Parmesan Reggiano Wheel Cutting Ceremony - Come and taste what 24 Month Aged Parmesan Reggiano tastes like immediately after opening the wheel! Tuesday, April 1, 2025 - 6:00 PM
"I was in love with a beautiful blonde once. She drove me to drink; that's the one thing I'm indebted to her for." W. C. Fields in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
I have been touting the quality of a freshly opened wheel of Parmesan Reggiano ever since we opened the wine bar when we cracked the first wheel open. The experience is unlike any other with this cheese as soon as you open the wheel the cheese starts to oxidize and harden so the freshly opened wheel is so buttery and creamy it is unlike any Parmesan you have ever tasted.
We will be offering freshly cut 24-month aged Parmesan Reggiano for $25 per pound this evening and you know that the wheel was just cut today! If you make it to the tasting, you also get to sample the goods before you buy! Of course, we will be offering six wines to compliment the cheese and we will be serving a special menu prepared with the freshly cut cheese as well.
There are only 36 spaces available for this event and the fee for this tasting is $95 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com.
You can place an order on-line or over the phone and have your cheese delivered locally with your wine order, but we will only be delivering to the tri county area on the days we are out delivering wine.
24 Month Aged Parmesan Reggiano Wheel Cutting Cheese Sale
Tuesday, April 1st
6:00pm
1lb 24 Month Aged Parmesan Reggiano
Price: $25.00
Of course, we will be serving a few wines to accompany the cheese!
2022 Braida Il Fiore Bianco Langhe
Price: $24.00 Your Price: $20.40
The logo of “Serra dei Fiori” is a flower which can also be regarded as two pairs of eyes symbolizing The mutual consent of the two proprietors. The sign can also be interpreted as the clubs symbol of a playing card. Clubs are trumps!
Chardonnay 70% and 30% Nascetta (indigenous Piedmontese variety, semi aromatic with excellent longevity).
Serra dei fiori in the village Trezzo Tinella in the Langhe hills. Up to 400 m above sea level exposed to the south. Planting density 4100 vines per hectare.
2022 THE CALLING CHARDONNAY DUTTON RANCH RUSSIAN RIVER
Price: $27.50 Your Price: $24.20
Winery Notes: Balanced and medium-to-full-bodied with aromas of honey, stone fruit, and lemon. Notes of Gravenstein apple, honeysuckle, and jasmine.
Wine Makers: Notes Dutton Ranch fruit is some of the most highly regarded in Sonoma County and beyond. We work closely with the family to select grapes from various vineyards throughout the Green Valley region so we can build an incredibly balanced, well-rounded Chardonnay. This vintage had a cold start and a warm finish with an early harvest due to warm August and September weather and a lighter crop. This resulted in an excellent vintage and good growing season with no lingering heat waves. Because of the growing season, wines have exceptional flavors, are intense with great color, fuit forward and ripe.
2014 Gary Farrell Rochioli-Allen Vineyard Chardonnay Russian River Valley
Price: $59.00 Your Price: $51.92
(95 Points) Dark yellow in color, this wine shows tangy green apple and a richer, more concentrated element of applespice cake, with supportive, balanced acidity. With a bright, lifted finish, this less-expensive offering compared with many of the producer’s single vineyard designates never lets up on complexity or deliciousness. Review Date: 02/2017. Wine Enthusiast
2019 Woodward Canyon Artist Series #28 Cabernet Sauvignon, Washington, USA
Price: $60.00 Your Price: $52.80
This enticing and deeply colored red wine shows a complex nose of baking spice, black olive and lead pencil integrated beautifully with aromas of ripe black fruits. In the mouth the wine is rich and elegant, showing subtle notes of herb and bright black berries. Integrated tannins enhance the texture and give proportion; the finish is complex, generous, and long. While this wine can be en- joyed now it will benefit greatly from additional cellaring and, with proper storage, should develop for ten years or more.
