Passion Is the Yeast, Not the Grape

How many times do you read something, hear something, talk to someone, and the subject comes around to passion. I'm not talking about some arm-in-arm torrid romance that is splashed all over the screens, large and small. No, I am thinking of something a little more internal. And what I often hear is that someone is finally going to follow their passion. When I first heard it, years ago, I bought into it. Then after years of chopping in the woodshed, I realized it is balderdash! Passion isn't something you follow. Passion follows — and it usually follows after years of painstaking and drudgery-filled labor, the 10,000-hour kind.

I wasn't lured into the wine trade because of passion. It was an accident. I needed to make money to support a small family. I started out in the restaurant business, as a server, and then eventually became a manager of a wine bar. Then I moved on to wholesale and distribution, importing, and the worlds that enveloped that. I spent more than 10,000 hours, and I didn't take a test or receive any medals or post-nominal titles. I simply plied my trade.

Don’t Pee on the Oregano

I don't know if this is a redundant type of notion, but once again I am thinking about wine, wine tasting, the wine tasting experience and the overall life experience. And the more I think about it, and live it, the more I am inclined to not isolate wine as an experience separated from the rest of life.

A young female wine influencer recently made a video about this and in it she expressed thoughts about being out with friends in a restaurant. There is music, there are the aromas from the kitchen and the food. There is perfume and cologne. There is conversation and dialogue. People are sharing their lives. The wine arrives — does life stop?

The Wines of Campania: Tom Hyland Gives an Overlooked Region Its Due

Photo ©Tom Hyland 2026

 

Tom Hyland has spent the better part of five decades chasing Italian wine, and approaching 100 trips into the country to do it, so it's a little surprising it's taken this long for him to give Campania a book of its own. The Wines of Campania (Palmetto Publishing, 2026) fixes that, and it does it the way you'd want a region this misunderstood to be handled: on the ground, province by province, producer by producer.

The Dog Days of Summer

Rocco, as I found him on July 20th 

July came and went. My month, and the month for so many people I know and love. I look forward to July every December, January and February. And then when it arrives, it careens through time, like it always does and leaves us in the dust and into the dog days of summer.

1989 La Chapelle Hermitage - Thirty-Seven Years After

There is another story I really want to tell, but this one comes first. Last week I had a few fellows over for a birthday meal — they were all (or had already turned) 50, and I was 25 years ahead of them. Good for them: they still have more time than I do to do whatever they need to do in this life. For my part, I have spent years doing things I wanted to do and had to do. One of them was collecting wine. For this evening, I pulled out one of four remaining bottles of 1989 La Chapelle Hermitage from Paul Jaboulet.

In the last century, I obtained three cases of this wine — one case of the 1985 and two cases of the 1989 — intending to enjoy them for special occasions over the years: holidays mainly, but special birthdays too. Over time I got to know this wine well; it became something like a member of the family. I tried both vintages as the years passed, but found the 1985 was developing faster than the 1989 — which was fortunate, since I only had one case of the 1985. That vintage is long gone, but the 1989s carried me forward to this point. Three bottles remain.

Annotations from a Life in Wine, Writing, and Photography

...my 6 bits worth

There is something about a birthday that both excites and terrorizes me. Of course, the excitement comes from an early age, with the anticipation of a celebration and all the ensuing detritus that is attached to it. Fun, maybe a party, gifts, and being the center of attention are the upsides. The downside is the inevitable march towards oblivion that we all are making. Yeah, I know, I think about that, especially now that I have many more days behind me than before me.

That said, it's time to take inventory. What do I need to sell, what do I need to keep, what do I need to cast off, what do I need to drink, what do I need?

For those still hanging on to an identification that no longer fits?

(homage to Gianni Di Venanzo)

Terry Theise has a new piece up wrangling for the defense of "fine wine" as a category. His method is to sort wine into three tiers — schlock, good, fine — not by how it tastes but by why it was made, and whether the wine respected the person drinking it. It's an idiosyncratic approach, but I’ve learned that tangling with wine writers over their semantic intentions is, as we say in these parts, like pissing in a dust storm in West Texas — everybody gets soiled and no one goes home happy.

