A Little Spot of Sicilian Sunshine ~ KYOS

Folks who read these posts regularly know I dont "review" wines. However, when something comes across my path that is notable I like to let all 3 of you reading this know about it. -AC

A wine that I will be following this year is KYOS, from the Cantina Sociale Santa Ninfa. This is interesting, in that this co-op is coordinating with another co-op, the Cantina di Soave. North and South working together for the betterment of Italian wines, what a concept. Perhaps the politicians could learn from the example of the farmers, the stewards of the earth. We can hope.

While I dont usually get excited about co-op wines, several of them in Italy have been making better than average wines. The Produttori del Barbaresco wines are in such heavy demand that they cannot supply enough wine.

KYOS will have two wines available in the American market to start, A Grillo and a Nero d'Avola. The Nero D'Avola that I have tried is a delicious red that has everything in check. The fruit is fresh but not overbearing and the alcohol is a sane 12.5%. A really well balanced wine that will sell, in most markets for around $10.

Importer is Tricana. Sam Levitas and company have found a real winner here. At this time, it can be found in NY metro, San Francisco, soon in Texas. It has been a real hit in Venezuela too. Grab ahold of this one, It will give the Planeta and Donnafugata entry level wines a run for your money.

The Other Side of the Hill

A young man, just back from Iraq, was in the hotel where I had been attending a tasting. I spotted him seated at a table near me. He was attending a job fair, trying to fit himself back into a society that looked sideways to him. We exchanged greetings, and he seemed to want to talk. I told him I was taking a break from tasting too many wines. He was looking for a job as an interpreter, as he had learned Arabic in the service.

With a faraway look in his eyes, he mused over the differences in the many wines I had been tasting. He seemed to find it unusual that one would be so focused on something like that. I asked him of his recent assignment in the Middle East, and all he could say was, that he was glad he had gotten out alive. It didn’t sound like he felt he had done much to improve the lives of the people he was patrolling. I felt something from him, almost an embarrassment that I had seen in my friends when they had returned from Vietnam. Not that I was judging them then (or now). Not the point. But here was a young man, fighting other young men, for ideas and lives and water. Wine was far from the battlefield.
He told a story of a time when he was holding down a town center and was trapped in a home for 36 hours during an intense period of shooting, bombing and battling. As he looked around the house for some water, he found a jug with clear liquid. Taking a swig, he discovered a liqueur, perhaps an Arak or some other aniseed-flavored spirit. He told me he had swallowed it, only to feel a sense of warmth and well being in the midst of the fighting. ‘Told me it was one of the few times the war had stopped for a short moment, given him pause, to rejoin the life of the living, and then get back to the mission.
When he was going to school, he had a friend from Isfahan, which was a city in Persia that was a paradise of mosques. That friend went back home after a year of study in the U.S., and he hadn’t been in contact with him for a while.
Strange that from a civilization that gave us Shiraz and the Al-ambic, we are now separated by a gulf that will be deep and long. That same divide, the wall of green on one side and the sloping sand dune on the other, separates friend and enemy alike.

When we finished our conversation, he asked me what I had tasted recently that I had liked. I mentioned a Sicilian wine that I had enjoyed, an older Marsala. He laughed. “Marsa Allah, port of God,” he said. “How odd you would mention that wine.” I didn’t trouble to mention to him that it was also a Vergine, but not one that would be found at the gates of Paradise by the young martyrs, in the place he had just left behind.

Time Travel From Times Square

Organization Man - Then & Now

Picture 40 or so tables with wines from all over Italy. At 2/3rds of these tables a winemaker or vineyard owner is present, many speaking English. You have 5-7 hours to circle the room and make your connections. There are many great wines present. What do you do with this opportunity?

