The Tree Hugger

For the past few weeks I’ve been on a lot of planes. In a lot of places, New York, Verona, Alba, Frankfurt, Houston and San Antonio. Some great wine and food, wonderful encounters with interesting people. My global village. But tonight I will put my head on my pillow in my bed. Local sleep, slow sleep, sustainable sleep, yes.

In an airport waiting for a plane to catch up with me, I was scanning a piece by Thomas Friedman titled, “The Power of Green.” It got me to thinking about my little patch of green back home.

Which is where the Sardegnan tree hugger comes in. His nickname is Cecio. I call him Cucureddu, he calls me Capo Bastone. We’ve connected on a tribal level in the urban jungle. He runs an Italian kitchen in my town, very successful (though the wine list is overdo for a makeover). But he’s even much better in the garden outside than in the restaurant inside.

Tomatoes and artichokes, olive trees and herbs grow in a slice of earth here, a patch there. In one spot he has myrtle (mirto) plants growing so he can make his own infusions. Once he took me up to the attic where he was curing his own prosciutto.

In his 40’s now, usually with a Marlboro hanging from his lips, Cecio is in the old age of his youth. A ladies man, and one who raced onto the urban scene from his sleepy little seaside village in Sardegna, a town called Orosei.

I came to know Orosei through the writings of Salvatore Satta and Grazia Deledda, two very famous writers. And through Cecio, for the practical and primordial matter of being Sardegnan. The Sardegnans fascinate me. An island, but in many ways the anti-Sicily. Fiercely independent, they make the stubborn Calabrese culture look yielding, like butter that has been set on a sun drenched window sill. Opinionated, and innocently guarded of any civilization that might threaten their way or their progress. Tough folks, but thanks to time spent with my Persian friends, I think I can navigate my way through their world.

And what a world it is, so beautiful, the water, the light, the stars. Basic, elemental, simple, uncluttered. The island has become a haven for the famous and the wealthy looking to loosen their burden for a few weeks.
Funny, how those who “have it all” look to a place of simplicity to return to a way that they can never have. How ironic.


I asked Cecio if he would help me trim a few trees, especially the fig. The fig is a fabulous producer, but it had grown too high and needed to be brought back into the yard. My friend had been trained by his father, so I was sure he learned the right way. In fact all the fig (and fruit) trees I saw recently in Italy had been trimmed exactly like Cecio trimmed the one back home. We should rename him, maybe Capo Fico.

He climbed up and took it on like a sculptor would take on a piece of Carrara marble. With his chainsaw, he went about the tree, trimming here, carving there. It was truly great to watch him in an instinctive labor. I see him in the restaurant, flirting with the ladies, acting all sophisticated and urbane. But up in that tree I saw a man in his element, approaching his mature persona with diligence and discipline. And he is so good in that world. I tell him he has the green thumb. He grows lemons in January, tomatoes in March, it's like he brought the California (or Mexico or Sardegna) weather onto his little patch of earth. He has his own weather patterns.

What is so wonderful to see is, though he has access to money and famous people, it seemed I saw a happy man up in my trees, doing what came naturally to him. Cecio dancing in the sky with his true self.

My yard is a better place for it. Green is good.


Next, we’re going to save the world for the bees and make safe havens for these gentle creatures that seem to be losing the battle against the march of progress.


On the wine trail: Canonnau grapes in North Texas. That's all the wine talk for this posting.

A Simple Trattoria in Rome

Nothing pretentious, just a real love for food and wine

Once Upon a Time in Rome
It must have been 1988 or 1990. We were in Rome, staying at the Rafael near Piazza Navona. It was June and not yet the scalding fry-pan Rome could sometimes become in the summer.

Twenty years before, I had wandered Rome for a week or two, with a camera. Looking back, I was capturing a city that was disappearing, a modern chapter that was submerging into history. That Rome is now gone and another layer has been covered over the one I first knew.

Italian White Wine ~ Which is North, Which is South?

Out from the pavilions, and back on the wine trail in Italy

Two wines that I had at Vinitaly earlier this month, one from the North and the other from the South.

On the Third Day
It all started during a day when my palate was worn out, my tongue literally was burnt, from tasting young red wine. Yeah, some of it had been micro-oxygenated, but a good portion had been barrel tormented. Fortunately the trend seems to be ending, especially in Piedmont (as opposed to Tuscany, another post for another day).