While Terry has been busy developing his taxonomy, I've been wondering about something else: what happens to the person who built an identity on that taxonomy, once the taxonomy stops organizing their days?

Vinitaly Books Passage on a Propagandist's Ship

There's a press release sitting in my inbox announcing that the Amerigo Vespucci — Italy's training ship, the so-called most beautiful ship in the world — is sailing into New York Harbor for the Fourth of July. It'll anchor off New Jersey, join fifty-some tall ships in a parade up the Hudson, dock at Pier 86, and spend a week hosting Italy's defense minister, its navy chief, the Carabinieri commander-general, the ambassador to the U.S., the mayor of Genoa, and a delegation that reads like the guest list for a state funeral. The America's Cup trophy is flying in from New Zealand to sit on the deck for a photo. The UN's Chiefs of Police Summit is convening below decks. It is, by any measure, a genuinely big deal — 250 years of American independence, a navy turning out its flagship to mark it, real history happening on real water.

And somewhere in the middle of all that pageantry, on Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m., Veronafiere is giving a PowerPoint about Vinitaly.USA. Woo-hoo!

After Drops of God: What Wine Means to Me in 2026

Of late, wine has been coursing through my thoughts. Not the alcohol — that's not what this is about. No — it's what wine did to my life, and how I have changed through it. I recently watched a TV series in which wine was the anchor, the search for the greatest wine. You might have heard of it, Drops of God. I know, I came late to this show. The way wine is portrayed in film and television seems so performative, draped in 21st-century airs of importance and branding. For me, wine was livelihood, and in a way, I was pressed into service by necessity.

Reprise: Fathers and Sons

from the archives

Great-Grandfather Assuntino Luigi Cevola in Palermo - 1890's

I never knew my Great-Grandfather, Assuntino, but I met him, thirteen years after he died in Palermo, in 1971. I was feeling sick and was in his bed, in the house on Via Roma, 97. It was August and sweltering. I had eaten something, I think it was an omelet, and it didn’t set well with me. I was going in and out of sleep, sweating, the heat and fumes from the busy street, floors below; it was a confluence of moments. And then, in a dream, I think, he appeared. “What are you doing in my bed?” he asked. “I am sick and resting in it,” I answered. “Who are you?” he questioned again. “I am Alfonso.” He looked at me, “You are not my son.” I returned the look. “No, I am your great-grandson.” He gave that sideways stare he was known for and replied, “Va bene, you can stay.” And he disappeared.

In Search of an American Burger with a Sicilian Surrealist in a Forsaken and Deserted City

In continuation from here...

 

 

After the dinner Giorgio’s wife made for us, we sat around in his drawing room sipping on Cynar. It was August and Rome was stifling hot, humid and deserted by all but the tourists and the stalwart Romanisti. It was nice, though, for it felt like family and was very familiar. Giorgio was sketching something near me or behind me, I don’t know what. But he was intent on capturing something in the light of the room. I was exhausted from a day of roaming around the city and had a few more days before I was to go back home and to college at Santa Clara.

On Photography: No Sunsets. Not Yet

Since migrating away from the wine trade, I have been able to devote more time to a long-time love of mine, photography. Of late, I have participated in two workshops with masterful photographers. The experience has rejuvenated me and lifted me into a new life of creativity that I haven’t felt in decades.

Highway 29 Revisited: Just Leave the Door Open

I'm walking around a wine shop. Filled with wines from all over the world. The place is abuzz with sales reps and suppliers waiting to sample their wines with the buyers. Customers dot the store here and there, a mix of ages. I look around and wonder what wine each one of the shoppers will settle on for their wine tonight or this weekend. Or maybe beer, or spirits or some newfangled ready to drink trendy concoction. Or maybe not?

What drives the upcoming generation to delve into wine? Are there gatekeepers trying to curate their journey, their selection, their way forward? Was it like that when I was young and new to the interest in alcoholic beverages? What is different now and how much easier or harder is it for the wine drinkers of the future to get past the gates and the gatekeepers, let alone the economic barriers?