This is my work, and although it presents one with a possible dilemma, the glass isn’t half empty, it’s actually just a splash.
At first I thought it would be interesting to have all these terroir-driven wines at my disposal. But like I talked in a recent post about the wine critic or writer who travels all the time or has the wines come to them, this can affect the perception of the terroir within the bottle. It takes a meditative response, the ability to block out the sounds and the crowds, being jostled, balancing a wine glass with a note pad and people in motion. Not just any people, New Yorkers and Italians being the dominant species present. Take a deep breath. Close your eyes or fuzz them up, un-focus your sight and open your nose and your mind to the inner laboratory of terroir recognition. In less than a minute.

Very wrong. So very American. But what can one do? Or rather, what did I do in this situation? A couple of things.

One, you will never be able to re-create the condition of tasting a Gravner or a Rampolla wine as you would be able to do on site, at the winery with the winemaker. This is a Petri dish approach. It’s very hard. Sure one can detect the power and the fruit, the wood and the alcohol. But that’s not my world. I’m closing my eyes and trying to look into a microcosm of a world I know is there but is “over there.” And I’m here.

Mesa, a new wine from Sardegna, the brain child of Gavino Sanna of Young & Rubicam distinction. A chance to hear a story, to take a magic carpet ride on their stylized label, a hillside vineyard by the sea. I could almost smell the breeze of the waves breaking against the rocks below. I was almost there.

A time to taste Pinot Noir with Lagrein and wonder why they bother with Pinot Noir in Italy when the Lagrein is such a wonderful character. Like the difference between a McDonalds burger and a Chiannina steak from Dario in Panzano.

A taste of Moscato Rosa from the Alto Adige. A wine I have always linked more to the wines of Lipari and Pantelleria and Noto than to the goat paths of the Alps. And then to hear a story (“a true story’) of a Sicilian woman’s dowry of these dark Moscato vines to plant in her husband's Teutonic terra firma. A light goes off; finally someone has answered a question asked 20 years ago. Ahh.

The aged Marsala and Passito di Pantelleria from Marco de Bartoli was also an easy connection. From the 5 year Marsala to the Bukkuram I was beamed over into my ancestral gene pool. I have talked about this before, the mystical crossing over into a world thousands of years and miles from here off of Times Square.

Where to next? A little diversion to those little scraggly hills of vineyard that make the Prosecco Superiore, Cartizze. Suddenly, the history of Venice in a glass is laid before you, in a frothy mess of pinpoints.

Here is where the terroir of the Italian persona kicked in. I realized this was also a time to reconnect with colleagues and friends, people who have pulled themselves from a skiing trip or an Epiphany celebration with their family to bring their energy and their commitment to this filling station. A way to transfer a little bit of needed energy to those of us who have been also “toiling in the fields” of the little wine store or the national chain restaurant, chipping away, day by day, person by person, line by line, to raise the bar of understanding for these folks “back home.”

This isn’t Rachel’s Way. But it is a ray of light, a recharge to the missionary who will never be called back to Rome.

The Bears and the Bees

2006 was a good year for Italian wines in America. Looking at the sales report today, some interesting inside industry notes show, in my world, cases are up 11% and dollars are up 15%. The sales are up in dollars because the dollar is weak. The downward spiral of the dollar is good for business? Italian winemakers are readying themselves to meet with many of us in America between now and Vinitaly in April. Already they are looking at raising their prices 10% and also expecting sales increases of 12-20%. We’re not throwing our hat in the air yet. France and Australia still lead, but that might be more a factor of regional differences than the overall picture. This will probably the last of this kind of posting for a while. I hope.

Today, on the Big Island, with a group of young Italians, I realize that they have no idea about what I do and I have little or no connection to them with this Italian wine business, blog and the future of such. Today I walked into a very famous Italian wine store to ask the young clerk a question. They don’t know who I am. Who do I think I am?

What I learned today is that this writing, these thoughts, ideas, hopes and dreams are a fabrication of imaginings I have drawn up from my inner Fantasy Island. I feel pretty irrelevant. Pretty well much back to full circle on this island from 31 years ago.

In a sense, it is liberating. Nothing above me, nothing below me, so I leap off.