As a break, and still staying on a schedule, I opted for an afternoon of white wine tasting. Personal note, I like white wine, think Riesling is fantastic, love Verdicchio, Fiano, Grechetto, Garganega and almost any white wine well made. Savennieres, Chablis, you name it. Seems at times red wine will give my head a pounding.

From the Top
I started at the top and headed down the list. Two wines stood out. A Muller Thurgau and Traminer blend was one of the wines that really got my attention. Why? The crisp, clean flavors, the sharp acidity, the focus and the winemaking were spot on. The wine had healthy fresh fruit but wasn’t cloying. There was a good balance, great to sip as an aperitif but also available to go with food prepared from that fine Italian hand. A particular wine and very original.

The other wine, from a grape called Anas-cetta, has its roots drawn from the Sardegnan Vermentino. Rich and round, a little fuller bodied, slightly more alcohol, a touch, just an accent, of wood. Not too much. Here was a dancer, tanned and well fed but agile and graceful. We had this wine again at a hill-top restaurant with another gorge-us plate of hand-made pasta. Of course, with food it found its partner. And the dance was complete.

The Italian Paradox
Odd though, was that the two wines posed a bit of a paradox to those of us tasting them. The first wine felt cool and lean and slightly nervous like a wine from the Alto Adige. The second wine had the generosity of the sun, fullness and a voluptuousness one might think more likely to come from the sunny South.

One might think
The Muller-Thurgau and Traminer blend however, came from a volcanic hillside vineyard in Basilicata. A foggy, often harsh climate which makes for a struggle, both by humans and by grapes. Normally a place for one of the great red wines of the south, the Aglianico.


The Anas-cetta also came from a hillside, this one called Ravera, in Novello, in the Piemonte region. Another area known more for red wine, this time the Nebbiolo, where some of the great Barolo wines are born.

North is South and South is North
Seek these wines out, they are both artisanally produced in minute quantities. The Muller-Thurgau and Traminer blend is from Re Manfredi, called Terre degli Svevi (land of the Swabians, the empire of Federico II, also another subject for a future post). US importer is Frederick Wildman.

The Anas-cetta is from Valter Fissore of the Elvio Cogno winery. US importer is Vias. Valter and his wife Nadia reflect the young but solid second revolution we are beginning to see in Piemonte.

The restaurant? In La Morra, Ristorante Belvedere. The day we were there the Bel-vedere was shrouded in fog.

This is the view when the nebbia (fog) has cleared. Fortunately the food provided a clear view of the capability of the Piemontese kitchen.



Grazie, Valter.

Comments here:Italianwinetrail[at]yahoo[dot]com

Palate Pleasing Pomegranate Pandas

OK, so if the last few posts have been a little too serious or snarky, this one might sound a little too gum-popping casual. Bear with me. Or, rather, Panda.

Last week, at Vinitaly, we were tasting close to 100 wines a day. It's not because I was trying to prove anything to anyone. I just had a lot of people to meet with and a lot more wine to taste. That's the day job, living the dream. So I wish I could have had something to cleanse the palate with, something to help my tongue and the inside of my mouth, to get me through the next Primitivo, the next Barolo, the unavoidably over-oaked Super Tuscan.

Help came a week too late. A package of Bissinger's Pomegranate White Tea Gummy Pandas was given to me. Seems folks at the Dallas Morning News used them for an article, between wine courses, to do just that, clear the palate. I thought, Gummy Pandas? Not even the Bears, a knockoff Panda model? Then I tried them.



Something about the almost neutral quality of the pomegranate and the white tea along with the soft and chewy tannin-absorbency really makes this offbeat combination work. Try them out, if you care to. I'm hooked.

Don't worry, I have more pensive posts pending. While this might seem poised as pandering, it actually is a practical prescription for plain and simple palate cleansing.

Now, if we could just find a solution for the next epidemic that is plaguing the booths at Vinitaly - plumber's butt.

Wild Figs and Ancient Chants

Fishermen from Calabria, Italy - Alan Lomax

I turn on the music, and Albanian chants from Calabria flood my jet-lagged skull. “We’re not through with you yet. Take this back with you. Forget about filling up your suitcase with brochures and bottles of wine. Forget about the ties and the shirts and the socks. Do not forget us.”

“We are the ancient, the local, the thread in the core of the soul of this land. Get out of bed. You’re not sleeping anyway. Wake up and hear the clarions calling like so many souls from inside you.”