Remembrances: Some posts age like Brunello, some like Vin Santo.

 from the archives...

On Italy, and what it does to a person

March 2011 · Italy: Without a Doubt

"When it all gets to be a little too much, when the heat of the day goes from tepid to searing, when all this running around and shuffling and commotion becomes just so much noise and distraction, I pull in. I want my own little vision of Italy to wield its power over me... My Italy isn't perfect, but it's damn well near, and it works just fine for me."

Read the full post: https://acevola.blogspot.com/2011/03/italy-without-doubt.html

---

On seeing and living

August 2010 · Remembering Herman Leonard

"New Orleans, summertime, pre-Katrina, a crowded Italian restaurant, Maximo's, and I'm sitting at the bar. The owner, Jason, is pouring Champagne, Krug, from magnums to a large table and topping off my glass and another fellow's whom he affectionately calls Herman. Just a couple of guys sitting at a bar, drinking Champagne, waiting for the night to develop... My takeaway from Herman, and the treasured body of his life's work, is that there's seeing and there's living. Herman saw, but Herman lived a wonderful American life."

Read the full post: https://acevola.blogspot.com/2010/08/remembering-herman-leonard.html

---

On mothers (in honor of my mom's birth day, May 24)

May 2016 · Mother's (last) Day

"She told me last week, 'I've had enough, I'm done here. I'm ready to go.' And she slipped away peacefully in her sleep surrounded by loving family members... I'm going to miss our calls. On my way home, in traffic, I'd call her and we'd talk about our day. She was a great listener and an even better sympathizer. She was in my court, she had my back."

Read the full post: https://acevola.blogspot.com/2016/05/mothers-last-day_8.html

 

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

wine blog +  Italian wine blog + Italy W

Taste the Island. Live the Story. Read the Press Release.

Ecce Homo

Another press release arrived in my inbox, this one from Sicily. Assovini Sicilia, the island's wine producers association, wanted me to know that their 22nd annual Sicilia en Primeur had just wrapped in Palermo. One hundred journalists from around the world. Fifty-six wineries. Over a thousand labels. And, inevitably, a conference. The theme: "Taste the Island. Live the Story." Somewhere in there, presumably, wine.

Sicily's Other Master Class

A master sommelier flew into town last month and put on a master class in Sicilian wine. He was good — prepared, a little nervous, which in my experience is a healthy sign. He didn't exude false confidence. The wines were well chosen, and all things considered, it was a successful event. I'm grateful to the folks from Wines from Sicilia DOC for bringing this to Dallas. It shows an evolution in the way Italy presents itself to the American public. All good.

It got me thinking about Sicily again. Which doesn't take much.

Italianità

I have been thinking about this word for a long time.

In October of 2009, I wrote a piece I called “Paralyzed in Paradise” — a fever dream, composed at 4 AM in Dallas, somewhere between sleep and the dread of a workday ahead. Italy was falling apart from within, I wrote, and couldn’t see it. The wines had too much wood, too much Merlot, too much of everything except what had made them worth caring about in the first place, and in my dream I burned the barriques, exiled the consultants, starved the PR firms on zibibbo raisins until the poison leeched out of their press releases. And then the alarm rang out in the early morning fog of autumn.

The Real Estate Racket Behind Your Restaurant Wine List

Once upon a time, it was enough to put a good selection of wines on your wine list and have a stable of equally attractive wines by the glass, to serve your clients and hopefully make some money. Over time, the idea of a wine list has morphed and changed from making a wine list to “curating” one. What hasn’t been discussed is one of the alternatives to making a wine list more profitable – and that is how to turn the “real estate” of a wine placement into an annuity that keeps paying whether the guests buy the wine or not. Enter the gatekeeper: it’s “Pay to Play” time!

