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Nine letters that can take one from the incessant rain of the Texas plains to Apulia, and an isolated beach front cottage.
A friend, Vincenzo, just bought a Ferrari, and he has offered to pick me up in Bari and take me to a fishing village in the Gargano, where another friend, a writer, has a simple little place on a private beach. No crowds, she promises. Sunny skies, clear water, no internet, no cell phones, no e-mail.
Folks have suggested that I take it down a notch for a week or so, and turn the world off. If all goes well, a plane will have a spare business-class seat for a weary pilgrim. To dip one’s toes in the Adriatic, to step off the stage of the wine-soaked killing fields and sip on a little wine, a little water, some figs, some langosto. As if in a dream. We shall see. If so, Beatrice might fill in, though she will not be compelled to do so. She has a friend, Arthur Krea, who is a sommelier and amateur cartoonist. He also wants to blog in my absence. As the millenniums say, whatever.
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I had an agent offer me a Morellino di Scansano from the 2005 vintage this week for € 2 a bottle. Another one was offering me Grillo for € .90 a bottle and Nero d’Avola for €1.10 a bottle. 13% alcohol on all of them. The heady days of folks like Planeta and all the wannabees asking €15 for a bottle of Cabernet or Nero d’Avola are over. La comedia e' finita.
People are looking for something more timeless, more classic. They want romance, yes, but they don’t want to sacrifice their first born or sell their daughter into slavery to drink a bottle of wine with dinner.
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Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
America is a place where many in the Italian wine industry look to unload their wines at premium prices. We’ve been hog-tied and wrestled to the ground by the Amazons of Agrigento. We’ve been challenged and check-pointed
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I know, this is not about the wine trail in Italy. The wine trail in Italy is the metaphor, stupid. Ponder that while I’m AWOL. Or not.
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