Showing posts with label Montalcino Follies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Montalcino Follies. Show all posts

Sunday, December 01, 2019

A late-night dispatch from a tired and wary Italian wine export agent in China

[ Imagine a scenario where Italian wine exporters, winemakers and their agents make their twice (or thrice) yearly pilgrimage to China in search of trade and success. And imagine, if you will, one of those agents sending a note in the middle of the night. It has happened many times, and as such, this one emanated from one of those cold, dark, lonely rooms, overlooking a pop-up city of millions in the middle of the night.]


Dear A,

It’s 3 A.M. and I got into my room two hours ago. I’m writing to you because it’s afternoon where you are, and back home in Italy people have sat down to their Sunday dinner. They have other, more important things on their mind than my travails in the Middle Kingdom.

I’ve just come in from another wine banquet, this time in Zhengzhou. Course after course, some recognizable, some as foreign as the Chinese characters on the signs. And wine, Italian wine. Multiple vintages of this wine or that wine. In my case, it is our Brunello, which goes back many years. How our hosts found the 1955, I’ll never know. We don’t even have it in our cave back home. But that seems to be the way it is in China. One can find things seemingly lost to history. On the other hand, one can find that here the past is shunned, forever lost. At least the truth of history. But that’s what it must be like when you live under the rule of a leader who had himself voted ruler for life. God, what I’d give to have a plate of spaghetti con peperoncino aglio olio right now, to settle my stomach and to rid my palate from the taste of smoked duck and soy.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Making a small fortune in Montalcino *

Richard Parsons is a wildly successful fellow. He’s made a lot of money, and he has risen to the top of the Wall Street summit. Forbes reported in 2008 he made over $10,000,000. And in the last four years he probably hasn’t done too badly for himself. Yeah, there have been a few bumps along the road, but now he’s sitting pretty under the Tuscan sun at his Il Palazzone estate.

A smart guy; belongs to the “best and the brightest” club. Great at finance and media and knows how to sell with the best of them. And that’s the way we reward folks in America. When they’re the best at what they do.

So when a recent article came out on Bloomberg News about Parsons’ Montalcino project, why, oh why didn’t someone check the quotes? I know of the wines of Il Palazzone; their social media person Laura Gray is affable and plugged in. I reckon she’s trying to figure out how to tweet herself out of this.

Sunday, March 06, 2011

Brunello Dunello:Words to Ponder in Times of Folly

Dune and Duner ~ further ruminations on the nature of Montalcino wine

He who controls the Spice controls the Brunello-verse!

He who can destroy a thing, can control a thing.
Frank Herbert

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