Relax, Don't Do It: Franco goes to Vinitaly

Franco was a good soldier of the vine. Every year he would trudge off to Verona to go to the Vinitaly wine show. Every year he would talk with wineries, importers, farmers, winemakers, families of winery owners, at their booths and stalls, in the many pavilions that encompass Vinitaly. And every year he would answer their questions, listen to their concerns, and field their queries. But this year was different, Franco relayed. This year something in the air at Vinitaly had changed. America was no longer the shiny city on the hill, the beacon of light, the answer to their quest to make their wines popular and successful in the world many of their relatives fled to a hundred years ago in search of a better world and opportunities. This year the Italians were wary, suspicious even, of the possibility of future dealing with an America they could trust and rely upon. And it all came down to one question: What is Trump going to say today, who is he going to raise his fist at today, which politician or person will be the target of his ceaseless anger and grievance? And that is what Franco faced for four long days, under the bright lights and in the noisy exhibition halls of Verona. Behold the 58^th edition of Vinitaly. 

The Chianti Classico that Belongs in the Brunello Section

Of late, I’ve noticed an uptick in interest in Chianti Classico. And not the rock bottom, straw-covered bottles that dominate the curlicue culture of TikTok and YouTube. For one, while in my local Italian grocery store — where I spend time and occasionally offer help to hurried and befuddled guests — we always seem to end up right in front of the Chianti section, of which there is a plethora of choices. It can seem confusing to the point where someone just grabs a nearby bottle of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo and heads for the Italian sausage counter. I get it. It can be overwhelming. 

Something Eric Asimov wrote recently in his column, The Pour, in the NY Times — How to Find Great Values in Wine, April 2, 2026:

“Good producers from Chianti Classico are making beautiful wines. Prices might begin at $30 to $50, but these are versatile wines, pleasurable now but with the potential to age and evolve. Compared with similarly priced bottles from elsewhere, I think they can be excellent values.”

This isn’t the first time he’s mentioned Chianti Classico — it seems to be a recurring motif in his reporting. I followed links on the column, down a rabbit hole. He’s been on this beat since at least 2019, finding in these wines a “lightness, purity and eloquence” that “sets them apart.”

Chicken Parm with Alfredo: The Italian Version of Chicken Fried Steak with Cream Gravy?

There it was, on a little whiteboard at my gym. Each trainer had listed their favorite food. I was expecting things like "açaí bowls" and "grilled salmon." The new trainer — someone I don't know yet, someone whose job it is to make people healthier — had written: Chicken Parm with Alfredo.

I stood there longer than I should have.

Chicken Parm with Alfredo. Said with the same reverence one might reserve for bistecca alla Fiorentina, or a bowl of pasta e fagioli made by someone's grandmother in Umbria. A favorite food. Not a guilty pleasure. Not a "once in a while" thing. A favorite.

I was gob-smacked - I thought about it all the way home.

Before Vinitaly: What Makes Italian Wine Italian

In these times, as in many times, there is the pull between appropriation and inspiration. On the wine trail in Italy, there is also this phenomenon. Winemaking styles fluctuate between the two views, as does so much in the wine world. From the manner in which we trellis our vines to the way we decide to graphically label the final product, there is this constant pull between that which emanates from within and that which influences from without.

Think about Nebbiolo-based wines from Piedmont, for example. The Barolo Boys of the 1980s looked to Burgundy and decided barriques were the future. The natural wine movement borrowed from Georgian qvevri traditions and Northern California iconoclasm in equal measure. Italians have been affected by outside influences from the early days of Rome, when the Greek aesthetic swayed the sculptors and artists to follow in the footsteps of their neighbors. But also, along the way, new expressions and modalities came about. And so, Italian wine has been changed — and changed itself — repeatedly.

I asked my AI assistant Claudio to analyze my wine cellar.

