Rendezvous with Roma

No matter how I try to avoid Rome, it draws me back inside. Not having to drive in is less stressful. Having a Roman in tow makes it a memorable experience. So it was, at the end of the week, that I found myself with our host, Caterina, whose family has lived in Rome for centuries.

To walk the narrow streets and to come upon a place that one recognizes is always a surprise to me. How many times did I roam the streets during an abandoned August, a chilly Autumn, a hopeful Spring? More times than I care to divulge. But this is a walker’s town, and a town for the young and the dead.

Our day, before we made it to Rome, was crowned with a meal cooked by three women in Basilicata. The cult of the Goddess vibrates with a positive energy in that region. Men make the wine, women provide the context and the sustenance with their roasted vegetables, their pastured cattle and sweet lamb meats, and those incredible pastries made from the bright wheat and the pure water of the region. A shrouded plate of cookies, inspired by Christianity and paganism, were seductively displayed, proud and erect, almonds jutting from the top, dipped in warm vincotto of Aglianico. Female energy dipped into the male force, it was (with food) an erotic experience as I have never had.

Some say Basilicata is unfathomably poor. One could live well in such abject conditions. Povera ma profondamente feconda.

But now we are back in the cities with the streets and the other cattle, the corn fed ones from the land of the giant Hawaiian shirts. And those short pants that show the calves as if to signal to some unseen Observer, checking to see if they are ready for the slaughter house. Not yet, Rome must take their little piece of tribute from all who walk inside the walls.

Thankfully, Caterina knows how to jump into the Roman vortex, where we leave the Americans and the menus in English, proclaiming they serve “Italian Food”, which is a conundrum with profound implications. Maybe that is why it is so difficult to present real Italian wines and real Italian food, in general, to a culture that has been trained in Rome and Venice and Florence to accept a menu turistico of Italian invention. No worries, as the hipsters say in Austin, we press on deeper into our personal passeggiata of time and memory and pleasure.


We are seeking only wine this night. The food was already in apogee, a climax with a cookie coda that will produce offspring on these pages, someday, soon. Now we want to drink Italian wine.

Our first stop we ask for a simple white from Umbria to be told they are out. On a Friday night. I remember the conversation I had with my Italian wine salesmen friends in Rome and how unprepared the roman restaurants are for their weekend clients. The server brings us four bottles. A spoofed Vermentino (barricato) from Sardegna. Pass. A Pinot Grigio from the north. Please, dont. Another oaky imposter. What is she thinking? That we would like these abominations? Finally we point to the 2009 Frascati, light but senza legno.

The next stop, we weren’t so lucky. Past Pizza Farnese we found a Falanghina in the Campo dei Fiori. It was crisp enough, but maybe a little too acidic. It had a metallic finish. Cold enough, it would be fine. But we weren’t batting too well this night.

Finally, we found a quieter wine bar in Piazza S. Egidio that Caterina remembered. We flip flopped between a Grecchetto in purezza and a Pecorino in purezza. We settled on the Pecorino. It was white, it was cold. It wasn’t spoofed. It didn’t have the soul that the Pecorinos had that we'd tried the week before in the Marche and Abruzzo. But it was a lovely night, and we paused to let the eternal procession we call Rome pass by us, and we enjoyed the endless pastime of Romans, watching people, with all their quirky lovely movements.

Ah yes, Roma, we love you, but we can never be yours. There is too much Italy to belong too. But for a night, for a moment under the stars, with friends and wine and the caressing breeze, yes, we can be swept away, one more time.

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

Sicily ~ Under the Windmill

The long ride from the old center of Palermo to Rapitala took us through a labyrinth of winding roads going towards the newer parts of the town. Past the English garden, where an affluence rivals ones seen along the coastal towns of Southern California.

On the main highway, after 30 minutes, towards the airport, a plaque commemorates a terrible bombing near the town of Capaci where the Mafia dons blew Giovanni Falcone, his wife, a judge and three police escorts to kingdom come.

Within the hour we were in the country. Cliffs jutted out of the ground with dramatic simplicity. We could have been in Capetown South Africa or some part of California. Sicily was weaving her web around my imagination once again.

