Corporal Snark's Insight Wednesday

Garlic, Special Offerings & Planning Ahead

Last week, I was invited to lunch at a restaurant while it was being reviewed. I was really digging in - hummus, baba ghannouj, tabbouleh, typical Sicilian fare. I think it was the strong coffee with cardamom that sent me over the edge, along with the garlic that had been embedded in the eggplant. For the next 10 or so hours, I flailed around like a walrus that had swallowed a boulder.

Yesterday, I went for a souvlaki chicken dish, and again I was snarfing it up like there was no tomorrow. This time it was the thinly sliced onions and a bitter espresso.

OK, so I cannot eat garlic if it is raw. Or onions. In fact, the rock above, from Beaucastel, or the razor blade, would be easier for me to digest. But those restaurant folks keep jabbing me with too much garlic and onions.

This week, I was talking to some of my colleagues. A few days earlier, I had put out a trade offering on all the Brunellos our company had available. Erroneously, I had listed an item that had been set aside for a national restaurant program. We had cases listed, twice, of the same wine but one was almost double the price. One of our clients called in and wanted all of the wine at the lesser price, and wanted us to assure them that they would have an exclusive on those wines. Oh, and by the way, could we sweeten the deal by offering a further discount? So a wine that is normally $57, but might be $31, you’d like all of it, and you’d like a better discount?

How about no, and hell no?

I was driving around a fashionable area of town, looking for a new wine store. After circling the area about 3 times, I finally phoned a division manager and asked him to tell me where the place was. There was no sign. On one of the orbits, I got a call from another salesperson. It was regarding a special offer I put out about 10 days ago, on a producer of small-lot Riserva wines from Piedmont. The total allocation for the state is really about enough for one good account. Several accounts from across the state had called in, wanting all of the wine. One guy even wanted most of the wine, even though he didn’t really buy wine regularly. I guess the press got him excited about making money. You’d think he would be over the lottery-ticket fever of getting something for nothing? But, I digress.

Back to the salesperson who called during one of my orbits trying to find this cool new groovy wine shop. It seems this salesperson had a customer who wanted to buy some of that wine, too, but wanted to send an offer out to his retail clients to see if any of them “wanted” any. I explained to the nice salesperson that we probably wouldn't be able to help that person sell something on “consignment,” but that if he was interested in some of the wine to put their name in the hat. It was my impression that he didn’t really want to commit to buying any of the wine unless he got some customers, beforehand, to collect the money from. Meanwhile, all these groovy wonderful Italian wines in the photos are already in the warehouse. They stand waiting their turn to empty themselves all over the goblets and chalices of the urban wasteland. Poor little Barolos and sad little island wines.


A spell of rain and cold, some ice in the past week. The freeway pass in the picture has been in the news a lot. It’s high and not so dry, and people, in good weather, like to jump off it intentionally. During ice even more people's lives are imperiled. It makes the news folks feel like they’re doing a service to the community. Get me some warm soup without garlic. That would be a bigger help to me.
Winters here can be mild. Not so lately. Just 2 weeks ago I was taking out the Christmas tree, in NYC, from the apartment, in short sleeves. Union Square was lively, lots of apples and potatoes in the open market. Jackets were on sale at Filene’s Basement. Coats, too.

Yesterday, an appointment at a new and groovy steak house near the sports arena. The Stanley Cup was on display. We were there to work on a new Italian concept wine list. One of the partner/chefs was there, and we talked about the idea of embracing local sensitivities while pushing towards a greater expression of an original and truer kind of Italian menu. Sounded real good to me. Hmm.

Maybe it's time to bring out the picture of Modano, when we made pasta and served it in the said Stanley Cup, back in the last century. So long ago, it felt like the last millennia.
One of my colleagues was coming over tonight so we could finish up a quick turn-around proposal for the Italian concept we had met with earlier. He was running late. One of his customers ordered wine at the last minute for a party, and the truck was late. Now the truck had 47 delivery stops because a computer scheduled the poor driver to do so. Of course the client knew about this event more than a week before. The salesperson asked them to order it then, and the client procrastinated.

