Yes, it has been seventeen (17!) years since I started this wine blog. I mean, who blogs anymore? It’s so “flip phone” of anyone to still be hanging onto a medium that has passed, or at best, been passed over, by faster, newer, shinier things on the internet. But the readers keep coming (Thank you!) and it’s still kinda-sorta fun. So, Happy Birthday to On the Wine Trail in Italy!
For one, many people are just glad to be out and about. Not all. One fellow I talked to said he got along just fine, during the height of the pandemic. He is an introvert, working from home and really had time to fix a lot of things, slow down the pace of his life and take stock of his life. “My partner and I were going out every night, always on the go. It was exhausting. I know the horrible parts of the pandemic and I don’t mean to make light of it, but I was so relieved to get off that carousel.” And here we were, again, in a large group, a crowded dining room, with noise levels so high you could not hear the person across from you. Had we not learned a goddamm thing?
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Over the past 50 years I have been an avid Italy watcher. In time I became an active participant in the wine trade. In the boat, either rowing or rocking it, depending on my role at the time, navigating the sea of Italian wine has been a vigorous and spirited undertaking. But now that I have debarked, I observe from the shore. As we go into the month of December, the world is collectively gasping a sigh of relief, as the hurricane, cyclone and typhoon seasons are winding down. But the way I see it, for the future of Italian wine, there is a storm season coming, a big one. And for those on the wrong side of the squall, there will be an unprecedented jolt. For the way of Italian wine is undergoing, once again, a tectonic change. People get ready!
I have been back in Texas less than a week. During the first half of November, I visited six regions in Northern Italy. These were wine producing areas that were mountainous. There was usually a temperate valley included, for the grapes. We visited wine producing areas such as the Valle d’Aosta, Valle de la Roya, Valtellina, Valpolicella and the Valle Isarco.
No, that’s all good. What caused me to twinge here and there while watching the series was a couple of other things.
No, I was on my own, in a way. I wasn’t alone, but this wasn’t going to be a social event, the kind that junkets have become, especially now that covid resurrections are being lifted.
My first time visiting Piedmont was over a generation ago. At the time a winemaking revolution was in its infancy. The Italians had discovered small barrique and higher prices. New wineries were going up. It was the beginning of a cycle that only now is starting to make full circle. It was an exciting era for Italian wines and Piedmont. And they were getting world respect for their wines, like their cousins in Burgundy.
Three aspects are occupying my attention of late:
Probably not the best headline for a blog in terms of SEO. Maybe better to use “Italy 2022, and her impending economic, environmental, political, agricultural and social turmoil, following on the heels of the post-pandemic (or is it?) era.” Yes, we have much to consider, starting with the wine grape harvest.
Regardless of the quality or quantity of the harvest, which on its own is worthy of deeper consideration, but taking into account a larger vista in which wine, as an agricultural bi-product, is made with the labor of humans and the energy of technology. Say what?
Fasten your seat belts, folks.
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| "Un Miracolo!" |
Get ready, for here it comes! The long-awaited (and inevitable) treatise tsunami over the 2022 Italian grape harvest. Just like the ubiquitous dissertations on the perfect Thanksgiving wine or the vaulted Springtime piece on the gaggle of new rosé wines. Why do we love these so? Too many scribes today are looking for the easy-layout, the slam dunk, the no-brainer, when it comes to content. The 21st century has broken everything, and the internet leads the way, always and in every way. So, let’s get ready for a plethora of boilerplate and an avalanche of cliché, with regards to the 2022 harvest. It will be epic!
And then, we moved to the desert when I was a kid, and we lived across from an Italian family. The husband was a screen writer, although his wife once told me he was a gofer for a famous television producer. He always seemed to be hanging around the house when he wasn’t out running errands, or as he liked to say, polishing up a script. Actually, what he was really good at was polishing off a bottle, night after night. He was harmless enough when he was sauced up, as long as he wasn’t behind the wheel. But I saw, first-hand, how an alcoholic functioned in his world. And it wasn’t pretty.