I was sitting in a palace near Lake Garda talking to a woman and her husband. They had been living in Istanbul for the better part of their adult lives. Her childhood home was just downhill from the villa, but she, like me, had found another way, another place to call home. While we all come back to visit and stay, there are those of us who must return to a place not where we came from.

Friday - Punch List & Memo to Italian Winemakers

Frankfurt-

A few thoughts....read at your own risk.


-Wine is still made in the vineyard.

-Wood barriques are on the wane.

-The coastal Tuscans still think they are in California.

-The inland Tuscans are more provincial about wine tastes than one might imagine

-While the US will probably become the largest market for Italy, maybe even larger than their domestic market, it probably will not include all the indigenous grape wines. So the Merlot and Cab and PG and Chianti and so on will grow, while the auchtochtono will be a challenge, even while interest in that area is growing.

- Sicily is a strong #3 for production, as long as the pricing doesn't go crazy.

- The US market will get more generic as quality of entry level wines continue to improve.

-Falanghina will be the southern Italian white that grows in the low end, Fiano in the high end.

-Wine consultants will downplay their role while continuing to push for MOx'd and cryo-mace'd in the production of inexpensive wines (although the pricing might not reflect that reality).

-Large retailers in the US will ape the Australian model when it comes to their exclusive labels; i.e. , Euro$2.30 a bottle ex cellar = 9.99 retail (at a minimum).


-$80.00+ SuperTuscan “internationals” will go the way of barrique aged Barberas. Inotherwords, they will be going away.

-Sicilians will get a major lesson in line extensions in the next 3 years. They will not be trading in their Ferraris every 2-3 years.

-America is going green and organic and simple. Less is more, small is beautiful, voluntary simplicity will be the new gold coast for wine marketers.

-Trendy oggi - finished domani.

-Young people will want simple, affordable, easy to digest wines that will fit their low-carbon imprint aspirations. Don't come to work the market with your $400.00 dolce and gabbana shades and expect a lot of sympathy (or co-operation) when you continue to raise prices to subsidize a trendy, materialistic and self
centered narcissistic lifestyle. America is entering a new age of austerity, with or without your wines.

-Start talking to the old people of your country before they die. Get their stories, learn their ways. Park your Vespa.

And cross check.

Vinitaly 2007 ~ The List of 20

Alba-
To anyone who wants the 20 point list for Vinitaly 2007, read on.

1)Best New Pavilion – 7B. Bright, energetic, cool. Sardegna, Umbria, Calabria, Basilicata. Loads of potential in that Pavilion.

2)Worst old school graphic – Pavilion 11 – Gianni Calugiuri – Nothing worse than an old man begging to sell his grapes.

3)Worst new school graphic – Pavilion 11 – a few booths away from the old man, what looked like his daughter in an updated view of “left holding the grapes”. Using beautiful, naked young women to sell NegroAmaro, shame, shame.


4)Worst winemakers experience in a Verona restaurant. Dino Illuminati at Cenacolo. Someone followed the party into the restaurant and took their car keys, then stole their car. Police said by the time they finished dinner the car was probably half way to Albania. Bummer.


5)Cool invention- Winemat 24 wine dispenser. We need a couple of those inside airports so we can access decent wine on the planes. Yeah, right.


6)Live Interview – Just so Beatrice doesn’t think I was lying on the beach

7)Most impressive winemaker - Casimiro Maulé from Nino Negri on the Valtellina. Whether he was talking to CEO’s of major companies or walking in the hills with his dog, I rather imagine this man responding to either in a simple, direct and honest way. The wines are exemplary , they are true to their “thereness” and Casimiro has a presence and a clarity and a happiness that most people would give a lot to have or at least to experience. Like being in the presence of a great sadhu , an enologo-yogi. Wow.

8)Scariest invention – Making wine from Chianti powder.

9)Most persistent trend – dry rose wines. Aglianico from Basilicata. Carignano from the Maremma, Nero D’Avola from Sicily. And the beat goes on and on and on.
10)Most interesting winemaker- Roberto Bava – His business is growing in double digits ( Piedmont wines) and he’s doing it without the US market. Which is a real shame, because the energy and the synergy he brings to the wine business is unique. Roberto understands linking ideas with the wines , bringing music and “outside of the carton” types of possibilities. Why doesn’t this man have an importer in America? Shame, shame.