Before the salesman finally made it to my place, I got a call from another of his clients. It was now past 7 p.m. 'Seems the orders were all screwed up, keeps happening. He wanted the poor guy to come over. So I called the sales guy and tell him I can wait. He goes over to the client to make things right. He picks up a case of wine wrongfully ordered and sent. About three blocks from the client on his way to my home, the salesman gets a call from the account asking him to bring the wine back. He can use it now. Wtf!

Another client calls this poor guy up while we are trying to finish up this proposal. It is now 8:30 p.m. We still haven’t eaten dinner. Eggplant is in the oven (no garlic). Anyway, this client wants two cases of wine for his children’s school for a function on Feb 14. Hmm, donations for wine right about Valentine's Day. What a coincidence.

OK, so now we have finally gotten the first draft of the proposal done. The eggplant is ready, the salad is ready, we pop open a really nice bottle of Valpolicella and proceed to eat. My friend, his phone is still ringing. Another client is asking him about some menus that need to be laminated. It is now 9 p.m. This is more fun than being Jack Bauer.

And I have gone way over the 1,000-word limit this morning. Ain’t we got fun?

Just for fun, if you're still with me, I've embedded a fun little Lambretta commercial, which reminds me of the last week or so. Ciao for niao!

Italian Family Sundays ~ The Golden Age

Yesterday I was driving to the older part of town to visit a friend who was in the hospital. He has been a mentor to me, and as I was nearing the facility, I saw the old street where my dad and his family had lived more than 90 years ago. The picture above was taken there, 1313 Hall Street, Dallas, Texas, where my dad was born. The house is gone. All that remains of his original family is his sister, my aunt Mary. She's the little baby in my grandmother's arms.

My friend in the hospital was asleep, but he didn’t look well. He is dying. I know the look, the sound, the smell. If it were a wine, I would describe it thus: pale and a bit cloudy. The bouquet has faded with a light scent of dried rose petals and ripe, aged Asiago. In the flavors there is a little tinge of acid, the tannins are all gone, the fruit is fleeting, and the finish is swift.

Hopefully, my friend's will be as well. For his sake.

It had been raining, and the streets were damp and saturated. It reminded me of Ireland, of a hopeless and miserable Dublin after a night of drinking too much Guinness and too little sleep. Cold, dank, unredeemable.

I was near my friend's wine store and hadn’t eaten all day (it was 2 p.m.), so I stopped in to get a sandwich, and ended up working the floor.

The store was crowded, and Sinatra was crooning over the speakers. A young man came up to me and asked me about the Italian Club. I gave him the requisite information and encouraged him to stop in at one of the Wednesday wine tastings they are starting to do. Then he reached out his hand to shake mine. My hand was bleeding from a boxcutter that had slipped when I was arranging some wine case stacks. I didn't even know I had cut myself. All in a day's work, even if it is a Saturday. Or a Sunday. Grab some tape, cover the cut and back to arranging bottles and straightening shelf-talkers.

In the past, we didn’t need an Italian Club. We had the Family. On Sundays like today, my family would spend the day together, eating, drinking, carousing at the beach or in a vineyard somewhere, in Sicily, Dallas, Los Angeles.

My dad and his dad would hang out together. My son is in Vegas, working. My dad and his dad are gone. It’s Sunday again, and I’m sitting in my room writing about something that doesn’t exist anymore.

My dad and his dad were in business together, for a while. I don’t think my father liked that too much. Probably my grandfather wasn’t too clued in on his son’s aspirations. I think my dad probably wanted to be some kind of artist, maybe an actor. He certainly ended up in the right place for it, Los Angeles in the 1930’s. The golden age of American cinema. But my dad cobbled, and my grandfather acquired real estate, and the ship sailed on. E la nave’ va.

Once, when my grandfather had made a pile of money, he loaded his young family up and sailed back to Palermo for a while. He was now an American, and while he was going back to Italy for a while, he could never stay there indefinitely. He had crossed over into the American dream. He was making it big. In the picture he wasn’t more than 24 years old, but the opportunities that he had reached for paid off early. My son is now 30 years old. I wonder if the opportunities for his generation will ever afford him a chance for a good life. It doesn’t seem as bright now. Warmer, yes. Brighter, no.

When my mom and dad were married in 1936, they took their Ford roadster up the California coast. They were building the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. My parents were 21 years old, hopeful for happiness in their future and their children’s future. For their honeymoon, they tooled up Coast Highway 1 into a world we can only dream about now.