It is no small thing, when an Italian takes to drink. In my travels in Italy, over 50 years, I’ve witnessed little, if any, examples of an Italian for whom alcohol have gotten the better of them. Americans, well, that’s another story. Countless times I’ve dragged besotted colleagues to their room and dumped them in their bed, dead drunk. How, I asked myself, did they get that way? I was with them the whole evening. I'd had my share of wine, but it didn’t waste me.
Now, according to the website, Grocery Dive, Eataly is in “more than 40 locations in 15 countries including eight flagship stores in North America and 16 franchise stores across Europe, the Middle East and Asia.” Quite a jump from their initial shop in Northern Italy.
$200 million seems like a small amount for 40 locations. I wonder how much debt the original company might have piled up. Was that debt erased? Who, if anyone, walked away with millions? What changes will come about? Expect more expansion, and expect the Bastianich family will sell their shares, as part of the deal (as per The Financial Times).
On the Rolex website, one of their newest watches, a GMT-Master II “Pepsi” lists for $10,750 retail, but try and find one new for that price. On the secondary market though, you might be able to find one for twice retail.
I’m reading an article in Cigar Aficionado, and they’re talking about Cohiba Cuban cigars now retailing for over $100.
Before the great disruption event of 2016, you could have easily found a bottle of Pontet-Canet for under $80, still a price most people wouldn’t consider, except for maybe a special occasion, and well above the price I remember seeing the 1982 stacked in my local Safeway (for $12.99!). A Rolex, five years ago you could have gone into a local AD (authorized dealer) and picked one up, at retail. Still a pricey proposition, but reachable for folks with the means. And that Cohiba Splendido? Well, in Canada or Italy I saw them for about $10, back in the day. Still, a pricey smoke, but not a C-note!
Something is out of whack. Are we living in a world exclusively comprised of billionaires? Is there no ceiling on these consumer items? Have we all gone mad? Where in hell have we landed? Is there a way off of this planet?
But not impossible. With threats from global climate change, changes in animal migrations, land wars, and general convulsive nature of our world, could Italian wine be wiped off the face of Earth?
For instance, I have a spread sheet on my cholesterol numbers going back to the mid 1980’s. And a list of all the foreign trips I have taken to Italy and elsewhere. I also have a spreadsheet which tells me what I have in my freezer. A list of my watches. A list of valuable coins I’ve inherited (watches and coins are vaulted up, folks). I have a spread sheet of the wines I have collected, so I can access any wine I want within seconds. Ditto for my vinyl LP and CD collection. You never know when one will want to spin Steely Dan’s Aja or Moondog’s Snaketime Series.
From the archives
Bagging 'n Bragging
How many times do we have to read about it? Yes, some folks out there get to taste some amazing wines. But to open up the wine magazines or blogs and constantly have to be reminded how lowly we are because we didn’t taste a 10-year vertical of Gaja Darmagi or an 1852 Naval Reserve Madeira Sercial, really, how much of this can we take? I am on a riff about Elitism again, because it is rife in the 21st century of electronic wine literature. A wine lover opens up a whole slew of rare wines and invites a friend or two over and, Pow! An enthusiast or blogger has to regurgitate every wine, every nuance, every breath of their so wonderful evening. As if us knowing about it will make it greater for us? As if their life was all "A" side with no "B" side. Maybe for them. But really, is it?
What intrigues me about any selection one finds in their local liquor store is the polarity between what the buyer thinks will sell and what some of us folks want to see in the store because it personally resonates with us. And I have to say, natural wine and the selection, or lack thereof, can offer a sociological cautionary tale, here in the bowels of America.
So, we’ve been watching this TV series at home called,
“This Is Us.” We’re into the 5th season of six. It was a popular series, seen
on broadcast television. We’re streaming it. Of course.
All this to say, when they got into the season of 2020, with Covid and George Floyd, a lot of issues between White and Black people in the series were laid bare. And it got me to thinking about my blind spots, with regard to Bipoc and Apida peoples.
The following is a pirated Zoom
transcript from a putative conversation between two old friends – an ancient matriarch
(Maria, or, M) of a renown Italian wine estate and her venerable importer (Carl,
or, C) in the US. Howdy-do from an innermost and very particular cyber-labyrinth,
seldom penetrated by we mere mortals.
