Pairing wines with one of Italy’s most traditional Easter foods. The Torta Pasqualina is an impressive savory tart typical of the Easter season, made with thin sheets of dough, a filling of chard or other vegetables such as spinach, ricotta cheese, and hard-boiled eggs. The recipe originated in the region of Liguria where it is said that thirty-three sheets of thin pastry were used to make it – one for each year of Jesus’ life.
Perfect served with a lovely white, the question becomes which wine pairings exalt its delicate flavors the best? Here are three suggestions from Luca Maroni Italy’s leading Sensorial Wine Analyst.
Torta Pasqualina with a Chardonnay
Rudhir Chardonnay Jasci & Marchesani
“This is a glass of exceptional viticultural and oenological value from Jasci & Marchesani. The excellence of grape cultivation is evident in the observation of the extractive richness of their various wines, samples whose feel in terms of concentration is at times pulpy, at times creamy. The virtues of the winemaking technical transformation are discernible in the intensity and purity of the aroma, whose appeal to the fruit is of stainless brilliance, of crystalline varietal purity. The Rudhir Chardonnay is an archetypal white whose sweetness of pear and confection glaze possesses absolute density and olfactory splendor.”
Torta Pasqualina with an Arneis
Roero Arneis Pescaja
“One can sense in a Pescaja the grape bursting with sunshine, and its dense pulp in wafted ether mutating with the purity of the flower. Glorified in a white robe of sparkling citrus aroma, and bathed in a purple mantle of profuse ancestral black juice, this is a wine with definition. Within the fruit lies an essential purity that is nurtured by a sensorial treasure so respectfully transformed as to make its innate nature resonate. This is the dense and scintillating persuasiveness of Arneis.”
Torta Pasqualina with a Carricante
Scalunera Etna Bianco Torre Mora
“Torre Mora’s Scalunera Etna Bianco, with its palatal softness and virtuous olfactory integrity, projects both viticultural and oenological gifts.
This is a fresh and aromatic wine, characterized by notes of white fruit and herbs. Rich in flavor, it is born with lively, fresh, and salty acidity, and an exciting mineral essence on the finish. It is long, persistent, and savory.