2018 Conterno Fantino Vigna del Gris Barolo DOCG, Italy
Price: $90.00 Your Price: $79.20
(94 Points) The 2018 Barolo Ginestra Vigna del Gris is elegant and woven tightly together with small berry fruits, redcurrant, wild lilac and violet, crushed stone and licorice root. With fruit from Monforte d'Alba, the wine is streamlined and silky, but you also sense the power and tightness of the inner fiber that locks it all together with seamless precision. Exactly 9,094 bottles were made. - ML Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, June 2022
2015 Mazzei Castello di Fonterutoli Gran Selezione Chianti Classico
Price: $65.00 Your Price: $57.20
(94 Points) The Mazzei family was among the first to embrace the Gran Selezione category of high-end Chianti Classico. Their 2015 Chianti Classico Gran Selezione Castello Fonterutoli shows the sharpness and detail that wine is supposed to evoke in the best vintages. It opens to a dark garnet color and mid-weight texture. There is ample muscle and power here, but the overall emphasis is on grace and elegance. You really taste those authentic Sangiovese flavors of wild cherry, forest berry, blue flower and crushed rock. (ML) Review Date: 10/2018 Wine Advocate
1995 Charles Cimicky Red Blend Barossa
Price: $59.00 Your Price: $51.92
59% Cabernet Sauvignon 24% Merlot 17% Cabernet Franc
Winery Notes : A very special blend from the limited 1995 vintage. The extremely dry, but mild 1995 season enabled Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cab Franc to reach the full level of ripeness we desired.
Menu
Prosciutto De Parma
Fresh Cut 24 Month Parmesan Reggiano
Parmesan Flan
Pappardelle Alfredo Pasta
Tiramisu
This is a seated tasting and is limited to 36 tasters and the fee for this event is $95 + tax, for reservations call 954-523-9463 or e-mail andy@winewatch.com
A bit about Parmigiano Reggiano
Parmigiano Reggiano is produced exclusively in the provinces of Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Bologna to the left of the Reno river, and Mantua to the right of the Po river: this is the area hosting the farms where the cattle are fed on locally grown forage. The feeding of cattle complies with the norms of a strict specification that bans the use of silage, fermented feeds and animal flour.
The milk from the morning and the previous evening is poured into the traditional upturned bell-shaped copper vats. It takes about 550 litres of milk to produce each wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano. The milk slowly and naturally coagulates with the addition of rennet and a whey starter, rich in starter cultures, from the previous day’s processing.
The curd which forms is then broken down by the master cheese-maker into minuscule granules using a traditional tool called “spino”.
This is where fire comes into the picture, in a cooking process which reaches 55 degrees centigrade, after which the cheesy granules sink to the bottom of the cauldron forming a single mass.
After about fifty minutes the cheese-maker removes the cheese mass which will give rise to two twin wheels.
Cut into two parts and wrapped in the typical linen cloth, the cheese is then placed in a mould which will give it its final shape.
A casein plate with a unique and sequential alphanumeric code is applied to each wheel: it is its identity card which makes it possible to trace its entire production back to its origins, anytime and anywhere.
After a few hours, a special marking band engraves the month and year of production onto the cheese, as well as its cheese factory registration number and the unmistakable dotted inscriptions around the complete circumference of the cheese wheel.
After a few days, the wheels are immersed in a saturated solution of water and salt: it is a process of salting by osmosis. This last passage closes the production cycle of Parmigiano Reggiano and starts its maturation period.
The story of Parmigiano-Reggiano is a long one, and also a slow one, following the natural rhythm of the seasons.
In fact, the minimum maturation time is 12 months, the longest among all the PDO cheeses, and only at this point can it be decided if each individual wheel is worthy of the name it was given at its birth, and therefore continue the maturation up to 24, 36, 40 months and more.
After 12 months, the Consortium experts carry out a test called “quality inspection” on all the wheels: each wheel is tapped with a hammer and the trained ear of the quality inspector recognises any defects inside the cheese that may compromise quality.
The conforming wheels are marked with the hot-iron brand thus becoming Parmigiano Reggiano. All identifying marks and signs are removed from any wheels which do not meet the PDO requirements.
The quality control identifies three cheese categories:
“first-grade” Parmigiano Reggiano: the cheese that fully complies with the production specifications. It is marked with the hot-iron brand.
“medium-grade” Parmigiano Reggiano: the cheese that shows minor or moderate defects in the structure of its paste and/or on the rind, yet that do not alter the typical organoleptic characteristics of the product. These wheels are marked with the hot-iron brand, but they can be recognised through the parallel grooves engraved all around the cheese rind.
“de-rinded” cheese: the cheese that shows major defects is downgraded by eliminating the marks of origin through the removal of the rind (a few millimetres). Therefore, this cheese cannot be called Parmigiano Reggiano and refer to the PDO in any way.
Starting from the 18th month of maturation, dairies may request the Consortium to affix an additional mark on first-grade Parmigiano Reggiano:
PREMIUM or EXPORT mark: it gives trading companies and consumers a further indication of the quality of Parmigiano Reggiano.
These marks can be affixed also on the packaging of the cheese selected in this way.