Sombudsman, Wine Cougars & Straddle Baggers

The O-N-D Chronicles


Sombudsman
I got an email from my buddy, the Big Guy, early Saturday morning. “Enjoyed our lunch together. I’ve been thinking about the Blue Sky.” I had no recollection of what he was talking about, regarding the blue sky, so I called him. He reminded me of the late 20th century fondness by wine buyers, for having so many wines available. Bernie Madoff & Co put the kibosh on that. Large distribs were looking at their bottom line, trying not to lay off drivers, salespeople, admins. Small distribs were just trying to make payroll. Occasionally some of the great stuff would stick, but the brand names were struggling to stay on the shelves, on the wine lists. Robert Mondavi wines were no longer found in prominence. Meanwhile the young somms, working their way up out of the primal slime to some high and dry land where they wouldn’t get tugged back into the undertow, they were trying out their lines.

“You were a little tough on John,” B.G. admonished me. John's a somm who wanted to order some wine. I was all "just the facts ma'am" that day. B.G.’s been a friend going on 30 years now, ever since he pawned those five cases of Rafanelli Gamay off on me when I was a struggling wine bar manager. He had risen in the ranks, the hard way, and had managed to distinguish himself in the wine world. So I reckon he deserved my ear. Plus he had sprung for lunch. “At least you could have thanked him for ordering some wine. But you chumped him off; spit him out faster than a bad Pinot with mercaptan. When are you gonna play nice?” He'd made me feel bad, but that was a good thing. There are very few people who really can talk to me like that and do it with love. That, and I get to call him on his B.S. when he gets uppity. So it got me to thinking. What the wine world needs now is a Sombudsman – someone who can bridge the gap between the real word of economics, finance, supply and demand and the world of the Blue Sky sommeliers. We need both worlds – just gotta find a way to intermesh ‘em. B.G. is a likely candidate – an experimental rolling laboratory to get the needs of the present linked to the dreams of the future. I know this is probably getting a little too esoteric for most folks, plus I’m a little wordy these days, so I will leave it at this and plant the seed. I will be back. Later. For more.



Wine Cougars
Later that day I walked into my favorite Italian wine and food store in the world. I was jonesing for some eggplant. My latest diet was gotten me jazzed about vegetables and I love eggplant. My oldest dish, the one I’d “wine and dine” ‘em with in college, was this ancient recipe that my grandmas, my mom and my aunts taught me. It is my ultimate comfort food. But I was looking to do a few modifications of it, see if I could tweak it a little. Sausage Paul’s older brother, Johnny Cash-not-credit, always had a line of good produce.

It was Saturday and the store was buzzing from the cheesey-meetball-umami vibes from the sandwich counter. People were splayed all over the tables in food comas. Wine bottles were open, the espresso machine was cranking out an aria and all was well in my favorite Italian wine and food store in the world. Along the aisles, near Abruzzo a woman in endangered boots was looking for Montepulciano. Innocently I asked if I could help her. “I just got back from Rome, and we had this fabulous Montepulciano. It started with an “M”. Yes it does.

I could tell she wasn’t about to be allowing me within her force-field – I was a gnat – or worse – a salesman. So I backed off a little – what we call in the trade, creating a vacuum. After all, every known Montepulciano (from Abruzzo) was sitting there on the racks- save the Villa Reale which I had just sold. So I recoiled to let her graze.

She had a vexing allure – I identified her as a probable wine cougar. She liked her wines young. But she had just come back from Italy, so she was “in the know.” And - she still had her deflector shields up. Eventually we got it out of her that she was looking for Vino Nobile (remember egg and eggplant?) so I handed her off to S.P. He’s the guru of Vino Nobile.

She strayed back into the Abruzzo vector – maybe it was the smell and the feel of the Douglas fir racks that moved her out of her “sure-zone” – It seemed she wanted something – So I bit and opened my unfiltered mouth. “Well if you really want to know something about Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, I am really well versed in those wines.” I didn’t want it to sound like a brag; I was trying to be a love cat. And having been there 20+ times I figured I had some expertise in the subject. Maybe a little.

