11 Years Wine Blogging - On the Wine Trail in Italy – Quo Vadis?

What started out as a journal, a web-log as we called it at the time, has become a journey, now expanding into its second decade. The idea of time as a construct that stretches and takes forever, well maybe that quite ain’t the way it is. But what I do know, in the last eleven years, is “what a long, strange trip it's been.”

From my perspective, smack dab in the middle and below the belt-line of America, I see only the road ahead, the future. If the last eleven years passed in a blink, imagine what the next two, four, eight could be? For wine, and Italian wine at that, it will be great. But what if it is riddled with uncertainty, sitting on lees of confusion and ambiguity? Fortunately, in times of social change, even in extreme cases involving the ultimate breakdown - war - the earth still gives forth. It still rotates, constantly moving through space at unimaginable speeds. The earth really doesn’t care if we are here or not, does not mourn T-Rex or the dodo. It’s up to us to make the right decisions as to how good of a life we can make it on this pretty little water filled orb. One solution: 85-87% water diluted with a little magic from the fermented grapes, a civilized pause for enjoyment, while here.

The American Dreamer - From Palermo in 1911 to the United States in 2016

On a Barbarossa class ocean liner, a young man, barely a teenager in 1911, makes it all the way to Ellis Island, by himself. On a ship full of hope and promise, everyone looking, searching for their place in life.

The young man would settle in the west and form a satellite operation similar to his father’s, back in Sicily. He would expand upon the business, and live for nearly 100 years. This is the story of so many of the Italian immigrants who came to America looking for that promise and hope, and opportunity. It was dubbed “The American Dream.”

The Top 10 Commandments of Italian Wine

With the holiday season fast approaching, and with hallowed respect for Italian wine, let’s take a moment and review the 10 Commandments of Italian Wine.

Bruno Giacosa Retrospective - A Life in Wine

Bruna (L) and Bruno (R) Giacosa, the oracle of Neive, in 2004

Bruno Giacosa has spent a lifetime making great wine. Like the fog that cloaks the many hills of the Langhe, to many he is shrouded in an enigmatic blanket: cryptic, recondite, even Delphian. Impenetrable, to us mere mortals. Mr. Giacosa is a man who talks with his wine, a brujo of Barolo and Barbaresco. Why should we expect any explanation or commentary from him? Are the wines not enough? Does a Rembrandt or a Mozart require a labyrinth of interpretation for their life’s work? Some would say, yes, and there are all manner of academic and commercial industries that have sprung up in service of such explanations. But I think we would be disappointed should we expect this master of Nebbiolo to take the stand in his defense. The wines are – and they stand vigil for him and the energy of his life, which we can experience and enjoy, drop by drop.