The Great Depression was receding, and war was a few years off. It was a moment to enjoy all that the possibility of life had to offer.

On those Sundays leading up to those years, they would spend sun-drenched days at the beach with their Wise Guy uncles and their Hollywood girlfriends. They were “A” listing through life, the Golden Age of the American Dream.
Cigarettes didn’t cause cancer, yet. Diseases were being conquered. The atom was being harnessed. Seat belts weren’t necessary. Front doors needn’t be locked. Out in the San Fernando Valley and Escondido and Cucamonga, the family would picnic in the vineyards. Note the happy faces and the glasses of wine.
My dad with some of the many women in his family. His Aunt Mary, his sister (my aunt) Mary, Josie and Cuccia, Tootsie and Anna, and Rosemary and on. So pristine in the simplicity of their happiness. Wine, women and song. And food, what great food. Local, fresh, not microwaved, not from a can. California, the Golden State in a golden age.
My mom and dad, with riding boots. Chances are, Dad made them. How much my son looks like him. I now am the age my father was when I wondered what it would be like to be his age. I think I might be happier at this age than he was, but his youth sure looked good from this vantage point. And my mom, the classic Italian beauty. She’s almost 93 and still pretty fired-up about life and living. Thank God she’s in good shape. My friend in the hospital, what I wouldn’t give for him to have been that fortunate, too.
My Aunt Josephine, on the right in the picture, next to her brother Felice and his East Texas bride, Reba. And my dad and mom. A night out on the town. Was it in Dallas? Or Hollywood? They look out at me from this picture as if to say, “Bring us your best bottle of Italian wine, and come sit down with us and enjoy your family.” If only I could, Uncle Phil. My mom and my Aunt Jo are both in their 90’s now, both in pretty good health. Still driving. But not in the rain.

My dad’s sister, Aunt Mary, called me today. She was checking in with me. Her husband passed away a few years ago. Her son-in-law died a little over a year ago. Last summer one of her grandsons had an accident in the ocean, and he too is gone. So she called to see if I was still here, still around.

Yes, Aunt Mary. Many of them are gone but we are still here, those of us on the edges of the photographs. Still ticking and kicking. Still dreaming and still looking for a way to make all this work out. I miss our Family Sundays. And so I sit here and put down these thoughts for the internets to hold, for another place and time and people. It was a great time, and the memories feed the heart and the soul, on Sundays, when the family is spread out far.

T.G.I.F ~ Thank God It’s Freezing

28° F, in the shade, too cold to swim, just right for Osso Buco

It seems like there are now 6 of you out there who want me to write about wine, instead of getting my proxies to gripe about the state of the wine business. Honestly, January of 2007 has been a jump-start for tasting some great wines. In less than a week I have tasted Castello dei Rampolla wines 3 times, all of the 2001 Barbaresco Riserva crus from Produttori, everything Marco di Bartoli makes, all of the wines from Elvio Cogno, Amarone from Le Ragose, Allegrini, Le Salette and Viviani. And that is just the tip of the iceberg during this winter.

Speaking of winter, down here in the South, earlier this week we experienced the Winter Surge, thanks to El Niño and Nancy Pelosi. For two days the region was blanketed with ice and bitter cold, but we cowboyed up and hit the streets.

A local restaurateur called up and wanted to taste some wines for his new list. He had just cooked up a slew of lamb Osso Buco, would we come by and show him some wines?

So I grabbed my Italian A-B-C wines: Amarone, Barolo and a Chianti in any other time. The wines were the 2000 Allegrini Amarone, 2001 Elvio Cogno Barolo and 2000 Castello dei Rampolla Sammarco (95% Sangiovese, 5% Cabernet Sauvignon).

Along with this trio of red wines, I arranged to meet the Sicilian Trinity Gang members, otherwise known as “Tony the Bone”, “Joey the Weasel” and “Sausage Paul.” I’ve known these characters for some time now, and we meet from time to time so as to actually enjoy some of these wines with food. None of that swirl-and-spit routine. This time it is for the pure enjoyment of the grape.

We always talk about those days that are perfect for the big red wines from the Veneto, Piemonte and Toscana, and this was one of those days. The meal was also made for this kind of day, the kind I think about when a server is telling me the daily specials, usually in July or August, and invariably Osso Buco pops out of his or her mouth. Then I think of the day when a dish like that would be perfect. January, winter, bitter cold, ice on the roads. The perfect storm to match up with the wines and this particular type of hearty fare.