Nah. She wasn’t buying it. She had just been to Rome. She was “in the know.” No sale.



Straddle Baggers
Joey the Weasel calls me when I am there. "Hey have you seen Flip’s wine book?” Flip was a restaurant owner who was jettisoned out as driftwood into the wine world without a job. He took one with a small wholesaler. There are a few of those guys around. They used to be wine buyers with big important positions. People were scared of them, bowed to them, acquiesced to them. They were like gods. And then the business turned or their position changed and they were out beating the street with the rest of the peddlers. But they had been to the mountain top. They were prominent. And old routines are hard to break.

“No, Joe, I haven’t seen Flip’s wine book,” I answered. “Why?” I ventured.

“Well he left it at the store three weeks ago and was looking for it.”

Well maybe it is with that stack of wine he sold them that’s been sitting there for the last two weeks, uncut and unpriced.” Ya think?

Straddle baggers – aging wine geeks who have had to reinvent themselves but for some reason they don’t think the rules apply to them. You know - pay your dues, pay your dues, and pay your dues? Maybe it’s a fire in the belly thing. Maybe it’s languor. I see one of the peddler-gals, Brandy, out there hustling. She gets it. Young, confident, feisty, not afraid to ask for the order or get in someone’s face if they are putting their wine into her slot. I like her – she’s got moxie. The other day a gent walks in and want two cases of wine and he walks out ten minutes later with four. I’m filling up boxes of stuff and Brandy gets my attention – zap – 6 bottle of Rosso di Montalcino from her slot. Now that wasn’t so hard - all she did was make the contact and ask for the order – she got it – she thanked me for it - glad to help her – wish our people could hire folks like her.

As we put the pedal to the metal to thrust our way out of O-N-D, with barely a month to go, the bulls and the bears I find sure do make for some entertaining observations, all along the wine trail in Italy and everywhere you find fermented fruit.

written, with photographs taken in front of the Börse in Frankfurt, by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

The Guile of the Private Label

A cautionary tale, jettisoned from the vacuum of commerce

Back in the early 1980’s I decided to make wine. It started out as a way to identify with the winemaker and their task. I was fortunate and made some wine that I liked to drink. The problem was I made a lot of wine.

Nothing wrong with it, but I was just getting into wine collecting and tasting on a regular basis and my education wasn’t going to be served well by drinking my daily drek.

Eventually I gave away or drank most of the wine and went back to sampling wines from all over the world. I still have a case or so of wine, some in large format bottles, to see how well they age.

A few nights ago I was talking to a friend who is looking to open a little Italian wine and gift shop. One of the first things that came out of his mouth was "Giuseppe is going to help me get my own private label together." This friend was still a friend and not yet a client so I opened my unfiltered mouth and let it fly. "Jerry, who in the hell do you think you are? You are not an Italian. You don’t live there. You are not a winemaker. You are a merchant. Why not stick to what you do best and source wine from the people who do what they do best? It isn’t just a label, man; it’s a way of life!"

I guess I scared him off a little, although I doubt I talked him out of some future folly. But it got me to thinking about private label wine from Italy and what a bizarre proposition it is.

Imagine a wine shop owner or a restaurateur sitting at their family thanksgiving table with an ever-present bottle of private label wine. Every day they schlep the stuff and because their pride is such that they have convinced themselves that they are a "wine producer" they expose themselves to their family, friends and clients, on a daily basis, with these endless bottles of wine. They cost $5 and they sell for $20, $50. They're genius in their own mind, but they have also become prisoners of their own making. They have hypnotized themselves into believing that this is the best wine and no other wine comes before it and because of silly notions like that they risk cutting themselves off from the community of winemakers all over Italy and the world. What did you say? Isn’t his wine made by winemakers somewhere in Italy too? No doubt there is a hand of man involved in the project. But it is a recipe, a formula, another product from the catalog of someone who has planned his life in terms of profit and gain. And in reality one loses out to so much the world of Italian wine, and culture in general, has to offer. All for the sake of a dollar?

