Romancing the Vine

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY OCT 9, 2006

In 2002 Tardi closed his New York City restaurant, Follonico, and slowly emigrated to a new life in Castiglione Falletto, a village in Italy's famous Barolo wine region of Piedmont. He was drawn away from a post September 11 New York (where he still spends part of the year) by the love of a beautiful woman, Ivana; the reassuring natural rhythms of wine making; and the casual culinary splendor of local cooking, which he recounts in 25 recipes featuring regional and personal specialties like Renza's Chicken, Frog-Style and Grape Must Conserve. Tardi spends much of his time working Ivana's family vineyard back to life with her brother Fabrizio, relating his experience tending vineyards and giving folkloric accounts of Barolo's vinicultural history. Although Tardi himself experiences a transformation in the vineyards, readers familiar with food and wine memoirs will likely not encounter anything they haven't read before recipes interspersed with charming anecdotes about local characters, descriptions of age-old customs, conspiratorial asides about how different his lifestyle has become but much like the reliably good food Tardi served for years in his restaurant, his take on the healing powers of old-fashioned hard work and his guidance into his lifestyle is comforting and satisfying.