11)Worst trend – Sicilian wineries making multiple lines of products. First Planeta started the ball rolling with al these lines and extensions and then Donnafugata followed. Now Firriato, Benanti, Tasca, La Lumia, Rapitala and too many others have followed in the footsteps of the California winemakers of the 1970’s. It was a time when someone like a Beringer or a Sebastiani or a Franciscan had not only Chardonnay, Cabernet, Merlot, Zinfandel, but also Charbono, Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Green Hungarian, a sparkling wine and a sweet wine. Note: Morgante makes two wines, a Nero d’Avola and a Nero d’Avola Reserve. ‘Nuff said?

12)Best Pavilion impression – The Campania pavilion with the nature scene turned upside down. Or was it the rest of us?

13)Best activity – The Funeral for Tocai Friulano. Hey Joe B, didn’t that make you cry?

14)Favorite find – wines of Calabria, especially the new wines from Librandi and also the producer Statti.

15)Happiest Winebow employee – Glen Thompson. Wine and Sausage. The man knows how to enjoy himself.

16)Time warp moment – Marina Barbi meeting when she pulled out my card, from 25 years ago. How come she looked younger than me?

17)Most uncomfortable meeting chairs – ouch, you want to talk to me for 45 minutes? I don’t think so.
18)Best booth in honor of my intern, Beatrice Russo, back home in Texas. Yes, it was in the Sicilian pavilion. No, that isn’t her. But it could be her cousin.

19)Most womblike entrance which also incorporated a winery logo. Mionetto Mondo.

20)Best impersonation of a winemaker – among other things.

The Old Man is Lost in the Crowd

Guest commentary by Beatrice Russo


"Vinitaly is too busy, Internet connections are available but who has time with so many wines to taste and people to meet, I will write when I return, all is well."

So says the wise old man in Italy. Well somebody has to do it, I guess. If he hasn't taken a short hop to Palermo or Instanbul with his new friends, I think he will sometime send more information about the wine fair. I am too busy myself to write in his place, my new project and all.

So do some spring cleaning, work in the garden, read a book, Alfonso will come back with stories, I am sure of this.

later....Bea

Five Things You Should Know About Vinitaly

This week the Big Guns come out to Verona. It's Vinitaly time. Here's my list of five things you ought to know.

1. It’s a place to see some of Italy’s best and brightest winemakers.
Whatever they have been thinking about last year, like their shoes, it is sure to have changed. That is just the nature of the Italian sensibility. Always fiddling always tweaking. Never finished. If you don’t like barrique aged wines, it will (and has) changed. It you don’t like micro-oxygenation, don’t worry. Same goes with “international style”. Hankering for “thereness?” It will be there. Don’t like the label on one of your favorite wines? No problem, that will also change. Don’t understand Italian? Speak English or French or Spanish.
The young generation of Italian winemaking families has started taking the reins and they understand tradition and their responsibility. Italy is the great wine producing country that has managed to stay in front of their past accomplishments. Walk through the Sicilian pavilion and feel (and hear) the energy of the ancient island, now strutting onstage with youthful energy and aplomb. Head over to the Marche booths and taste the wonderfully juicy Sangiovese and Montepluciano wines, the Verdicchio and Pecorino and see what a little region to the side of Rome is doing. Hint: they ain’t standing still. You think Tuscany is boring? Think again, we’re talking major mojo here. And while in the back yard of the Valpolicella producing area, Verona shows her local wines with great pride, and they should. Amarone and the like have never been more exciting and delicious. So there.

2. Verona and the surrounding area have an abundance of great dining.
Since 1984 I don’t recall going to one restaurant more than twice and that would be less than three or four times, at most. Whether in Verona city or on the outskirts, up in the hills or towards Lake Garda, this area is a Mecca for food lovers. Seafood from the Adriatic or the lakes, all kinds of meat (and I mean “all kinds”) braised, boiled, grilled, stewed, roasted and on better than another. Close your eyes, spin around, and when you stop, open and walk to the first place which serves food. That simple. That good.

3. Parking is a major pain. And then there's the rain.
Getting better, but always a challenge. Italians and parking, it’s a pastime; it’s their fantasy football league in kinetic form. And finding the perfect parking place in which to exit the fair quickly in order to make it to dinner, well that’s a fine art. I have two places scoped out after all these years, and I’m not telling anyone where they are. And the rain. Take two umbrellas so you can give one to the person with you who forgot, so you don’t have to share your umbrella and get wet. That has happened too many times, trying to be the nice guy, sharing an umbrella that I planned to bring. Just bring two, only two.