To do so undermines their credibility in other areas. Where do they get their fish from? Are those really black truffles? Is the Pecorino truly from Italy?

I wish restaurants could serve the food on the table that I have had in the kitchen of the winemakers. From Puglia to Valdobbiadene, Controguerra to Suvereto, in the homes of wine makers; not only their wines, but their tables have been shining examples of the best and the brightest from Italy.

So how does it get turned around, when the Italian experience is represented in America, that we have, from single storefront restaurateurs to mega big box chains, telling us what Italian wine must be?

There is no provenance in profit, or abracadabra to artisanship. It comes from the soul, not the spreadsheet. It isn't a game, it is someone's life. And that is, dear listeners, why private labels are often a pitiable surrogate for the genuine article.

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

A Moving Experience

This afternoon I was standing in the aisle of a super market looking at a stack of Italian wine. A good looking woman in her middle 40‘s, with a plunging neckline, motioned to the Sangiovese and suggested I try a bottle. “It’s delicious. And it’s Sangiovese. How could you go wrong?”

Indeed. She was making my job easier. In the rush to the holidays, folks are trying to be helpful, get those bottles of wine into hands, any hands, even if they sound like a pickup line. It got me thinking about what we do to get the wine to that point. There are a lot of hands that touch the wine that bring it to the front lines.

Indispensable is the hand of the winemaker. Young or old, male or female, the caretakers of the grape bring the wine into birth. With the help of nature and the sometimes unnatural persuasion of humankind, the humble grape tumbles into a life of wine and then on a journey across a planet to give joy and happiness to the global village of wine lovers. The winemaker is finishing their initial harvest work about now, except for a few late harvest projects in the northern hemisphere, maybe some ice wine in the northern regions. But in Italy, the wine has been put to bed, preparing for the next set of hands.

If it comes to the US or anywhere outside of Italy, usually an importer is involved. The classical importer is a person of discernment, one who knows Italy intimately and also has a working knowledge of the world he is trying to place the wine in. Some live in Italy, some in the US and some commute between the two countries. One of my dear friends, Eugenio Spinozzi, had dual citizenship and lived half and half. He was a global villager. But many people do this. The closer they are to the end-user, usually the better connected they are to the ever-changing realities of the marketplace.

Italy is unique, in my experience, from other countries, in that there are so many opinions and ideas on how to go about advancing wine. In some cases it is simply a matter of turning on the tap, filling up bottles, boxing them, getting a good price and that’s all she wrote. There is plenty of that. The good news is that those wines have gotten better and have helped bring more wine drinkers into the fold.

But then there are those forces of energy that look beyond a warm meal and a dry bed and consider the history, the finesse, the legacy of what they are doing in their daily lives. Those people inspire those of us who see this wine world as a lively and passionate way of life.

History has a place in all of this. In these times, it seems times past have been shuffled to an out-of-reach shelf on a cabinet, away from the sights of most people. And without history, especially in the last 60 or so years, the story of Italian wine is folklore and legend; many just stories with little or no anchor to the truth.

When people sit at a table over a bottle of wine it is like a drum circle, a bonfire, a tribal bonding. Every year at the wine fairs, and all through the year, this happens in Italy. All the time. Right now it is going on, this constant weaving of the story of wine, over a meal, maybe a fire, always another bottle showing up and conversation, endless conversation. Wine is the glue of the constantly evolving culture. Such a vital heartbeat it is.

And then there is the middle man and his retinue of colleagues, which help husband the wine closer to the user. I know the newer people in the business have little or no regard for that segment of the business, but without them Italian wines wouldn’t have gotten this far in America. Some of the giants who blazed trails, like Tony LaBarba of American Wine in Texas. I moan and whine about the flyover syndrome in these parts. Could you imagine what it must have been like in the 1950’s or 1960’s when there were few good restaurants, little to no wine shops and a population that was still under the spell of Prohibition? I cannot.

