A Taste of Italy in Brooklyn
Moccagatta Barbaresco Bric Balin 2006
After my wife, Sara, and her mother, Nancy, filled the car at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden plant sale, we met for dinner at Locanda Vini e Olii, a small Italian restaurant not far away.
Locanda opened in 2001, in a space previously occupied for more than a century by a pharmacy, and the owners have maintained as much of the decor as possible—tile floor, tin ceiling, apothecary cabinets built into the walls. There’s a small bar up front, an open kitchen in the back and a warm, comfortable feeling throughout.
The chef, Michele Baldacci, comes from Florence, Italy, and his menu marries Tuscan dishes with a very Brooklyn farm-to-table philosophy. So, for example, a classic “tagliata with arugula” ($26.75) features slices of beef not from Tuscany’s Chianina cattle, but from free-range, grass-fed, organic Piedmontese cattle raised in Montana. We started the meal with a plate of fava beans and English peas, briefly blanched, mixed with mint and arugula, and tossed with olive oil and sea salt. It was a clarion call of spring.
Sommelier Rocco Spagnardi has assembled (or “curated,” as Locanda’s website has it) a short, savvy, eclectic wine list. Cocchi, a bittersweet Vermouth from Turin, based on a formula from 1891, makes a fine aperitif, on the rocks with a twist. To go with the tagliata (and a delicious, meaty, Long Island duck breast), we drank a 2006 Bric Balin, a single-vineyard Barbaresco from Moccagatta, priced at a very fair $74. It was elegant yet energetic, with a lovely balance of red fruit and minerality; I rated it 93 points, non-blind.
WineSpectator.com members: Read the original blind-tasting review for Moccagatta Barbaresco Bric Balin 2006 (92, $55 retail).
• Plus, get scores and tasting notes for more recently rated Barbarescos.
