It’s (unfortunately) much more difficult to pronounce—but if you manage to find one to drink, you’ll know that it’s worth the effort.

Rifermentato in bottiglia. I know, it’s a mouthful. It means “refermented in bottle,” and it refers to a very common style of bubbly that you’ll find at natural wineries across Italy. And it is so, so good for this time of year.

Read on to learn how rifermentato in bottiglia wines are made (there’s even a flow chart, comparing this style to pét-nat and also to Champagne method wine) and some recommended bottles in the genre to find this summer. You may want to refresh your memory on the overall sparkling wine process with the below:

Also in this newsletter, I am sharing the simplest recipe for a roasted veggie lasagna, for those nights when you have friends coming over and it’s cool enough to use the oven. It’s really easy to assemble ahead of time and pop in an hour before you want to eat.

My new book has plenty of info about sparkling wines and how they’re made, btw!

What is “rifermentato in bottiglia” wine, and how is it different from pét-nat or other sparkling wines?

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It’s the generosity. It’s the people, and their willingness to give:

The producers, and the way they invite us into their spaces, then feed and water our bodies and souls with the beautiful things they make by hand. The guests, too, and the way they open up to each other, offering friendship that goes far beyond the week we spend together visiting wineries.

Increasingly, I realize that these trips are a gift to every one of us involved, because of this generosity of spirit, because of the sharing of knowledge.

And I’m extending that generosity here, as much as I can. Today, I’m sharing a recipe for an Umbrian flatbread which I have enjoyed several times at Tiberi, a winery in the Lake Trasimeno region of Umbria.

Tiberi is one of those places that makes your jaw drop, where you go wow, this is it. This is real wine.

A quick note for UK readers: Between now and Friday, you can order my new book HOW TO DRINK NATURAL WINE at 25% off via Waterstones, with this link. Use FEB26 at check-out to claim your discount.

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We had just spent a month in France. Our daughter loved speaking French but hated the food. She would only eat fries. French food was too saucy, too brown, too heavy, for this child.

When we got to Italy—first, Napoli, then deeper into Campania, driving up the Adriatic coast, crossing over via Bologna, and finally down through Tuscany into Lazio—our daughter was delighted by the food. She ate everything: pizza topped with rich mozzarella cheese; entire bowls of fusilli al pomodoro; a platter of rigatoni bigger than her torso; creamy, cold gelato every single day. She was content. And so were we.

In the final weeks of our trip, we stayed in a town called Bolsena. My husband had first brought me here back when we were dating and traveling together, unsure where life would lead us. Bolsena is a hotbed of natural wine—vineyards tucked away behind olive groves, overlooking the lake and its the volcanic soils, draw talent here from all corners of the world.

I fell in love with this place at the same time that I fell in love with my husband, you could say.

Back in 2022 on that trip with our daughter, I messaged Joy Kull of La Villana winery. We were fans of her wines and had heard so much about her. She invited us over for lunch.

When we walked into Joy’s house, her husband Simone was hard at work in the kitchen, a blender whirring on the counter. We chatted and opened wines, and our kids played together.

Eventually we sat down at a picnic table surrounded by young vines, which Joy had planted, with Lake Bolsena’s clear blue waters in the distance. Simone brought out bowls of rigatoni coated in a thick yellow sauce, with piles of pecorino cheese on top. Pecorino cheese, from sheep’s milk, is a serious thing in Joy and Simone’s household—he is a shepherd and makes gorgeous cheeses from his own flock’s milk.

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Joy opened a bottle of her ruby-red “rosato” wine, made from the local red grape Aleatico. It had complex, perfumed notes, and a salinity that made us immediately hungry. We dug into the pasta, and it was exquisite. Each one of us ate every bite, including the children.

Years later, I have grown close enough with Joy and Simone, through repeated visits to Bolsena, that I felt comfortable asking them for the recipe.

You’ll find that recipe in my new book, HOW TO DRINK NATURAL WINE, which you can pre-order now worldwide. Below I am sharing insider tips on the carbonara method, using Substack’s new recipe embed feature (oooooh), plus some wine pairing suggestions.