Before we reached Rapitala we started seeing windmills. In this place where there are so many influences, I thought of another don, Quixote, and the simple sincerity that this land promised without the muddle of the human dealings. So much opportunity. So many squandered years.

Once inside the estate, Rapitala is a universe of terroirs. And with it one finds the indigenous grapes, the Catarratto, the Nero D’Avola, in proximity to Chardonnay, Syrah, Pinot Noir, Cabernet, Sauvignon Blanc. At first I thought how odd to see all of those grapes. So I asked our host, Laurent, “Why? How can this happen?”

“This is Sicily!” Laurent exclaimed. Indeed. The land that is conquered, by people, by grapes, eventually who wins out in the race against time? We already know with invading peoples who prevails on this island. Sicily. And the grapes? These French grapes? I am asking a man whose father was French and who came here 40 years ago with his native vines.

Laurent is a bit of a transplant. The ultimate outsider, looking in to a culture and looking out from it. His wife is Sicilian. His children are Sicilian. His Father-in-law is from a Sicilian family who have been here since the Normans. He looks like Sean Connery, tall and handsome. His interests; photography, his palace and the patrimony of Palermo, one only needs to talk for a few minutes to see this family is stitched into the fabric of Sicilian and Palermitan culture, at the deepest levels. And even with Laurent being half French. But Sicily was the prototype for America in the melting pot creation of her people. And we are seeing, because the land is so fecund, these grapes assimilated and the wines that come from them as an expression of this prolific land.

This marriage of France and Sicily, between a man and a woman and between a grape and the earth, follows the traditions of Palermo in her lean towards French sensibilities. Not exclusively, but an inclusion upon the palimpsest that makes Sicily and Palermo so exotic and beguiling.

Later in the day, back at the house for an al fresco meal, Laurent and I sat together and talked about butter. “It is not uncommon in cooking of Palermo is it?” I knew this because my Sicilian grandmother used butter, and oil. “No, you are right; it is part of the French influence of the French chefs, the Monzu (Monsieur).

Over a glass of late harvest Sauvignon Blanc and a stunning duo of ice creams from Antica Gelateria Ilardo, one of jasmine and cinnamon and the other of straw berry, pistachio and decorated in the style of a cassata cake, we talked about this French influence. Funny because we were now tasting food from the influence of the Arab culture.

I thought of dear old Lampedusa, who lived in this neighborhood, and wrote one of the great Italian novels of the 20th century. I feel his spirit in my bones, I am a son of Lampedusa, of Palermo, of this whole swirling mess we call Sicily.





The Rapitala Wines – notes under the windmill

"Piano Maltese" Bianco 2009 - 50% Grillo, 50% Catarratto – smooth mellow light acidity- creamy finish.

"Casali" Catarratto Chardonnay 2009 - 70% Catarratto, 30% Chardonnay – buttery nose, spritely flavors, spicy.

"Grand Cru" Chardonnay 2008 – oak nose right up front, nice balance. While the oak is evident in the aromas, the flavors seem well integrated. The alcohol levels are in check and the wine is balanced. I like this wine.

"Campo Reale" Nero d'Avola 2008 - Buttery, fruity spiciness; cherry. An entry level red for casual sipping.

“Altonero” Nero d’ Avola 2008– something new from Rapitala. Wood treatment, 5 month in barrique, another 18 months in large oak tanks. Peppery, perfumed – delicate – still a bit tannic from the oak.

"Nuar" Nero d'Avola Pinot Nero 2008 70% Nero d'Avola, 30% Pinot Noir.

"Hugonis" Nero d'Avola Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 – coffee, oak, spicy. I see a thread, through the reds, of spice. This family blend is pleasant.

“Nadir” Syrah 2008 – Orange aromas, spun sugar. Not at all tight or bitter. Again, a mellow red.

“Solinero” Syrah 2007 – more classic syrah notes with pepper. A buttery flavor too.

