Cerasuolo is the Name & Gumbo is the Game

On the road with Stefano Illuminati and “other” celebrities

After our Big Night in Houston, the next day we had a lunch appointment with the sommeliers of Da Marco, Poscol and Tony’s at Tony’s. A power table at a power restaurant run by one of the most powerful restaurateurs in Texas. Tony Vallone has been “in the biz” for as long as I can remember and his eponymous restaurant is a shrine to wine, food, art – and power. My Austinopoli colleague has written so much more eloquently about it. I was even looking for his cousin Marty when I walked in for lunch.

I ran into Tony in the bar and we exchanged greetings. Our orbits all these years have been in different galaxies but we’d occasionally cross over into each other’s world. Just a couple of busy Italian-American fellows making their way in the world. I had to gasp when I actually had time to sit down and gaze upon some of the art in the dining room. Was I at the Mesnil Collection, or the Houston Museum of Modern Art? It was quite impressive. I was an art student in college, so the works of giants like Robert Rauschenberg and Mark Rothko are familiar. The unusual sculpture of The Three Graces by Jesus Moroles is one of those iconic pieces that harkened back to the day when wealthy patrons like the Medici’s would commission an “important” piece.

The night before I had gone a little overboard, so I was looking for simple clean, light food that would complement the Illuminati wines we were showing to the accounts. And though folk like our dear Tom Wark lament that the three tier mechanism is broken beyond repair, there are those of us who are in the trenches trying to keep the world safe for wine, Italian and otherwise. Some of us choose to be stewards of our trade, even when the ship occasionally hits an iceberg. For the record, I am not against wineries that cannot get their wine going through the regular channels to try to find ways for their wines to reach the public. At the very least, those folks will get an education in the blunt realities of getting your wine to the final consumer. It is already not easy through the established channels, so if someone finds a way to the New World, good on them. Spend two weeks on the road knocking on doors and it is very clear. Very few people "in the industry" have time to read blogs, wine or otherwise. They just want their wine delivered at the right time and with the right discount. Isn't that right, Yelenosky?

I saw gumbo on the menu and thought it might be the perfect starter for the lunch to go with the Illuminati Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Cerasuolo “Campirosa” Rosato. A sixteen hour skin contact impressed the wine with a color that isn’t a blush and isn’t a red. The color is animated – very bright, almost a hot crimson – gorgeous. It is the wine we drink in the summer by the Lungomare in San Benedetto del Tronto while a server brings out a perfect plate of Mezze Maniche (rigate of course) with a spicy Arrabiata sauce. Cool wine that is almost red, but still refreshing. A great match

But today it was Gumbo. Thick rich roux, with gobs of seafood. No skimping, no shortcuts. And the wine with the gumbo was a terrific match.

We moved on to reds going from lighter to richer. I was still looking to maintain my new waistline, so I ordered up a simple plate of carpaccio. Again the simplicity of the dish sailed through the three wines, from the basic Montepulciano, the Riparosso, to the riserva Zanna, to the more international Lumen.


As we were talking and I was shooting the food and the folks at the table I spied a table in my lens. One of the ladies dining looked familiar, but it wasn’t until I got home and did my Antonioni “Blow- Up” exercise on Photoshop of the images that I spied someone that looked like the daughter ( and grand daughter) of past presidents of the USA. The Illuminati connection? When the younger one was governor of Texas he conferred the status of Honorary Texan on Dino Illuminati.


What do you think- is this Jenna Bush Hager lunching with her lady friends?


Great food, great art, some pretty good wines, stimulating conversation and a possible celeb-sighting – all in a day’s work on the wine trail, this time in Texas, making the world safer by showing the wines from Stefano Illuminati.

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

Taking Vincent's Call

“When are you coming to Houston?” Vincent Mandola was asking on the other end of the phone. We talk about once a month. Usually he calls me. Which causes me anxiety, because I feel like I’m not being as good of a friend to him as he is to me. After all, he has six restaurants, two daughters, a whole slew of grand-kids, a wife, a 95 year old mother and 300 employees. Bless me Padrone for I have sinned, it has been 45 days since my last call.

“We will be there Monday with Stefano Illuminati” I tell him. “Good. Bring him to the restaurant for dinner with the family. 6:00. Don't be late.”

Vincent isn’t someone you want to let down. Sure, he has a big hammer, but he really is one of the nice guys. Someone I have known for 20 or so years. Forget about business, just a guy I like to hang out with. He feels about Italian food like I do about Italian wine – Vincent sets the bar high.

Recently they just went to an all Italian wine list at Nino's, which in today’s world is a bit of a risk. I imagine it is calculated. But still there is always the occasional diner who wants Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay with their Fettuccine Alfredo. Like our dear departed friend Eugenio Spinozzi was fond of saying, “If someone came into your restaurant and asked for a Big Mac would you have it on the menu?”

