Tuesday, June 11, 2024

Father’s Day Dinner at Angeli’s Italian

Father’s Day Dinner at Angeli’s Italian

Son Alec and D-in-law Vivianna and their girls took Linda and me to Angelis Italian in Naperville, our favorite neighborhood trattoria for an early Father’s Day dinner. 


I took from our cellar one of our favorite Italian varietal wines for the occasion, for an ideal food - wine pairing. 

For a starter I had their Angeli’s Special Salad and we ordered their delectable Baby Black Mussels sautéed in white wine sauce.

Alec ordered the daily special, Veal Margherita - veal with capers, lemon and parmigana cheese with  white wine sauce over angel hair pasta.

I ordered the Veal Joey from the menu, breaded veal with tomatoes, capers, mushrooms, and artichoke hearts topped with a white wine sauce and finished with shaved parmesan cheese. Served over a bed of arugula.

Linda ordered the Angeli's Salmon Salad - Fresh spring lettuce with caramelized walnuts, gorgonzola cheese, and sliced apples & pears, topped with fresh grilled salmon and finished with our sweet raspberry dressing.


And, Vivianna ordered the Shrimp salad over pasta. 
 

From our home cellar we brought this Piazza Del Dotto Napa Valley Sangiovese 2015. 

Del Dotto is a family favorite paying tribute to the close knit family there, and our family having 'grown up' with the brand over the years, and many of us having visited Del Dotto during our many visits to Napa Valley. Alec and Vivianna visited the Piazza estate during their wildfire smoke shortened honeymoon trip to Napa Valley back in 2020.  

We’ve written often in these pages about Del Dotto wines and the Piazza Del Dotto labels. We featured Del Dotto Piazza and this label in a more detailed blogpost excerpted below.



Del Dotto Piazza Napa Valley Sangiovese 2015

This was delicious and everyone loved it making me glad we were able to acquire more. I wrote back then that “I wish I had more than the single case we acquired last year. I'll be looking for more.”

We tasted and acquired this wine during our Del Dotto Estate Cave Tour and Tasting back in 2018. We featured this wine soon thereafter and in several posts to follow including this one when we took it took it BYOB to our favorite neighborhood Italian Trattoria, Angelis Italian. 

After we consumed all the bottles we acquired during that visit, we reordered more and finished that too. We tried to order more and it was no longer offered on the Del Dotto shopping site (s). Then, we received an email from Del Dotto clearing out numerous vintage labels and we acquired a mixed case of favorites including several vintages of this label. 

Tonight's tasting experience was consistent with my notes from earlier tastings except this bottle, acquired from the recent Del Dotto clearance sale, showed some signs of diminution with slight rust hue color on the edges and a slight burnt taste. Never-the-less, we love this wine and it was still delicious. We’ll plan to consume those bottles sooner than later in the event they’re on the backside of their drinking window. 

My notes from the initial tasting soon after receipt of our initial acquisition - "This was dark garnet colored ((with a slight grayish hue that signaled caution but the wine was fine, we'll monitor the next bottle (s) with interest to see if this is an early warning of trouble ahead) (as noted, there was a slight discoloration setting in tonight)); medium full bodied, this was delicious with sweet ripe raspberry fruits accented by notes of vanilla and almond with supple smooth silky tannins on the lingering finish.

RM 91 points, reduced by a point for this bottle relative to earlier tastings, attributed to bottle variation.

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=2579868

http://www.deldottovineyards.com/






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