C: Hello darling, how goes it in the bowels of Italy in August? Are you somewhere cool and wet, I hope?
M: I wish, my dear. No, I am sequestered on our family estate, as my three nieces have Covid. They came for a visit and brought this dreadful virus with them.
C: Oh no! You poor dear. I hope your satellite internet is working, so the children can document their every breath on their Insta.
M: Of course. They live such fascinating lives and we all must keep up with it. What a time we live in, yes?
C: Tell me about it. Shall we jump right in?
M: Of course. Fire away, maestro.
And at those tables, whether they were commercial enterprises like a restaurant or a trattoria, or a farm side or village meal, made by the local people who were involved with the farm or lived in the villages, it always seemed to be an uplifting experience, compared to what I was experiencing back in the US when working in the wine trade. Mind you, I had to eat at a lot of Italian restaurants in America for business. But they rarely achieved the heights of enjoying a meal in Italy.
But really folks, the wine trade has a problem. A drinking problem.
First thing that I’d suggest is to consider why you are inviting strangers into your home. Are you trying to grow your brand? Increase your brand awareness? Throw some marketing money at the wine in the hopes it will differentiate you from your neighbor? You want it to stick, yes?
He's been gone fifteen years, this son of New Orleans, father and mentor to so many of us. Al was one of the forefathers of wine in America. He was there at the beginning, right after World War II, when the budding wine industry got its start. A great story teller, a proud grandfather, a lover of women, a classic New Orleans chef, and a slave to the wine god, in the very best sense.
“Look, man, we’re all seeing it, feeling it, hurting from it. I didn’t come here to have more of it shoved in my face. I came here to escape. I know how you loathe wine writing and wine writers, but for Chrissake, enough about the evils of the world and the unfairness of life. Just tell us what wines you are enjoying lately. Is that so friggin’ hard?”
OK. Alright. I surrender. Truce. I’ll write about wine. Even some wine notes. Will that make you happy? Because I want you, all of you, to be happy. Oh, at least those of you who have survived the last few years of pandemic, war, active shooters and the general (and rapid) dissolution of civil society. So, let’s go!
…or, looking for a safe place to buy groceries…
…or, looking for a safe place to worship…
…or, looking for a safe place to go to school…
…or, looking for a safe place to live out my life in peace…
So, it has come down to this. Americans committing genocide upon Americans. Not Russians upon Ukrainians. Americans killing Americans. First the bang, and then the whimper, the endless recitation by our “leaders” telling us it’s a mental issue. Ya think? Starting with the pols. We are watching the killing of our country, in real time, in our lifetime. Not by the commies. Not by the Nazis. Not by the Jews, or by the Blacks, or by the Mexican immigrants or by the Irish or the Italians or the Poles. By Americans. On Americans. We are burying ourselves.
“Your job isn’t who you are,” the little monkey voice inside the head kept chattering. Yeah, yeah, heard it all so many times before in a been-there-done-that kind of way. Wave after wave of images roll onto the shores of my short-term recall, trying to evoke a response or any sign of life. Only to return back to the abyss of the deep sea of memory. It’s going to be a long night, but when it’s all said and done it’ll be another Monday.
Ten years later Monday looks a lot different. On Saturday I start looking forward to Monday. I know that’s when I get my world back. It’s when folks go back to work, and the stores are less crowded. The traffic is less congested. And a day when I once felt trapped and pinned in, now fells like I just got sprung. It’s liberating.
Flora Purim sang, when she was with Chick Corea, these lines:
Look around you my people
If you look then you will see
How to love, life is paradise all together
What game shall we play today?
Monday has become the day I ask that question, what game shall we play today?
When it comes to the way we used to do it, pre-Covid19, there was a, more-or-less, expected path. After the wine was made, and assuming it was a reliable product (tasty, attractive in appearance to more than just the creator and priced appropriately for its category) there were well-trod paths that one would take to assure the wine would get to the end-user.
I’m in the basement of our apartment building, where I now live. I am a young Ukrainian in the wine business (mainly p.r. and sommelier studies), but right now, me and my family, and our country, are fighting for our lives. So, I won’t be going to Vinitaly this year.