With the onrush of everything AI in these moments, there was an article recently by Eric Asimov in the New York Times entitled “A.I. Is Coming for the Sommeliers.” It dovetailed neatly with a project I have been doing at home with my AI assistant, Claudio, who I tasked with analyzing my wine collection. The exercise was straightforward enough: I uploaded my inventory — some 250 bottles accumulated over 45 years — and asked Claudio for a deep dive. Which wines to drink now, which were at or near peak, which merited more time in the cellar, and which had probably given up the ghost. Claudio went to work and produced a spreadsheet laying out the potential and possibilities in store for me. After going over the results, I realize I have my work cut out for me, especially in the next two years or so. It seems I have a preponderance of “drink now” wines, and by my reckoning I will have to open a bottle a week for the next two years, come hell or high water. It presents a bit of a dilemma, albeit a first-world one, in that most of the wines in question are red, and here we are in March in Texas already registering 90+℉ outside. Not exactly the stuff of steaks and stews, hearty meals, that kind of thing. So I have asked Claudio to lay out a schedule for the next two years, plotting a course in which to open these bottles before the wines or the humans involved get much older.

The Miracle of Montalcino ~ A Master Class from a Young Master – Pt.II

In the last week or so, I've been mulling over why Brunello latched onto the American wine imagination as easily and rapidly as it did. The fine wine world here was so French-driven until the 1970s, when Napa Valley took honors at that famous blind tasting in Paris and swept the imagination — and the trust funds — over to the west coast. I grew up on California wines, produce of my native state, and witnessed that excitement firsthand. To have it happen in one's lifetime was a blessing. To then see a similar trajectory ignite in Tuscany not long after — that's like winning the lottery twice, for a wine person. And so it was. The miracle of Montalcino.

Brunello di Montalcino ~ An Honest-to-Goodness Master Class from a Young Master – Pt.I

The Environmental Mosaic

Anyone who has read this blog over the years knows that I have a cynical and sometimes impatient attitude regarding the proliferation of master classes in the wine world. I have been to master classes where revered restaurateurs, momentarily anointed, have stumbled and bumbled their way through a PowerPoint presentation, their ambitions having overshot their capabilities.

And then there comes a class that sets things right again. Such was the occasion last week in Dallas when Gabriele Goretti presented before a receptive crowd his vision of the 2021 vintage for Brunello di Montalcino.

An offshoot of Benvenuto Brunello that the Consorzio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino has initiated, this is an elaboration of the Brunello Forma Series, where designated experts in the field dive deeper into what makes quality Brunello. I found it fascinating, as this subject has been rolling around in my head for years — questions of location, altitude, soil, geological formation, and of course the size of the winery and its production capabilities. Thankfully, younger souls have taken on the task and made great leaps forward in communicating just why and how Brunello aspires to greatness in the world of wine.

Italy: Without a Doubt

...from the archives

When it all gets to be a little too much, when the heat of the day goes from tepid to searing, when all this running around and shuffling and commotion becomes just so much noise and distraction, I pull in. I want my own little vision of Italy to wield its power over me. I don't want to worry about whether or not I speak or understand the language well enough. I never will. I'll never be an insider in the language of words department. That's for other people with those talents. No, the little universe of Italy that's wrapped around my heart and mind is a place somewhere in the middle, with rolling hills and a nearby beach with salty water and the setting for the happiness that Italy represents to me. My Italy isn't perfect, but it's damn well near, and it works just fine for me.

“Errand Boys Sent By Grocery Clerks”

Notes from the Last Wine Blogger Standing

I. The River

The mission came through, as it always does, in the fog.

I’ve been on this river a long time. Long enough to remember when the three-tier system made a kind of sense — when the distributor felt like a partner, when the rep walking your route knew your customers by name. Knew which sommelier was quietly building an Italian list and which retailer would gamble on an Etna Rosso nobody had heard of yet. Selling wine was inseparable from loving it. The rep knew the producer, the place, the reason it mattered.

That world didn’t just change. It was hollowed out, quietly, with an acronym.