Ultimately the retailer and the restaurant owner are the ambassadors of these objects of good will that a country sends halfway across earth to share their bounty. And there are many, many kinds of people, with all kinds of ideas of how to go about proceeding forward. Today, in the supermarket, someone had to make it happen that a case stacking of Sangiovese was able to get to the point when a stranger could remark to another stranger about how nice that wine must be. It didn’t just magically appear.

The payoff? For me it is definitely at the table, where friend and foe alike take momentary refuge from the travails of gathering their daily bread. This is such a special moment in civilization, unparalleled in time because of the vast opportunities we have to celebrate it often and readily. And for that we have so very much to be thankful for.

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

The Wine Week, So Far (looking for a wine of the week)

It’s just been three days this week so far but it feels like a week or more. Evening events, tastings, wine dinners every night this week so far (with more to come) along with full day’s work, working lunches even. And then there are the deals.

Two truffle wine dinners this week. I am all truffled out. Some lovely Nebbiolos though. The Produttori Barbaresco 2005 is gorgeous. I still can’t believe when Etienne de Montille was at the house recently, he was jonesing for Nebbiolo. Too much great Pinot Noir can be too much of a good thing? I reckon.

Before I head back to Austin tomorrow and before I go to bed tonight, I laid out 60 or so bottles of wine for the Becky, the wine of the week writer to try. “Can you be here at 9:00AM?” I asked her. So in a few hours after a little sleep and a caffe latte or two, we’ll get started.

I’ve written about this before, but every time it is different. Earlier in the week I took a stroll around the warehouse and looked over thousands of different wines, all crisp and cool and waiting to be adopted. I pulled out the wee gee board and chose wines from Italy, France Spain, South America, South Africa, New York and Texas. Very few of them looked familiar to me, but that isn’t the issue. We’re looking for sleepers, values and out of the choices, a gem or two. I had to laugh the other day when my friend Tom Wark was lambasting the three-tier system and claiming “What truly gives consumers in any market real choice and selection is direct shipment rights by out-of-state wineries and retailers.” Dear Tom, you certainly haven’t walked a mile in my shoes. That’s plainly inaccurate. Now whether we (or direct shippers) can sell all the wines we have at our disposal is another matter. And while I’m at it, how about this one?

An importer friend calls me and tells me a retailer has this wine that looks like it came from his import company and the customer wants to return it. My friend asks the retailer to send him a picture of the wine, front label and back, so he can determine the provenance of the wine. It turns out the wine had another importers strip label on it (grey market) and the wine had been heat damaged (possibly by shipping in warmer months). My friend mailed the retailer back and suggested they tell the customer to try and return it from where they bought it. It’s a hassle, boxing it up and shipping it back to California or New Jersey, if the retailer would even take it back. Bottom line, there still is a place for people to people business and as long as those of us in the wine business (via the traditional platform or the ones in the future) remember who the most important person is – that would be the wine end-user.

Sausage Paul was bubbly today. I went over to the shop to make sure his Tuscan wine sale was rockin’. And he proceeded to take me to the back room and show me all the great Sicilian pastries that just showed up, along with a bunch of wonderful dried pastas from Campania. Add to that the Pandoro and Panettones that arrived and the place has the Holiday feel. The only thing missing was a war bride from Calabria for Joey the Weasel. Sausage Paul was waiting around for him. Brothers in arms, they are.

As I stepped outside to go to my wine dinner, flying winemaker Chris Ringland was pulling up to go to dinner at a local spot, a BYOB place. He was in town to showcase his holiday sparkler, Bitch Bubbly. Chris, up since 4:00AM wasn’t too effervescent at that point. I’m sure the bottle of ’82 Mouton he sampled revived him a bit.

And yes, I am again officially rambling. But hey, it’s just a little blog by an obscure Italian wine guy in flyover country, what do you expect, Nossiter or Grahm?

A big shout out to Tom Maresca for jumping into the bloggy-blog world. Matt Kramer where you at, brother? Come on in, jump, Matt, jump. It won’t kill you. It hasn't killed Charles Scicolone. Yet.

