Rustic Tuscany, Organic Lambruschi and a True Original

Italy is full of characters. People with unusual life stories. And in rustic Tuscany, not the one the tourists go to in droves, I ran across one.

Today as we drove the SS1 "Via Aurelia" highway from below Grosseto to Bolgheri, the traffic was thinner than I had thought; this being one of the days Italians pile in their car in droves and go on vacation for the month of August. Around La California though, the traffic slowed, halted, and for 15 minutes or so, we crawled. Very exciting stuff to be in a traffic jam with all of the Italians going on holiday.

Our journey took us away from the water and inland to a mountainous area, seeming very much like Liguria. One in our group ran into a friend at a porchetta stand and he invited us to his place to taste some Lambruschi and salumi.

Wine from an Invisible Island

How did one get here? It is an island on the way to the North Pole. How does an Italian land here and decide to make wine? How does anyone?

In their unquenchable thirst for discovery and adventure, Italians have been exploring and discovering wine regions for millennia. Gaul, Iberia, Germany, the New World, Australian, South Africa, South America. Why not Vancouver Island?

So close to the mainland, and so large, one barely registers being on an island. But for those with a passion for islands, the simple act of stepping off the larger land mass sets the stage for something different, if only in one’s head space.

Dante’s Boot Camp

The sound of the waves crashing upon the shore has been replaced with the sound of my heart beating in my chest. As if in a dream, I am transported across the world from my wild place in the New World - ocean, eagles, tall pines - to a rugged edge of Tuscany - alabaster, olives and sheep.

I cannot say how I got here, because in reality I was sleeping most of the time. And that is my common story: the human, who walks around in his pajamas, sliding across the polished concrete floors, going to get a glass of water, walking from room to room, taking a spider outside and seeing a small group of foxes as they go from their outdoor places.

Here, there are no grapes, except for a few wild stragglers. Italy, the giant peninsular vineyard, here is bereft of those energies. They are transmitted through other things. How interesting to be in a place that has defined my work, my life even, and to not have any of that which is familiar. It is liberating, actually, not to have the message broadcast and to only have the energy, the essence. The raw matériel.

The Call

We’re not home 48 hours and I get the call. “Pack your bags, you’re needed in Italy. Flight leaves tomorrow at 10 AM.” Could it be that Italy and the wine gods are jealous of our latest infatuation with the New World?

On the Wine Trail in Italy Canada

Off the grid for a glorious week. No cell phone. No Internet. No twittering nabobs of negativity. No Facebook. What we did get in return was a life in Nature that we needed so very much. Indeed it is hard to be back home in Texas, in the heat and the mean times. Is that all there is? For us, it isn’t. And a week is darn short time to recharge. But we will forge ahead, onward, through the fog and the haze of war.

From the Archives- Calabria: The Epiphany

This was originally posted in June of 2009

There has been discussion in Italy about the future of wine in Calabria. In brief, there are two camps: one to maintain a more traditional use of the native grapes for the wines of Ciro and one which seeks to elaborate the appellation with the use of more international grapes.

Calabria is where my mom’s mom came from. She left a poor region, which had just been devastated by a terrible earthquake, early in the 20th century. Calabria has been abused by organized crime and tribal urges. It is a beautiful place. The wines are hard to sell, but when someone tastes a Gaglioppo or a Montonico they become enthralled with the fruit and the texture and the echo of the earth from where they spring.

Can Cabernet help bring wealth and fame to Calabria? Who knows? When a wine like a Ciro or any number of wines from Calabria tries to make it in America, it is a combination of energies. When the Statti’s or the Librandi’s come to America, the wines are well received and people love them. And surely these two wines often represent different styles and philosophies of winegrowing in the region. The connection isn’t always because of a review or a score. Sometimes it is the personal touch that these people bring to the selling game. So it’s not as easy as Cabernet or no Cabernet, native yeasts or designer yeasts, French barrique or chestnut botti. It’s just all simple and black and white.

From the Archives- Calabria: The Legacy of Local

This post originally appeared here June 15, 2006 and I rewrote it to reappear on saignee when Cory did his 32 Days of Natural Wine last year

"What was it like?” I remember my aunt Amelia asking me later in Texas, about walking into the village where her mother was born. Old Calabria, a little village clinging to a hillside like a vine that had wrapped itself around a sycamore tree and hung on through time and the elements.

I can only imagine what they were thinking 100 years ago, when where they were, in Calabria, looked as inviting as that West Texas dust storm raging on the plains. Devastating earthquake, utter breakdown in civilization, a civilization that had been established in the 6th Century B.C. Desperation, hope, a clean slate, away. Just far, far away.

In 1977, the train took us from Brindisi to Cosenza, and we followed Merlin back in time, the pine tree forest through the mountains over the hill. Back to grandmother’s house. It was the harvest season, September, in a year that would be remembered, by some, as a better than average harvest.

Gone Fission...

It's been a little hectic around here lately - It often seems more like the wine trials than than the wine trails. So we're going off the grid for a week. Nothing's wrong, Sam and Bianca, don't worry. I just need to step away from the world and dip my pole in cooler waters - the rods have heated up and we're approaching critical mass. And I know y'all don't want another mess to clean up. I'll put up a couple of archived posts in keeping with my Calabria themes.

Thanks for reading - back in a week...

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

On the Wine Trail in Italy: Dateline 1811

Tutti ne parlano, pochi(ssimi) lo fanno.