Vincent’s mom, you can still find her in the big kitchen making something. She still has all her noodles, and like my mom (who will turn 96 soon) these are women who don’t like to sit around and wait for something to happen. Sweet lady. Old School. Solid. Beautiful.



We brought some old school Montepulciano with us for dinner, the 1990 Illuminati Zanna. Almost 20 years old, a riserva in a good, warm year. 1990 was memorable in Piedmont as well as Abruzzo. In Abruzzo the warm summer, long growing season, lots of hang time and ripening. In those days folks didn’t use a lot of new oak – tastes were more to the flavor of fruit, not wood. The Zanna 1990 paired up well with the incredible food Vincent served that night. Wonderful rapini, some beautiful white beans, an incredible roasted Cauliflower and complements with some very tender and lean tenderloin. One of the best meals I have had this year – without a doubt. Thanks Vincenzo!



The daughters, Dana and Vinceanne, have grown up in and around the restaurant business, like Stefano has with the winery. Children of strong fathers and mothers (grandmothers too) sometimes it is hard to get out from under the shadow of the Big trees. Dino Illuminati and Vincent Mandola are Big Trees. Like I said, setting the bar high.

Waiter Sal, I call him Salvatore Cavatappi, because we always bring him a wine opener for his collection. Sal is from the rough-and-tumble Naples area. I love to listen to him talk in his distinct Neapolitan dialect – always with a funny story, a jab, a smile, a wrist watch to sell. The young males of Naples have to learn to survive early. Sal is a survivor.

We drank a lot of wine that night, but we couldn’t part company until we opened up a bottle of the Nico Passito 2003, a wine that I am getting very dependent on. This is a wine that has such high acidity and great edgy fruit, perfect balance, a pleasure to drink. Not for everyday (retails for $75) but man, what a delicious drink.

Thanks Vincent and Mary and Dana and Vinceanne (and Sal) for a great night in Houston with friends and family. Keeping it real. Real good.

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

Olive Porn on a Sunday Morn

Waking up this morning to a day with a lost hour, I couldn’t get over the most incredible olives we just had. Friend and colleague Stefano Illuminati was in Texas for a week (more about that soon) for his biannual Waltz Across Texas tour. Before he left Italy he asked me if he should bring anything. “Brochures? Samples? Tech sheets?” he asked. Almost immediately, I responded, “Bring some of those wonderful Olive Ascolane we have when we are in your town.” Stefano lives in Porto d’Ascoli, on the Marche-Abruzzo border, and the area is known for great seafood and these amazing olives. Recently, when I was reading through Frances Mayes’ just released book, Everyday in Tuscany, Seasons of an Italian life, she mentioned the famous olives from Ascoli. “Served all over the country, they’re often prepackaged and therefore diminished – nothing fried should have to travel farther than stove to table” was all the challenge I needed.

Stefano arrived with his suitcase filled with skinny Italian suits, hefty Italian reds and a delicately wrapped package that appeared to be a gift. In Italy, and especially in the Marche, the shopkeepers have this wonderful custom of hand-wrapping a purchase to make it appear to be the gift under the tree that everyone longs for. And so it was with this package of olives from Ascoli, which escaped the eyes of the customs people (meat filled olive bombs – free the olives!).

I thought Stefano would go to those stores they have in his town where everything is frozen and Cryovac-ed. They developed a technology in his area to handle the enormous demand for their fish and have transferred it to other products. Not exactly fresh, but when it is snowing in Piedmont and you pull a package of artichokes or fava beans out of the freezer, you can at least imagine that someday spring, and then summer, will come back. But no, Stefano went to the shop most famous in Porto d’Ascoli for these eximious specimens, Ỏlivepiù. There is no web site, only an address and a telephone number, Via dei Laureati, 2/A, Porto D’Ascoli. (0735.751811). I was worried, after reading Frances’ warning. But not fearful. (*Note as of 2018 there is now a website:
http://www.olivepiu.it/)
We had a few friends over at the end of our whirlwind tour of Texas, to kick back and relax for one night. No wine dinners, no late-night presentations. We kicked Stefano’s butt with work. His local rep is probably going to have to take a week or two off to recuperate from the grueling late-hour drives, going from one city to another like rock stars heading to the next gig. But we all made it.

As the guests arrived, Stefano handed them flutes of his wonderful Illuminati Brut, a Metodo Classico with amazing depth and richness. People fall all over themselves when they describe tiny grower Champagnes, as if there are no other places on earth to find good bubbles. But insiders know Italy is a repository of similar finds. Italians loved bubbles, and Dino Illuminati invested heavily in the 1980’s on this project. I think he has never made much money with his Brut; we all seem to give away more then we sell. But what is the price of joy?

