50 years ago ~ notes from Palermo ~ August, 1971

After booking passage on the ship from Naples, I spotted the bay of Palermo, the Conca d’Oro. My family was supposed to be meeting me at the dock. I felt like Vasco da Gama, or Amerigo Vespucci, in reverse.

My grand aunt and uncle were there with their family, welcoming this young, gawky Americano in jeans, carrying a back pack. I must have been a sight.

They spoke very little English, the younger ones more conversant than the elders. I spoke a smattering of Italian. But we were family! We can do this!

In fact, learning Italian by immersion works. I’m not saying it worked on me then, but I was thrust into a culture and a language and I had to find oxygen. I had to speak Italian.

Life on Mt. Etna - After the Gadabouts Are Gone

It’s wet and foggy. And some of us are scared. The long days are now a thing of memory. We are steeped in darkness. And all the while the mountain rumbles, all through the night. And all those souls who visited us this summer and autumn, where are they now? Back home in their beds, their comfortable lives, with their brightly lit screens, telling the world what a great place it is here. But they’re not here. Harvest has come and gone. The warm, long days have come and gone. And the Etna worshippers have also come and gone. And now the work for the future begins on this desolate mountain, spewing fire and ash, all through this dark, cold winter of our discontent.

Safe-cracking a memory vault in search of the unicorn wine

"Able was I ere I saw Etna"

Memory is an odd bedfellow. Even without the vicissitude of time or trauma it can be a transitory butterfly, flittering about and dropping from time to time upon the landing strip of the brain. Did I really catch that train to Calabria? Did we really eat the stomach lining of a monkfish? Did I really drink that wine?

Over a wonderful lunch prepared by a longtime friend and chef, Carlo Croci, in his restaurant , Bella West, in Ft. Worth and over an embarrassment of riches brought by Piemontese winemaker Franco Massolino, the conversation veered to the past and to long forgotten memories. Carlo and I have been trading wine and stories for longer than we both would like to admit. And along the way, some great wines have passed through our kidneys.

What I love (and hate) about Sicily

We live in a world where every word can be a polarizing one. In the past week, I have felt the sting of words, and some of my readers have as well. While some see it as a line drawn in the sand, with a duel to the end, I see it as the beginning of a longer conversation. So, I will begin with a volley.

Sicilian target practice without a license (or a seatbelt)

One of the intriguing aspects about winemaking in Eastern Sicily, especially around Etna and Vittoria, is how tradition has very little to do with it. While Tuscany is foundering with Chianti and their traditions, and Piedmont is riding a wave of popularity, Sicily, especially Eastern Sicily is in re-invention mode. Oak. No oak. Nerello. No, Pinot Noir. Chardonnay. No, Carricante. Moscato, sweet, no dry. Cement tanks. Inox, Amphora. For those who look at it, Eastern Sicily very much resembles the landscape in which it sits. Busy. Cluttered. Fast. But also in this confluence of things that don’t necessarily harmonize with each other, there is a spark of creativity that Tuscany and Piedmont could find inspiration from.

Sicilian White Wines ~ Feeding the #HeatWave in the Cities by the Bay

Welcome to the New California

If you had asked me, so very long ago, when I was a student in the Bay Area, trying to figure out what the hell to do with my life, if many years later I’d be in Oakland talking about Sicilian wines to a new generation of servers and wine lovers, I’d probably have said then “And what pill did you just take?” But as the future moves like a river, happenstance and fate brought me to A16 in Oakland in the Rockridge neighborhood, not too far from Berkeley at the invitation of Shelley Lindgren. Shelley started A16 and SPQR in San Francisco and a little more than a year ago opened up A16 in Oakland.

On the Nature of Being Sicilian in the Wine Business

Lest you think this will be the obligatory paean to all things Sicilian, after these last days spent on the island, many things are simmering. Yes, it is a Sunday, and to the millennials this might sound like a sermon. Pity.

How does one explain the blood in the veins? How does one look at a street, year after year, and still struggle to recognize what is right in front of one’s eyes? How much analysis is required to decode the Sicilian passeggiata of the last 40 years? I am obsessed with this. This is my mental mistress, never letting me inside the private chamber, ever tempting me with the promise of understanding, of clarity, of revelation.

Drinking Our Way Through Sicily ~ 2014

Just so you don’t get the wrong idea, we didn’t drink and drive, and when we did, we always had a designated driver. But we always, always, had food with our wine. Unless we were tasting. Then we had little food stuff around. And it always wasn’t wine. There was lots of coffee, but more about that at the end of this post.

It was harvest time in Sicily, so there was a lot of activity. With that in mind, we were able to unearth the scared and the profane, the common and the rare. Nothing was off limits; there was no agenda, no dogma to follow. Sicily doesn’t care about all the little games we play in America to bring balance to our life. Their life is pretty darn good, all things considered. And wine is a huge part of the life.

Please enjoy this short eno-log, my version of the slide show, with brief comments from time to time.

Eating Our Way Through Sicily ~ 2014

Indulge me. Or rather, let me indulge you, dear reader, and share some of the plates we were offered on this recent trip to Sicily. While Palermo would be enough in terms of gastronomic ecstasy, we didn’t stop there. We made our carousel around Sicily and along the way we had some of the most glorious food on earth.

Note: I don’t think of Sicilian food as Italian. It takes its cues from anther muse. There are similarities: pasta, tomatoes, wine, sweets, seafood. But as with all things Sicilian, the interpretation is different. Not necessarily better than on the peninsula, but a thinking about the products and the interplay of ingredients that I have found to be unique in Sicily. Even our lowliest meal, at a fast food cafeteria in Piazza Armerina, the vegetables were to die for. Unfortunately I didn’t photograph them.