So, bona notte y’all; con calma e gesso.

written by and photos of wines lined up to be tasted by Alfonso Cevolalimited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

O-N-D Halftime Report: A Three-Tier Crusaders Gamebook

Only 39 selling days till Christmas

There are all kinds of things to distract one in the wine business these days. Confluences abound, yet points of view are so diverse that to troll the top 100 wine blogs is to get a combination of blunt head trauma, whiplash and a serious case of confusion. The last week I have been going around in the car trying to sell cases of wine, and believe me it hasn’t been all that easy. And folks that I am talking to, they are saying the same.

So halfway through the precious holiday season of wine selling (and buying) we’re looking at a slow start. O-N-D, the October-November-December sales season is late harvest so far. There are a lot of unemployed and underemployed folks out there. My second trip to San Antonio in the last six weeks and what I saw on the streets near the bus station reminded me more of New Orleans, post-Katrina, than Alamo city. There are a lot of people on the edges, and not just folks we normally associate with in that category.

College grads, the class of 2009? The Millennials, who are supposed to help save and grow the country ibto a nation of wine drinkers? Reports have it that upwards of 80% of recent graduates are still without a job. And that would mean they are also without any kind of health care. Were trying to get folks to buy a bottle of Chianti for $7 and we have people who are trying to stay one step ahead of illness. Wine is a luxury to these folks. Cheese, bread, food has a higher priority right now. Really.

Austin was a little better. It is a contrarian kind of place and relatively affluent. One of the grads of 2009 (who is unemployed) tells me kids drive to Guadalupe (a main drag near the University) and get away from their car and beg for bucks. Tax free, but what a way to gather funds.

Houston this week, is looking like a town out of a Ridley Scott movie. The hotel we hooked for under $100 a night was four star and very bizarre. Sci-Fi hotel and folks looking for wines that we didn’t have. Meanwhile the wines we brought, folks weren’t buying so fast. Back to the drawing board.

And Dallas, what in the world is going on in this old home town over in flyover country? Well, Dallas is just plain weird. Last night we were invited a ball for a good cause. The dress was tropical. So our group read the memo and came to the party as requested. Meanwhile all of Dallas was decked out in black cocktail dresses and tuxedos. This is the story of my life in this town. I listen to the instructions and comply only to find a society mocking me with their conventions. It doesn’t just happen with Italian wines, it’s the whole gestalt. And online wine marketers think it is just rough for them because the laws and the system have been set up for the alpha-cats of the industry? Not from my perch. It just ain’t all the pretty in any area of the biz.

Speaking of, I headed over to Sausage Paul’s on Saturday to pick up my burrata. The place was jammed with shoppers. But I counted seven wine reps on the floor. About five too many. I got out as fast as I could, but not before a wine import rep accosted me and chastised me and Joey the Weasel for resetting the store. “Where’d you put all the shelf takers?’ He screeched. I explained that in order to clean the shelves which were dirty, we took all of the p.o.s. down. “You didn’t take yours down. Yours are all up.” He was a combination of pit-bull and rhesus monkey. I explained to him that yes I did put up shelf talkers, all new ones, many made by hand, on the spot. As if I had the exclusivity on hand-made shelf talkers. At this point I was starting to get irritated. Why? Because if I do something, it is for the client and the customers of the client. A retail wine store doesn’t exist for importers or distributors. It exists for the end-use customer. Period.

One more swipe, as if he were an out of work samurai from the Meiji Period. “I see you reset the store too.” At which point my coup de grace was simply, “Yes, and thankfully it was done by someone who knows what they are doing.”

I'd had it with this character, who once tried to tell me about DOCG, when I have made the study of DOCG’s and gotten closer than most in actually ferreting out their mysteries. In that same interchange he tried to convince me (or anyone around him that couldn’t escape the boom-varoom of his 300 HP voice) that a Barolo DOP (the new European classification) would also encompass anything made in the district, from Dolcetto to Barbera to Barbaresco. Huh? Barolo DOP now would be what we call Barbaresco? Is this guy nuts? And he is questioning whether or not Joey the Weasel and I know our way around the Italian wine set in a store? Maybe the three-tier system does need a little tweaking? Starting with bloviated reps that don’t do their homework and try to pass off B.S. to their peers and worse, to unsuspecting shoppers who are merely trying to find a nice white wine to go with their burrata.

