La Ciarliana presents L’Altro Cantuccio in Montepulciano

Wineries embrace restaurants. For the column “Ristorante Amico” (Friend-restaurant), a wine producer presents one of his favorite restaurants, which in return offers a recipe paired with one of his wines.

Palazzo Buccelli is set in Gracciano del Corso alley, on the lower part of Montepulciano historical center: this antique palace was the house of Pietro Bucelli, a local antiquarian who lived between the XVII and the XVIII sec. The Restaurant L’Altro Cantuccio is embedded on the ground floor of this ancient building, within one of the monumental arches, just a few steps lower than the main road.

Thick brick walls that testify centuries of glorious history embrace the restaurant; there is also a wonderful stairway digging into the heart of the hill. In the ’80s it was a disco: the patron and chef Mattia Putzulu, together with his wife Monica Ceregatti, chief sommelier, decided to convert it into a restaurant but nonetheless wanted to preserve and respect the memory of the past and kept the name. 

The bar on the main entrance reminds you about the ancient typical Tuscan Osterias, ideal rest with a glass of wine. Wine is the most important product of this area, characterized by the Prugnolo Gentile grape, the core of the appellation Vino Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG. 

The restaurant room is comfortable, the perfect mix of antiques and modern pieces of furniture; thanks to the tables, made of lava rock, which counterpoint the Kartell chairs, stylishly set between the ancient fireplace and the wide windows overlooking the rolling sweet hills, you will enjoy a modern, decorative, fine but non-austere atmosphere.

The proposed recipe:

Pigeon filled Ravioli 

...with seared breast on a reduction of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG Vigna ‘Scianello by La Ciarliana and powdered sage and butter.

Ingredients for 4 servings:

For the dough: 375 g re-ground semolina flour, 125 g flour 00, 75 ml egg yolk, 250 g eggs, 2 g salt

For the pigeon filling: 4 pigeons, 4 carrots, 4 stalks of celery, 500 ml pigeon cooking juice , 2 onions

For the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano cooking juice: 500 ml Vino Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG Vigna ‘Scianello La Ciarliana, 500 ml calf cooking juice

For the powdered sage and butter: 100 g di sage, 100 g salted butter, 50 g di maltodextrine 

Directions:

To make the pasta: mix the semolina flour with the 00 flour and the salt, add the eggs and knead in the planetary for 10 minutes. Cover the dough and let it rest for at least 2 hours.

To make the filling: remove the breasts from the pigeons, put them in a vacuum seal and cook in a Roner for one hour at 48°C, cool them in ice water and put them apart. 

Prepare a cooking juice and braise the pigeons: make a vegetables brunoise, put it in a pot with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a knob of butter, and let it fry. Insert the whole pigeons, from which you have already taken away breasts, brown them on a high heat, pour the pigeon cooking juice and braise on low heat for 2 hours. 

Once cooked debone the pigeons and whisk them, insert the cream in a sac a poche, cool it in a blast chiller.

To prepare the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano cooking juice: pour the wine into the calf cooking juice and let it cook/reduce until you get a honey consistency.

To prepare the powder: vacuum pack the butter with the sage and infuse for 24 hours at 60°C. Put the maltodextrine in a pot and mix it with the butter and the sage to create the powder.

To prepare the ravioli: roll out the dough egg pasta to a 2 mm sheet, create some ravioli and fill them with the pigeon filling. Cook them in abundant salter water.

In a nonstick pan brown for 2 minutes the breast on the skin side, let them rest in a warm place, escalope them in 4 parts.

Serve on a plate brushed with the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG Vigna ‘Scianello cooking juice, place 4 ravioli on it and put on the top of each raviolo a small piece of the escalloped breast, dust with the powdered sage and butter.

Wine to pair:

Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Vigna ‘Scianello La Ciarliana

Dark ruby red color. Complex aromas with dark notes of ink, carob and then the fruitiness of morello cherries, plune and summer underbrush. Powerful and full palate showing a dense and not aggressive tannin to balance the great weight. The finish is austere, powerful and long. 

Production area: in the Docg area of Montepulciano, the vineyard 'Scianello', located at 320 meters above sea level.

Grape variety: Prugnolo Gentile (local biotype of Sangiovese) 100%. 

Harvest: hand harvested in the first ten days of October.

Vinification: The fermentation process, at a controlled temperature, lasts 20-25 days. Ageing at least 12 months in big Slavonian oak casks and in French oak barriques and later some bottle ageing. 

Suggested food pairings: the masterpieces of the Tuscan traditional cuisine, such as, for example, wild boar and T-bone steak. 

Related Products