A young girl walks into a pizzeria. She is a famous Italian because she had a famous boyfriend and then she poses naked for a calendar. She sits at the table while the chef prepares a meal she won’t enjoy, reads email that she couldn’t care about, laughs with her friend over a picture and a text message that is meaningless, and fails to notice her fashion dog playing with a precious young girl not 2 years old. Fame is so overrated.

Jan 6 and it was 72° F today. The Coney Island Polar Bear Club protested in silence on a Brooklyn beach.The bear wonders if he’ll have time to live out his life in this kind of world.

Bees are also showing some apprehension. Fields planted with GMO’s (genetically modified organisms) are being avoided by them, refusing to pollinate the crops, protesting this brave new world of ours.

And another challenge to look forward to: Terroir, as brought to you by AXA and Saiagricola Insurance companies, US vineyard REIT’s and CalPERS (the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.) This piece by Adam Feil for JancisRobinson.com.

For those of you who have read this far, what is in store? If you are in the industry, there will be face-offs coming. Fasten your seat belts. If you are a consumer, it could be good. But if cowboy capitalism captures the wine world, then making something cheaper (it can be similar, it doesn’t have to taste exactly like a Barolo or Bordeaux) will dominate the discussion. The good news, your palate is evolving and you probably wont want to be drinking a “20 Buck Chuck” for the rest of your life. So you have the power. The bad news, few of you will get to Tuscany and even less of you will ever get to Barbaresco or Courmayeur , Gorizia or Bucita. To experience these wonderful places on your own. Managia.

I know this little voice of mine is just that. Year after year of walking the pavilions of Vinitaly have pointed out to me that I am one of many bees in a hive, not the queen bee. That’s who I think I am, and that's ok. And while it sometimes seems it’s all about money, I just hope we can keep on making honey.

Terroir ~ Italian Style

Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher of the Wall Street Journal, recently described the 2001 Podere Salicutti Piaggione Brunello as “Rough and brawny. Makes you feel alive, like it's really close to the earth. Rustic, primitive lustiness.” I think they liked it.

In the past, when I heard the word “rustic” to describe an Italian wine, it made me cringe. Was a Francophile trying to appease me with his home boy description of a wine that was near and dear to me? Or was it a back-handed complement?

Now that we have discovered terroir, I guess they like it, they really like it. In the case of the couple from the WSJ I don’t doubt it for a minute. Rusticity implies a connection with the land, an observation of the territoriality of the vine.

Back in the 1970’s the young hippies new all about terroir. Why was Panama Red or Acapulco Gold in such demand then? Or White Widow or Northern Lights in these times?

Interesting to note that in the 1960’s the herb of the counterculture had about 1% THC content. In the 1970’s it rose to about 4%. Now it can be found with up to 15% potency. I'm using this example simply to parallel the goings on here in America,not as a proponent of it's use. However, it is very similar to the acceleration of the amount of French oak we are seeing in the big fruit bombs that define the International Style in the wine world, along with every increasing alcohol content.

Maybe the American palate requires more and more firepower to get it aroused. Try finding a wine at 12% alcohol these days, it’s very difficult to locate.
We in America have pretty much run aground in our pursuit of a bigger, more powerful, more oak, more alcohol, more extraction, higher score, more gold medal madness. In Italy it is much easier to understand the marriage of terroir with technology. What do you think a Ferrari is? Could it have come out of Detroit instead on Modena? I couldn’t imagine it. But somehow, among the balsamic and the lambrusco, the mortadella and the zampone, there arose from the land an automobile that expresses the terroir of the region as well as any of the wines and foods.

So what’s the hubbub all about?
Right now in Piedmont, in Barbaresco a light snow covers the vineyards in the twilight. Underneath the fog and the ice the raw ingredients for the 2007 models are being forged. A little oak might find its way into the flavor, maybe even a little malo-lactic acid. Will that make it a better wine, a wine able to express the nature of the land and the people making it? For some, yes.

