Pizza with birthday wine

When our Asshole left us 4 years ago, we started the tradition of celebrating his birthday with a bottle of wine from his birth vintage, and we also started to dine out for the occasion during the last couple of years. This year we decided to take our CCDogcow out with us, and Foursheets decided that we should book ourselves an outdoor table at Fiata Pizza. CCDogcow has visited Fiata before, and definitely loved the pizza crust that we fed her.

It rained tonight, but thankfully it wasn't a downpour. We arrived more than 20 minutes before our booking, so we strolled around a little and waited for our table to free up. It wasn't too bad, and CCDogcow was a very good girl - she just sat quietly on the sidewalk while we waited.

We knew we couldn't finish all the food tonight, but we really wanted to have two different pizzas plus a starter:

Caprese - made with mozzarella di bufala Campana DOP, which was pretty decent.

Diavola by Giovanni - this is a pizza I've had before and really enjoyed. On top we have some bufala cream on top of fior di latte di Napoli. The tomato used was, of course, San Marzano DOP, and we have some nduja and dried spicy sausages of black Casertano pig. These were especially nice and added some kick to the pizza. The dough was soft and fluffy as one would expect. Just wonderful.

Bronte 5.0 - I was looking at my friends' pictures as they dined at Pepe in Grani today, and noticed a striking resemblance between this pizza and Viandante. Then I remembered that Salvatore Fiata used to be the chef at Kytaly, which was Franco Pepe's outpost in HK for a little while. THAT's why these pizzas are so good! Anyway, we've got the mortadella Oro di Bologna IGP I love so much, plus ricotta di bufala, semi dried tomatoes, and a good sprinkle of pistacchio di Bronte DOP... all on top of fior di latte Napoli. The presence of Sorrento lemon zest and lemon oil added a nice little fragrance to it all.

I did bring along a bottle from Kuma's birth vintage:

2013 Joseph Faiveley Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru Les Amoureuses - double-decanted an hour before drinking. Initially the wine showed some notes of leather, then there was a little eucalyptus and dried herbs. There was some ripeness on the palate but the acidity was still high. Almost 3 hours later this opened up a little more, and was now showing some sweet strawberries and vanilla.

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This was a nice and casual dinner, and I'm sure Kuma would have loved the pizzas. Instead, it was CCDogcow who got to enjoy the crust while Foursheets and I toasted her bro's life. Wish you were here, Bro Bro.