Those who manage to keep their minds off of Bambi know that any deer is made up of delicious calves, shoulders and ribs. And now is the season that allows us to use the ovens a little more (not much) and uncork a delicate red wine. So today we recommend a delicious deer roll, completed by Pinot noir from Avincis, from the Dragasani region.
The filling is as simple as it is tasty. A bulb of finely sliced garlic is sauteed for half a minute in a few tablespoons of oil, then add either ten green onions or two finely chopped white onions. When everything starts to become transparent, add 500 grams of boletus and a cup of water, turn the heat down and let it simmer. After they cool down, add salt, pepper, and an egg and mix.
Use the mallet carefully! As delicate as a Pinot noir!
At the same time, cut the calf into thick slices and tenderise it with a kitchen mallet, but be careful not to produce tears. The slices are filled with the mixture above, fixed with toothpicks and placed in an oiled tray. Add water, cover with aluminium foil and leave in the oven for an hour, at 180-200 degrees, then remove the aluminium and continue to keep them in the oven until they turn brown and the sauce reduces. At this stage, they can also be sprinkled with a bit of red wine.
The cooled rolls are taken out on plates and sliced. As for the side dish, your imagination is the only limit, but we would lean towards a slightly truffled puree, so as it wouldn’t overwhelm the flavour of the mushrooms, but welcome the elegant and structured Pinot noir from Avincis, with its notes of cherries, pepper and cocoa.
Pinot noir: dense or light-bodied?
Pinot noir is a variety recently introduced in the Dragasani area, being a grape that prefers cooler, less sunny areas, to produce the classic French old school wines, very light-bodies, with intense notes of forest floor and mushrooms, which evolve (sometimes) towards notes of white truffles. But the taste of the new generations – and the specifics of the Romanian market – have opened the doors to Pinot noir to warm and sunny areas, where it produces more intense, denser wines with more concentrated fruit.
On the other hand, many avoid planting Pinot noir because it is considered one of the most sensitive varieties, requiring very careful work in the vineyard. In addition, having thin-skinned berries extracts little colour, phenols and tannins, which give the wine an unpredictable evolution during ageing. However, all this can be compensated by the oenologist’s work, and the Pinot noir version from Avincis is the perfect example of an intense yet elegant wine.
AVINCIS is the continuation of a family story, with a passion for wine and a job well done, which began in 1927. At that time Maria and Iancu Ramniceanu, an appointed officer of the Roman army by Ionel Bratianu, bought in Dragasani, a mansion in pure neo-Romanesque style, inspired by the architecture of the Brancovenese churches, surrounded by vineyards.
In 2007, their great-granddaughter Cristiana, together with her husband Valeriu Stoica and their daughter Andreea, returned to the family estate and had the revelation of the miracle of vines, wines and local traditions.