It has gotten me thinking about what really is in a wine that is truly indigenous. Bucky Fuller told me once, “Anything that Nature lets you do is natural.” Hmm…

My friend, Andrea Fassone, wrote me today, about Barbaresco. He said, “...Barbaresco. Isn’t beautiful?
How come people are so unaware about it? ” I don’t know, friend, but maybe if we keep talking about it for another 25 years, some of them will come around.

For those people who come up to me and say, “I had this wine in Rome and it was so wonderful. Why can’t they bring these wines to America?” I have this to tell them: I have this wine from Barbaresco and it is also wonderful. And chances are you haven’t been to the town and chances are very few of you ever will. But the wine that comes from this sleepy little village tastes of a time and a place that is unique to that very place. So, take the leap to rustic, primitive lustiness. It might make you, too, feel alive.

Vineland Security

Last night, I set out for a run with my new shoes and my new toe, in the New Year. Feeling good, wind in my face, a slight southern breeze, not too warm, not too cool, the light of the full moon illuminating the path before me.

From nowhere a dog rushed out of the darkness towards me. Yelping and on the offense, he was heading for my ankle and my foot, my new, improved foot.
That little guy was unaware of the boundaries of his territory and I was crossing over into it. Nevermind that I was on a public street, he saw me as the aggressor.

Earlier in the day I had been looking at a selection of Barbaresco Riserva’s from 2001. Small lots, single vineyards, the kind of wine we all talk about, love to yearn for, want to fill our cellars and our impatient goblets with.

In this New Year in the dark, under the moon, as the adrenaline gave my legs a needed shot of energy, something in me clicked. Thank God it wasn’t my left knee.

When I got to a computer and the forces of destiny allowed me to get on to look at some information, I saw that some of the 2000 wines from this producer were still sitting in a couple of warehouses around the state. These are wines that have gotten various accolades in the press, Gambero Rosso has anointed several of them, the wines, over the years are repeatedly singled out for their excellence. And these wines take the idea of territoriality down to the cubic meter, these wines express their boundaries in ways that scared little dog cannot.

So why did those wines languish in their pens, waiting for someone to adopt them and take them home?
We’re talking 3 bottles here, 6 there, 1 carton over there, that sort of thing. No big deal? Maybe those wines need a little dog barking out about them.

That’s the paradox I am seeing in the wine scene today. We have these amazing wines, not only from Italy, that are an instant transport to the site of the vineyard. Beam you up, open the bottle, you are there. There’s no uber-critic holding you by a leash telling you what to enjoy, when to stop, where to go. You’re unleashed, on your own to enjoy and evaluate with your own unique set of receptors and emotions, you are your own uber-critic tonight, under the full moon of greatness.

“How can I find these wines?” That is the question I get many times. Well, first you have to turn off the TV and the computer and go out amongst them. Taste, taste, taste. Get a notebook, write them down, make a note of something for heavens sake. You cannot remember it all. Do you want in the game or do you want to keep having someone telling you what to like what not to like, what to drink, what to think?

Working late on the new Barbaresco list for the presenters (i.e. sales) in the company, I ran down the list of the 8 or so offerings. All but 2 of them had press and write ups. One year from now will those 2 wines still be in some wholesaler’s warehouse? I hope not.

So last year Asili got great reviews and this year it didn’t. Is that the fault of Asili or the writer assigned to evaluate the wine? What about the terroir of the writer, that changes more than the vineyard? Writers fly all over the place, different water, and time zones. Different exposures to the wind and the sun, sleeping patterns interrupted. The vines in Asili, tonight under the full moon are settling in under their blanket of fog, their terroir safely assured by their spirit of place. I would rely on that factor more than the writer, or the wine judge.
Give those little dogs another look. They are just protecting their territory, a territory that is being encroached upon as we speak. My little dog let me pass, but this is something we'll need to revisit this year, more than once. Want more on this? Dan Berger of Appellation America has a great piece on this subject. Have at it.

