5 wines from Italy that are helping the return to normal life

Dear readers,

You’ve endured a lot from me over the years. From my sci-fi worlds of the future to my incessant gyrations about the wine trade, the state of the world and whatever else erupts from this mind. Today, I am cycling back to wine and recommending 5 wines that have crossed my path lately. They are all good, if not always available. But they found their way to me. So, they must exist somewhere else in reality. Read on:

By the Bottle: Robert Camuto

Wine lovers on wine and the vinous life.

Robert Camuto is an American wine writer based in Italy. I first met him in Dallas, where he was promoting his brilliant book about Sicily, Palmento.

Author of forthcoming South of Somewhere: Wine, Food and the Soul of Italy (October 2021) At Table University of Nebraska, and Palmento: A Sicilian Wine Odyssey (2010).

Writer of twice monthly on line column Robert Camuto Meets… @  www.robertcamuto.com

 

What wines do you have standing up right now?

A lot of Chianti Classicos. This spring after all those months in lockdown in Italy (including a bout with Christmas Covid), the first place I headed to was Tuscany for the comfort of good old Sangiovese.

I am on a Sangiovese tear right now. It’s possibly the most emblematic Italian grape. I love the different expressions from all the different parts of Chianti Classico—austere, mineral and vertical in Radda to softer and sunnier around Castellina. Sangiovese cries out for hearty classic Italian foods and salumi. In C.C, you have the pure Sangioveses and the blends. It’s a world.

 

What’s the last great wine you drank?

Yesterday at lunch with a friend in Verona, we drank a bottle of Le Ragnaie 2015 Brunello di Montalcino. Long, smooth, earthy and elegant.

 

Are there any classic wines that you only recently had for the first time?

It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I first tried (speaking of Sangiovese) Montevertine’s mythic Le Pergola Torte. It was at the end of a central Italy summer dinner with a bunch of crazy winemakers. Sadly, I can’t remember what the wine tasted like. (One of those evenings!)

John the Apostle Talks with Jesus: On Water, Natural Winemaking and Large Gatherings

  From the archives

One of the most misunderstood winemakers in all of time is Jesus Christ. After his miracle at the marriage feast of Cana, criticisms of his wine style stirred the temple. Jesus, a man born to love, was reviled. But what about his wine? Was it the ultimate supernatural wine?

Jesus’ mercurial behavior, like the time he went ballistic in the marketplace, have contributed to his reputation as a flesh and blood being, only to be balanced with the events at Cana and subsequent actions with Lazarus.

Criticism of Jesus seems to outpace his actions, many of which have changed history. Denial of his importance in the world of wine and natural winemaking, especially, was common throughout the Roman Empire. After winemaking shifted to Italy, it was as if Jesus the winemaker never existed.

By the Bottle: Ron Washam

Wine lovers on wine and the vinous life.

Ron Washam is an acquired taste, like a fried brain sandwich, or Rigatoni con la pajata, made with the intestines of an unweaned calf, only fed on its mother's milk. A long-time sommelier in southern California, Ron is now superannuated in Sonoma County where he lives undisturbed with his wife, who is the love of his life. She has taken the vows, for better or for worse, to be a solemn oath. As they say in Venice, "Love is blind."

 

What wines do you have standing up right now?

Well, I’m not standing up right now, I’m sitting here filling out this stupid questionnaire which I intend to use to demonstrate my superior knowledge of wine because that’s what this kind of thing is about. The truth is, we all drink lots of wines we’re somewhat ashamed to admit we drank. Like wines we got on sale at Safeway, or were recommended by some beauty blogger on Instagram. That said, I couldn’t quite finish the bottle of ’85 Chave Hermitage I opened last night to go with my fish sticks, so that’s standing up right now looking really embarrassed.

 

What’s the last great wine you drank?

Is there an adjective more abused in the wine business than “great?” Maybe “natural” or “yummy,” which are polar opposites. Greatness is hard to measure, like your own inseam. Also, whatever it was, I hope it wasn’t the last great wine I drink. I’d like to have more great wines. Mainly, yours. I did recently drink a 2010 Dom Perignon that would make a blind monk see. I suppose the Champagne could have been better, now that I think about it. It could have been Dom and Dommer.

2021-The future of wine wholesale distribution – Post Covid 19

Photo by Susan Lowry Hare

OK, right off the bat, this is an “inside baseball” post, so no need for the ineluctable comment stating the obvious. There will be no reviews of 2020 rosé wines, no “longing for Italy” posts, no nostalgia of any kind. It’s just what I’ve dreamt up from talking to people in the wine trade, along with observing as a wine consumer, during the last 15 months. Read 'em and weep. Here goes:

By the Bottle: Alder Yarrow

Wine lovers on wine and the vinous life.

