Orvieto

Orvieto, Orvieto...it has a certain ring to it. Poetic almost, which is how I will discribe it, poetic. Now you know that food and wine pairing is, for the most part, a personal choice. Which is why I chose to have this Orvieto Classico with my homemade white truffle oil and mushroom pizza. The pizza had an earthiness that I thought would match well with this wine from an Italian classico region. I was right. Let's look at Orvieto, the wine region, for a moment. Orvieto is a white wine from the west-central appellation called Orvieto within Umbria, Italy. This appellation produces dry to semi-sweet predominately white wines made with a high percentage of Trebbiano (Ugni Blanc its formal name) grapes. Complex soils of gravel, limestone, and clay make up this DOC region that produces wines, including this one, that have aromas and flavors of lemons, limes, and green apples entrenched in mineral earthiness and acidic backbone. To make matters even better for my pizza and me I had an Orvieto Classico, which is an even more refined area within the Orvieto appellation. Think of it as a city within a county. The wines from this and any classico region are more complex. This young wine was very balanced and I'm sure that if I had let it sit in the bottle for another year or two it would be just as complex with little more elegance. I didn't want to wait that long!

Gaetano D' Aquino 2007 Orvieto Classico DOC - $7.99 (Trader Joe's)


Recipe - White Truffle Oil and Mushroom Pizza

• 1 thawed pizza dough or your own bread maker pizza douth(enough for one large round pizza)
• Truffle Oil
• 4 cups of Mozzarella Cheese (just to be on the safe side)
• 1 package of Portabello Mushrooms

1. Preheat oven to bake at 500 degrees
2. Using a rolling pin roll out pizza dough into a very large circle
3. Place rolled out dough onto a pizza pie baking sheet
4. Roll the edge of the pizza dough around the entire circle (tuck under all the way around to make a pie)
5. Drizzle the Truffle Oil inside the pizza dough pie (enough to cover the dough)
6. Layer Mozzarella cheese inside the pie (enough to cover the dough and more if you like)
7. Layer Portabello Mushrooms on top of the cheese (as much as you like)
8. Place pizza into oven and bake for 10 minutes

Makes about 8 healthy slices of pizza