A resolution to consider: Adopt a Barbaresco - year after year.

Italian Wine Guy®, wishing you a Happy New Year, from my "island".

Looking Forward to 2007

Special commentary by guest reviewer Beatrice Russo

Italian Wine Guy has asked me to write a column while he takes time off to go to one of his favorite wine islands. (If you've been reading this blog, you might know where that is.) He will return next year. - B.R.

On his way out the door, Italian Wine Guy, said, “Talk about the new releases, maybe, the 2002’s that we will be dealing with. Point out the glut of wine, the Euro, the lack of coherence among the Italian producers, their slowness in responding to the changes in the economy, their unwillingness to adjust to reality.” Yes, yes. As I waved goodbye to him and to 2006, I didn’t need him to tell me what to talk about. It just so happens that’s what I was going to talk about anyway, but from my perspective.

I too, wish my Italian colleagues would come here and work, like I have, for a time. Maybe not in New York. Perhaps in Seattle or Cincinnati, Tucson or Hammondsport. A place where the economy is affected by the political.

Right now, a hotel room in Rome that costs €150 a night will cost the tourist close to $200. Compare that to 5 years ago when that same room was closer to €120 a night, which was then $100. That is a real difference.

It’s very hard to find Italian shoes in the stores anymore, and those shoes, when I can find them, cost me hundreds of dollars. I’m not wealthy like Berlusconi and Madonna. Most Italians aren’t either.

When the 2002 Brunello and Barolo wines are released in 2007, how much are they going to cost? Five years ago I went into a wine bar and could get a good glass of 1997 Brunello for $17. Now, what will you send us from Italy?

We were head-storming the other day as the Italian Wine Guy printed out a plane ticket. 2002 will not be seen as a great vintage. “Quality-wise, because of this year’s crazy weather, vintage 2002 has given mixed results,” said Giuseppe Martelli, MD of Associazione Enologi Enotecnici Italiani (AIS). “A pattern of ‘crazy’ weather, characterized by icy temperatures, intense heat, hail, drought in Sicily and downpours in the north, conditioned the vine’s growing cycle. Moreover, botrytis and mold spread throughout vineyards, and when most producers were praying for a September ‘miracle’ - warm sunny days and cool nights for the ripening of the grapes - the weather remained cloudy and drizzly. It’s certainly not a vintage in which we’ll see peaks of excellence.”

Michele Shah’s excellent notes on the 2002 vintage indicates a tough harvest with some losses in the vineyards.
Will we see 3-liter Brunello-in-a-box selling for $49.99? If we do, I’d suspect some wine from Sicily or Puglia was blended into it. I would love our country to give America a gift like this, if it were real. But I don’t want to become old wishing for things like this.


Piedmont was hit too, so a 1.5- liter of 2002 Barolo selling for $29.99 probably won’t show up in Chicago or Dallas. But what friends those Italian cousins of mine could make if they would send something like that.

I know I’m too idealistic and inexperienced to understand the fine points of this business. That’s the realm of those golfing vice-presidents in the upper offices at the top of the buildings. They have the keys to the executive washrooms; they have their hands on the steering wheels of the wine business in America. They don’t understand the young ones down here in the restaurants and in the aisles of the wine shops. My friends, my poor, young friends. I am losing them to the pharmaceutical companies and wholesale food suppliers. One friend of mine, she took a job with a trash removal company that specializes in schools. She makes over $50,000 a year with company car, a company laptop, all school holidays off and a bonus system that allows her to make an additional 20% of her income if she makes her goal. And she did. And she is never coming back to selling wine.

