It is a great thing to be married to someone who loves to cook. And Ernie says it is a great thing to be married to someone who loves and has an understanding of wine. A match made in heaven, to be sure (or close to heaven, anyway)!

We made plans to cook up a storm one weekend in early February. We pulled out "Lidia's Italy" cookbook, which is a fabulous resource. Definitely buy it, and also check out Lidia's videos online or on Hulu. The first day was Sausage with Fennel and Olives. It turns out to be a really easy recipe. Ernie sautéed the chopped fennel with white wine, browned the sausage, and then finished the dish with green olives. To accompany, I chose a 2008 Poderi Luigi Einaudi Vigna Tecc Dogliani. This wine is actually made from Dolcetto grapes, grown around the town of Dogliani in the Piemonte region of Italy. The wine has a great taste of black fruit and blueberries, along with velvety tannins. There are minerals in the scent, along with the black fruit. The combination of the wine with the sausage and fennel was great - the olives added a bit of salt, the caramelized fennel was a bit sweet, and the sausage pulled it all together. Just lovely.

And just as we finished dinner, we got the phone call we had been expecting - our daughter was giving birth to our first grandchild! We finished cleaning up, then rushed off to the hospital to check that our granddaughter had the correct number (and distribution) of fingers and toes, and that the new mom and dad were doing fine!

2008 Poderi Luigi Einaudi Vigna Tecc Dogliani - it went wonderfully with the dish.

The next day, after visiting the new parents and our adorable and most intelligent granddaughter again (no bias here!), we created another of Lidia's recipes, Beef in Barolo. This is a favorite of ours, especially on cold days. After a piece of beef chuck is browned, it is braised along with carrots, onions, porcini mushrooms, and fennel and lots of herbs in a couple bottles of Barolo (some even goes in the pot - old joke!). Again, a really easy recipe - the hardest part is smelling the increasing aromas and getting hungrier while waiting for the braising process to finish.

Beef in Barolo along with braised vegetables and porcini mushrooms.

Served with garlic bread to soak up the sauce.

We served this dish alongside spinach and garlic bread (to soak up the lovely juices) and accompanied with a Tuscan wine - a 2010 Baracchi Smeriglio made from 100% Sangiovese. (One might ask - why didn't we have a Barolo with a Beef in Barolo recipe? Good question - I just decided to match it with something different!) This is a lovely wine, a very characteristic Sangiovese. The color is a beautiful ruby, the scent is fruity, and it has great black fruit taste along with medium tannins. The beef and the porcinis matched quite well with the wine. BTW, a colleague of mine tells me that Signore Baracchi has a gorgeous estate and hotel accompanying the vineyard - he and his wife had an amazingly romantic weekend there when he was stationed in Italy. Signore Baracchi raises falcons - so each wine is named after one of his falcons. The site is in Italian, but definitely check it out - Il Falconiere. We purchased this wine from Siema Wines after one of the wine tastings at Amici Miei - our favorite distributor, Nick Materese, stayed at the hotel, met Signore Baracchi, and Nick also has a number of fun stories about the various wines that they produce.

The 2010 Baracchi Smeriglio Sangiovese - the perfect wine with which to toast our new granddaughter! — The 2010 Baracchi Smeriglio Sangiovese - the perfect wine with which to toast our new granddaughter!

A toast to the new addition to our family, "Baby G" - Cin! Cin! And a toast to the new parents, our lovely daughter and son-in-law. What a special weekend to remember always!