Est!Est! Est!-The Wine That Became Legend

copyright,2008, Maria Liberati
The Basic Art of Italian Cooking
Today’s lunch was a light pasta dish with dried porcini mushrooms, fresh parsley and extra virgin olive oil, (If you want the recipe just send me an email at maria@marialiberati.com). Of course the topping was freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese. Unfortunately, I left my office about 15 minutes before the stores close here and almost did not get the parmigiano-reggiano cheese.
It is not easy to walk down narrow streets at lunchtime; just envision the narrow sidewalks covered with people talking but also talking with their hands…difficult to pass by quickly. Of course we are so expressive, it is quite difficult to talk without using our hands.
But, yes I made it into our local cheese store a minute before closing, lucky for me because the cheese really adds something to this dish.
However, the perfect wine to accompany this is called Est! Est! Est! it is a wine celebrated all over the world. This wine dates back to the 12th century. And as the legend goes, a noble knight-  Martino told his patron to let him know what the best ‘osterie’ are -(they are similar to what we would call a tavern) for wherever he was going ,but he wanted to know the best ones that had the best wines.
He asked his patron to have placed on the doors of the best ‘osterie’ the word Est! to signal that they had great wines. However, he asked to have placed on the doors of the ‘osterie’-  Est! Est! if they had very good wines. But in a town called Montefiascone, the patron found such exceptional wine that he said that Est! Est! was not good enough he decided to put  on the door of the local ‘osterie’ Est! Est! Est! to signal just how exceptional the wine was here.
The legend continued that the patron that found this exceptional wine in Montefiascone said that he wished to die by drowning in a pool of Est! Est! Est! in Montefiascone.
The wine has a brilliant yellow color. it is a dry white wine and has an alcohol content of 11% and acid content of 5-7%.