<a target="_blank" href="http://www.osteriafrancescana.it">Osteria Francescana</a>

Via Stella 22

41121 Modena,&nbsp;
Italy

Tel. +39 059 210118

Food:

Five ages of Parmigiano Reggiano in different
temperature and texture 


On the reef: an interpretation of a coastal
landscape 


Croccantino of foie gras with caramelized almonds
and hazelnuts&nbsp;and extra-old traditional balsamic vinegar from
Modena 


Traditional Modenese tortellini in Parmigiano
Reggiano cream 


Bollito not boiled 


Beautiful, psychedelic, spin-painted veal, not
flame-grilled

Vignola

Wines:

<table>
 <tbody><tr>
 <td>
 <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vinousmedia.com/wines?utf8=%E2%9C%93&amp;search-filter=reviews&amp;q=2007+Knoll+Ried+Kellerberg+Dursteiner+Riesling+Smaragd">2007 Emmerich Knoll Ried
 Kellerberg Dursteiner Riesling Smaragd</a> &nbsp;
 </td>
 <td>
 93
 </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>
 <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vinousmedia.com/wines?utf8=%E2%9C%93&amp;search-filter=reviews&amp;q=2009+Vincent+Dauvissat+Chablis+La+Forest">2009 Vincent
 Dauvissat Chablis La Forest</a>
 </td>
 <td>
 93+
 </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <td>
 <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vinousmedia.com/wines?utf8=%E2%9C%93&amp;search-filter=reviews&amp;q=1997+Chave+Hermitage">1997 Domaine
 Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage Rouge</a>
 </td>
 <td>
 95</td></tr></tbody></table>

Massimo
Bottura has come a long way since the days of the Osteria del Campazzo in
Nonantola, near Modena. His climb to stardom has been nothing less than
phenomenal, and having apprenticed under the guidance of Georges Cogny, Alain
Ducasse and Ferran Adria certainly didn’t hurt. The first Michelin star smiled
upon him in 2002, the second arrived in 2006, and since 2012, three well-
deserved stars shine brightly in his personal food galaxy. And let’s not forget
the current No. 3 spot in the widely followed “The World’s 50 Best Restaurants
List” compiled by Nestlé. So
it is always with great pleasure that I stop for lunch or dinner at Osteria
Francescana (such a great pleasure in fact that this time I invited two good
friends to tag along), one of the true temples of fine food in Italy.&nbsp; However, the fabulous, precisely cooked food
is not the only reason to swing by: star sommelier Beppe Palmieri is reason
enough all by himself, as he’s one of the true wizards at matching food and
wine in novel, inventive ways. 

Actually,
on this dreary December day in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, I was more than
happy just to come in from the cold, but I was quickly warmed up by the great
wines and food that followed. I can’t think of too many better ways to start a
meal than with a Riesling, and just about anything from Austria’s star producer
Emmerich Knoll is as great a place to start as any. Knoll’s 2007 Ried Kellerberg Dursteiner Smaragd
Riesling is drinking beautifully, offering exotically ripe aromas and flavors of mandarin orange, ripe peach and
cardamom. It’s a rather Rubenesque beauty, concentrated and full-bodied, but
with enough lively acidity to keep it in balance. Its finishing notes of smoky
minerals match well with the complex Parmigiano dish and it has enough
sweetness to stand up to the “almost too much of a good thing” foie gras dish
(if you’ve never seen or eaten a foie gras popsicle look-alike, this is the
place!). Though this Riesling is likely to be long-lived, Knoll’s Kellerberg
Smaragd always strikes me as approachable earlier than its Schütt stablemate,
and especially so in 2007.

<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1419002907607-image2994.png"> 

I move on happy to the next
two standout meat dishes, secretly worried that my cardiologist may find out
about my foie gras weakness. Up next is the single greatest dish of the day—in fact,
one of the best of the year: &nbsp;the
tortellini, so good that I seriously considered dumping my fork and asking for
a funnel! Seriously, I could have had this dish as the antipasto, the primo and the secondo! Vincent Dauvissat’s
fabulous 2009 Chablis La Forest,
large-scaled but lively enough to cut through the opulent texture of the
tortellini, proved a perfect foil for this rich dish. While it’s still young, I
find that this particular vintage offers plenty of early appeal and is drinking
quite well now; I doubt I’ll hold on to the bottles resting in my cellar for
more than another eight or ten years. 

The “Bollito not boiled” is
one of Bottura’s classic dishes (seven different cuts of beef slowly cooked—for
36 hours—at a lower-than-usual temperature), while the “Beautiful,
psychedelic…” veal creation is a far more modern Pollock-esque take on meat,
but both match splendidly with Chave’s heavenly 1997 Hermitage Rouge. I’m not much for extremely rich, almost fat
reds (and ’97 pushed the envelope) but this wine has aged magnificently and
comes across as plush yet graceful, a neat trick. Stylishly supple and
glyceral, it overpowers neither the veal nor the bollito.

<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1419002416998-image2993.png"> 

I finished up with the
Vignola, a cherry and chocolate dessert, and chose not to have yet another wine
to finish off this memorable meal. You can understand that, given the great
wines and food, my day really couldn’t have been any sweeter.You Might Also Enjoy<a target="_blank" href="http://">Osteria Francescana, Modena, Italy,&nbsp;June 2013&nbsp;(Antonio Galloni)</a>-- Ian D'Agata&nbsp;

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