Friday, May 13, 2022

Wine and Food of the Giro 2022 Stage 7: Diamante to Potenza

Where are we? Leaving Calabria and heading to Basilicata. 

Diamante: A city by the sea. The Giro tells me that it is located in one of the most picturesque areas in the north Tirrenic coast. This area is called “Riviera dei cedri” because of the huge cultivation of citrus ( in Italian “cedro”).  In addition,  It is also known as the “Capital of the chilly pepper” – called Peperoncino in Italian. The “Peperoncino Festival”, a gastronomic and cultural event, takes place here every year in September, managed by the Italian Academy of Chilly Pepper (Accademia Italiana del Peperoncino): this festival is going to celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2022.

The food: The typical gastronomy of the town is rich and varied: you can taste fish and sea-food dishes as well as rural dishes. Every dish is always topped with a little bit of chilly pepper, mostly with the one called “Diavolicchio Diamante”, that is a local type of this spice. There are several unique dishes ideal to be tasted by tourists: first of all, one of the most famous dishes is “la Raganella”, the perfect match between sea food and chilly pepper: it has a round shape and it is made of bread, chilly pepper and bluefish. Secondly, you could taste salt anchovies and chilly pepper with salad. Otherwise, if you don’t like this spicy taste, there are dishes made of a local variety of citrus, the one called “Liscia Diamante”, needed by Jews, too, during their Feast of Tabernacles. Citrus is used to make liquors and ice creams, as well as “I panicilli di d’Annunzio” , a dish with raisins named after the poet who loved it.

Potenza: Potenza is the highest regional capital in Italy at 819 meters above sea level. The Giro tells me there may be a festival afoot: In May, then, the city is enveloped in a magical atmosphere that revolves around the preparations for the celebrations in honour of its patron saint, San Gerardo Vescovo da Piacenza, celebrations that are intertwined with the historic Parade of the Turks, a parade that retraces the crucial moments in history, loudly narrated by entire generations of the capital, which sees the city’s patron saint repel with a blinding glare the invasion of the Turks who silently came up the Basento river.

The food: Basilicata’s traditional cuisine features a broad variety of specialities: From strascinati, homemade pasta served with tomato sauce or in other delicious and unmissable recipes, to flavourful cheeses, produced by traditional methods, such as Pecorino cheese of Filiano (PDO), Canestrato of Moliterno (PGI), ricotta, scamorza and caciocavallo (gourd-shaped cheese), and to pork sausage, such as the “lucanega” variety, already known in ancient Rome. Matera bread (PGI), with its fragrant flavour and characteristic shape that reminds Murgia landscapes, is really worth trying. Other delicious specialties include: black, oven-dried olives from Ferrandina area, baccalà (dried salt-cured cod) from Avigliano, optimum mineral waters from the springs of Mount Vulture, Rotonda red eggplant PGI, Sarconi bean PGI and Senise pepper PGI. Fresh seasonal fruit is a recurrent motif on the table: citrus fruits, strawberries, peaches, pears and grapes are only some of the varieties cultivated on the plains around Metaponto.


The stage: The most interesting stage profile so far? Probably yes.
Interesting probably not the word the grupetto will be using today as this was likely to be a struggle for them. Word came that relatively early, they were at 13 minutes down.  Speaking of the grupetto, Cav's leadout man, Morkov, has abandoned due to illness.
Certainly the most interesting breakaway group, after multiple attempts to get away. 
 That group would ride together for quite a while, with riders dropping, making their way back and eventually truly falling off the back. Some impressive riding by Villella had him getting back to the front. 
Apparently it was snack time.  Thirty kilometers to go and they were testing each other up front. Camargo and Villella were dropped. Formolo, Dumoulin, and Mollema were clearly the strongest, but Bouwman was able to make it back. One would expect the winner of the stage to come from this quartet. Behind, in the main peloton, the key gc riders had come to the front. 
Once again, I was dreaming of a grupetto cam.
At the front, Dumoulin was dropped, but made it back. This has been a lot of fun.
Taking the stage with a strong sprint: Bouwman!




The wine:  Grifalco Aglianico del Vulture
Back to Dig for this one. They say: Grifalco is an excellent producer of Aglianico del Vulture owned by the Piccin family, who were originally wine producers in Tuscany but decided that southern Italy, Basilicata in particular, was more promising. Sourcing grapes from all four different vineyards, this bottling represents in the Piccin’s minds what Aglianico del Vulture should be and is capable of. Notes of blackberry, black cherry, licorice, and wild herbs. Well-balanced, with firm, sweet tannins and juicy acidity








The food: A tomato, olive and caper sauce gift from a friend.
From the importer: The Belfiore family has been farming since the 1800s. Their farm, the Masseria Mirogallo, sits on 70 acres of land in the province of Matera in the southern portion of Basilicata (a district known in ancient times as Lucania).

Matera is said to be one of the oldest cities in the world—much older than Rome. The region, which encompasses “the arch of the Italian boot”, was first settled during Paleolithic times, and the fertile, mountainous valleys were a very important food source area during Greek and Roman times.

Basilicata is little known to most, but Matera is one of Italy’s main tourist destinations because it is home to the unique Sassi di Matera, a prehistoric settlement of stone houses built directly into caves. Today, the city is one of UNESCO’s World Heritage sites.

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)