How do I tell my friends and colleagues in Italy, still living at home and maybe making €1,400 a month, to feel sorry for someone like that? How do I tell Paola in Firenze that someday she will be able to have a home and a family but only if the company she works for does not raise their wine prices for at least two years in order to compete here? And her multi-millionaire winery boss, who lives on a private plane, going from the Bahamas to Cinqueterre to Sardegna to Greve to New York, how will we ever touch his heart? Why should he care?
The problem is the Italians, when they aren't jetting around in the private Gulfstream planes of their mind, are moving too slow. Like their beloved symbol of the Slow Food. Good for food, but can we be a little more like our dolphin brothers? A little more swift and intuitive, a little more compassionate, a little less selfish?
Don’t believe all the press releases from Coldiretti. The Italian wines may be doing well in some areas of America, but Australia and France have passed the Italians in some of the cities and they know it. They aren't pulling out of the passing lane anytime soon.

And I’m not going to be decanting old 2002 Brunello or Barolo in 20 years. It’s time to wake up into the new world we live in, Italy.










Beatrice Russo is my "intern". Inotherwords, she is a creation of my imagination. She runs around on a Vespa, only inside my head.

I Want that Wine in the Newspaper ~ Now

This week, in the wine trade, all the work is being done in two places: in the offices with computers and telephones, calling accounts and trying to make year end numbers; and on the streets in the wine shops and markets. A lot of folks will be entertaining over the weekend. With all the holiday distractions and family in town and just getting through the season, people need help.

This is where the old-fashioned newspaper shows its power. Stand aside bloggers, sit down Spectator, park it Parker, don’t fret Decanter. Folks are looking for what they want, now.

The local newspaper fills a real need. While the above mentioned publications (and yes, you too, bloggers) are good sources of information about wine, the pressing need for many folks is to get in, get the item and move on. They aren’t so concerned if Galloni gives it an 89 while Suckling gives it a 92. They want to know where they can find it. Now. And while the top 100 Wine Spectator wines are fun to read about, no one's going to find that #1 Brunello today in their local wine shop.

This was an epiphany for me. Yes, some of us go to great lengths to read about and talk about wines at great length, debating their scores. Believe me, yesterday one of my work-related tasks was to pull up the inventory, for the company I work for, and isolate all the Brunellos. Then I was to cross-reference what we had with what possible review they received from the latest Wine Advocate. So maybe one of our too young and too busy salespeople might be able to send off a carton or two in these last days of the season. This, to generate sales and extra business while folks are in a good mood to buy something they probably won’t be buying in a few weeks, when it slows down.

A man goes into a store that has upscale food and wine and says, “I want that wine in the newspaper.” This really happened. That day the paper had featured a dozen selections, from sparkling to Champagne, Prosecco to still wines. Which one did he mean, the salesperson asked him. Fortunately, the wine in question was so unusual (a sparkling Shiraz from Australia) that the client could be accommodated.

What the daily newspaper does well (when it does it right): it targets, for the reader, in simple terms, what the wine tastes like, and often what food goes with it. Because this is being written in real time, the writers can pair up food that might have seasonal availability. The local newspaper can pinpoint a retail price that is more or less accurate in the area where the shopper lives and can point them to the places where these wines are available. Now. (The distributors have computer programs that show placement and availability. Wineries that want to sell their wines on the internet cannot provide this just-in-time service to the journalist and ultimately, the consumer).

This will make you a believer in the power of the press. I have tracked the sales after local newspaper write-ups in my work and have found the uptick to be 32-45%. That's taking a 30-day period from the previous year and comparing sales to the 30-day period following the article. It's a fact, Jack: The pen lends a mighty wind to the sales.

One more thing (note to wineries that think the wholesale-distribution system stinks). The person who is looking at the paper can go to the store and get the wine right away. And if they want a case of the wine and it is available in the local wholesaler’s warehouse, a salesperson can call in the order, do what we call a “hot shot” delivery, and get the case there today. With all the wine that will be enjoyed this weekend, this is good news for local economies. It's also a shot across the bow to those in the wine world who think they can get the wine to their consumer all by themselves.
With all due respect to the trade channels, www.winecellar.com and www.goldenpinewinery.com cannot offer this kind of SERVICE. And with our instant-gratification society, this is something UPS and DHL will be hard-pressed to achieve while keeping wine pricing competitive.