As soon as most of the guest arrived, I brought out the large Dutch oven (every home should have one, non e vero, Signora P?) and filled it with about 1½ inches of oil – not olive, too heavy (and too incestuous). High heat, hot oil, waiting. Waiting. And then dropping the little creatures in, not quite filling the bottom of the pot. Leave room to move them around. And then maintain a vigil, watching, turning and waiting for the perfect color. The olives are filled with ground meats and spices and then covered with fine breadcrumbs. No danger of undercooking the meat, as it is already fully cooked. But the Italian cook must have them look beautiful. Lights, camera, action – and then comes that moment when one must wait for the olives, newly christened in oil and ready for their close-up, to cool off. Excruciatingly long. Endless. What the heck, I pop one in my mouth and am welcomed with an olive grenade. Still too hot. Burn. Burns so good. More. More. Give me some more, baby.

While we waited for them to cool on a platter with paper towels to absorb excess oil, Stefano suggested we open up the Costalupo. Illuminati has made this wine for as long as I can remember, and it has been an evolution of white wine in Abruzzo. Trebbiano with Riesling and Passerina, no oak, no centrifuge, no acidification. Pure simple, fruit, crisp yet creamy (thank you Signore Gianola). And then there are more people and more bottles of wine and olives – an olive orgy. And all of this before we bring out the Texas barbecue and start opening the bottles of red wine going back to 1967. But that is another post.

The next day, saying our good-byes with Stefano as he was leaving to go back to his family (he did find time to get an iPhone and some Polo shirts for the boys), he gave this advice, “Alfonso, those olives, if there are any remaining, bring them out and give them a minute or so. They are great the next day.”

Yes Stefano, they are. Were. Thank you, so very much, my friend, for your visit, your work, your passion, your family, and for some amazing olives, a little piece of real Italy here on the wine trail.

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

The Newest Best Italian DOCG list (now up to 50 and holding?)

Revised March 13, 2010
In my research, it has been all but impossible to pinpoint the complete list of Italian DOCG wines. Recently, I have been able to find eight more, the newest being Aglianico del Vulture and the duo “Amarone della Valpolicella” and “Recioto della Valpolicella”, Moscato di Scanzo, Elba Aleatico Passito and Prosecco Superiore Conegliano Valdobbiadene, Prosecco Superiore Asolo And a two Marche DOCG's of Verdicchio of which there are designations for Verdicchio di Matelica and Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico (and riserva) , bringing the list up to 50.

If anyone knows of any more DOCG wines, or if there is a list available that is more complete or accurate, please feel free to contact me. I have looked on the Italian Trade Commission site; they still list only 35 wines. Wikipedia lists 36 wines.Winecountry.it only lists 32 wines. Luca Zaia’s website has nothing on the DOCG, but he’s just the minister of agriculture, why would he need to have one? I guess having seven Facebook pages (one personal and six groups, sorry you have to be a member to follow the link) makes up for it. There’s nothing to be found about it on the Italian Wine Merchants site, but then again, they make no claims to be the best educational site for Italian wines, just this statement, “Since 1999, Italian Wine Merchants (IWM) has worked diligently to demystify Italian wine through its detailed website and weekly E-letter, Wine Clubs, educational tasting events and a carefully selected portfolio of current and vintage Italian bottlings.” But no demystifying by listing a current and complete DOCG list can be readily found on their site.

Update March 13, 2010, from Muddy Boots blog

posted by Luciano Pignataro on his own blog: the excellent news that the Aglianico del Vulture appellation will be given DOCG status.
As he reports, the DOCG designation will require Riserva wines to be held for five years before market release.
The current DOC appellation will of course continue to be used for high-quality wines of perhaps lesser longevity.
The Basilicata IGT's will be given to wines that fall outside of disciplinare rules.
Let me quote Luciano directly at the end of his writeup:
Experience shows that it isn't the appellation on the label that determines a wine's success, but it certainly helps shape its identity, which is what's happened with the three DOCGs of Irpinia [in Campania].
In our judgment, Aglianico del Vulture absolutely needs this recognition to hoist itself to the level of Taurasi and become a standard-bearer in the South for the lovers of wine red.

Update Dec 1, 2009: Vino Wire reports this:

According to a press release published last week online by the Italian Agriculture Ministry, the DOCG for Amarone della Valpolicella (previously a DOC) has been approved by Italy’s National Wine Commission: “I am particularly proud,” said Minister Luca Zaia, “to be able to announce that [Italy's National] Wine Commission has approved recognition of Amarone della Valpolicella as a DOCG [designation of controlled and guaranteed origin]. This is the highest recognition of quality allowed by [Italy's] national and [EU] Community law and this extraordinary Italian agricultural product deserves it without a doubt. Such recognition is also owed to the passion of Amarone producers, who, over the centuries, have helped to establish this product in the Veneto, in Italy, and the world.” (Translation by VinoWire.)

The best site so far is in Italian, Agraria, which has 41. Please do not write me and tell me that they have 43 because that is what you counted. They have Moscato d'Asti listed separately, but it falls within the Asti DOCG, OK? Also at the end they list Vin Santo. At this time it is not DOCG. They also do not have the three new DOCG's (that I know of) listed on their site(as of March 22, 2009).

