Fall Dinners - Fall Wines - Argiolas Costera Isola dei Nuraghi Red from Sunny Sardinia

While planning dinner yesterday I got inspired by an enticing dish created by my friend Stacey that she calls Indian Summer Grilled Eggplant Gratin. Stacey writes a great food blog called Stacey Snacks that I love.

At the Montclair farmers market I found some beautiful eggplant, fresh garlic, and some broccoli rape at Vacchianos stand and also picked up some of their delicious farm-made tomato sauce, one with their own Juliet heirloom tomatoes. Things were looking good.

Later in the day I took a nice drive down to Joe Canal's in Woodbridge to pick out a wine that was worthy of the dinner that was to come. That turned out to be a wine by Argiolas called Costera Isola dei Nuraghi, a red from sunny Sardinia.

It was such a beautiful day that I could easily picture myself driving along a bright Sardinia coastline. 

The wonderful thing about the wines from this part of the world is that they seem to bring the sunshine with them, right into your home.

This one by the Argiolas family, one of Sardinia's most prominent wine makers, is of grapes indigenous to the area "90% Cannonau, 5% Bovale Sardo and 5% Carignano grown in their Costera vineyard. It is "Intense ruby-red in color, and offers seductive aromas and flavors of ripe black cherries" it has accents "of pepper, and licorice." It is "warm and full-bodied on the palate, with excellent texture, ripe fruit flavors and pleasant tannins."   Importer Winebow

The predominate grape, Cannonau, is know in other parts of the world as Grenache, a grape used to create very fine wine in Southern France and Spain and really flourishes in the sunny island climate of Sardinia.

Since 1937 Antonio Argiolas and his twin sons, Franco and Giuseppe, have succeeded in capturing Sardinia’s wild beauty and natural energy to make beautiful wines and become well known for consistently producing crisp and refreshing whites and complex fulfilling reds.

Wine Advocate raved about the wine in August 2010 and called it one of  “Italy's Finest Values."  They described this wine as having layers of exquisitely perfumed fruit buttressed by fine, silky tannins." and expressed that "there is an element of pure elegance and refinement that is hard to do justice to with words.”  I have to agree, Costera is a totally beautiful wine and a real steal at $12-14 a bottle.

For dinner I wanted to make a dish with less cheese and flour so I improvised on Stacy's recipe and left out the ricotta and mozzarella cheese. I also substituted the bread crumbs with equal parts of panko flakes and cornmeal in which I ground mixed Italian spices and herbs (Olde Thompson Italian Seasoning, 3.1-Ounce Grinders (Pack of 2) ) .  To the quart of tomato sauce I added three cloves of garlic and boilled it down to make it thicker. I layered as the recipe described and baked for a good 45 minutes. It came out amazing. I tried to get a picture but my technology let me down.

Diana did the broccoli rape in olive oil and garlic with some balsamic dinner. Bread and cheese came from Nicolo's Bakery because they make the very best semolina bread and grated Pecorino Romano in the area.

As the sun set and the air became cool we stayed warm and wrapped in sunshine from one plentiful New Jersey farm and one prolific Sardinian vineyard.