"italy" news and stories

Italy's Alto Adige region, also called Südtirol, may only produce less than 1% of Italy's total wine production but the bottles coming out of that part of the country's Northern pocket are worth seeking out. The range of varietals is vast, from acidic whites like Sauvignon Blanc to lighter-style reds like Pinot Noir, as well as red-wine blends that demonstrate generations of experience. This is Italy's oldest wine-making region. A mountainous zone with about 300 days of sunshine each year, it is bordered by Austria and Switzerland.

We recently had a chance to taste wines from this region. Here are our six favorites.

St. Michael-Eppan 2008 Lagrein Red Wine ($16)
A nose of cocoa powder is a sweet touch. So are the intense cherry and raspberry notes that cascade into a light, delicate finish with plenty of length and richness.

Saving whales; closing BP service stations: Greenpeace accomplishes things many of us fainter environmentalists only dream of, and last week was no different. A courageous bunch snuck into a field of GMO corn to deactivate the crop's pollinating tassels -- by way of machete or delicate plucking, we cannot say, but we'd like to think they had some fun.

The event took place in -- where else? -- Italy, the heirloom-touting country responsible for constructing Slow Food's global umbrella in the '80s, from which all sustainable, green, local and such movements have sprung since. Specifically, the crop-beheading went down on a field in the northern region of Friuli, one of the country's 16 regions (out of 20) that were gradually designated as GMO-free zones starting in 2007.

Greenpeace Italia first took a sample from the field in question and brought it to a certified lab to confirm that it was, in fact, the patented Monsanto GE maize type MON810. Since pollen can quickly spread to other fields, further contaminating non-GMO land, Greenpeace decided to nip it in the bud and send a message to the Italian government to follow through. GMO-free zone or not, a landowner would still need to obtain a permit to grow GMO crop in Italy, which Greenpeace claims the owner had not done.

They don't call them "G.I. Joe" for nothing: It's thanks to U.S. service people that we have one more delicious round in our catalog of caffeinated ammunition: caffè Americano.

During the Allied occupation of Italy in WWII, American soldiers would walk up to a counter and order a caffè, only to be somewhat alarmed by the dainty little espresso cups placed in front of them. You can almost hear the Yankee accents echoing off the walls of this or that bar in Rome: "You call this coffee? Where's the rest of it?!" It wasn't long before the Italian baristas realized that what the boys from the U.S. of A. really wanted was a larger, diluted beverage: By adding hot water to the usual espresso, they could more or less replicate the soldiers' traditional hot cup of "mud."

Today, caffè Americano lives on many stateside coffeeshop menus alongside the more conventional brewed coffee, largely as a matter of taste. Some imbibers see the hot, watered-down espresso as a very fresh alternative to the average filtered brew. Many prefer the flavor or the body of the more voluminous drink, while others bicker endlessly about which concoction has the most caffeine. (Answer: It kind of depends.)

Which do you prefer: caffè Americano or just a regular ol' cuppa joe? Tell us in the comments.

Erin Meister trains baristas for North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee and sporadically maintains the blog Meet the Press Pot from her home in New York City. This is part of a series for the caffeine-addicted.

Two down and two to go in our exploration of the Italian tradition of the "four Ms" of making espresso coffee. The third part of our list also happens to be my favorite: la miscela, or the espresso blend.

The word "espresso," contrary to relatively common belief, has almost nothing at all to do with the beans themselves, but rather the magically delicious elixir they produce when put through the process. You can actually toss any beans into il molino and extract them using la macchina and what you'll have is, by most definitions, espresso.

But that doesn't mean it's going to taste very good. Find out why after the jump.

Last week, you may recall, we started tackling the old Italian concept of the "four Ms" necessary to make espresso, with an introduction to la macchina. It's only fitting, then, that today we cozy up with la macchina's best buddy: il molino or la machinadosatore, the espresso grinder.

To put it in terms of that Neil Simon classic, "The Odd Couple," your grinder is to your espresso machine as Felix is to Oscar: It's precise, acute and fickle, while la macchina's less prone to acting than reacting.