How many times does it have to happen? I’m the speaker at a wine dinner. A guy walks up and says, “Are you the guy hawking the wine at tonight’s dinner?”Yeah, that would be me. I just drove from San Antonio to Austin to Dallas to sell you a bottle of wine. Because I live to sell wine. Screw the stories, the wine trail adventures, I just want to get all the money that you have in your pocket and suck it out of your wallet. That’s my m.o.
I've done hundreds of wine dinners and I often say I’ll never do another one. And then, just when I think I am out, they pull me back in. Actually it’s a good way to do a nice service for a restaurant, to meet people and to promote the wines, the blog, and the Italian culture. You know, keeping the world safe for Italian wine? And then you get that guy, and it’s usually a guy. Usually middle aged or older, upper income, white guys. You know the type? The kind that come out to stump the expert.
Usually there will be the question of aging or barrel or vintages. “I love the 1997 vintage, they made such opulent wines in Tuscany.” If I had a nickel for each time I heard that line I could make more money collecting from those jokers than the money I never make on this blog.Or, “I don’t really think Italian wines are as good as French wines.” Or “I have a friend in Napa Valley who made a killing in the (submit _________ here) business. He makes a killer wine that only sells out of the winery for $150. He makes the wine by letting the grapes drip.” I kid you not. I am not making this stuff up.
So there we are tasting the red, a Valpolicella Classico Superiore, a ripasso method, and this fellow, the same one who thinks I schlep wine for a living, comes up to me and says "I don’t like this wine - it needs to breathe for a day before it will be any good.” A day? You think?I let it go. It’s a wine dinner. He could be a distant in-law; I need to let it go. And so I do.
And then he makes another pass. “Hey not bad, you had 3 out of 4 wines that were pretty darn good.” I tell him, “Great, that’s a .750 batting average – all star stuff. Or better.” Trying to keep it light.
But he just can’t help himself. He’s from a privileged economic and social class and he thinks his opinions have that certain gravitas. So he lobs another ball over the strike zone. “But that red wine, do you think it will ever be drinkable?”Actually everyone at the table was enjoying the wine until he so inhospitably served up a platter of doubt. The chef paired the wine with lamb and a fruity sauce and it was a brilliant pairing. And I'm not even into that kind of thing. But the wine and the food were singing. Big time.
I wanted him to go away now. But I took a swing. “Look, the whole thing about breathing is a myth. And a day for a wine to breathe will, in most cases, just result in a dead wine.”
“Bullshit,” he snorts.
“Excuse me? Do you want to tell the story?” At this point I am thoroughly fed up with this guy trying to act like an expert. It is clear that he drinks unwieldy wines too young and that has led him to believe that he needs to let a wine breathe for a day. I'm curious if he makes those same calculations with the women he tries to shag. I wonder how that's working out for him.
What can you do with someone who thinks they are the expert? Have they just spent three weeks tasting any number of wines from France and Italy, tasting with the great winemakers of Bordeaux and Italy? Who is more qualified?I’m not saying I want to be known as the expert. But in this instance I am the pro in the room and it is my story and I’m the one the folks came to hear. I even feel bad having these thoughts, because they sound like nails on the chalkboard when I read them. But after thirty years, I have stories to tell. And the last thing I am in the mood for is to drive all day and have some knucklehead get up on the stage and spew foolish drivel. It cheapens the whole experience of the wine dinner. Like I said, it is an inhospitable act. It is rude. And it is inaccurate.
And this has been the dark side of the Italian wine business for as long as I can remember. So when I talk all rosy and poetic about the vineyards and the winemakers, and I do, and I mean it, just remember that I have to come back to the native land and deal with the infidels.
Pass the ripasso please.
What are the 
In December, Dr. Zaia said,” We must launch the pineapple strike and of all those products that have nothing to do with the Italian agriculture. Yes, therefore, to zampone and cotechino. And no, instead, to the non seasonal products, that do not belong to our tradition and that, often, are cultivated in countries where it is still possible to use insecticides."
And a month later the Italians were banging the drums that they were the 
America has a new president, elected by a large margin, some would say overwhelmingly. His childhood home is Hawaii, and Zaia is throwing down on the national fruit of our president’s homeland. Meanwhile kiwi - which is native to China – is being sent from Italy to China. Whose carbon footprints are all over that?
Or they could all go back to riding horses in Italy, like we all do in Texas. Then Dr. Zaia could show off his horse-whispering mind-meld talents. Another 60 million horses in Italy wouldn’t have too serious an impact on global warming. It’s only 60 million methane producing mini-factories. Maybe they could feed espresso beans to the horses and the Italians could harvest them after they passed through the horses digestive systems, like the civets in Indonesia. Then it could be considered truly Italian.
Why am I so angry? It’s because I see politicians not understanding the way the world is going and not wanting to lose their power - their gravy train - so they work to keep people down by fear and ignorance. Don’t buy pineapples because they are not local, but let’s sell a non-indigenous kiwi to a country where the kiwi originated from, which just happens to be halfway across the globe. Then the rest of us have to clean up the politician's messes.
Is it just me, or are we smack-dab in the middle of topsy-turvy times? I gotta tell you, it’s exciting, exhilarating and a jolt of terrificante in my espresso. Really a great time to be engaged in whatever it is that takes you to the top, fires you up, makes you feel the breeze in your face, the cold, biting wind and the last of the setting sun as we head away from summer. And with all this excitement there’s this slightly disorienting facet that has one looking to recalibrate and check for balance. Not. 
Like our social and political circuses that surround us, so the world of wine, and Italy, really seem to be in sync with this slightly out of register skew to things. Is this merely lucid dreaming or are the bathing beauties of Tuscany and Alto-Adige and Campania really vying for our attention? Or are they merely engaged in some kind of commercial cat-fight for our hearts and dollars? Happiness is a warm warehouse.
In the world in which I live, there isn’t a day that doesn’t go by that I don’t get a note or three from some Italian wine company wanting to get onto the Ark. The smaller companies don’t have the capital, the ability to pay their bills. Everybody is trying to fit their animals on our ship. We are desirable, like this is some kind of beauty pageant. Hey folks, winter is coming, time to put the swimsuits in the drawer. Pass the grappa and cuddle up on a couch somewhere and find something to do. Not the time to plant tomatoes.
Say cheese?