I made Alder’s acquaintance through wine blogging, and have spent time with him in Napa and Italy. Alder is considered one of the pioneers of wine blogging with Vinography, and has been a columnist for Jancis Robinson, since 2011, at jancisrobinson.com. He has traveled the world, to quench his thirst for wine and beyond. Alder is moved by wines that “have distinct personalities, strong voices, and reveal themselves in layers."

 

What wines do you have standing up right now?

At the moment I’ve got a bottle of 2019 Sandlands Red Table Wine in the fridge preserved with the new Coravin Pivot system, which is proving to be quite a handy device for keeping weeknight bottles fresh. In any case, Tegan Passalacqua has been making such wonderfully delicious wines under his Sandlands label, and this old-vine field blend from Contra Costa county is deliciously gulpable. It’s 55% Carignane and 45% Mataro and weighs in at only 12.8% alcohol. I like to drink it with a slight chill on it, and man, is it great.

In addition to that bottle, I’ve got the dregs of a couple of press samples that have been sent to me lately, a white Pinot Noir from Anne Amie Vineyards called “Prismé,” and a Vermentino di Gallura from the Sardegna producer Surrau.

 

What’s the last great wine you drank?

I’m not fully vaccinated yet (10 days and counting), so I’ve been easing my way back into social dining. I have a group of friends that have all been very careful and are partway through their vaccination regime too, and so we decided to go sit outside at The Morris restaurant in San Francisco a week or so ago, and we ordered some lovely wines. The star of the night was a 2011 Domaine du Collier “La Charpentrie” Saumur Blanc from the Loire Valley. It was just singing.

 

Describe your ideal drinking experience (when, where, what, how).

There are few things better than a long afternoon sitting around outside with good friends and great wine. If we’re talking ideal, it would be Spring, where the air is cool enough to keep the wines from getting warm, but warm enough to be comfortable. We’d be in the shade, at a picnic table, with an epic view, maybe of mountains or of the sea, and enough to eat so that we can keep drinking without needing a nap or to break away for a big meal.

I think if you had asked me this question 2 years ago, my answer might have been more grand, but right now, what I really want to do more than anything is just enjoy the company of great friends with no other encumbrances or obligations.

10 Wines that Forever Changed the How the World Sees Italian Wine

From 8½ by Federico Fellini

Italy was once a forlorn country, vinously speaking. The wines were made haphazardly. The flavors were sometimes off, especially the white wines. They didn’t “travel” well to foreign countries. And the producers and the importers thought, in order to get a foothold in the market, that the wines had to be cheap. So they were. And, in the immortal words of Rodney Dangerfield, they “didn’t get no respect.”

We’re talking the 1960-70’s here, which is a universe away from the world we live in now. But to get from there to here took a revolution that hammered away at the commercial, cultural, logistical and financial worlds that prevailed. It was a long, slow climb to the top, where now Italian wine enjoys a reputation as one of the great wine producing countries of the world. No longer is Italy in the shadow of France, as it was when I started out. But it took some dogged determination, and the blood, sweat and tears of a diverse group of producers (and importers) in order to pull this revolution off. Here are ten of those fomenters who created a new reality for Italian wine, and changed forever how all of us see wine from Italy.

By the Bottle: Ian D'Agata

Wine lovers on wine and the vinous life.

For most of my readers, Ian D’Agata needs no introduction. I consider Ian to be the top Italian wine expert (and author) living today. Not constrained to the Italian peninsula, though, he is extremely well-versed in wines from France, Germany and the world over. Ian is also a Renaissance man, having trained as a medical doctor before coming to the world of wine. He recently moved to Shanghai, China to take the post of Editor-in-Chief of the TS wine review (become a member HERE) and the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of TasteSpirit, China’s leading media and education company, including a wine school with centers in eight different metropolitan Chinese cities, a digital wine magazine with 3 Million private users, and international conferences and events on wine and food with world-renowned experts in their field. In essence, Ian is a busy man. But he graciously gave of his time to join us at By the Bottle for this segment.

What wines do you have standing up right now?

Alsace and Franken Sylvaner (both dry and late harvest); dry and especially late harvest Riesling from anywhere in the world but especially the Saar, Mosel and Ruwer; Pinot Noir from Burgundy and Oregon; old Napa Cabs and Bordeaux; Niagara wines; and wines made from Italy’s native grapes. I have a lot of bottles standing because I am tasting and drinking all the time.

 

What’s the last great wine you drank?

Petrus 1998, but it’s not anywhere near being ready to drink. And a litany of Mosel BAs and TBAs.

 

Are there any classic wines that you only recently had for the first time?

No. I have been drinking and tasting since the late 70s at a fairly unimaginable clip and so I can safely say there isn’t a single world wine I don’t know well, though clearly there are areas of, for example, Spain, Portugal and South Africa that I do not know as well as those who live there or who work with those wines.