Hard-to-find Italian food and wine are the focus of Wine Country’s new specialty store

The shop is an offshoot of Idlewild Wines, which operates a tasting room next door. Idlewild has always had a foothold in Italy: winemaker Sam Bilbro grows northern Italian varietals like Nebbiolo, Barbera and Arneis in vineyards around Mendocino County. In recent years, he has introduced educational sessions known as Sunday School in the Idlewild Tasting Room, where he offers classes on the Italian bottles that inspire his California winemaking.

When he secured a lease on the space next to the tasting room, Bilbro chose not to expand Idlewild’s footprint. Instead, he wanted to go in a new direction, filling a gap he perceived in Healdsburg: a place to buy high-quality Italian edibles like pasta, canned fish, meats, cheeses and , of course, wine.

“We want to show what’s possible in California by showing how it’s done in the Old World,” said Bilbro, who is opening the store with co-founders Courtney Humiston, the former director of wines at Petite Crenn in San Francisco; and Thomas DeBiase, who previously ran operations for Foley Family Wines.

The roughly 200 wines available are all organic or biodynamic, and come mostly from “producer-producers,” Bilbro said, meaning small winemakers who cultivate their own land. A section of the store is devoted to “zero-zero” wines, a hardcore subset of the natural wine category. Although almost everything is Italian, there is one notable exception: Ciao Bruto offers an extensive selection of champagne, Humiston’s favorite wine.

Bilbro and his team tried to find Italian food products atypical of what’s typically available in Northern California. This includes Yurrita canned fish, dried peas and chickpeas from renowned wine producer Paolo Bea; Mancini pasta; and Savini Tartufi’s truffle products. Some of the cheeses and meats whose availability may vary are mortadella from an Emilia-Romagna family that has been curing their meats since 1509, pecorino cheese soaked in Barolo grapes and grappa, and parmesan cheese injected with blue mold.

As for whether Bilbro’s Idlewild wine will be on Ciao Bruto’s shelves, the answer is no. For these, customers can always head next door to the Idlewild Tasting Room.

Hello Bruto. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. 130 Plaza Street, Healdsburg. 707-756-3918 or

ciaobruto.com

Esther Mobley is the principal wine critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. E-mail: [email protected]
Twitter:
@Esther_mobley