G&B: 2019: Italy

Geoff Brock & Bruce Gamble

Castelfranco Emilia, Villa San Donnino, Le Roncole & Antica Corte Pallavicina

Tuesday, 14th May 2019

We were awake at 6:30am for the start of our full day gastronomic tour of the Emilia Romagna region. The breakfast room in the hotel looked promising, but the staff seemed disinterested and it took some time to get a cup of coffee.

At 8:00am, we met our guide Fabio again. He introduced us to our driver for the day, another Fabio! We were soon on our way, driving west out of the city towards Castelfranco Emilia, near Modena, in the Parmigiano Reggiano region, where we had our first stop.

A map of the region - only cheese produced here qualifies officially as Parmigiano Reggiano.

The unassuming building where the cheese making magic takes place. This is a small producer, making only two cheese "wheels", on average, per day. It is associated with an agricultural college next door.

Although we were there quite early, we had already missed the first stages of the daily process, which is why I looked for and found these previously published, stage by stage explanations.

We arrived after today's cheese had been formed.

The copper cauldrons were being cleaned in preparation for the next day.

Separately, ricotta cheese was also being made.

We were shown the marking stamps that are unique to this producer.

The cheese is encased for two or three days before the salting process begins.

The cheese was raised from its brine bath for us to see it, before being lowered once again.

Each cheese wheel is worth roughly 700 Euros!

After a very interesting visit, it was time to sample the cheese, with lambrusco, yes, at 10:00 am!

After a short car ride, we arrived at Villa San Donnino.

The maturation process begins in the largest of the six barrel sets. The end product is eventually removed, in small quantities, from the smallest barrel. This happens at the end of the aging period, which is a minimum of 12 years, but can be 18 or 25 years! Each barrel is then topped up with a percentage of the contents of the next largest barrel. Over the years, evaporation (also known as the angels' share, accounts for the descending size of the barrels.

We were treated to a sample... with ice cream... it was viscous, aromatic and absolutely gorgeous!

The full range of products...

...how could we resist a small purchase?

Grapevines in the background...

...with the villa itself to the right of the vines.

It wasn't clear to us whether the villa is generally open to the public or whether our guide Fabio, who seemed to know everybody, had used his influence, but we were warmly welcomed inside the villa by the owners and given a private tour of the ground floor rooms. We felt very privileged.

After lingering in the villa for quite some time, it was time to drive to our lunch venue.

The driveway at San Donnino

It was a long drive (over an hour) to our lunch venue at Antica Corte Pallavicina. Shortly before we got there, we passed through the village of Le Roncole, which is famous for being the birthplace of Giuseppe Verdi. We stopped briefly and saw his house, which is now a museum.

The chuch in Le Roncole, where Verdi sang in the choir.

Ten minutes later we arrived at Antica Corte Pallavicina, which is close to the River Po.

Before lunch, another private tour...

...including a visit to the cellars to see the Culatelli.

Culatelli being aged

The cellars felt a bit claustrophobic and the culatelli looked a bit like alien nests!

With the rather strange looking culatelli hanging from the ceiling, I thought this might be our lunch venue. I was quite relieved to discover that it wasn't!

We were suprised and pleased to discover that lunch was to be in the Michelin star restaurant.
We had thought that lunch was going to be a more rustic affair.

The restaurant looked very interesting indeed.

We were delighted to discover that we were having the full traditional menu with paired wines!

Our menu

Gazpacho - a pre-starter

"A podium of Culatelli from 'White Pig' aged over 18, 27 and 37 months served with homemade mix vegetables from the Court".

"Traditional Parma style 'Tortelli' stuffed with ricotta and spinach with butter sauce from red cows or pumpkin".

"Soft Parmigiano-Reggiano dumplings 'Soffici' in hen broth under a puff pastry crust".

"Frog's legs slightly golden with sweet garlic and parsley on sweet mashed potatoes".

"The black Spigaroli pig entrecote with its 110 days of maturation, marinated with wild herbs, pink pepper, caramelized spring onions and small vegetables".

Dessert - Affogato

Petit fours

After the amazing feast, we had time for a walk to see the pigs like the ones we had just eaten.
When we found them, they were all asleep, at some distance, so we didn't get a good photo.

From here, it was straight back to our hotel in Bologna. I was really surprised to see how far we had gone today. Travelling west from Bologna, our first stop was in Castelfranco Emilia to see the cheese being made, then on to Villa San Donnino to see where balsamic vinegar is made. From there, we drove to our lunch venue at Antica Corte Pallavicina, with a short stop en route at Le Roncole, where Verdi was born.

Back in Bologna, we said goodbye to the two Fabios. It was a sunny evening, unlike yesterday, so we walked around the city again, revisiting most of the places we had seen yesterday in the rain, including the leaning towers.