First we opened up the 2000 Sammarco from Rampolla. Biodynamic farming, perfect vineyard location, the birds and the bees love the place. Vines are planted close, Tachis anointed the property, gave his benediction to a plot of land that, in my opinion, is one of the first growths of Tuscany.

Tony the Bone liked the Sammarco. He was pounding it down pretty good, kind of like in the old days when we got a special on Carlo Rossi Paisano and it was his night to cook up spaghetti and meatballs. Yep, Tony was living large. All the while his phone is ringing with orders, so he's making money sitting there.

Next we opened up the 2001 Elvio Cogno Barolo. Owner Walter and Nadia Fissore (Elvio is her dad) along with Beppe Caviola (one of a handful of rock star winemakers in Italy) teamed up to bring to market a Barolo that we all can afford. From the Novello vineyard, 1400 feet in the air, with an extended, 35-day skin maceration. Joey the Weasel was liking this wine, wondering if Nadia had any unmarried sisters.He is planning to go to Vinitaly in March, and I’ve promised him a tour of Piedmont. The Weasel has a few things on his mind, and wine is one of them. He’s also looking forward to tasting the wine with his "new family."

Sausage Paul wasn’t too keen on the Barolo. He was planting his Riedel crystal straw in the Amarone and sticking to his guns. You don’t argue with Sausage Paul. He knows his way around a kitchen, and he’s pretty good with knives, if you get my inference. I have to say, the Amarone and the lamb was a magical moment. The 2000 Allegrini has scored big in all the right places. Decanter loved it, awarded it 4 stars. Gambero Rosso give it tre bicchieri. The American press slobbered all over themselves. It was a good time for Mariluisa and Franco Allegrini. Sausage Paul was purring like a big cat on the savannah.

Meanwhile, the Sammarco had opened up like the Red Sea in a Cecil B. DeMille movie. I hadn’t seen Tony the Bone this animated since he last had electro-shock therapy back in the 80’s.

All the while, Joey the Weasel was fantasizing about some Italian woman. Ever since Carlo Ponti died, he’s been all stirred up. I don’t know if he can wait until March.

Well, I’m closing in on 800 words and it’s 1:30 in the morning. I can smell the café latte as we pull off the autostrada into Alba. Good morning ~ bona notte.

From My Lips ~ To God's Ear ?

Special commentary by guest reviewer Beatrice Russo, returning with one of my favorite genre’s - the rant. She shadowed me on a recent trip and now she's hooked on the wine biz- poor thing.

I knew it couldn’t last. A working long-weekend in New York, a whole slew of great wines to taste and talk about. And back to work. Back to folks who don’t return emails and whose voice mail is full, so that when you finally wait past their message, all you get is hung up on.

These are the same people who call and want Batar or Dal Forno or Giacosa Santo Stefano or Redigaffi? Oh yeah?

Well, open your email, answer your phones and read my lips: The great wines go to the great customers.

You’d think we were trying to give them the plague or take them for a one way trip around the Statue of Liberty.

All we're trying to do is bring up the level, of this horrendous laggard of a region, in terms of the appreciation of Italian greatness. But it seems all they can muster is a little lust for Sassicaia, a hankering for Ornellaia, the obligatory nod to Gaja and the unquenchable thirst for the inimitable Santa Margherita.

So they have a relationship with some importer 1,000 miles away. Well, folks, this is here (not Chicago or Vegas), you might want to readjust your holster before we step out in the high noon sun. 'Cause one of us is going to survive, and my money is on the native, the local, the one with their stakes tied down for the long haul.

So go ahead and let the Roman hucksters shake, rattle and roll all over you. Buy into their b.s. and load up on their plonk. I have a whole drawer full of matchbooks for restaurants that are now sleeping with the fishes. They ain't comin' back, Pauli.
What I've learned:

1)The wine world is a family; You don’t go against the family.

2)You want to come to the party? You’ve gotta be invited.

What are they teaching in Vegas?

By the way, anyone looking for a sommelier gig? You need to be female and gorgeous...don't worry about wine knowledge...if you qualify, email me - BR

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.