My mother-in-law has taken our children across the border to Poland, where now they are safe. My husband is fighting for our freedom in eastern Ukraine. I’m here with my mother, who is a widow and needs my attention, for she cannot travel far these days. And my father-in-law, we haven’t heard from in days. He’s back at the farm north of Kyiv, tending to the land and the animals. We are very worried for him.
I looked forward to Vinitaly every year, to meet with winemakers and my social media community. Especially hard it has been in the last two years because of the Covid. But now we face an even greater enemy to our being here in Ukraine.
I love Italy, their wine and food and people. I love how free the country is. I would bring back a little of Italy every time I went. I even loved Vinitaly. I didn’t mind the crowds, the confusion or the uniquely Italian form of organizing a large event like Vinitaly. Now I wish I had a bathroom here in Kyiv like the worst one I would ever find at Vinitaly. Or a dry panini and an overpriced bottle of frizzante water. It sounds like heaven to me.
But I am now part of the resistance against one of the most evil of humans, I cannot even say his name. But you know who I am talking about.
My husband has seen things no one should ever have to see. We are a peace-loving family. My children are innocent. We are innocent! But cruelty doesn’t distinguish between the guilty and the guiltless. No, the bombs from above are indiscriminate in their path of destruction. But we are not beaten. We are bloodied, yes. Our hearts are broken, but our spirit is unscathed. And we will win!
I’d love so much to see my friends at
Vinitaly. But I’d love even more to see my father-in-law, my mother-in-law, my
dear husband and my sweet, sweet children. I cannot even think about a wine
fair, although I am guilty to say I dream about it. Maybe one day, in the
future. But for now, we have more important things to attend to: Our Existence. -Марія Павліченко
DONATE:
UNICEF USA Official Site - Help Children in Ukraine
SAVE THE CHILDREN - Ukraine Crisis Children's Relief
INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR THE RED CROSS
UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES - Ukraine Aid
Restaurateurs come and go, just like all of us. Some of them leave a bigger mark. Maybe it was the time they were in. Maybe they were just lucky. Maybe they were exceptional. Or all of the above. But nothing is forever.
Driving along the scuttled roads of urban Austin, I finally found a parking place, after 10 minutes of searching. By some twist of fate, I managed to find a place in front of a building that once sheltered one of the most wonderful Italian spots in Texas. It was long gone now, replaced by serial restaurateurs with cash and concepts. The place was called Speranza’s, run by a young couple, Michael and Hallie Speranza, and it was a Mecca for anyone trying to show offbeat Italian wines in those days. The era was the early 1980’s and in the years since, many places have come and gone, and come again, professing to hold high the banner for all things Italian.
But are some of you are still hesitant? Well, first off, if you haven’t made flight plans, hotel reservations, secured your entrance badges/tickets and so forth, it’s probably a little late to consider going. However, if you live in Italy or have already, somewhere in the world, made travel arrangements, and you are having last-minute doubts, is there any substance to your fears? I’m going to try and lay it out, just in case you needed it.
I’ve got to say this: with what the world is witnessing right at this moment, I find it exceedingly difficult, if not absurd, to think about writing a post on a wine blog. Oh, two of the greatest Italian wines I’ve had this year? Who could, in their right mind, right now, care? A seminar on Italian wine? Big whoop. News flash: Another wine competition? Yeah, wow.
That, my friends, is where my head is at. I cannot tear myself away from the absolute horror that innocent women and children are experiencing in Ukraine. I feel powerless. It is depressing. It is bringing up memories from the cold war, such as October of 1962, and scaring the hell out of me. For all of us.
So, forgive me for not giving a shit if the pointless subject of Italian wine match-ups with Tex-Mex food is the furthest thing from my mind, at this time. Or the benefits of orange wine made in an artisanal manner vs. the commercial/industrial manufacturing of rosé wines. It just seems inconsequential in the scope of the greater forces of destiny swirling all around us.
Maybe things will change. For now, I’m stuck. I cannot see the forest for the trees. All I can see is the firebomb, the crater, the lifeless bodies of innocent babies being held by nurses who can do nothing to bring life back into their poor little bodies. That’s all I can think about, see or dwell upon. Until the madman who is causing this is rendered silent and lifeless himself.