And where do the other publications fit into this, the Decanters, the Wine Spectators, the Wine Advocates? They are the 5-star generals barking out orders, sometimes good, not always informed of the goings-on down in the foxholes. They're there for those who want to delve into it and read all about it in depth. Eye-candy for the wine lover. Wine-porn, reading about a $300 bottle of wine: like looking at the Porsche Cayman and just imagining what it would be like to drive into one’s garage.

And wine blogs? Sorry to say too few mainstream consumers even get to reading their email in a timely manner. So we aren’t much help to them and they aren’t our audience. “Don’t have time for it,” I hear many of them saying. “That’s not my world,” and “Blog? What’s a blog?” I am serious about this. They’re not there, fellow blogoholics. And they’re not here, either.

Sorry to burst our bubble, but the good old-fashioned local paper, newsprint on the fingertips, pages rustling and flapping about in the nervous hand of the anxious consumer, looking for that perfect bottle of wine TONIGHT, gets the nod.

The Dormant Hope

Winter, on the wine trail in Italy. The vineyard is a concentration of packed earth in a cold box. The not so glamorous work of preparing the vines takes place in the short days, soon dark by 4:30 in the afternoon.

There are no wine trail tours, no salumi and aged cheeses. The holidays, the merrymaking, are soon behind us. In the cities the salespeople and marketers are trying to press out every last drop of cash from the retailer and the consumer. Here in the vineyard, the frozen hand of the worker guides the pruning sheer to train the next crop, the next great vintage.

But now it is dark and cold and lonely. This is out somewhere beyond the cover of friend and family. This is no place for the damaged heart, but this slope is where we find ourselves in this moment.

What dreams are left in the earth for this heart? What music waits in the piano for this ear? What empty glass patiently sits on the shelf for the wine to come ? How does one press hope from this moment of dormancy?

For the winemakers in Valpolicella it is too soon for their beloved Amarone, and the Recioto is even more illusive. In Tuscany, in the Santeria, the white and red grapes are withered, but not yet will their flesh be pressed. This is a moment to hold one’s breath and hope for hope. And share the morning coffee cup with a little grappa, for strength, for clarity, to ward off the illness hovering about the little stone house.

In Sicily, they are laughing at the northerners while sending their blood orange and the Pacchino hothouse tomatoes up to the frozen provinces and fraziones.

They laugh at the vine as it twists in the bitter north wind. And they dance and they feast on the 7 fishes and eat cookies stuffed with figs and brandy.

Today I was looking at wine made by a clown, a Neapolitan that long ago moved to Tuscany, and is now as Tuscan as the next door neighbor. The labels are lively and sunny and the wine is sunny and fruity and happy like Scarlatti’s Renaissance lute music.
His family was famous for their place in Neapolitan stage life. They were the clowns in the operas so loved by the music lovers, rich and poor.

Once in Tuscany, though, a serious country town, provincial and conservative, he had to relegate that creativity through his vines and wines and labels. So loved are these wines that people travel from all over Italy to pick up their yearly allotment of wine. During the Christmas holiday they drive the Lunigiana to pick up his red wine and olive oil, honey and marmalades.

All is this said as a way to push back the darkness and the solitude , the loneliness that vine feels as it twists in the wind, in the dark, in the cold, hoping someday for spring and sun and warmth and hope.

Saturday's Lagniappe ~ Italian Wine Laws, Holiday Tradition & Investor Class Dining

Italian Wine Guy has been burning the midnight candle with these posts over at the Well Fed Network ...you might want to check them out. This is a well organized site with a collective pool of talented writers. Here's
Saturday's lagniappe before heading out to help a few last minute shoppers select their holiday Brunello and Super Tuscan wines... Shopping? Nahhhh... well maybe a few more eggplants for the Christmas Eve meal.

IGT vs. DOC ~ Wrestling with the Question

Southern Italy ~ Over the Hearth ~ Celebrate Tradition

Dining in Dallas for the Investor Class