And we are just halfway in the season. This could be a bloody Christmas.

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

Master Class in Gruner and Nero D'Avola at a local Bacaro

A cicchetti feast for vegans and a panino-fest for porchetta-lovers

How often does one get the opportunity to travel around a state visiting great wine people with a master sommelier like Damon Ornowski? Last week, while my amigo was noshing it up in Nashville with Kermit, we were terroirizing the Texas countryside with a car full of Gruners and Nero D’Avolas. An unlikely pair of wines from the polar opposite ends of Italy (the Gruner was off the map from the Wachau).

Last week in Houston, our rolling wine show pulled up to the steps of a friend’s new place. Lynette Hawkins recently opened up Giacomo’s cibo e vino on 3215 Westheimer (near Kirby). The concept is bacaro with cicchetti, a casual wine bar with small plates. This is a delight for carnivore and vegan alike, as the counter is filled with any number of delicious offerings. Tha place has gotten great early press from my twitter buddy @alisoncook.

But our goal was to meet up with a group of sales reps and sommeliers for a quick meet-up and a light lunch. The draw was Damon with his wines from Cusumano in Sicily and a selection of Austrian wines from Kracher, Hirtzberger and Domane Wachau. Great stuff and right before the Thanksgiving holiday some liquid food for thought.

Damon is a lightning bug of info, and he moves as fast as one too (the guy took two runs in one day while we were in Austin!). After a long day in San Antonio, capped off by a dinner at Il Sogno, Andrew Weismann's new Italian spot in the Pearl Brewery, we headed out early for the ride to Houston. All through the trip I kept wondering about all the great BBQ places we were passing. Thankfully it was too early and we had to be in Houston at 11:00AM.

Damon handled the wine details and I got with Giacomo manager Emily, who is as turned on to the concept of cicchetti as the able proprietressa, Lynette. I looked at the line of food and asked her for a little taste of everything for our group.

Within minutes small plates poured onto the table, fighting for space with the Gruners and the Neros. But a battle in which everyone won.

I have to say, I roll with some interesting folks in the wine business (starting to sound like an umami blog, hey Dr.P?) and this was no different. @JonSomm (Jonathan Hoenefenger of Tony’s) and I got into this deep chat about DOCG’s. Jon keeps me on my toes, and we had some fun flaring our nostrils at each other, trying to stump one another over the most esoteric of wines from Italy. Later in the lunch he mentioned the Nero D’Avola Bianco that he pours as the house wine at his restaurant (Damon made a note and emailed the Cusumano's about it on the way to the next stop). Scott Barber from Tesar’s in the Woodlands took the drive in to hook up with us, along with a table of intense and attentive salespeople and their clients. Darn, we are lucky to be working and living in these times.

"Hey, I'm really paying attention -

I'm just writing my tasting notes down"

The Cicchetti we had were wonderful (If you aren't a carnivore you would be very happy here - see the pictures):
we also had
•cavolfiore in agro dolce roast cauliflower in caramelized onion vinaigrette
•ratatouille roast eggplant and zucchini with sweet peppers, onions, tomato, herbs, garlic and olive oil
•insalata di barbabietole roast beets with goat cheese, fennel, walnuts
•tacchino tonnato poached turkey breast marinated in tuna sauce
•frutti di mare salad of poached shrimp, calamari, fennel, herbs, lemon and olive oil
•polpettini d’agnello spicy lamb meatballs
•pollo ai peperoni chicken thighs braised with white wine, sweet peppers and onions

But the showstopper of the afternoon was Lynette’s panino di porchetta, a toasted sandwich of slow braised fennel and rosemary roasted Berkshire pork on ciabatta (with my full year's allocation of garlic). It was so good I didnt take the time to take a picture of it. It was so good I wasn’t even feeling bad about missing all that brisket and ribs we passed by on our way from San Antonio earlier.

