Let Us Praise the Farmer

Controguerra, Abruzzo 1984 - Italy was a mess then too

The recent articles about Italy being in a funk, having just been surpassed by Spain in living standards, the national discussion about the “malessere”, and a general discontent with the way things are in Italy are part of a cycle that the Italian soul goes through. I cannot offer any solutions in the short term, but I think there is parallel story.

The discussions are often at a table at the end of a meal, when bellies are full and the room is warm. When one eats well and then sits back to discuss the other problems that need to be solved (hunger having been vanquished), it’s easy to see why this kind of dialogue is taking place. During the holidays, when more families and friends are gathered in such a manner and when the topic is flying about, there is an inherent love for discourse, for argument, for conflict and resolution.

The arguments can linger, after grappa, after the short Tuscan cigars, after all the telling and the retelling of the jokes. If nothing is resolved, then there is always that faithful plate of spaghetti al peperoncino in the early hours of the morning.

It’s easier on a full belly. But is the farmer in the country having these conversations, these fears, these doubts?

We sit in our luxury of affluence, able to talk about where such and such a country or a culture is heading, while someone on earth dies of hunger every 3.6 seconds.

Bucita, Calabria 1977 - The economy ground to a sudden halt. Political crisis and stagflation led to the formation of a government of national unity, as left-and right-wing terrorism spread.

It wasn't that long ago when I went to visit relatives in Southern Italy, and hunger wasn’t that far removed from their daily fears. My cousins, Luigi and Antonio, were simple fellows who worked the land. They were farming their crops and harvesting their grapes. They made wine and worked their little plots for food for the table. The table that we take for granted, as we bring home groceries and worry about what to do with the bags they came in.

A woman in Rome recently lamented, “I’m buying fewer presents this year, and cheaper ones. And as for food . . .” Eleven per cent of Italian families live under the poverty line.

David, who lives in the US but whose daughters are Italian citizens, worries about them. He confides to me that one of his daughters is getting politically active, that there is an undercurrent of anger among the young, tired of waiting for the older population to share the wealth.

So while we witness this stirring in the Italian soul, what about the farmer? Where is his place in this opera? And what have we to say to the ones who help to provide food for the tables which fill our bellies which lead us into discussions of whether we have lost our way or our soul or our purpose? What about the farmer?

From my perspective, I also wonder, once one gets all that they think they need, from a materialistic point, then what? And if one continues to want a bigger house, a faster car, a younger wife, and gets it and it doesn’t solve anything, then what?

I had a note from another friend in California who, it appears, is shedding his materialistic trappings. He almost died a few years back when he turned 50, from cancer, and since then his discipline with yoga has helped to keep him alive. He actually has become a different kind of person. I think he might look at this and simply say that we have too much stuff. I agree.

Italy, take this holiday time to discuss with your friends and family. Delve into what really is essential for your life. Do you really need another perfume? Or another leather handbag? Or a new motor scooter? Do you really need to buy that villa in the Maremma or that vineyard in Montalcino? Does that Super Tuscan blend really need to cost as much as a Napa Cabernet or a second growth from Bordeaux? Do you really need to raise prices to keep up with the appearance of success because your neighbors are? Do you really need to take all that time off and then, when it is all said and done, not even have the money to spend in that free time? Do you really need to “keep up” in a time when 800 million people around the world go to bed hungry? Ask yourself these questions, and while you are at it, get down on your knees and thank your farmers for giving you the sustenance so that you may ask these very civilized questions that have you and your countrymen in such a quandary.

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

The American Deliverance

The Butterfly Madonna (with child) ~ Balboa, California ~ 1974

The notes from Italy keep coming. This time is was from Gianpaolo Paglia, a winemaker in the Maremma. He’s in the trenches, working the vines, punching down the caps and dealing with all the changes in Italian society in the 21st century.
Some of his thoughts:
“I can tell you that there is something wrong here.

“People here are afraid of this new world and this new age.

“...They don't (know) what to expect next. They are not used to it, they have never been faced with the outside world, with this new world where economies that once were considered third world countries are now running at a speed that we don't understand. Our schools, our politicians, our people are not prepared to (do) that, hence the feeling of dis-ease.

“The only thing we really need is to reset the country. Have a new start with a new and more realistic vision of the world. We have to grow up and abandon our nest, which is falling down the tree anyway.”

His complete comments here.

Those remarks could have come from someone in the US today as well. The only difference is that our country is younger and more confident in our youthful idea that we are right. Does that make sense? Talk to a young person in their 20’s and they have it all figured out. Or so they believe. And it is like that with this young society. But, there is a key to getting us all through it, in the confluence of the old world with the new world.

This dovetails with something I was talking about to a group of restaurant operators. Italy gave many of their people to America, albeit not so voluntarily. They came to America looking for opportunities. They were entrepreneurial in their nature. America was (and still is) a laboratory for immigrants looking to remake themselves, like Gianpaolo says, to reset their lives. And along with that they made a life here in these lands. But somewhere along the way, many of us turned back to the old country to see where our grandparents came from. And we saw beauty and possibility. It was easier to see it from a distance.

In any event, it is probably a pipe dream, thinking that we could start something up in Italy faster than we could in the US. I have already abandoned the idea of living part-time in Italy in the future. In fact, my preference will be to find a rural area somewhere like in the hill country of Texas. Why? Because I know it will be less of a hassle to get things done. Bit I have veered off course. Back onto the Autostrada.



There is a great deal of cynicism in Italy among people in their 50’s and beyond, people who control the economy and the cultural strings that keep the kites in the air. A large part of it is economic power, but that is conservative in nature and it muffles the entrepreneurial spirit so prevalent in the bones of Italians, specially the young ones. Politicians also keep that under cover because they want their power and the money that goes with it. Comfort, ease, control.

