Offida art exhibit and sagra di olive tenere at Ascoli

23 Nov.
Happy birthday to my classmate Nina!
This weekend Barone Roberto hosted an open house with an artist from San Benedetto displaying his works with a modern, sometimes almost american style (one mixed media was of a 1960 Ford Fairlane convertible). The artist has the same last name as my friend Sabrina which is Gianno, he was born 3 days before me and owns a z4 as I do. The world is a funny small place. If I am not mistaken, his family comes from a zone in Sicily where Jasper's family is from as well.
After the open house we moved next door to Ophis, a restaurant well liked by our guestsa and had a nice meal there, finishing around late:30.
Today was the second day of the festival in Ascoli celebrating the famous Tenere olives which are famous from this zone and which are used to make the famouse olive ascolane. The olives are pitted and then stuffed with 3 or 4 kinds of meat, 2 cheeses, then battered and fried. A must try for anyone coming to the Marche! I pity the poor vegetarians who can't try them.
Then, it was on to Offida for the release of the guide covering the best wineries of the Marche, complete with a wine tasting of around 50 wines and a banquet of appetizers like prosciutto, lonzo, cheeses, etc. and all for free. The producers of the guide are actually staying with us tonight at Nascondiglio di Bacco. Hopefully we will be in a future edition.
Finally, I saw my friend Frederico at the tasting and he a partner at the winery Aurora, one of the 1st biological vineyards in Italy. We asked them to test our 2007 Passito for residual sugar content and they guessed by tasting 7-8% and I guessed 20%, which they said was impossible. That was yesterday and today Frederico told me it tested out at 20%! Heehee!
They were worried it might re-ferment, but after 14 months, I doubt it. At the tasting tonight, we tried a passito from a winery located near Urbino, which like ours is made from Trebbiano grapes and theirs measures in at 19%! I am bringing some home to try for those who are able to meet up with me.
The photos are of the Baron's wine shop in Offida showing he and the artist who is seated in the 2nd pic., and Raffaele's new look at olive tenere. ( I hope hats are back!). Raffaele is speaking with our buddy Moreno, who has an orchard with, among other things, the slow food Presidi fruit "mela rosa". As always, you can learn more about the good work done by Slow Food at Slowfood.com
Ciao.
dds