Cielo Dalcamo 2004- 50% Sauvignon Blanc, 50% Catarratto. Dessert white. Botrytis. We had this wine after dinner with classic Sicilian desserts. Went surprisingly well with ice cream (jasmine-cinnamon and straw berry, pistachio and decorated in the style of a cassata cake).

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

Sicily ~ Everything We Know is Changing

I was sent on a mission from the past, 100 years into the future, the place where my grandfather and his family lived to Palermo. The original intention was to report back to them what changes had been made since 1910. But I landed in 2010 and cannot seem to find my way back into the past.

Palermo is weighted to the past. However it plays out, the line from di Lampedusa’s Gattopardo, “In order for things to stay the same, things will have to change” is more apt than ever. Things have changed, but I am not sure if they have been for the better. I remember my family home on the Via Roma, in the old town center, and all the activities that fanned out from it. Whether it was to go to the open market, La Vucciria or the visit a church, or a mosque or a cathedral, Palermo is full if repentant sinners and saints on a wayward mission. It must be experienced, for there is an energy here that I can only say, for me strikes at the deepest of the tribal levels in my visceral being. I am so much a part of this place, like I am of certain places in Californian and in Texas. But this is the ground zero for my little clan, which is dwindling rapidly. I noticed on the door of the old palace that it is now for sale, having been parceled out. Luxury condos in the historic center. Scattered to the four points on earth.

Palermo, a town where the most beautiful bells ring during the day. In the wind the sound carries and the world becomes a symphony of chimes and chants and glorias to the omnipotence of faith and hope. And meanwhile down below, people scramble and scrapple and try and find a way to make a living, as meager as it might be. The world lands on the shores of Palermo and they can barely get to the baroque churches and the self portraits, for the garbage people are on strike and the town is piling up trash daily, ``

Are we in Italy? Did the plane veer away from the volcano and land us in Cartagena or Timbuktu? There are vineyards? Wine?

The smell of cardamom in the vicolo mixing in the air with the roasted coffee beans. The flavor of nutmeg in the timbale. The shimmer of semi precious stones on the hand of the young and beautiful Contessa.

Through the palm lined streets and the body guarded palaces there are ways out into the country. There are vineyards, more vineyards planted than there is demand for. Our host tells us, “Half the vineyards in Sicily will disappear.” That is how things work, they just disappear in this place?

Up a small drive, resembling a winery in the Central Coast of California, our little bus climbs. As we step outside the sun pokes out from behind a cloud and we are hit by the blast of a strong wind. This is Sicily, impossible to describe with words alone.



Everything we know is changing.

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

Steve gets his pasta on in Rome

One week in Italy and our travel mate Steve Trachsel hadn’t had any pasta. What? That’s nuts. After all my pasta porn from this week and Steve missed out? Well, we made sure on his last night in Rome that he’d get his pasta on.

One of the nicest guys, a baseball player (pro) who was taking time out to hang with his wine geek friends on his maiden voyage to (not so) sunny Italy.

So we went for a Slow Food meal at Cybo in Rome, near the Piazza Navona. And before you know it, they served up a double header of Mezze Maniche all'Amatriciana followed by Spaghetti Carbonara. And that was just for starters!

Steve and the wild boys from New York are still out on the streets, soaking up every last minute impression from a great city, before they head back home tomorrow. We’ve traveled 3,300 kilometers this first week on the wine trail in Italy, and I have plenty of stuff to write about all through the summer, if I never step on a plane for months.

But as it is, I am going back to Palermo for more (kind of fun) work. I’ll try to keep up with my ridiculous regimen of posting daily as long as I have the bandwidth. I have some great pictures and stories- thanks everyone who has visited the wine trail this past week. And for everyone who has emailed and Tweeted and Facebook messaged me from their towns as I was passing by, I am sorry I didn’t get to stop and see each and every one of you. I will some day. I just am on a very tight and filled schedule. Not complaining, just stating the facts, ma'am, just the facts.

Swing, batter! Cybo served Steve up Mezze Maniche
all'Amatriciana followed by Spaghetti Carbonara

Hey – San Diego – Steve says it’s while it’s easy to find any kind of tacos in his hometown, he says it’s hard to find Italian food and wine bars in his area. He has to come to Italy to find the food and wine hook up. Steve’s a real wine lover, collects the stuff, loves to drink it, and has got his two feet on the ground. Anyone out there have any ideas for him?

