In April, I ate at Illata in Philadelphia. It’s a newish restaurant (opened in late 2023) in the Graduate Hospital area that is getting excellent reviews. The menu is small, so our foursome decided to get “one of each” on the menu. It’s also a BYOB, so we came armed with several wines for the seafood-centric menu.

We started with marinated mussels and chicory salad, shortly followed by carrot with crab and fluke with thai chili. Salads are notoriously hard to pair wine with; normally, I pick a high acid white wine to stand up to the fatty dressings and bitter greens. I choose a 2023 Bockennauer Schiefergestein Riesling from the Schäfer-Frölich Winery in the Nahe region in Germany, about an hour southwest of Frankfurt. Some of the vineyards lining the slopes of the Nahe River, flowing through Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, are so steep that only hand-harvesting is possible.

The winemaker at Schäfer-Frölich, Tim Frölich, took over the family winery in 1995 (at the age of 21!) and since then, has vastly increased the quality, and thus, the reputation of their wines. The winery produces only 120,000 bottles a year, 85% Riesling and 15% Pinot Blanc/Pinot Noir.

His Rieslings have the trademark mineral precision and tension one looks for in German Rieslings, even in years where the harvest wasn’t so great. This Riesling was no exception and went well with the chicory salad and the fluke, which had spicy Thai chili. (Rieslings also pair well with spicy foods).
Schäfer-Frölich wines are hard to find, because of their low production quantity and high demand. I get them from Liquid Culture in Wilmington, Delaware, but they are also available online and are worth searching out. This bottle was $39. 12.5% ABV.

For the tagliatelle and octopus, I brought a light-bodied red wine: a 2022 Pergola Aleatico Superiore Grigoglietto from Fattoria Villa Ligi. This 100+ year old winery is located in La Marche, Italy, and specializes in local varietals that they have saved from extinction. The grapes from this 50 year old vineyard are harvested by hand.

In the glass, the wine is a lighter ruby, with aromas of strawberry and rose. On the palate, flavors of strawberry and minerality, with lighter tannins. I purchased this wine from Moore Brothers last Spring for $23. ABV 13%. Moore Bros. is currently out of stock of this wine, but keep an eye out for the next vintage’s release. It’s a versatile red that goes well with white meat, as well as mushrooms and creamy pastas.

I hope you get a chance to go to Illata. Reservations are hard to get (on the Resy app), but they do save some seats at the bar for walk-ins, and outside when the weather is nice. Cheers!