Guest commentary by Beatrice Russo
Well, he’s at it again, gone all Willy Wonka on us. After I texted him on a question about Albarino he seemed to go into another dimension. I talked to his son, he said he’d been over to his apartment a few days earlier and had tried out his new inversion table, took two turns at being upside down. I came over to the house to bring him a bottle of his special Italian orange liqueur, thinking we could talk about my upcoming first level sommelier test, but all I could find was a bunch of papers, what seemed like an interview with a fried potato, I tell you, he's pushing it. Last week I was helping him with a new project. Numbers stuff, easy, basic algebra that my dad taught me (he was a math teacher). Italian Wine Guy has a new project, top secret stuff, and he has been asking me to gather national figures from the Italian Trade Commission and other places that gather sales and import figures.
I know he was going out of town, but I thought it was next week. Austin? He said something about Chicago; I know there’s a Wine Spectator Grand Tasting event there next week. But that’s not his deal. He once showed me an old WS from the 80’s, he collected them and old Rolling Stone magazines when they were both printed on newspaper. Weird.
He said he dreamt about his first real car, a Porsche Speedster. I’ve seen a picture, nice looking wheels. And this new wine label with the three girls and a donkey has him trying to figure out if it will work or not. I like the Falanghina idea, not too cool on the Montepulciano, though. Maybe he should rethink that, but hey, what do I know, I’m just an intern.I did get an email about what a tough month April was, even though he seemed to be having a pretty good time, going all over Italy while I watched his house and his stray cat and watered the vegetable garden. While he ate at Perbellini and Belvedere and Bottega del Vino and Ciccarelli. Yeah, I feel for his sorry old donkey-butt.
I did see an open letter from his doctor, something about cholesterol and thyroid. My grand-dad had something wrong like that, used to pass out once in a while. I hope he’s OK.
I just got a text from him, he’s with a Spanish wine producer from Galicia, they’re eating blue crab and drinking Albarino. Wait, I was just asking him about that darn wine and now he’s, what? He’s in the zone.
So the text ended with “Faster, pussycat.” Dude is out there. I’ve got to get to yoga. He'll be back, just sounds busy with his glorious life.
Comments to me here:Beatrice