Gli American wine bloggers conquer Italy? How about Italians try to conquer Italy first?

And so my fellow Italians,ask not what America can do for Italy; ask what Italy can do for Italy"

The flash on my camera is not working. It's stuck. So is Italy. As much as there is talk of wines being natural, we even go so far as to walk in the vineyards, pull up a stone and look under it, or tear out a piece of soil and see the live snails tearing up the matter, still there are elements in Italy that rip it out only to throw it up in the air. For what? To see where it will go? To see if it will fly?

Italy has their barking poodles too, Ron. Maybe the television shows are not as entertaining as American ones, Starsky and Hutch, CSI, Dexter. Maybe there is a need for blood. Or controversy.

Sometimes a Tocai is just a Tocai.
Really, it is just that. Now what, now that it is up in the air, where to go with it? Personally for me, the mission is to take something I have found and put it on my Nina's, Pinta's and Santa Maria's and try and find a home for it in the New World. Just like my grandfather who came to America, willingly of his own free will, except his mission was to find something in America to take back to Italy, namely Prima Materia, for his father's business. I am doing the opposite. America isn't broken that it needs me to fix it. But Italy is broken in places. Italy is like a beautiful woman that covers herself up with a Burkha because she doesn’t want anyone to see a scratch the cat made behind her ear.

Enough ragazzi. You bark, we hear you. Now how about coming out from behind the screen and run with us, maybe catch something and bite into it? Cut the Culatello, for Chrissakes.

That is the problem I see all over Italy, this malaise of spirit, that has people diverting their energy in action to making speeches on blogs instead of taking life, grabbing the balls and juggling this life we all have so very short a time.

Get out from behind your screens, virtual or actual, come again, I say to you, let's run up to the top of the Ronchi. It's warmer up there, the sun is shining there. We will have some coffee correto and take the days ahead of us to attack how to take Italy back in the hands of those who really love this country, not just the rewards they have manipulated, like wine in so many barriques. Come, I mean it; take your country and your wines back into your hands.

America is waiting on you.

So is Italy...

written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy