My Dinner With Andrea

First of all, this particular Andrea's a dude, Andrea Spada by name. Named best young sommelier in Italy a few years ago. Author of definitive guidebooks to the vineyards of Romagna. Restaurateur.

He scouted the wineries I visited last week (on a press trip sponsored by the Enoteca Regionale di Emilia Romagna), then came along for the visits and tastings. We also had dinner at his restaurant in Faenza, Noè, named Noah for the first planter of vines, the first wine maker, and, truth be told, the first to get pass-out hammered. All this after the flood, mind you.

Spada's place--his third restaurant--is devoted to art as well as the harmony of wine and food. Now, most of us follow the paint-by-numbers pairings. Only rarely do we come into contact with people who are so intimately familiar with the subtle tastes and aromas of hundreds of similar wines--and ever-changing plates from the kitchen--that they unerringly find the perfect match. No hit-and-miss, no "almost." It's a satisfaction beyond words.

Seven wines for six courses, including three lovely sangioveses (Romagna's all-purpose red) and three takes on the gets-no-respect albana grape variety: two at the start of the meal with the omnipresent plate of cold cuts, one magnficent passito at the end. The grapes for passito are dried in the sun after harvest, concentrating their natural sugars for a sensational sweet wine. The 2004 bottling from Tre Rè had overtones of peaches and apricots yet plenty of acidity to complement a fig tart.

Other countries play games with their wines, adding oak chips to the juice for more "flavor" and all sorts of goop to give the wine more body. Not here. Wine is governed by rigid tradition, intense rivalries and often-petty local politics, resulting in a crazy-quilt of bottles. But there's no question about their sincerity and authenticity.

Views of Emilia-Romagna

Vineyards of the Colli Piacentini, looking north toward the Alps.

The region of Emilia-Romagna sits like a garter high on the thigh of the Italian boot. As you stand on the slopes of the Apennines looking north across the plains of the Po valley, the snow-capped Alps stand like false teeth on the horizon. Were you to turn and hike across the top of the hills, you'd be in the yuppie playgrounds of Tuscany and Umbria. Instead, you're in the land of picture postcards: renaissance art cities strung like pearls along the ancient Via Emilia (Piacenza, Parma, Reggio, Modena, Bologna, Ravenna). For art enthusiasts, heaven.

For racing enthusiasts, Formula One heaven as well. Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini and Ducacti are all headquartered here, the pride of Italy's high-performance motor industry. The San Marino Grand Prix is held in the Romagna resort of Rimini.

Vineyards, of course. They grow a bewildering number of grape varieties, most unknown outside of Italy, made in styles ranging from slightly fizzy to full-bodied, from dry to sweet. Much of what growers can grow and wine makers can vinify is defined by legislation and tradition. And, as often happens, the best producers simply make what they like, defying the rules.

And not a few castles. The castello at Rivalta, built by the same architect who would go on to design Moscow's Kremlin, is the family home of the Contessa Zanardi Landi. The motorcycle in the courtyard belongs to her son, who's obviously following the local tradition of defying tradition: it's a Kawasaki.