About
Estate-grown Carnaroli from the Rondolino family at Tenuta Colombara, on the rice plain outside Vercelli. The grain rests at least a year in silos held under 15 degrees before milling, which settles the starch. It holds its shape in the pan and drinks up stock. Milling rubs grain against grain rather than stripping it, and the germ goes back on before tinning.
The paddies cover about 200 hectares of the Vercelli plain and are watered from the Dora Baltea as it comes off the Alps. The fields are flooded from April to August, which suits the frogs, dragonflies and swallows as much as the rice. Colombara grows nothing but Carnaroli.
Cesare Rondolino bought the estate in 1935 and the family has farmed rice there since. The old rice weeders' dormitory, built in 1920, is now a museum of rice culture. Slow Food opened its first gastronomic sciences learning centre on the farm in 2004.
Treat it as risotto rice first. The aged grain softens slowly, so it stays firm in the middle while the outside turns creamy. It will take a long stir without collapsing. Keep the tin closed and cool and it holds for months.
Producer note
Piero Rondolino started the Acquerello label in 1991 and built the mill that makes the ageing and the germ work possible. His wife and three children run sales, the farm, research and the design between them.
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