A Billion Heartbeats Ago

2026 has been challenging, so far. A short visit at the beginning of the year, to see a friend whom I might not ever see again, started it off. I returned home to receive a vet’s diagnosis that our oldest cat, Buttercup, had an inoperable growth attached to her trachea, preventing her from eating solid foods. We were advised to initiate palliative care and prepare her for hospice. About that time, I realized I had gone down this road 25 years ago with my wife, Liz, who in 2001 was in the last stages of her young life. She made it to her 48^th birthday on Feb 14, 2001, but on the 17^th she surrendered her mortal cloak and passed away. Now, I know a cat and a human cannot be seen by many folks as being equivalent, but the pathway I found myself on this early in the year has had a triggering effect. And I don’t like it.

Farewell to Barbetta

You know, there come along those once in a lifetime restaurants. For me, some of them are Gualtiero Marchesi in Milan, Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Barbetta in Manhattan. All marching to the beat of their own different drummer, but noteworthy and unforgettable. Gualtiero Marchesi is long gone (but not forgotten). Chez Panisse still has a warm hearth and a welcome mat. But Barbetta lost their beating heart. Laura Maioglio passed away January 17 of this year. And on Feb 27, the restaurant will close. I am heartbroken.

Italian Wine's Premiumization and "Affordability" Problem

What happens when you aggrandize and enshrine something that for generations has served as daily ritual

The news keeps contradicting itself. Alcohol causes cancer. Alcohol prevents loneliness. Wine sales collapsing. Warehouses overflowing with unsold inventory. Public health crisis. Social connection crisis. All true at once, all missing the point.

This isn't just a story about wine industry economics. It's what happens when you try to scale something that was never meant to be optimized—when wine went from just what you did to something you now have to decide about.

Flying Over the Future: Why Vinitaly Can't See Texas

"Vale più un rimprovero di un amico che un bacio di un nemico"

Year after year, I've witnessed the Italian wine paradox in America. Producers, consorzi, and government wine agencies trace the same familiar circuit: New York to Chicago to San Francisco, ending up in sunny LA or Miami. Meanwhile, cities like Houston, Dallas, and Austin get bypassed. Flyover country. BBQ country. Cowboy country. Translation: No country for Italian wine.

Flooded with Memories

It was finally a clear day in San Diego. I was visiting a friend whose brighter days were behind him. But he said, “Let’s take a ride around the island (Coronado, where he lives) and get some fresh air and sunshine." Uncharacteristically, it had been raining for what seemed like weeks in one of the sunniest cities in America. And after not having been in my native state since way before Covid, it was disarming not to see the sun. Just clouds and rain, and that piercing humidity that days, weeks, of rain brings. Bone soaking cold.

Earlier, the night before, we sat at a table on the top floor of a building downtown, overlooking the Pacific ocean, eating salmon and drinking French Chablis. Or rather I was. My friend had eaten before I got off the plane. He was content to watch me while sipping on a cocktail, something with bourbon, an Old Fashioned or Manhattan. I’m bad at remembering that sort of thing.

I’d really wanted a Puligny Montrachet, my guilty indulgence. But I don’t think they had one by the glass, and if they did, it would have probably been $50 for three ounces, or something to that effect. So, Chablis it was. I thought to myself, “I’m in California, I really should me drinking California wine, shouldn’t I?” I would tomorrow, with my friends wife.

But the bike ride.

Wine Doesn't Miss You

When someone you love dies—a mate, a pet—there's a hole. They don't stop loving you, but they're gone. The loss is indescribable.

Wine is different.

Does wine love you back? Does it miss you when you stop drinking it? No more than the chatbot misses you when you close the browser.

But for a long time, I couldn't parse the animate from the inanimate connections and emotions associated with them.

From the Sixes: A Surprising and Encouraging Start to 2026

The three wines that began 2026 so well

I’m plodding my way through the puddles in Southern California, on a personal mission. Before I got on the plane, we were invited to a friend’s house for New Years day celebration. It’s a yearly event, and lots of old friends show up, mainly from the Italian wine and food community. It was a pleasant day to sit outside and eat cotechino con lenticchie while sipping on Franciacorta and mature Barolo.

I used the day as an opportunity to liberate some of my older wines. Seeing as the new year ends in a “6” I opted for wines from years ending in “6,” namely 2006 and 1996. Three wines were picked.