Virginia Blush is a cane-based wine fermented with apples and rose and today, I am making pasta to go with it. This wine is delicate and can be drank on its own. It is also rather versatile.

Perhaps the best pasta dish that goes with Virginia Blush is your usual bolognese. With that said, I must now get my apron fresh from the backyard where it took a bit of time to dry. Enough about the apron, let’s move on to the real action -the bolognese recipe.

Ingredients

1/2 cup olive oil (add as necessary)

1-2 tablespoons butter

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 carrots, finely chopped

celery, finely chopped

5 garlic cloves

1/2 kilo pork (ground)

1/2 kilo veal (ground)

114 grams slab bacon or pancetta

250 grams whole milk or cream

A tube of tomato paste, around 128 grams

1 cup Basidina White Wine

Salt

Parmigiano-Reggiano

Instructions For the Meat Sauce

Heat the olive oil mixed with butter over medium heat. Add onions, celery, garlic, and carrots to the pot. Season with salt until the veggies are translucent. This should take you around five minutes or a little over. Once the vegetables are done, add veal, pancetta, and pork. I usually increase the heat to brown the meat faster. This will take you around 10 minutes or so until the fat has been rendered out and the meat brown. You will need to add tomato paste to the pot after this and cook it for about 3 minutes until you see an orange tinge. Add a bit of milk and cook the meat sauce until its reduced. Add a cup of Basidina wine or any of your favourite white wines. Most prefer dry white wine for this but any white wine will do, everything depends on your taste buds anyway so don’t be afraid to experiment. Bring to a boil then reduce the heat and let it simmer for 2 hours. Season with salt afterwards.

Instructions For the Pasta

You can make fresh pasta or if you don’t feel like it, you can just buy a pack of pasta from the grocery. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. You should add salt to this. Then cook the pasta a minute or so shorter than what is indicated in the package. Drain the pasta. Don’t throw away the water though because you will need that for the sauce. In a saute pan, add sauce and a bit of the pasta water. Add your cooked pasta and stir. Add Parmigiano and olive oil until creamy. You can add chopped parsley if you want. Serve with grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.

You can pair this recipe with Virginia Blush.

Photo by Jan Vasek