Stir Wine Pairing: a sparkling pinot noir with an Italian Baroque Christmas
Laudate Singers’ Buon Natale calls for salumi, olives, and Covert Farms’ festive pink drink
Violinist Nancy DiNovo performs in Laudate Singers’ Buon Natale: An Italian Baroque Christmas. We’re thinking Covert Farms’ Sparkling Pinot Noir 2019 and an Aperitivo Box from Caffe La Tana would be a perfect pairing.
Every week, Stir Wine Pairing suggests BC wine and food to go with a local performance.
The show
Laudate Singers’ Buon Natale: An Italian Baroque Christmas, featuring a Baroque chamber orchestra with Nancy DiNovo and other instrumentalists, December 13 at 3 pm. Tickets, $10, via Side Door.
The wine
The wine: Covert Farms Family Estate’s Sparkling Pinot Noir 2019
The food
The food: Caffè La Tana Aperitivo Box
The lowdown
Looking for some soulful music right about now, with the days get shorter, something to lift your spirits and distract you from the rain, the pandemic, the holidays without the people beyond your bubble… pretty much everything? This livestreaming concert by Laudate Singers will have some.
Artistic director Lars Kaario founded the Vancouver chamber choir in 1995. Since then, it has gone on to release seven critically acclaimed CDs, including A Baroque Christmas. Christmas Journey, and Songs of Heaven and Earth.
Livestreaming from Highlands United Church in North Vancouver, the performance features a Baroque chamber orchestra, including guest violinist Nancy DiNovo. A former member of the St. Louis, Toronto, and Boston Symphony Orchestras, she has performed in some of the world’s greatest concert halls on three continents and has been concertmaster with groups like the Canadian Chamber Ensemble and Royal Winnipeg Ballet. The founding concertmaster of the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, DiNovo plays a J.B. Guadagnini violin that was made in 1770.
The artists will perform Vivaldi’s Gloria, an uplifting sacred work, and the joyful Magnificat.
The pairing
If the word glorious can be used to describe these two Vivaldi works, we’re opting for something that feels celebratory. Covert Farms’ Family Estate’s Sparkling Pinot Noir 2019 is light and fresh, bright but not overly sweet. It’s organic, too, and made in the pétillant naturel technique, (Meaning “naturally sparking”, “pét-nat” is all the rage, a method of making sparkling wine where the wine is bottled before primary fermentation is finished, without adding any secondary yeasts or sugars. Methode traditionelle, by contrast, which is used to make Champagne, involves a secondary fermentation in the bottle with additional yeasts and sugars).
The most delicate shade of pink, Covert Farms’ Sparkling Pinot Noir is 10 percent ABV, meaning you can have a glass or two without feeling like you’re going to fall asleep before dinner. (It goes for $32.90 via the the Oliver-based winery, which is currently offering two-, three- and four-bottle gift sets, as well as with gift baskets with estate wines and goodies picked out by the winery’s husband-and-wife team of Gene and Shelley Covert. Orders of $100 or more receive free shipping Canada-wide.)
The menu
We’ll stick with the Italian theme for the menu, keeping things simple with Caffe La Tana’s Aperitivo Box. The Commercial Drive alimentari (currently running as an online grocery store with pickup and delivery options) is part of the same family as Pepino’s Spaghetti House next door and Fraserhood’s Osteria Savio Volpe. Chef Phil Scarfone has come up with some fantastic easy-to-make Meal Kits (pasta and pizza), which come with all the ingredients and cooking instructions for some of all three restaurants’ most popular dishes. Fox Boxes are expanded versions of the kits, filled with goods required to make three courses at home, almost from scratch.
The Aperitivo Box ($45) is a gift to give your bubbled self to go along with this perfectly pleasant Sunday afternoon. The bow-wrapped box has salumi, a selection of Italian cheeses, Marcona almonds, house made Tropea-onion jam, Savio marinated olives and a dessert jar with choice of tiramisu or salted caramel budino.
Chef Phil Scarfone with Caffe La Tana’s Aperitivo Box.
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