This was a celebrity filled night. Anyone have any idea who these two people are? And who their respective mates are?

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

Under the Tuscan Big Tree

It’s a common occurrence. The father has accomplished many things. His life force is still strong. And his son is standing there, growing, reaching for a little piece of sky. Some light, some warmth. And time, rages in a corner laughing at us, mocking our every movement, because the fates are ultimately poised to win the final battle against all of us. And yet we try, we stretch.

It might be a bottle of wine or a million bottles of wine. They are grains of sand. But each grain of sand is a universe in someone’s world. And so, here we are again, on the side of the road, this wine trail, with a father, and a son, and time, wicked time.

Jacopo knows his father is a lion. And he loves his dad. His dad, Marco, is one of those larger than one lifetime guys. But as far as we know, we all get just one. So he has packed a lot in just 50 years. Jacopo is past the halfway point. He has taken Germany, Holland, China; he is reaching past the big tree line to grow under his own sun.

I‘ve written before here about this big tree challenge. My dad was a big tree. I’ve worked for big trees. I know big trees. But this is one with nature on its side. Marco reaches over to me and says, “My son is the one person I trust 100%.” That simple sentence is the light in the forest, breaking though and providing room to grow.

In Italy there is a tree, the albero di bosso, that grows tall. Google "bosso tree" and one of the links that comes up is grande albergo. So this site, this Bossi area, where we are, is named appropriately.

How many of us have our own grande albergo we must live with and try to push beyond, to grow to live?


As the father opened and decanted two bottles of his 1961 Chianti, he picked one of the decanters up to the light. “See how beautiful he is? He is ready for the world. It is time.”

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

The 1000 Kilometer March

To just give a perspective of what we just did, imagine if you lived in Dallas, Texas and just drove to Big Bend National Park. Or San Diego to Santa Rosa, California. Or New York City to Detroit, Michigan. And somewhere in the middle, stopping to visit two wineries, including visiting the vineyards, cellars, tasting and throw in a lunch. With porchetta.

Mom, that was my day. Starting at 5:00AM we left Lecce in Deep South Italy drove to Abruzzo and Marche, stopped and then made the haul to Florence, via Bologna, to our dinner appointment. Mom, that was work.

I will scrape myself off the bed, because we have several appointments in Tuscany, first thing, Friday morning. Loving it, Mom, but I am a little tired.

So a few words and pictures, and I promise I will get back to talking about wine and Italy and DOCG’s (including the two or three new ones I have heard about). Will somebody please get me a cup of coffee?

Last night, after the death-march portion of our trip was concluded we joined a few new friends for dinner in a little Tuscan town near Vinci. After all that driving we needed some bistecca fiorentina, no? We met at Ristorante Adriano in Cerretto Guidi.

Until then, feast upon the images of the bloody cow which we had with unadorned Chianti Classico. None of this talk about natural wine or any of the current popular buzz-words or buzz-directions in the lofty world of wine-speak. Just meat and potatoes and greens and beans and get in the truck, kids. We’re heading to Montalcino.

Five steaks - 12 men - Who will get the bones?

Baseball pro and wine lover, Steve Trachsel, taking his time with the Big Bone

Wine pro and meat lover Carmine Scala instructing the young'uns on the "Luca Brasi method" of cleaning a bone

Roberto Sabatini getting the "signal" from the catcher in the sky that it's time to wind this party up and get some rest

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

What Makes Italian Wine "Important?"

As I tear up the Italian wine trails, both the autostrada and the back roads only found by GPS, eventually when I land in a winery tasting room or around a table with food, the conversation is led by Italians wanting to talk about important wines. I am hearing that a lot lately. But what really are they talking about?

In reality the Italians have been talking about this for some time. In the past they used the word “particolare.” Somewhere after Y2K the phrase became “important.” But this important word, what is it to some people and something else to others?