4. You will never be able to see it all.
Imagine all these uber-football field sized pavilions, maybe 10 or 11 of them holding one or two football fields. There is just now way you can conquer the scale of Vinitaly. Appointments are becoming necessary. That’s a good thing. Depending on how long you are going for, if it’s just a day or two, go see some of your favorite producers or friends, but try to make time to explore, be it the Alto Adige or the Campania booths. It’s a little vacation to the region, with folks bringing their lemons and aunts’ cookies, their local weavings to decorate their booths, maybe something particularly indicative of their place. Remember this is Disneyland for Italian wine lovers with Main Street, Tomorrowland, Fantasyland and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride all there, for your enjoyment.

5. The combined energy and ambition of Italy’s wine industry, in one place and for five four days, is a major rejuvenator.
This is the real reward of Vinitaly. Never in one place have I ever felt like I was around like-minded folks. And while like-minded might not be the correct description, most of the people are there to uplift and improve the nature of the Italian wine business. It is art, it is commerce, it is industry. It is also tradition, and local, and international. It’s all that and more. It's tapping into the past, the present and the future, a mainline connection to the Italian Wine gods, Bacchus, Dionisio & Co.

Pictures and reports will follow in the next week or so, if I have a good connection. My “intern”, Beatrice Russo, might also chime in from time to time. She is working on a new project or two, and folks have told me they like her perspective. Thank you.

Ci vediamo!

Cadillac Fever

There they were, waiting for me as I landed in Dallas from La Guardia, the good ‘ol boys. I had just come back on a flight with a guy from Midland, born and raised in the dusty desolate town that's had its share of desperados.

This ‘ol boy, he luuuvvved Midland. But his lady friend lived in New York. So he had to haul his tail up there to get whatever he thought he needed from his gal in Gotham.

One thing he said, and he said a lot of things, ‘cause he was about two days too many away from Texas, he said, “There’s too much concrete and not enough sunsets.” I couldn’t disagree. Something about living in the West that just gets under your skin. To make matters worse, he pulled out the latest copy of Texas Farm and Ranch magazine, and he asked me if I wanted a look-see. Damn him.

They got me with that little Hill Country spread in Bandera County. Real nice.

Meanwhile, giant mosquitoes are attacking me in my bed and it's just March. I’ll never get out of here. Cadillac fever’ll get me.

At the Dallas airport, the old man was waiting by the car, lighting up another cigarette. He looked like he just came from a funeral.

It was 12:30, time for a late lunch. All that NY pizza and vegetarian food ‘like to mess up my regimen of steak and ribs. That was about to get rectified.

At the chop house, the usual table was waiting. Liquor was ordered, not wine. Time was slowing down, and something was about to fall from the sky, I felt an impending message coming on. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Better just 'buck up and face it, sooner than later.


“Son,” he said, “do you see what I’m holding in my hand?” I replied that it looked like whisky. “Damn right! And you want to know why we’re drinking it?” I figured he liked the stuff. Sometimes on airplanes, the whiskey was better than most wines offered. He clarified our position. “Son, this whiskey keeps the lights on. If these folks pull the plug, we can all go home. Now, if one of these here whiskey fellers brings us a wine to sell, don’t go into a big song and dance about how smart y'all wine folks are and how ignorant them spirits boys are, ya hiyrr me?”

Yes sir, don’t want the lights to go all blooey on us.

“And when you and your boy head out to Ittly next week, don’t be finding any more wine to fill up the warehouses with. We got enough, and tell them there Eyetalians so. Tell ‘em to make less and make it better and charge less for it. That’s what’ll work here in the lower midsection of America, down heeya in the crotch.”

And with that, juicy steaks arrived with baked potatoes and lots of farm fresh butter and chives and sour cream and fresh pepper. It wasn’t cold outside, and the landscape wasn’t littered with dirty grey-black snow. It was 68°F, and bright and clear.

Crystal clear.

Afterwards I set out to find Beatrice Russo. It seems some of my old wines had been depleted. I noticed a bottle of some ancient Barolo in the trash bin, along with a Champagne bottle or two, a Roederer and a Pol Roger. And a bottle of La Chapelle Hermitage 1985.

Oh yeah, and my bottle of Gran Gala that I had sitting there to take to the newspaper, so they could photograph it for an article; it was 2/3rds empty.

I better go find that young lady.



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