Showing posts with label Cosa Nostra. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cosa Nostra. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

♫ Blame it on the Cosa Nosta ♫

An arrest is made in Montalcino - a lone man acting in revenge against Soldera

Screen shot from the Daily Beast

Soldera saga unfolds in an unfettered and unfiltered manner.

This story by Barbie Latza Nadeau really cuts to the bone. Recommended reading. No punches pulled. And no words of mafia (or mafioso) involvement, nor “the money behind big Italian wine” uttered in the story. How refreshing to see someone actually took the time to see who really did this. Journalism isn’t dead.

There are some real doozies in this piece, quite juicy and tasty ones. Some of the quotes below. Please refer to the whole story HERE. Nice work, Ms. Nadeau.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

The Liquidation of Innocence

You are a young child of three. You hear the phone ring in the night. Your father answers. Your mother screams and then starts to sob. For hours and hours. Your father’s cousin’s husband was shot in his bed from outside the house, through the stucco. The wife, his cousin, survived. The unofficial explanation was that the husband had gotten mixed up with the wrong group and he was eliminated.

Your grandfather and his friend are sitting outside, under the grape arbor, cracking walnuts and reminiscing. They speak of a mutual friend of theirs who, all of a sudden, disappeared, car and all. Years later, as Los Angeles grew out, and subdivisions were developed, the car was found, rotted out from being buried in lime. There were no signs of their friend, who was never heard from again.

An aunt in the last years of her life, telling stories about her childhood. Her father was mercurial. At times they would live in two story homes and drive long black cars. At other times, the family was so poor some of the kids were farmed out to orphanages. The father’s brother was a promoter of sorts. One day, in South Dallas he was found with a new pair of fitted concrete shoes, several feet under the Trinity River.

Thursday, December 06, 2012

The Day the Vines Cried

When appalling events trigger knee-jerk drama

Caronne Ste Gemme after the attack
Earlier this year, after Vinitaly, I went to Bordeaux for the en Primeurs tastings. One of our hosts, Francois Nony, looks after Château Caronne Ste Gemme, which had just been the target of severe vandalism in the vineyards. Described by Tom Stevenson as “a superb island of vines on a gravel plateau south of St. Julien estates,” the property is one of those little gems that has been enjoying an upsurge in quality and popularity. Below are excerpts from the report on the vandalism of the property in March 2012 by Jane Anson in Decanter:

About 2,000 young vines have been vandalised causing tens of thousands of euros damage at a Medoc estate.

The plot of Merlot vines at Chateau Labat, a 7-hectare cru bourgeois estate in AOC Haut-Medoc, was attacked on Friday night, possibly by a gang, the owners suspect.


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