Parmesan Cheese Cutting Ceremony

 

 

 

"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 $29 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, November 25th

6:00pm

 

1lb 24 Month Aged Parmesan Reggiano

Price: $29.00

 

 

Of course, we will be serving a few wines to accompany the cheese!

 

 

2020 WAYFARER CHARDONNAY WAYFARER VINEYARD FORT ROSS SEAVIEW SONOMA

Price: $97.00                 Your Price: $85.36

(96  Points) The 2020 Chardonnay Wayfarer Vineyard has pretty scents of baked apples, beeswax, roasted almonds and toast. The medium-bodied palate has a satiny texture and layered, savory flavors balanced by refreshing acidity, and it finishes long and flavorful.  Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

 

 

2016 Palazzo Cuvee Blanc Reserve Napa

Price: $65.00                 Your Price: $52.00

Winemaker Notes: Beautiful floral aromas of white peach, pear, and tropical fruit, along with hints of orange blossom laced throughout. Opulent and rich, with great texture and full-body, especially for a white wine. Balanced with bright, zesty acidity & stunning minerality rarely seen in domestic white wines. Delicious passion fruit and white peach flavors. Complex, yet refreshing and balanced.

 

 

2019 Casanova di Neri Tenuta Nuova Brunello di Montalcino

Price: $153.50               Your Price: $135.08

(97 points)  “In my mind, this is the wine that best represents the Casanova di Neri house style. With 30 months of aging in tonneaux, it shows enormous richness and texture, and the stellar fruit quality appears with more primary elegance compared to the more expensive Cerretalto that is released with an extra year of aging. That dynamic is especially pronounced in a comparison of the 2019 and 2018 vintages. The 2019 Brunello di Montalcino Tenuta Nuova has a dark vein of toasted spice, black fruit, ink, blackberry compote, licorice and star anise. Dark as night, it is exceptionally well crafted with a robust delivery of concentrated fruit and solid tannic structure. You can count on excellent cellar potential, or at a minimum, serve it with a classic steak. Production is exactly 69,696 bottles. Drink Date: 2026 - 2050” Robert Parker's Wine Advocate – Monica Larner   Review date: December 2023

 

 

2016 Chateau Simard Saint-Emilion Grand Cru

Price: $42.00                 Your Price: $36.96

"This juicy, soft wine with lots of acidity and bright black-currant flavors is made for early drinking. Soft tannins are cushioned by fruitiness. " Wine Enthusiast

 

 

2019 Charles Krug Peter Mondavi Family Family Reserve 'Generations', Napa Valley, USA

Price: $82.50                 Your Price: $72.60

(97 Points) Quietly powerful, dense with alluring oak spices and late-picked fruit flavors, this full-bodied, velvet-textured Cabernet-dominant blend is generous and inviting to drink, but also balanced and structured for the long haul. Concentrated, deep and layered, it is meant for drinking with appreciative friends or family in the future.  Wine Enthusiast

 

 

2017 REYNVAAN IN THE HILLS SYRAH WALLA WALLA

Price: $90.00                 Your Price: $79.20

(94 Points) Incorporating a whopping 10% Viognier, the 2017 In The Hills comes from the Foothills in the Sun Vineyard (the same vineyard as the Foothills Reserve) and was aged 11 months in 25% new oak. It offers a more rounded, opulent, softer style (no doubt due to the high Viognier) as well as lots of meaty dark fruits, toasted spice, leather, and chocolate aromas and flavors. It's another beautiful, fleshy, classy Syrah to enjoy over the coming 7-8 years, if not longer. (Drink between 2020-2029) Jeb Dunnuck

 

 

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.