In May, my family and I are going back to Bolsena for a longer stay (incredibly exciting, and a long-held dream) and I’m so looking forward to deepening our appreciation of this special place and its wines and recipes, and especially to continuing these growing friendships with other winemakers.

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Which is why I make pasta like I do everything else—intuitively, with lots and lots of practice but only the slightest glance at a recipe.

And which is why you should make fresh pasta for someone you care about. It will turn out well, because it will be made with love. (Maybe practice this recipe just once before the main event, for best results.)

Orecchiette is one of the most satisfying, and not particularly challenging, fresh pastas to make. It comes from Puglia, in southern Italy, and means “little ears” because supposedly that’s what the pasta shapes resemble. However they look, this shape is perfect for holding sauce—the pasta itself is like a little bowl.

In Puglia, it’s traditional to serve orecchiette is with cima di rapa (the bitter tops of flowering broccoli) and pork sausage, which is a truly heavenly combination. I literally get hungry thinking about it. If you can’t find cima di rapa, then try broccolini. Or, a simple pomodoro (tomato) sauce made of tomato passata (purée) with half an onion and garlic simmering in the sauce, then removed to serve, and topped with fresh basil, is absolute heaven—plus, that’s a totally vegan meal.

If I—an intuitive cook—can make orecchiette, then so can you! I promise, it’s not hard, and it is such a special meal, ten times better than whatever you could buy in the store.

Prep this the day before you want to eat, because orecchiette is best when dried overnight. It develops texture through the drying.

My approach is a combination of, over time, trying recipes published by talented authors like Emiko Davies and Anastasia Miari—the latter has a great orecchiette recipe in her recent cookbook, Mediterannea, which I wrote about in last year’s gift guide.

Orecchiette, the intuitive way

First, you may want to watch this video of the ladies making orecchiette on the street in old Bari, the main town of Puglia. Don’t worry, we won’t go as fast as they do!

Also, I’ve made a video to illustrate all the steps:

This recipe serves 4 as a first course. Serve sautéed, spicy bitter greens, a lentil soup, or a hearty meat dish alongside.

Ingredients and tools below, plus the full recipe process (including for a pomodoro sauce) and a step-by-step video of me making orecchiette. I promise, if you put your heart and intuition into this recipe, you will master it!

I’ve also included some wine pairings for a simple orecchiette with pomodoro sauce.

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I never thought of myself as part of a “diaspora” — I was just American. But over the past year, as I began researching my Italian roots, I considered how much assimilation has erased the notion of heritage in the New World, generation after generation. Surely, I felt, there is something that carries through — it doesn’t seem a coincidence that I feel extremely comfortable in Italy, and that my great-grandfather and two great-great grandparents were born there. Is there something passed on through the generations, even without overtly sharing traditions? Could it be somehow just there, under our skin, waiting to be reawakened?

Last month, I visited the town in Campania where my Italian ancestor was born, part of my quest to gather documents for a citizenship case. It was an unforgettable, surreal experience, one whose story I’d love to save for my next book — for now, I will share some reflection on being an artist-in-resident in another town in Campania called Padula, a hillside village known for its 11th-century monastery and bordered by gorgeous mountain ranges.

Art Center Padula offers an 18-day residency program and I was very lucky not only to get a spot, but to be awarded a fellowship to be there. The days were mostly unstructured, which meant I was free to go for a morning hike, have coffee in the piazza, and then spend the afternoon writing — or painting. It was totally up to the residents.

We did enjoy a cavatelli-making workshop organized by one of the local program assistants, which was so helpful to me (if you recall, I’m on a mission to perfect hand-made pasta shapes, which don’t need any equipment).

For paid subscribers, below the paywall, I am sharing my write-up of the cavatelli recipe we were taught, as well as tips on getting into a self-funded writing residency and further suggestions based on doing one residency in France and this one in Italy.

Online Writing Workshops

I’m offering a few sessions of my signature two-hour writing workshops between now and the end of the year (there’s one happening Dec 3 for people either in a European or Aus/NZ time zone). These are small groups of writers of all levels. We discuss relevant texts together and think broadly about why writers make certain choices, and talk about openings, structure, pacing, and sometimes sentence level. I also share tips on pitching to publications and writing a book proposal and give concrete advice from the perspective of an editor and book author. The workshop is very casual but also productive, and individually tailored to each writer.