Update 2: Luca Zaia has brought in another DOCG for Prosecco. Read about his accomplishments and achievements here. Thanks to Laura De Pasquale for the info. And thank you, Dr. Zaia!

I fear I am missing something, but for the life of me, the byzantine workings of the Italian government and the folks who determine which wines will be awarded DOCG status eludes this most ardent researcher. I guess I haven’t learned the secret handshake. Until then, we are at either 48, as of December 1, 2009, which have been given DOCG status. Here is the list, after the jump.

Complete Listing of Italian DOCG Wines (as of March 2010) :50

Abruzzo (1)
Montepulciano d'Abruzzo "Colline Teramane"

Basilicata (1)
Aglianico del Vulture Superiore (new)

Campania (3)
Fiano di Avellino
Greco di Tufo
Taurasi

Emilia Romagna (1)
Albana di Romagna

Friuli-Venezia Giulia (2)
Colli Orientali del Friuli Picolit
Ramandolo

Lazio (1)
Cesanese del Piglio

Lombardia (5)
Franciacorta
Oltrepo Pavese
Sforzato della Valtellina
Valtellina Superiore
Moscato di Scanzo (new)

Marche (4)
Conero
Vernaccia di Serrapetrona
Verdicchio di Matelicab Riserva (new)
Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico Riserva (new)

Piemonte (12)
Asti spumante - Moscato d'Asti
Barbaresco
Barbera d'Asti
Barbera del Monferrato Superiore
Barolo (Chinato, as well, falls under this DOCG)
Brachetto D'Acqui o Acqui
Dolcetto di Dogliani Superiore o Dogliani
Dolcetto di Ovada Superiore
Gattinara
Gavi o Cortese di Gavi
Ghemme
Roero (Rosso & Bianco)

Sardegna (1)
Vermentino di Gallura

Sicilia (1)
Cerasuolo di Vittoria

Toscana (8)
Brunello di Montalcino
Carmignano
Chianti
Chianti Classico
Elba Aleatico Passito (new)
Morellino di Scansano
Vernaccia di S.Gimignano
Vino Nobile di Montepulciano

Umbria (2)
Montefalco Sagrantino
Torgiano Rosso Riserva

Veneto (8)
Bardolino Superiore
Recioto di Gambellara
Recioto di Soave
Soave Superiore
Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore (new)
Asolo Prosecco Superiore (new)
Amarone della Valpolicella  (new)
Recioto della Valpolicella (new)

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

Take a walk on the wild side – Abruzzo’s love pat to Barbera and Chianti.

While this week has been all about Barbera in Piedmont, on the wine trail in Italy Texas has been all about Abruzzo. The jovial, fresh wines of Montepulciano have brightened up many a wine for Tuscans, The Veneto and points beyond. And as the world debates the value of wine in places like Napa, New York and Nizza Monferatto, these past few days with Stefano Illuminati and the Illuminati mini-van on the run has been a virtual Gospel revival bus of Italian wine.

Not that there haven’t been the occasional introspective moments. We happen to live in a wealthy part of the world, so the aftershocks of the economic quake that hit months ago aren’t felt as intensely. But one of my Italian friends admonished, “stay attentive” – we are not finished in this cycle quite yet. Folks in Abruzzo understand such things, having been rippled by the earth below their feet countless times, the last time almost a year ago when Aquila was almost leveled.


Surprise of the trip? An experimental wine from Illuminati, the Nico. I first had this wine in the 1980’s when Illuminati was making their charge up the hill to be seen as one of the leaders for quality wine from Abruzzo. Made from passito Montepulciano, this wine has been a laboratory for ideas from the Illuminati winery. It has also been the wine that the older winemaker Spinelli symbolically passed the baton to the younger winemaker, Capellacci. Now the wine, for me, has taken on a life of its own, the conversation is now between me and Nico, no longer between the generations of winemakers that are part of the history of illuminati.


Old friend and colleague Guy Stout was in the room this week when we tasted the 2003 Nico. At the first whiff of the wine, prickly and a bit wild, I walked over to Guy. “You detect a little volatile acidity?” I asked him. “ I do – a lot.” He said and smiled. The lack of “polish” made us both happy. Here was a wine with a life life that someone hadn’t styled into a pretty little high-test velvet bomb. Note to Barbera producers- take a walk on the wild side, free the Barbera- it’s working for some of the upcoming producers in Abruzzo. And we like the results here in Texas and America.

Stefano said it well, and this isn’t the first time I have heard it. He said, “Our grandfathers used to sell their grapes to Tuscany, to Veneto, to France. We don’t have time for that now. We need our grapes.”

We need our grapes. And while not every grape from Abruzzo is destined to be put in a bottle that says “Made in Abruzzo,” the young generation has a reason to be fiercely proud of their progress.