And with wines like Cusumano Nero D’ Avola (rosato and rosso) and the Gruners from Domane Wachau, Hirtzberger and Kracher, it was hard to imagine how we would ever make the next three appointments (we did!).

Giacomo's cibo e vino? A great new destination in Houston for wine and food lovers, especially if you are looking for pure and simple unpretentious food and affordable wine. Lynette, grazie e bravo!

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

Klaatu Burrata Nikto

Funny, some of the convergences in life. Just a few observations from the road. Maybe it’s all the high- sugar, high-acid wine I’ve been trying from Kracher. But when I got an email today from Sausage Paul that the burrata was in, and I’m not, I stared into the sky and asked, why me?

Yeah, no, life is rolling along pretty well. I’ve got with me a road warrior selling-machine as we waltz the show across the Texas; no guitars, only corkscrews, when needed. So far, so good. Let’s see, any other clichés I can cram in here?

Tasting high-sugar, high-acid wines from Austria has been an education. It helps to take along an expert, in this case my buddy and colleague, Damon Ornowski. Life ain't too bad.

These days, on the road, our conversation has taken us in and out of wine, Italian and otherwise. I feel like I’m taking a rolling master class with a man who is a class act. From Wachau to Etna and back.

Speaking of acts, what was Kermit Lynch thinking? We rolled into Austin on Monday to taste some of his wines at Vino Vino and for a CD release party, which turned out to be a “Listening Party.” Austin, the live music capital of Texas, and Kermit, and his buddy Ricky, sitting up there together and staring out at the crowd, smiling and waving, while the CD played? I gotta say, it had an unearthly feel, a slight-disconnect. The young ones in the crowd just looked at each other with that "so old-school" expression. Or maybe it was the Bourgogne Rouge on the table that was sulfuring in silence? Old man, I love many of your wines and your first book, and you seem to be a good egg, but I don’t know about these here musical meanderings of yours. You should have brought your guitar - after all this is Texas.

While on the subject of music, Jay-Z was playing in Austin last night. I saw the spectacle unfold from my hotel window. Lots of Lamborghinis lolling around the parking lots. Now we’re talking L.I.V.E. music.

After the show a group of us were sucking down some fruity Nebbiolo and noshing from the perch at Trio in the Four Seasons. As we poured out of the door to our chariots, a young rapper and his entourage rolled in.

When the young lion stood by his Lambo to take a private call, I observed him. Young, wealthy, famous, lots of stuff to play with.

He seemed so alone. The fame, yes, he had sought it and it stuck to him like the orange paint on the exotic Italian roadster that he cozied up to. But as he walked farther away into the darkness, chatting on his cell, I felt an other-worldy weight on his shoulders.

Or perhaps it was the sugar coursing through my veins from a long day on the wine road?

I pray he doesnt have a vineyard.

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

On Any Given Sunday: A Three-Tier Crusaders Gamebook

Oh yeah, it’s like, Sunday in the Fall. Meet the Press, Football, World Series, all kinds of diversions. What it is for us three-tier crusaders, though, is one down, two to go. The traditional O-N-D (October-November-December) holiday season is 1/3 over. And we’ve got miles to go before we sleep. All across the country, the wholesalers, retailers and their customers are gearing up for a season of festive cheer. To the three-tier machine, it’s just one big party, festooned with real pirates. Arghh!

I called my 95 year old mom tonight when I got home at 6PM. It was dark here, but in California she was looking at a sun setting over the golf course outside her home. “Oh, honey, are you working today? Did you put up your displays?” My mom has always been “into” whatever her kids were “into.” She used to sit there and listen to baseball games and we’d listen to Vince Scully and Jerry Doggett announce the Dodger games, back when Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale and Larry and Norm Sherry were on the team. Scully announced the Dodgers when they were in Brooklyn and is still on the job after 60 years. Now that is a crusader. Anyway, where were we? Can you tell I am dead tired?

