Perception is Reality

The picture above is a favorite of mine. It hangs in my bedroom. Shot by James Evans, who lives out west in the Big Bend area of Texas. It is of a bull snake on a couch. I love it for the texture and the movement and the hint of danger.

But the bull snake isn’t lethal. It just looks that way.

Things are all mixed up these days. We seek local and pummel the word sustainable about, like a swordfish being cut up for the seafood counter. But what are we really looking for? Are we looking for the truth? Do we want to fear something that really isn’t worthy of such trepidation? How does that relate to this Italian wine thing?

Let’s look at these words: local, unique, safe, affordable.

Local- Unless you are in Italy, Italian wines aren’t going to be considered local. So one must consider the trade off. You can get a local wine in most places, and it should be good enough for your needs. You could also drive a car (If you are in the US, a Chevy, for instance) and it will get you where you want to go. One doesn’t need a Maserati anymore than one needs a Brunello. Oh, but, you say, you like the Maserati and the Brunello? Because it is unique. OK.

Unique – Just like Bar-B-Q is unique in Texas, or Ruby Red grapefruits from the Big Valley down there, things unique have a way of endearing themselves to folks. They are dear and often precious. Taste, texture, feeling, scent, many facets of the jewel that one is attracted to. Italian wines are unique and so because of that people are drawn to them for pleasure and enjoyment, stimulation, physical as well as intellectual. And because of this we can be reasonably assured that the product is good for us. It is safe.

Safe- very much buzzing about this lately. People are inventorying their possessions and jettisoning things made in China. Clothing made in Bangladesh or Costa Rica, are the conditions for the workers safe? Or would their lives be worse off if they didn’t have that job? Meat packers in the US, in the early 1900’s, children in factories in the late 1800’s, scenarios that played out for cheap goods but at the expense of the health and welfare of the humans, or other living creatures, involved in the production of these materials. Today not many of us make our own clothes, and fewer and fewer are making their own meals. Italian wines, while not all have been always safe, have a record as good or better than much of the world wine producing areas. And often affordable.

Affordable – Up until recently Italian (and European) wines and other goods have been a good deal for those using the US dollar. There is a pause, at this moment, because, we are seeing the erosion of the US currency. The Canadian dollar is climbing over it, the Euro has left it behind, the Yuan is a rising red sun. An Italian Chianti now sells for about US$12.00, on average. Yellow Tail Shiraz sells for US$8.00. Now there is a difference; the region, the grape, the experience. But the challenge in 2008 and 2009 will be large, and marketers and wine lovers will be challenged to make sure they don’t sacrifice unique and safe over affordable.

The snake is in the living room, settled and comfortable on the couch. It will take plenty of effort and courage to look it straight in the eyes and determine if it is dangerous or not. The challenge, of our perceived view of things, will be to generate a reality that will still honor the local producers (even if they are thousands of miles away) and encourage them to retain their unique qualities along with continuing to make them safe and wholesome and if possible, within our means.



Photographs: Top one by James Evans; all the rest from the Flickr Italy in Black & White photo group.

A Rat, a Blister, Fast Cars & Women on the Prowl

Blog Advisory: Strong language, graphic depictions and wanton women.

There is no real reason to continue. I have fallen off the Italian wine trail. Ken Burns did it to me. I sat there and looked at all those bloody war pictures. It was like someone taking a carton of cigarettes to a desert island and smoking them until they were gone. Finally cured.

And then I walked into my garage in the morning. I smelled gas, decaying hair, skin and bone. Like someone had left the freezer open and all the deer and pheasant conspired to repulse my olfactory sense. Overload. And then I saw a dead rat, the size of a small cat. The source of this aromatic inferno.

I was thinking about a description I had once read, of a soldier who had walked into Auschwitz. His account was dominated by the smell of the place. The gas, the decayed and burnt flesh.

My garage smelled like he described Auschwitz. And I was heading out to lunch. Yes, definitely off the Italian trail.


After about fifteen minutes, I landed inside a little bistro, took a corner seat and set up shop. Like Giuseppe Baldini, the perfume maker. The wonders of the wine world explode on screen. The catalogue of wine that was before me was something to marvel at. Wine, rows and rows of wine in warehouses, reduced to a simple spreadsheet. Meursault, Amarone, Pinot Noir from Arroyo Grande, Gaglioppo from Calabria. Like bergamot and lily and oudh and sandalwood, all the wonderful essences of aromas. So too,

Moments later I walk into a boutique wine shop, run by a very fine, young man from an American mother and a Persian father. The shop wafted aromas of leather and sweet cedar, a smoky habanera cigar box, as if one were in the middle of a humidor surrounded by great wines, oils and tobaccos. A feast for those blinded by their senses. As if in a dream.

I was heading to the Maserati dealer. They were having a party later that night and I stopped by to see if they had chosen wines for it. An attractive young lady, well-tanned, with better curves than the Maserati, was dispatched to offer assistance. “Why don’t you donate some Pinot Grigio and Prosecco for tonight’s party?” Sure, and how about that Quattroporte for a week, in exchange? Everything is negotiable.