Yesterday as the minivan was carrying us from hotel to meeting, Stefano made a call to his friend and colleague Leonardo Pizzolo, who is also barnstorming Texas towns with his Montepulciano from Valle Reale. The two talked, will miss each other in Texas, one in Austin while the other is in Houston, I overheard the conversation they were having in Italian. Leonardo was seeing the wine lists with scores of Chianti wines on them, but maybe only one wine from Abruzzo. “How is it they can put so many Chianti’s on their lists and half of them are so awful. They don’t speak of where they come from.” Maybe Leonardo, because the wine in the bottle doesn’t come from Tuscany? Or maybe because too many people in Tuscany have lost their way?

Two days ago, sitting around a table in Houston with a group of young sommeliers we had that same discussion. “I just don’t think of Chianti as an interesting wine anymore,” one of them remarked. After a heated discussion that got into the styles and the areas, I think they are more confused about the style of Chianti because there are so many expressions of what Chianti is. And while we won’t solve the problems for Tuscany or Piedmont at a table in Houston (we’ll save that honor for the halls of Vinitaly in a few weeks) the discussion rages on.

The young sommeliers want to know more about the Italian wines, especially being exposed to young producers who are their peers, who have come up in similar times. And honestly, the experience of growing up in the last 20 years, where communications have flattened the world, where we get around more, have allowed for a closer sharing of the life experience, more so than ever before. Just look around you, people are plugged into their electronic tribes like never before.

And that, dear readers - especially anyone looking out, looking in on the ground at one the battlefields to save Italian wine from becoming “international” - that is what we have been meeting about here on the wine trail.


The bus leaves out of here in 45 minutes and I have to get packed and ready - we have a gig in Dallas @ 10:30 AM!

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

No Country for Old Wines

Happy 82nd, Oscar!

Have Italian wines become like cinema? Has oak become what full frontal nudity was in the 1970’s, now hackneyed and dull? Do we look for nuance in wine and film and walk away from a dark room or a disappointed table with similar letdowns?

Last night I went to visit my friend Jay the pizzaiolo, who was halting his guerilla restaurant for a few weeks of renovation. Inside the dining room, people had brought their own wines. I surveyed the tableau – Silver Oak, Kosta Browne, Caymus. I had brought a little Piedirosso, and it felt like I had just landed in America with my little satchel of handmade (and outmoded) clothes, walking onto the stage of my new life. And that is what the original wines from Italy must endure when they, too, come to America, walking the red carpet, without the sponsorship of Muccia or Donatella. Perhaps that is why some of the new, young energy of Italy, those affluent enough to send their children over to visit or to work in Napa or to take classes at Davis, have sussed out the future of the business. We aren't in La Terra Trema territory anymore. No, Italian wines have morphed into some Avatar of expectation, at least in many minds who reside in the heads of those who sit at the tables across America. And apparently in Italy, too?

I’m not going to go all sans soufre on y’all, but once again I stand on the corner of Any Given Sunday and Bloody Monday, that glorious time between reflection and heading back to the streets, and wonder if I am ever going to get Back to the Future?

Which begs the question, “OK, Alfonso, what do you think they need?” To which I begin by answering, "It's The Magnificent Seven meets The Barbera 7". It’s not what they think they need, but it is what we need to bring back – and those are the real expressions of Italian wine, that even when winemaking was less sophisticated, those old guys (and gal) were able to coax into the bottle.

My feeling is that it has more to do with the character of the person than the vineyard or the barrel room. The terroir of the human soul. I keep thinking of those people who still have the connection, who aren’t acting, who are living out the drama of their lives but with a realism that has been lost, in the bottle and on film, these last 20 or so years. And that is the crossroads that Italian wine teeters on, seemingly often.

Enough of the Blazing Saddles romp we have been getting, this is a High Noon moment.

How do you know you have lost something precious if you have nothing to compare that loss to? It is that way with so many things in youth. We cannot fathom the loss of a soul mate or a parent, because it hasn’t happened to us. Sure, one can read Lampedusa or Emily Dickinson or Paul Auster, but until the pin pricks your finger and you bleed, you will not know it as intimately. Viscerally.

And again, the director taps me on the shoulder and asks me to pull focus, bring it in for a close up, get to the point.

I do see light in the tunnel. The Piedirosso I brought to the pizzaiolo had been sanded with a rough grade of paper, but it had True Grit. The Primitivo we served in Marfa last week had the rough-and-tumble character of Accattone. You could almost feel the glass shards piecing your poor bare feet as you let a wine slip from the stained cup into your unbrushed teeth. Was it pleasant? It wasn’t pretty from all the make-up. It was a Giant, but it was frank. It was truthful. And that made it a beautiful thing.

What was once the key to the kingdom, getting a great revue and 90+ points or the three glasses from Gambero Rosso, all that has been rendered useless in this Mad Max world, where the rules of economics have been disco-oxygenated so trophy hunters can fill their silos. They can still have their 100 point Walk in the Clouds and drink their $300 cult wines too. When The Eclipse comes (isn’t it already here?), those with mega Euros will have plenty of oaked wines to drink with their canned foie gras in their tax deductible offshore underground shelters cellars. "I'm gonna live forever, baby remember my name." Oh yeah.


