as...
• an elaborate menu, with fine cooking to match — not that you'd expect anything else from the Aroma Fresca group.
• a dining room that's chic but relaxed, with one section open (year-round they say) onto the handsome little terrace garden.
• and excellent wait staff who are professional, friendly and informed — well our young waiter was, anyway (bravo!)
But it's the wine you see first — the showroom on the ground floor as you come in from Sakurada-dori; and then the impressive array of bottles on the stairs leading up to the restaurant. Those are just for display but they certainly put you in the right mood for some serious oenological investigation.
So first, here's a rundown of what we quaffed with the fine meal we had at Vinitalia a couple of weeks back (I've also got plenty of photos of what we ate which I'll post later).
First off a nice bubbly — Cavalleri, a blanc be blancs from Franciacorta...
...while we perused the wine tome with its cheerful Keith Haring cover.
In the end, though, we decided not to get a full bottle (or two) but to go the by-the-glass route. Apologies throughout for the blurry pixilated photos — the light got progressively poorer as we got increasingly cheerful.
These were some of the highlights (no tasting notes, though; I was focusing on the food too much).
With the bagna cauda: a couple of glasses of Hirschprunn Contest (Chardonnay/Pinot Grigio from Alto-Adige); and with the fresh porcini "gratin", the Panizzi (Vernaccia di San Gimignano; Toscana)...
With the fritto of trippa the Falanghina Villa Matilde, from Rocca dei Leoni (Campania)...
And we paired the Montepeloso (Sangiovese 100%; Toscana) with the crab riso pilaf.
And with our main course — the soft-simmered beef cheek — we went with the recommended "matrimonio" (marriage/pairing), which was Bricco Manzoni di Valentino 2004, from Rocche dei Manzoni in Monforte d'Alba, Piemonte (Nebbiolo 80%/Barbera 20%).
This was poured for us with intense concentration and care from the jeroboam (double magnum)...
We enjoyed this so much we got our waiter to come back to pour us refills, to go with the pasta redux course.
We were tempted to close with a couple of glasses of vino dolce. There were some that aren't shown on the menu, including a Moscato I seem to recall. But the desserts were so good and we were so replete we left that pleasure for next time...
