andiamotrips - campania, italy with karen phillips

Chef Angelo Borghese and all of us! My first baby steps into the blog world were those as a wine blogger.  I loved walking through vineyards, speaking with producers, tasting wines with professional journalists, and attending wine events such as Vinitaly.  In fact, it was that way back in 2012 in Verona I tried a wine from Lunarossavini .  Quartara 2008 .  A fiano, that I learned was fermented in amphora.  Amphora? I asked myself.  For me it was the first time I tried a wine of that type.  I will never forget, however, the brilliant straw yellow color of that glass.  Nor the message from enologist Mario Mazzitelli a few days later who 1) apologized that he wasn't at the stand when I stopped by and 2) invited me to taste some wines in his winery Giffoni Valle Piana in the Salerno province. Well, I time went by learned and appreciated a crucial and  important point, that wine was meant to be paired with food.  Over time, my visits...

Vincenzo Egizio I guess you could say the motto of my visit to Brusciano that Saturday was everything you wanted to know about papaccella Neapolitan peppers but were afraid to ask ... But  i really wasn't...afraid to ask, I mean. So when I called up Vincenzo Egizio, Azienda Agricola Vincenzo Egizio , one afternoon I shared with him my sudden can't wait until summer desire to learn about that Neapolitan prized pepper - the papaccella.   Sure it would have been nice to walk through the fields, see them.  But it was late February. The last papaccelle peppers were harvested several months ago - just before the first frost. But my visit with Egizio, I believe, was timed just right,  considering that these Neapolitan peppers had recently (and finally) been recognized as part of the Slow Food Presidia brand.   These tiny peppers are NOT your typical bell peppers.  They are smaller, sweeter - perfect to conserve in a variety of ways. I've b...