Our new favorite local hangout, Vito’s Café is a wonderful old style Italian bistro making classic veal dishes, homemade pasta and tomato sauces, and brick oven, thin-crusted, delicious pizzas. I hadn’t had veal parmigiana for twenty years until I stopped in Vito’s a few months ago. I’ve been back about two dozen times since that first visit, and it’s the best veal parmigiana I have ever had. You can add just about any of their veal dishes to the portfolio, as well as excellent pizzas from their wood-burning oven, and tasty specials, from seafood over pasta, to whole ronzini roasted in the oven with herbs.

I have listed just some of the wines we’ve enjoyed. At one meal, the Peter Michael 2003 Chardonnay Cuvée Indigène was fully mature, and it probably needs to be drunk up. The 2003 Saint Préfert Châteauneuf du Pape Collection Charles Giraud from magnum was extraordinary, offering notes of lavender, licorice, pepper, meat juices, and lots of red and black fruits. Still youthful, a strong candidate for the finest Syrah being made in Languedoc/Roussillon corridor is the Clos des Truffières from Bordeaux broker and wine producer, Jeffrey Davies. This 1999, which is probably not as good as the 2005, 2003, 2001, or 1998, is an extraordinarily dark ruby/purple-colored wine exhibiting notes of acacia flowers, graphite, blueberries, and blackberry liqueur. We began the evening with a beautiful bottle of Moët-Chandon‘s 2000 Dom Pérignon, which is just a notch below the 1996 and 1990. It is an exquisite Champagne.

At another meal, we started with the 2004 Aubert Chardonnay Ritchie Vineyard, which may be even better than his Lauren in that vintage, but it’s a tough call. Beautifully rich and honeyed with lots of citrus, white flowers, quince, and honeysuckle as well as a striking minerality, it is one of the 2 or 3 best Chardonnays being made in California. The 2003 Chave white Hermitage is oily and unctuously textured, but still remarkably fresh, even in this rather freakish vintage. Magnums of the 2003 Clos des Papes Châteauneuf du Pape and 2003 Pierre Usseglio Châteauneuf du Pape Cuvée Mon Aïeul were close to perfection. Both wines are getting more complex and nuanced, and they have shed some of the enormous baby fat they displayed in their youth. In a vintage that produced a dozen or so profound Châteauneuf du Papes, these are two of them. The biggest disappointment was the 2006 Clos de Tart. Like so many red Burgundies from 2006 seem to be, it was underripe, excessively acidified, and almost textureless. It’s a sham, and it’s amazing how few people are willing to stand up and admit such stuff exists.