Italian spinach and ricotta pie with Soave (or Vermentino)

To tell you the truth this is as much about the story behind the pie as the wine match but that was good too so let’s kick off with that.

The pie was a Torta Pasqualina a traditional Easter pie from Liguria which is filled with ricotta, spinach and whole eggs. As often these days it was a question of trying to find the most suitable match which turned out to be a rather elderly 2015 Bertani Soave which had seen better days but which still had enough character to show off the pie rather nicely.

Vermentino which is local to the region (as you can see from this article) would have been better still but I didn’t have any. Gavi di Gavi or any of those interesting neutral Italian whites, preferably from a more recent vintage, would have done too. As would a glass of Franciacorta.

What was particularly nice about the construction of this pie was that a group of us made it together on Zoom from this recipe by Rachel Roddy. We’d collaborated on the sourcing of the ingredients getting our spinach from a local greengrocer (Hugo’s in Bedminster, Bristol) who also supplied the locally made ricotta from Westcombe Dairy. And it fortunately didn’t require too much flour.

We cooked together, companionably chatting and comparing notes for about an hour then broke off to clear up while the pies were cooking and reconvened (with Rachel, who is a colleague on the Guardian) to have a drink an hour later. A nice thing to do with friends who like to cook - whether you have Soave or not!