The heat of a July summer will do many things to one who actively plows through the hard work of actually trying to make sense of what has been presented before oneself. It’s a little like trying to figure out what the history is before it becomes historical. An odd way to start something that will eventually swing into dream space, but perhaps it is the realities of the present that compel some of us to find relief, perhaps shelter, from the blunt realities of the present, if only for a few hours. So it was during this night before I awakened that I had the strangest dream. I was being sent back to Italy. I was in a windowless room, with bleak fluorescent lights and a rattling fan. A man walks in, perhaps middle aged, but he was bald. He could have been 45 – or 75. No matter, he was delivering my ticket, and my sentence to serve out one year in the Italy of 1811.

I have been marooned on Greek islands, but for a week or so. I have been sent back and forth from offices, sometimes for months. I have been exiled to work on the road, for years at a time. But never had I been sentenced to go back 200 years in time.

A Swimming Pool, a Sports Car and a Mistress

I don’t recall when it was exactly but recently I was in the company of Italians and we were talking about all things Italian. Politics, the Euro, the malaise of young Italians and wine. Wine follows the culture for sure and so while we were talking about wine, other subjects, riffs, attached themselves to the conversation. We ventured into talking about a famous Italian wine impresario when one of the unfiltered in the group blurted out “What does he care? He’s got it made. He has a swimming pool, a sports car and a mistress.”

At that point the grappa came out and it proved to be a very long night, talking in depth about this propensity that modern folks who love money and power have for “things.”

History's Lessons Drowned in Red Wine

♫ Just take everything down to Highway 61 ♫

Maybe it’s the little 60’s marathon I am running in my head, but lately it seems like we are doing everything we can to kill the wine business in the world. Actively. No, it’s not like we are sitting around doing nothing; we are marching full speed with this one. Or maybe it’s just an overactive imagination once again seared by the blinding triple digit heat of summer. Maybe it is time for a real vacation.

Where to start? Just a few random thoughts and then back to a really busy day.

1) Selling all your wine to one country at the highest price possible will come back to bite you in the ass. Yeah, I’m talking to you Bordeaux. You say it’s a luxury item? Yeah, so is Ferrari, and that’s an even bigger business than Bordeaux. But Ferrari has found a way to build their business in the world – in Russia, and yes in China and India, but also in America. As well as in their home market. And it ain't exactly like a Ferrari is cheap. In fact, Fiat has been kicking around the idea to sell Ferrari, because it is so valuable. Maybe if France ever gets in trouble like Greece (or Portugal, or Spain, or Italy?) they can seize the First Growths as a National Asset and sell the whole kit-and-caboodle to, I don’t know, General Foods? You think I’m kidding? Wait and watch. But one thing for sure, Bordeaux, you’re killing us softly with your song…

Sweet Figs & Red Hot Peppers or Muzak & Malbec?

from the "one of these things is not like the other" dept.

“I need you to go have lunch at you know where,” the salesman left me the message. Usually when he leaves one like that we need to go in there and spend a little money. Oh well, how bad could it be, four star rating  with no lack of talent in the kitchen. A shame the chef usually scowls when you walk in the place looking to drop some cash.

So it went this week in my little corner of the world. Some good, some bad, some in the middle, some out, some in. July is here, it’s so damn hot, thank heavens my little isola is brimming with life.

2006 Vietti "Rocche" Barolo and Mom's iconic Eggplant Parmigiano

Taking a break from the DOCG madness and the Calabria Sequence, which got a nod from Eric Asimov and the New York Times this week. A brief flashback to Southern California and last week, when I made a quick trip to see my Mom and my Aunt Mary, who are both nonagenarians. Aunt Mary, my dad’s sister will be 95 soon and my mom was just 97. Both live independently ( my mom still drives and goes to the gym!) and both are good barometers, on both sides of the family, for longevity and health. We should all be so lucky.

Bare with us: Italian DOCG wines are now "71" and climbing

♫ Got the wings of heaven on my shoes, I'm a dancin' man and I just can't lose ♫

It was too good to be true, that we might have a brief hiatus in the race to guarantee every appellation in Italy before the curtain shuts. But alas, the latest folly is the Castel del Monte DOCG – a trio of guaranteed appellations. Because three is three times greater than one! Oy, what a kebash in old Italy.

Here are the three, not one, but three new appellations:

• Castel del Monte Nero di Troia Riserva
• Castel del Monte Rosso Riserva
• Castel del Monte Bombino Nero

Making a grand total of Italian wine DOCG’s not “69” but an asymmetrical “71”

The complete list, and new map, after the jump…I hope the Italians take a break soon, so I can get back to blogging the things I really want to blog about.

A huge thank you and shout out again to Franco Ziliani and also to Hande Leimer for alerting me to this development. I will be forever grateful to all y’all.

Calabria: Full Circle

I was really wondering what I had just done. On the road with a young family which seemed like an eternity, only to land in some desolate town in the hills of Calabria. What on earth was I thinking, that I could just walk into a village in southern Italy and hook up with my long lost Calabrese relatives? We barely spoke any Italian; our lives were as different from these people as they could be. We had two young children, one in diapers, and we arrived in the midst of harvest, typical Americani.

I looked over to my wife, shrugged my shoulders and said “Let’s walk back to San Fili, take the train and go back to Cosenza. There’s nobody here who will claim us as kin.” She could see the despondency in my eyes, hear it in my voice. I walked hunched over, at a loss to know where to go next. And then.

A fellow on a donkey ambles over in our direction. Kind of gruff and looking like Ray Bolger’s scarecrow character in the Wizard of Oz. But we weren’t on the yellow brick road, were we?