Like I was saying, I met up with one of the old-timer salesmen, Joey the Weasel. We were heading over to Sausage Paul’s, to help clean up the shop after his year end sale and inventory. As I walked in, Paul was firing up a triple cream latte for me, and he had a big grin on his face. His brother Mike was already out the door, a couple of eggplants in his arms and what looked like a pair of tickets to Hawaii or Tahiti. Whatever. We still had work to do.

I polished off the latte and Joey the Weasel walked in with the biggest vacuum cleaner I had ever seen. He was going to get all the dust. Joey was still smarting from his Italian harvest “boy’s trip” to Tuscany. But if anyone is a third-tier warrior, the Weasel is a future Hall-of-Famer. So while he was sucking up dust, I amused myself with re organizing Piedmont, then the Veneto and then Puglia. Federico II, Garibaldi and Il Duce couldn’t touch me; I was burning through regions faster than Berlusconi in a Ferrari. Even Luca Zaia would have been amazed by my ability to regionalize Italian wine regions in such a fast and methodical manner. “No Pineapple, No Zaia”, that’s my motto.

I spied a Lacrima di Morro d’Alba squatting in the Piedmont section and proceeded to return it to Marche where it belonged. A day earlier I had corrected an over-confident wine salesman about the provenance of the wine, but I reckon he, or someone like him, scoffed at my expertise and placed it in the Piedmont section. He had also lectured me on the EU DOP (or PDO, which is more proper). “Now, there will be a Barolo DOP and all the DOC wines will be under it. So you will have Dolcetto and Barbera and Moscato and Gavi and all of those wines under the Barolo DOP.” Oh really? And we wonder why the regular folk think Italian wine is so hard to figure out? Well, I am here to tell anyone who wants to know, that just ain’t gonna happen. Jeesh.

So where were we? Yeah, we got the placed vacuumed, and searched out any wines that needed to be “red dotted” (50% off, and it’s out of the park!) so Sausage Paul could make room for the wines that will work in the new economic reality. And besides, he also needs room for Panettone and Burrata. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

After all that, we hastened to a local trattoria for some pizza and to get the order written. Over a bottle of Insolia (which was heading South, fast) and some calamari, Sausage Paul started handing Joey the Weasel sheets of paper with marking on them. Joey was typing furiously away, trying to get everything in before a 4PM cut-off. Meanwhile a pizza was being placed on the table, and we all had to stop what we were doing to eat the pizza in its perfect state- fresh and hot.

Mission accomplished – re: the pizza. But the cutoff deadline was looming. A hearty espresso kicked Sausage Paul and Joey the Weasel into high gear and they started tearing through the pages, ordering left and right. It was pure poetry to see how those boys worked so beautifully together. And those mean-spirited bloggers who knock the good old tried and true three-tier system, what do they know? They are all sitting on their keisters drinking God knows what (but we’ll hear about it on their blogs, I am so sure) sitting in front of a big screen TV watching football and if they are still sober (or awake) maybe a little of the World Series. The Boys of November, they are a so formidable faction.

Not to sound like I have hubris on this matter, but even in the back row of this kerfuffle, I know the team I am on has a deep bench. We have been called a conspiracy, and blah, blah, blah. Go turn on Fox News if you want to hear the talking points, they’re close enough. The world I live in is competitive and it is constant with change. Don’t like it? Don’t get into the ring. This isn’t a place for whiners and short-timers.

Oh, and for those who say it’s about choice and it’s about giving consumers wines that they couldn’t get in the stores or through the established (three-tier) channels, let me invite you to the store we just spent all Sunday in: there are two tables of Red-Dot close-out wines that consumers didn’t choose – and now those wines have to go away. No conspiracy, no lobbying, no dark passage, no envelope with unmarked $100 bills – just wine that didn’t make it in the real world of commerce. The wineries made their money, so did the importers. The mom and pop store? He's just trying to make room for something that will work.

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