Until then, I will hope for a time when more can take pleasure in the joys of wine and in the simple satisfaction of unadulterated, accessible, drinkable wines. Wines that have Places in the Heart . Wines that we can really, really love. Wines that go with real food. Then maybe it will be time again for a Capra-esque return to that Wonderful Life.



And the winner is….

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

Photos from Oscar nights of past

Longing, Returning, Leaving

A few days ago while I was foraging for lettuces and herbs in my back yard, I heard a familiar cry. At the top of a tall power line the sparrow hawk was hailing me. He was back to raise another brood, teach them to fly and then head back to wherever they go when winter returns. For me it was a hopeful sign that this very long winter might be coming to a close.

The next day I got on a plane and headed to far West Texas. An hour flight and a three hour drive led me back to Marfa for a wine dinner. The journey in is always a mind cleanse for me. From home base, the hard core urban setting, to the airport, where all of our fears are laid bare as we walk shoeless though filters poised to reveal anomalies in hope of finding evil, so that it might be rooted out. Then to a dusty, rural airport, Midland, home to my dear Uncle Lou and his family, amidst oil wells and childhood homes of world deciders. But the real purge comes in the drive from Midland to Marfa, when the landscape that is revealed sews itself in ones pocket so deeply so as not to ever be lost. There are many people at my final destination that night who are longing- longing for art, longing for love, longing for simple. One night under a universe of lights wont abate that longing, more to serve as a reminder to the city dweller that a larger universe of ideas, of Everything, is still there in spite of our tendency to narrow it down to an explanation that puts each and everyone of us in the middle of a micro-oxygenated universe of our own making.

Nothing you can know that isn’t known.
Nothing you can see that isn’t shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.
It’s easy.

I have done my 200th wine dinner, again. They are like kites- trying to keep them in the air, making sure the tail doesn’t tangle, hoping the kite doesn’t tear away, and when the kite finally flies and one runs out of string and the kite sails for 30 minutes or so, to reel it in? Or let it go? This night I got the kite up in the air pretty quick, got the room where I thought I wanted to go, like some West Texas preacher testifying about the Revelations of Gaglioppo and Inzolia. The dining room, high ceilinged, like a cathedral, held the dry air. I didn’t need to shout. I started channeling the poets, Lennon, Neruda, Whitman. I had them, the tail was untangled, the wind was blowing steady, calm. And then, just like that, I let all the string out and freed the kite. To the West Texas heavens under a full moon, the last vestiges of winter under those sent whirling back to their private universes.

So we sailed up to the sun
Till we found the sea of green
And we lived beneath the waves
In our yellow submarine

Afterwards, some of the group wanted to pilgrimage out to see the Marfa lights. Having been indoctrinated in those mysteries long ago, but only recently having become a Believer, I was up for it. I have a fantasy of someone putting a bar out there, like those blue bars we used to go to in Italy in the 1990’s. A piano, dark blue lighting, a great selection of single malts and grappas. Then a window to the vast unknown in search of those famous lights. But we stood out there in the high desert, shivering, our lone companion a traffic cone that had been placed over the telescope that is used in warmer nights to seek out the origin of those mysterious lights.

Would you believe in a love at first sight
Yes, I'm certain that it happens all the time
What do you see when you turn out the light
I can't tell you but I know it's mine,

When I was putting the wines together on a sheet for the dinner I was searching for a way to start a conversation with the people coming to it. One of my dinner companions remarked that he recently had a dinner for 12 people and they discussed the food and the wines. A salon. Yes, of course, I would love to come back and do something like that. But this night I was imagining these five wines as lines from a Beatles Album, the Yellow Submarine, in an effort to strike a match against the imagination and start a little fire of non linear conversation. Alas, it was probably something that was meant for My Universe, perhaps too much of a stretch. Too non linear. How did one of my teachers tell me, “Al, save the imagination for the drawing tablets.”

Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain
Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies
Everyone smiles as you drift past the flowers
That grow so incredibly high

My experiment with wine and song having wilted, I consoled myself under that cold and deep desert night with the happiness that other teachers had cultivated a biodynamic rebellion against those who would have me be a square peg in a square hole in a cubicle somewhere in a square building. Of course, we must report back, head up the elevator and slip into the meeting, hoping that someone in that meeting will be receptive to the accounts from the front lines. As long as I don’t make them too poetic. Or out there.

Out there. Out there. As I was driving back the next day to get back to the city and a tasting of Super Tuscans and Brunello (acclimate, acclimate) I found myself wasting time, putting it off. And as I drove, the radio playing Holst’s “The Planets” made it even more difficult to leave, to return. I stopped one more time at the base, this time the traffic cone had a retiree in a Winnebago for company.

Pulling away from the highway out of Alpine, the junction, one to the Big Bend and the other back to the Big City, I had a visceral reaction. I felt sick to my stomach, maybe it was the huevos rancheros?