What we owe to Italy, here in America, is repayment for sending some of their best and their brightest out into the world, never to return home. Italy, unlike places like France, shared much of their talent with the world. Italy went global before it was an idea. And now they see countries like South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore catching up, fast. It is important to let Italy know that we understand the sacrifice the country made in the 19th and 20th centuries, with the Italian diaspora into the new worlds.

So what can we do?


We have to be patient with things like the exchange rate, which has changed 15% since July. Gasoline - in Italy is $8.00 a gallon. Salaries - $30,000 is considered a good wage. Housing – 1,500 square feet for 3-4 people is a goal. This is really a pittance compared to our super-sized expectations here in the US. Our grasp exceeds our needs. But Italy looks to America and says, “We want some of that.”

Cernilli, The Reluctant Midwife?

Yet, we will still buy the wines and the clothes and the cheeses and prosciutto and the cars. Quality will always have a market but the market might recess a little in 2008. Today an importer told me one of his top-selling Pinot Grigios was going up $15 a case. That translates to almost an additional $2.50 per bottle on the retail shelf (online a little less, but there is delivery costs). He also told me that one of his best-selling Ripasso style wines was going up $20.00. Again, that is close to $3.00 more on the retail shelf. Maybe $1.80 if you are Vaynerchuk & Co. selling it, but again there are delivery costs and the hassle of buying a wine under $25.00 and waiting for it to get to your home.

The market will sort most of this out. Today I am tasting more than 30 Malbec, Carmenere, Bonarda and Cab/Merlot blends from South America. A wine writer is looking for good-tasting reds that will be considered values. That used to be the home turf of wines like Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, Valpolicella Ripasso, Primitivo and Nero D’Avola. No longer. The Italians who moved to Argentina and Chile are creating wines to compete with their uncles' wines back home. Interesting and challenging times.

My point? A rambling one at that, it seems. But if someone would ask me how we could get through this next 18 months, how an Italian wine producer could contribute to making this less painful, here's what I would say:

Please stay in the fields with us, you with the vines, us with the newly born wine drinkers. Let’s tighten up our habits of affluence. Maybe not a new car this next year. Maybe not spending so much time and money on leisure. Spend a little more time not on vacation, perhaps? Pursue what Gianpaolo calls a “more realistic vision of the world.” Get your global goggles on, folks, and gather your tools.


Let’s get busy and deliver this baby.

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

The Italian Affliction

I got a note from a friend in Italy. Small talk about the holidays, the wine harvest, comings and goings about a couple of mutual friends. Then my friend dropped a bomb.

“Nobody here gives a damn. Everybody is upset. Kids aren’t talking to their parents. Restaurant owners aren’t buying wine from their neighbors. Gasoline is impossible to find. It’s like Italy has become this giant bowl of pissed-off minestrone. I don’t know how much longer before something inside here blows a whistle and says: Time out. Wait a minute. We’re all in this together. Let’s not sink this ship.

“It’s not like were some Third World country.”

That hit me hard, shattered my idealistic view of Italy, so finely honed from 30-plus years of traipsing all over the place. How could this be?

I looked back over many years of impressions. From my notebooks, which I still have, to the scores of photographs taken, some approaching historical value for the era they captured. And then it was like a light went off.

My first trip to Italy, I walked around in jeans and sandals, with long curly hair, looking at “my people.” I really felt that I’d found the tribe I came from. I gazed upon the people as if they weren’t capable of any crime, sadness or malaise. I wandered the streets of Rome with a camera and a canteen, capturing images from every epoch on display.

And then one day I was walking in the hills near a modern art museum. On the street, a man and a woman in a car come to a screeching halt right in the middle of the street. The man pulls the woman out and starts yelling at her and slapping her. He was beating the hell out of her. And while she was screaming, she didn’t call for help or run away. I was maybe 100 feet away. This went on for probably a minute, seemed like hours. And then they get in the car and drive away. The stopped traffic, a municipal bus, continued on its route. Just like that.

I went back to my little room in the pensione and took a shower. It was August. I felt like I had just been beaten up. But that little moment was seminal in breaking the spell of my perfect Italy with something that was probably closer to the real Italy.

These days, the more I go to Italy, the less I understand it. And while I am at it, I can also say the same thing about the country where I was born, the US, the state I moved to, Texas, and the city I live in, Dallas. It’s like an Ingmar Bergman film: There is some meaning here, but it’s pretty hard to get at. So while the Italians are struggling with this new world order in their country, it isn’t foreign to these shores.

The animals make more and more sense to me everyday. They live in balance with our world. They know not of our rules; they answer to a higher source than man. I like the animals more everyday. The pitiful little black cat that waits by my front door for a little food, sometimes in the bitter cold. The baby possums and their mom that come out at night and empty the dish when the cat has gone. The bees in my tree that have set up their business in the owl house. The sparrow hawk couple that comes back every year to nest and mate in the big tree next to my house. The chimney sweeps that come back in the late spring to hang out in my chimney. These creatures aren’t mad, they aren’t angry. They don’t need therapists. They haven’t stopped talking to their mothers. They don’t have these modern problems of civilization. But they do have to live in harmony with people, or at least figure out how to stay out of the way of our oncoming, “Get the hell out of my way” Hummer mentality.



So while the Italians work through their dis-ease and the rest of us figure out how to bleed all we can out of this turnip called Christmas, how will we face ourselves in the mirror of our Self Affliction?

Aldous Huxley had a saying, “Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.”

Heaven help us.

Special thanks to Camilla Lopez for permissionto use the last photograph

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