I recently had a request to add a memoir-focused workshop, which I’d love to offer in November. If you are interested in joining this, please email me directly at pipettemagazine@gmail.com — and let me know your preferred day of the week, time, etc. Ideally this would happen on a Wednesday night around 7pm EST (U.S. time).

Find out more about my writing workshops here.

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Cavatelli + The Scoop on Artist Residencies

A self-funded artist residency is your ticket to an inspiring, immersive experience in a different culture — a chance to be much more than a tourist, to really take in the history, language, aesthetics, and landscape of a place.

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Recently, a friend asked me for a recipe for her community cookbook. I began making osso buco about two or three years ago on cold days, and over time have perfected it to the point where I don’t measure anything—it’s a beautiful recipe in that you really don’t need to pay attention to details, it’s really forgiving. You taste it throughout, adjust seasoning as necessary. Some people blitz the mire poix mixture, while I prefer to leave it chunky.

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Osso buco is an Italian dish comprised of braised beef shank. It cooks low and slow in a cast iron pot, on the stovetop or in the oven—or on your wood fire if it has a shelf. It’s beautiful on a cold evening; I usually prepare it after lunch and then go for a walk, read a book, open a bottle of wine, etc, while it’s simmering. As with any braise, osso buco is a great way to use up leftover wine and a good excuse to drink more.

Being a rich dish, osso buco begs for a nice bottle of full-bodied red; a rich and complex skin-contact white; or a high-acidity light red. Some recent faves that I suggest seeking out:

• Tom Shobbrook “Poco Rosso” - South Australian Syrah (or “Shiraz,” if you prefer)

• Vega Aixalà “Emma” - A rich, heavyweight Garnacha-Carignan from Tarragona

• Oriol Artigas “Besavia” - A field blend; gorgeous, versatile, bright and light red

• Rennersistas “Weissburgunder” - A perennial fave. Pinot Blanc on skins.

And now for the recipe . . .

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Rachel’s Osso Buco

For 2-3

To be served with polenta, rice, or potatoes

Total prep time is about twenty minutes, total cook time is around 3-4 hours.

Ingredients:

3 carrots, peeled and coined

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 brown onion, chopped (or sliced, if you hate chopping onions, like I do)

Around 350 mL of chicken stock

Some wine, around 200 mL or more—white is preferred but can be red, too

Potentially around 50mL of water to add as needed

2 medium/large cuts of osso buco (note: this recipe works for lamb shank, too)

2 small cans of chopped tomatoes (or tomato passata, i.e. purée)

A bouquet of hard herbs (thyme, marjoram, oregano, sage, bay leaf) tied in twine

Hunk of butter

Olive oil

Method:

1.     Take the osso buco out of the fridge and crack pepper and salt onto both sides, bring them to room temp.

2.     Pour a glug of oil and drop the butter into the cast iron pot and turn the heat up to medium-high.

3.     Lay the osso buco onto the warm oil/butter and brown them on each side (2-3 minutes per side).

4.     Remove the meat and put on a plate, far away from your housepets.

5.     Lower the heat a little.

6.     Add onions and stir, ensuring they don’t burn, for a few minutes.

7.     Add carrots and celery, stir it all around briefly, then add the meat back in.

8.     Add the wine, turn up the heat, put the lid on, and cook for 5 minutes—the goal is to reduce the wine.

9.     Add the stock and the tomato cans—then fill the cans with water and pour them into the pot.

10. Add the herb bouquet.

11. Put the lid on and bring to boil.

12. Reduce to simmer (or put into an oven at around 180) and let it cook for 3-4 hours. Make sure the liquid doesn’t totally reduce. Turn the meat once or twice. Remove the herb bouquet before serving. If you’d like a smooth sauce, use an immersion blender to blitz it; or you can leave it chunky.

13. If you’re serving with potatoes, add them to the stew toward the end. If it’s polenta or rice, make it just before you’re ready to serve. Enjoy with, obviously, wine.