As I left the wilderness, returning to the power line that I always came back to, I promised myself to come back here again, for a week or more, to camp, to hike, to clear out the Big City. I really, really love the desert, it is my Tuscany.

One, two, three, four
Can I have a little more?
five, six, seven eight nine ten I love you.

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

Lyrics by The Beatles

"Occhi Spalanchi Sul Mondo"

This is such a great time to be on the wine trail. There are many good wines at all levels, from so many places. There are new people coming into the field with their ideas and energy. There is a confluence with the world of food and art and music, along with philosophy, economics. So many areas that touch each other. There is the fun and comedic aspect (my gosh, we laugh so much these days). And while we have some naysayers, those snarky little blue ticks that prey upon the ledges, leeching blood and energy, I reckon it’s all in the game. This week has been a good week for the forces of light and good and love and wine.

It began when I started reading Frances Mayes newest book, Every Day in Tuscany, Seasons of an Italian Life.

I wanted to look at some of her recipes, as I was doing a wine dinner with local Chef, Jim “Sevy” Severson, of Sevy’s fame. We were doing a Tuscan evening, and I thought I’d get a little inspiration from Frances’ latest book.

After several minutes scanning the recipes and a few pages, I realized exactly what I needed to do for the wine dinner. Simply, tell the stories of the people who made the wine. We had people attending who have traveled to Italy, so many times. But the more I go to Italy and stay there, the more I come to realize how little I know. In effect when one of the nasty commenters on local food blogs throws me in the grease for my stand on Italian food in these parts, they are right. But for the wrong reasons. My lament isn’t that Italian food is impossible to find outside of Italy. It’s more that the philosophy is hard to find in the kitchen. My aunt had it, so did my grandmothers. And for sure they used local ingredients. Would they call their food Italian? Would I not call it delicious? And when I go into a place, whether it be Italian or French or Thai, my hope is that there is someone in the kitchen, thinking consciously of what they are doing with their ingredients.

Last night at a local wine bar, where the most amazing array of bottles kept showing up at the bar where we were sitting, a local Doctor, David Ellis, who has a passion for wine and food, stated it so simply. “My best meal ever in this town" he said, “was from Anthony Bombaci at Nana. It was a sea bass, seared in olive oil with salt and pepper.” No more than five ingredients. Oh, yeah, you can find it. Anywhere.

Sevy was proud of his menu; he took me back in the kitchen and showed me the bistecca in preparation. The evening would be an homage to the brightness of Tuscan cooking with wines to match. I was in heaven.


The next day, a package arrived in the mail. One Vintage, a word and picture book about live in a Los Olivos vineyard. Chris Jones has found her own Bramasole in the Central Coast of California, and her sweet little book is a Valentine to all grape growers. Thanks so much, Chris, what a joy.

Meanwhile, people struggle daily, with their realities. More than one restaurant I have been in this past week has had way fewer than needed people in those seats. There is nothing more challenging than to be in a place with good food and wine and have it be empty. And then, there are those places that are so darn busy, three-deep at the bar at 9 o’clock on a Saturday night. Hopeful signs, but still survival of the fittest. No room for mistakes in this economy. Hope, alone, won't keep the lights burning.

Last night at that busy wine bar, in an arts district with opera and symphony overflow, people didn’t seem to be anxious. Two nights before, though as I walked around the area, the handful of restaurants didn’t have enough people in all of them to fill one of them. Maybe last night people were just ready to get out and charge it on their already overcharged credit cards, in spite of the consequences on Monday. I don’t know. But I do know there is some trepidation.

I was in the mood for a Savennieres. I’m often in the mood for this wine, but last night I realized, once again, why I love that wine. It followed a young Gruner, an aged Puligny-Montrachet Les Pucelles and an even older Mazy-Chambertin. But this wine, the 2004 from Nicholas Joly is the little pillow I love to lay my head on. It was creamy, it had an edge, it was sweet, it was savory. It was minerally, it was salty, it was lively, it was mellow. I ordered a cup of butterscotch pudding to appease my sweet tooth. I have had a week where so many wine and food matches have seemed like they were perfect (all unplanned). Maybe this is the week the palate gods tell me my thoughts about such things are erroneous. After all, the Blue Meanie Blogarazzi think I’m full of crap, maybe the wine gods agree. If that’s the case, so be it. I’ll just hop in my submarine and find another wine tasting, putting on my perennial millennial shirt and hat and facing the next flight - occhi spalanchi sul mondo – eyes wide open on the world.

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

2004 Brunello Prices Plummet

Note to Italy, to Tuscany and to Montalcino. This is just the beginning. Brace yourself.

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

An Italian and a Jew walk into a saloon in Texas

From the “I knew it was too good to last” department

After a bit of travel between the East and the West coast, I am finally sleeping in my own bed. I have a favorite pillow which is really ragged. But the best dreams come when it is under my head.