I think what many are talking about is a wine that can be seen to compete on an international stage. Accepted as one of the wines that run the world catwalk and can stroll with the best of them. High cheekbones, good body (more fat than thin), a deep smoky mode and fast racy flavors. And of course, NFB (new French barriques).

I like the smell of barrels. But growing up in a Bourbon and Scotch culture, I think we in America are moving away from that profile fairly rapidly. And to the well trained European palate, what is this mania? Is it the exotic, the out of the ordinary? I am amazed at a culture that has come up with so many nuances in their flavor spectrum that they would just roll over and die to the aromas of wet paper and smoke layered with a sweet saucy note and finished up tied nicely with a bow of fruit and glycerin and more oak and sugar and alcohol. I’m sorry, but I think America is going away from that. And Italy, at least the winemakers and tastemakers, seem to think for the last generation that this is a curiosity but one that they must address, or rather, embrace, And it has me absolutely mystified.

I keep coming back to the aspect of the Italian mind that sees the high and mighty as a goal. The wealthiest Count, the most landed Duke, the (commercially) successful artist, the outrageous haute couture sun dress that bares even more flesh, perfume and tarted up characteristics

I’m going to leave it at this for now, because it is late and I really want to start a discourse in my virtual world. I surely am not having much luck with this conversation in the real world. At least, not that I can tell.

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

An Antonioni Set in a Noir Ortona

Excuse me while I go a little deep into the Italian heart of darkness with this one. I’m sure most of you all are tired of the panoply of apparel, Pecorino and pasta porn these past few days.

The further south I go, the deeper a sense of crisis has been surfacing. Last night, during a stopover in Ortona, I started noticing some tribal rumblings. Youth hanging out on the streets, nothing to do but have foreplay and fiddle with drugs. I saw it in Genova 20 years ago and in Sicily 40 years ago. This is like being stuck in an Antonioni movie written by Pasolini.

Even a business encounter seemed edgy and clipped. I am not new to this area. But once again, I am the outsider. Now, what is going on in Italy?

Maybe it’s the earthquake. Maybe it’s the volcano. Maybe it’s Greece. Maybe it’s Berlusconi. But something is stirring. The Lega Nord signs in Ortona seem ominously similar to the movement that spawned a Mussolini. Except this time the object isn’t to unite but to divide. And after that for whom to conquer?

It felt like someone was waiting for the hammer to fall or the bomb to drop. And the youth, i vitelloni, in the countryside, hanging out amidst the wild thrushes as we zipped past them on dark little provincial roads. I swear I stepped back into the 1970’s. Something strange has gripped this area.

In a restaurant by the sea, nearly empty. It was a Monday, ok, alright. But the young server, her method so deliberate, such a high level of care for the food and the wine. She was veiled behind a wall of shyness, or was there a sprinkle of fear in there as well.

Walking on a beach in the darkness waiting for the sun, the sea, the summer breeze. But in this moment it was the scene of a potential transgression. Odd, how there seemed to be this vein of apprehension.

“When America was America, anything, everything was possible.” A European and an American sitting at a table talking about the world that is supplanting their dominance with the rising sun from The East. We are being reduced to serving Asia and simultaneously being slaves to their cheap products because we have trained ourselves that the cheapest is the best.

Meanwhile the server pours us a sparkling Pecorino, then a Cococciolo, an indigenous white, while the bounty of the sea below us is being served up on little plates under incandescent lights. People my age, who have lived under this regimen, this “Italianita”, seem reticent to change. “America is the change place.” Still they look to America to send their Nina’s their Pinta’s and their Santa Maria’s loaded up with the bounty of the lands, no?

Back on the beach at midnight, walking slowly, I came across a bottle that had washed up on shore. It was a wine bottle that had been scrubbed soft by the sand over the years. What promise did that bottle have for the people involved with the making of it and the wine inside? What dreams did the people have? Did they work to spend a holiday on this beach in August? Did they labor to buy a little home on the cliff, only to leave it as an entitlement to some thankless niece or son?

Three young boys running towards me, the sea slapping to my side, a dog barking at a passing train and above a fighter jet races by, patrolling the coast. Antonioni would love this.

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