Let’s stop talking and start gawking, shall we? First stop, Sambuca di Sicilia.

Sicily ~ Thinking Outside the Boot

I’m nothing, if not overwhelmed, when I step away from Italy and into Sicily. I am also liberated. Freed from thinking things are as they are, because Sicily has its own interpretation for everything.

Stuck on the Island - My Sicilian Obsession

The ferry is closed, rough waters in the Strait of Messina. Airplanes cannot fly in and out of Catania airport, too much ash from Etna. And the long anticipated bridge has yet to be built. I’m stuck on the island.

I’ve been home two weeks now and am going away again, soon. But I am obsessed with Sicily. I fear I need an intervention.

La Muntagna – Etna’s influence beyond Etna

In trying to comprehend what Etna means, to the area, to Sicily and to the world beyond, one visit will not reveal much. There are those whose lives have been swallowed up by the mountain, so many willing Empedocles. But as an outsider, I can only observe, listen and hope to transmit the energy that is reverberating throughout the island. Believe me when I tell you, the energy is there. All that is necessary is for one to silence their chattering monkey brain, set it aside for the time being, and breathe in deep. The mysteries of the fiery mountain are available to all with open ears, eyes and hearts. It’s that simple.

What isn’t simple is trying to decode the striation of activity, both physical and metaphysical, that hovers right below the delicate topsoil. There are a few places to look for guidance, our own personal Don Juan Matus, if you will. Actually, La Muntagna has no shortage of shamans to guide one in the ways of the volcano.

Palermo ~ The Persistence of Memory

It’s 4:30 in the morning and I’m awake. Done with sleep. My rattled skeleton is still trying to pull itself together. Coughing is painful at times. And that darn left leg is still swollen. But all I can think about is Palermo.

I’m not necessarily an urban lover. When I go to Italy I usually avoid cities. Yes, I still manage to get in and out of Rome and Milan when a flight calls for me to be there. But I can’t wait to get out into the country, with the vines and the wind and the silence. Palermo, that’s a different story.

Drinking My Way Through Sicily (and Rome)

Every day during this last trip to Sicily there were wines to be tasted. Fortunately most of the wines were tasted with food, although there were some official-like tastings as well. The following recaps some of the best wines I had while in Sicily and in Rome.

Eating My Way Through Sicily (and Rome)

Gioacchino Campanella ~ Buon “quarumaru”
- photo by Manuela Laiacona

This last trip, first through France and then Italy, was one of the most challenging journey’s I have ever had on the wine trail. The little mishap in France set me back more than I knew. Upon returning home, the docs shook their head in amazement that I would carry on through the trip to Sicily, not the easiest part of the world in terms of convenience. But I saw it another way. Many years ago when I got sick in Greece, I had only one thought, and that was to get to Italy as soon as possible and get healed, which I did. So I set my course for Sicily in hope of a healing journey.

Sicily 2013: Escaping the Hellish Roads to Nowhere

The drive from Etna to Chiaramonte Gulfi was one for the books. After saying goodbye to Salvo Foti and his family I headed out. He had recommended a restaurant in Catania to try for lunch if I had time. Reticent about going into another large Sicilian town with a car (still shaky from the Bordeaux mishap a week earlier and having survived Palermo by car) I made a note to see. First I would have to get off the mountain.

Sicily 2013: The Dark Side of the Island – Etna with Salvo Foti & Co.

I was running late to the town of Passopisciaro on Sunday. Somewhere between Palermo and Catania when I tried to get onto the highway, the road was blocked and I had to backtrack 15 miles. Sicilian roads are famous for their quirky dysfunctional aspect.

Sicily 2013: The Timeless Fountain that is Regaleali

How many times have I opened a bottle of wine from this estate in the last 25 years, never knowing this place? How often has a newer, brighter, younger winery from Sicily appeared in the headlines, while this winery was put back on the second or third page? Is it not a story about life in these times, to take something so important and dismiss it because it is older? Does that make it less significant? Does that decrease the relevance? Is it diminished somehow, because it is not young and pretty anymore?

Sicily 2013: Palermo Street Scenes

Parental Advisory: Some of these images might make you hungry

We're far from the dog days of summer but that was no consolation
for this poor little  abandoned dog near the train station

I’m deep in the heart of Sicily now and the Wi-Fi is irregular. I thought to put this post up, shots of street scene in Palermo on the one day I was there, which was the first day of summer and the longest day of the year. Palermo is an epicenter for street food and many of the vendors have disappeared into history. Two that remain are Zio Toto and Giochinno Campanella, near the al Capo neighborhood, where there is also a famous outdoor market. Feast your eyes on the food and the scenes. It was a hot day in Palermo.

Sicily 2013: Palermo "Full Immersion"

Il Genio di Palermo

If you are reading this then you know I made it to Sicily from France. From the dark, rainy cold of Bordeaux to the sunny, warmth of Sicily. An immersion of sorts, starting in Palermo.

The plan was to meet up with Manuela Laiacona, native Palermitan and a wine journalist and editor at Cronachedigusto.it and the girlfriend of my Calabrese friend Giovanni Gagliardi. Manuela agreed to meet up and show me her Palermo. Manuela is my spirit guide incarnate. I really feel she has taken a life form to usher me though this time and place and I am very grateful for this. Her companion Giovanni is a wonderful fellow - this is all because of the internet and the blog- who cares about monetizing your blog when you can have the possibility to make deep and meaningful friendships?