Sommeliers' suggestions

Focus on areas wines

By the Associazione Italiana Sommeliers (Italian Sommelier Association)

Wine tasting and food pairing by Sommeliers:
Fausto Massari and Piccioni Claudio.

Pairing regional dishes with DOC “Colli di Rimini” wines.

Seafood salad,: with clams, mussels, squids and shrimps with parsley, scallion and a few drops of lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil from the Rimini hills.
Pickled sardines: with lemon juice, garlic, parsley, salt and oil.
Cuttlefish salad.
WINE PAIRING:: Colli di Rimini Bianco, Biancame.

Cappelletti romagnoli: home made pasta filled only with cheese.
Passatelli and garganelli: pasta made with Parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs and eggs, all cooked in meat or sometimes fish broth.
WINE PAIRING:: Colli di Rimini Biancame

Home-made pasta, for example: strozzapreti, tagliatelle and tortelloni with herbs,: dressed with different sauces.
WINE PAIRING:: Colli di Rimini Rosso.

Cuttlefish and peas:: wash the cuttlefish thoroughly and cut into thin slices, place them in a casserole together with a full cup of boiling extra virgin olive oil, mix and let sauté for 5 minutes. Chop up parsley, a clove of garlic and, if necessary, some basil leaves. Add this to the cuttlefish, season with salt and pepper to taste. Add fresh peas and let them simmer. Finally, add fresh tomato sauce thinned with water covering the whole mix. Let it simmer for approx. 30 minutes. The pleasantness of such dish is revealed by its aromatic scents and juicy taste, with a slight sweet flavour, spiciness, low fat and good taste. Select a young white wine, with little acidity, quite spirituous, soft on average and with intense bouquet, with flowery and fruity aroma.
WINE PAIRING:: Colli di Rimini Rebola Secco.

Sole in butter sauce:: slightly flour some medium-size sole fillets, fry them in butter, add a pinch of salt. Set them aside on a saucepan and cover with the butter from the cooking. Take the sole to hot oven for some minutes with melted butter and lemon juice, add pepper to taste. Serve well hot.
WINE PAIRING:: Colli di Rimini Biancame

Blue fish, rustida (grilled fish mix) or brodetto alla romagnola (typical fish stew),: prepared with different kinds of fish like mullet, gurnard, eel, scorpion fish, cuttlefish or baby cuttlefish, weever, shellfish and mantis shrimp among others.
WINE PAIRING:: Colli di Rimini Rosso.

Shrimp kebabs or fresh squid: cooked on wood fire and seasoned with tasty sauces.
WINE PAIRING:: Colli di Rimini Biancame

The Porchetta,: typical dish from Romagna cuisine (Rimini). It consists of a roasted piglet stuffed with aromatic herbs and seasoned with chopped wild fennel, garlic cloves, rosemary, pepper, nutmeg, salt and covered with wine. Eating this dish is a symbol of conviviality, its presence at the popular table, mainly on a typical market day, has always represented the pleasure of what sitting at the table and enjoying a meal means. To be accompanied with homemade bread or hot piadina (typical flat bread), with an invigorating red wine, intense in aroma, pleasantly fresh, not so tannic, and from the last grape harvest.
WINE PAIRING:: Colli di Rimini Rosso.

Pork braised in milk,: boneless pork loin, with milk, pepper, salt and truffles.
WINE PAIRING:: Colli di Rimini Rosso

Lamb "alla romagnola", Romagnola style: cut in small pieces, browned in butter and lard.
Mutton chops,: served grilled. This meat dish is quite popular in Romagna.
WINE PAIRING:: Colli di Rimini Cabernet Sauvignon.

Formaggio di Fossa (strong, trench-aged cheese): produced in Sogliano al Rubicone
WINE PAIRING:: Colli di Rimini Cabernet Sauvignon Riserva.

Ciambella (coffee cake),: not the ring-shaped cake, the Rimini dessert by excellence, has to be eaten in thin slices.
WINE PAIRING:: Colli di Rimini Rèbola Amabile, Rebola Passito.

Frappe (serrated-edge fritters), puffy fritters and piada dei morti (nut and pine nut cake).
WINE PAIRING:: Colli di Rimini Rebola Dolce, Rebola Passito.

Miacetto,: (typical cake), almond and walnut sweet prepared only at Cattolica for Christmas Eve and Lent. Its tradition has been passed from one generation to the next, and it is definitely the dessert during the family evening gatherings during Holidays. It can be bought at Cattolica bakeries mainly in December or at the Pasticceria Staccoli all the year round. The miacetto is quite a delicious dessert, a complex, nourishing and solid preparation. The wine selection is important as well: passiti (wines made from raisings) with intense and rich aroma, sweet, warm and soft, savoury and of long-lasting perfume.
WINE PAIRING:: Colli di Rimini Rebola Passito.