Joey the Weasel, aka Joe Strange Eye and Tony the Bone wanted a “meeting.” It seems they boys back home have been missing their Italian wine guy. They think I have been getting a little too uppity. They wanted to put me back in my place. So I agreed to a time and a place.

They were just coming out of team meetings, so I waited for them, making my rounds. The place where I work has many buildings and a slew of different type folks. It’s always fun to just take a stroll around the buildings, see who is there, talk to them. And what they tell me, the things people will say. The wind up is, one can get a real sense of where a company, an industry, a trend is going, by getting a sampling of the thoughts of the folk who live there. Message received.

When I found them, Joey and Tony were huddled over a computer screen like it was a fire pit at SXSW. On further examination, neither had brought their reading glasses. They were both blind as bats.

Tony has this pizza place in the burbs he is working on and he wanted to let me know our Italian section was about to be invaded by the Southern Hemisphere. Tony likes easy money. I pretty well let him know that those pictures I took of him in 1981 were still in the safe deposit box, but that didn’t have to be a forever kind of thing. “Leave the Malbecs, take the Chianti,” were my parting words. Message received.

Strange Eye, that was a different story. He’s just spread thin, lots of business, things are booming. “Ace, the Italian wine business is out of control. It’s like the 1980’s. I just wish I was 20 years younger and 40 pounds lighter.” We kibitzed, got a few things on paper. It’s always good to talk to the guys on the street. You know, the schlubs who make things happen on the ground level? No corner office prognosticating with them, just the facts, Ma’am. Back to work boys.

As I was heading out the building, a young manager approaches me. “We’ve got to talk. That fancy new pizza place in the burbs (what is it with pizza places and the burbs?) is driving me nuts. I go in there, spend money, drop my card and the owner chumps me off. I need your help. What can we do to turn him around?” The young manager is intense, he stands upright, a good sign for someone who will be in the game for at least ten more years. We can use these kinds of folks at the battles edge. “What are you doing? Let’s go there right now and talk to him,” I suggest. “Scheduling conflict. No can do.” Hell, I’ll go there myself.

I get back to my office, drop my gear and grab “Louie”. Louie is old school. He wears a trench coat. On cold days he has a crumpled fedora that he pulls out, like some kind of show-and-tell at wise guy school. He looks like a punch-drunk hit man. Fancies himself a ladies man. But he knows the game. “Louie, come with me, I need to go talk to a guy who’s got that old time saloon above his wood burning pizzeria.

20 minutes later we walk into the place. The owner comes up to us.” Is everything OK? You guys look serious.” The owner is a sweet guy, but far from a pushover. But he’s always shot straight with me. The server escorted Louie to our table and I chatted with the owner. “Ah Vito, I’ve just missed eating your wood burning pizza. A week in New York, a week in Napa, you know, I long to drink my wines with your food.”

As I join my partner, I notice they put him at the table facing the door. Two things you never want to do in the restaurant business, put a Sicilian with his back to the door and put a Jew with his back to an oven. After musical chairs we got down to business.

755 words in, I know too damn long again. If you’re still reading, you want the end. The rest have gone on to Twitterland. So here goes. The pitch.

Thirty minutes into the meal, after we’ve slammed down a couple of ice cold Patron Silvers and were heading past the better part of a bottle of red, Vito comes up to me. Vito and I are neighbors, we hear the same sirens at night, we’ve pitched our tents in the same vale. “How’s the food, Ace, you like my menu?” I could feel Louie itching to answer, his finger on the trigger. But I took the shot. “Vito, everything is lovely, but I‘d love to see more of my babies on that menu. I’m not the type to ask you what it’s going to take. I’m just telling you I don’t want to walk out of her today and not solve this problem. So, what’s it going to take?”

Louie couldn’t resist. We were being convivial, so I guess he figured a little Catskill humor would play in this saloon, which was once a speakeasy. “Vito, I think what Ace is saying is take my wines, please.” Yeah, Lou, I am. But in a subtler more Sicilian style.

Vito excuses himself to tend to a problem in the oven. Lou eyes him warily. Minutes later, a duo of espressos and a platter of honey laced focaccia appear. And then Vito returns. “I was going to give you my list, but then I remember who you are and I didn’t want you to take it the wrong way. You’re not an errand boy sent by a grocery clerk to collect a bill. I just need two things.” And he came close to me and whispered them in my ear.
Message received.

On the way back to the office, I made a call and by the time I got back to my desk, the problem was solved. It was neat. It was clean. It was legal. I could tell you what it was, but I imagine the occasional competitor reading this post and I’m not about to give them my 30 years of experience wrapped up in the coda. Let’s just say respect is the key ingredient in that pie, laced with just the right amount of follow-up.

And that’s what the real world is all about, not the lavish wine dinners in San Francisco or the vertical tastings in the Upper East Side. The nitty gritty saloon brawl battles that help keep my world safe for Italian wine. Bona Notte y’all.

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