The catering company had already ordered the wines. They were good enough, but they were not the Italian that the Maserati was. Nor as well-tanned.

A young chef would present food from a menu he would be serving in a new restaurant. A swirl of controversy surrounded him in the local press, as it seemed someone in his investment circle had decided on a derivative of the chef’s name for the restaurant. No one bothered to vet the name for any possibility that somewhere on the Italian peninsula it might have some derogatory or unpleasant connotation. There are 15 ways to tell someone their mate is sleeping with another person. There are scores of names for a woman’s most private part, and also a man’s. One does not call Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous painting the Mona Lisa, in Italy. There it is called La Gioconda, where it doesn't refer to any of her parts, public or private.


To make matters a little more comical, the name also referred to a very tired brand of Italian wine. As if it weren’t bad enough that one would name their restaurant the slang for bulls_ _ t, they also were bill boarding the tired old wine of the Veneto. Perfect. And I would have to step into that fray, someday, and try to make sense of our part in their wine program? Maybe I should spend a week in San Quentin, preparing for further humiliation. Yes, it’s a dream job, in a dream life. Our fondest dream.

So, that evening, the young chef is splaying out polenta and small pieces of unidentifiable protein, the band is playing peppy music, Prosecco is having foreplay with orange juice and a new model of 2-door Maserati is laying under wraps waiting to disrobe amidst the Kubrick-like setting. Soon-to-be trophy wives were circling the room in search of future ex-husbands. Dallas. Big D. Shark-o-rama.


The well-tanned curvy one spots me and grabs my hand to welcome me into this scene. One of only 3 faces I would recognize in that menagerie, but not enough to keep me from downing the prosecco, finding an emergency exit and heading to a safe haven.

Maybe that Italian wine trail isn’t such a bad idea after all.

$treet $mart$

Guest commentary by Beatrice Russo

What is it about old people? IWG comes up to me other day and says, “Uh, you know you haven’t sent in a blog posting since middle of August?” Uh, gee, I didn’t know it was my job. Hey, Unc, nobody cares about your blog. Got it? And he comes right back, “Uh, so I guess you didn’t have a good time in France?” Oh so, that’s the game you be playin?

So he’s all laid out before the TV waiting for Ken Burns to tell him how The War ended. And he’s been that way every night. Never knew he was such a history buff.

And then during a break he says he’s thinking of moving to Chicago. What? Says there’s some action up there with something going on, money, position; other side of the hill it sounds like to me. He is one tripped out dude, and I can’t believe he lets me post this.

So, France was cool. I had just watched Antonioni’s L’Avventura, so it all influenced me a bunch. Monica Vitti, what an actor. She nailed that certain period in one’s life when there just needs to be a direction and all there seems to be is one endless drama after another. I can relate to it, but not right now. Life is good.

Drew (Ziff) and his new restaurant, going well. He has me cataloguing new wines coming in. Getting ready for the opening. And he has brought on board Brandan, who reminds me of IWG’s son, Rafa. Brandan came from a very cool place, York Street, I even thought of wanting to work there once. But no way am I jumping, now that I have a steady job that I like.

IWG dragged me around one day in France. We left real early and headed down to a place in the south of France, Grasse. He’s all Jumanji about aromas lately. He has this 24 page book he has made with smells and their scientific formula names. He goes around saying things like, warm essence of musk and bergamot, things like that. Kinda creepy, but then when we taste a wine and one of the descriptions matches the nose, I’m like, wow, this is cool. So, I forgive him.


Anyway we drove so long it seemed we were almost going to Italy (I wish). But we get to this town and he goes to some building that has this real scientific look to it. Find out it’s a perfume school and he is there to visit an old friend who teaches there. They make scents for all kinds of things, perfumes, nail polish, soaps, everything it seems, except wine. What? The friend says they even make vegetable based scents to “enhance” the aroma and flavor of wine. No way. Those French folks, they are a crafty lot.

A nice lunch and a pale rosé from the area, the two of them go off into a lab afterwards and I excuse myself to go walking the town. The place does have an unusual scent to it, like a closet I once walked into, a friend’s grandmother who asked me to put a hat box on the top shelf. Just like her closet, all kinds of musty, musky, dusty, flowery, totally overwhelming scene.


It got me to thinking about my mother and dad and my twin and for a moment in the sun, in the south of France, I allowed myself a moment of regret and pity. But I say to myself, I am well, I have work, people like me. I am young; I have my whole life before me. This will pass. And it does.

Later that night after we get back to the chateau there is a bottle or two of unusual liqueurs. IWG goes for the absinthe, but I spy some flowery looking bottle that looks old. It says Grand Marnier Cuvée du Cent-Cinquantenaire, so I take a pull of it into a snifter. By this time everyone at the table is getting plowed with XO Cognac or some other kind of liqueur, but it’s just a short climb up the stairs to bed. No big deal. So I step outside to listen to the owls and the frogs and stick my nose in the snifter. The whole south of France was inside. It was like being on a ledge overlooking the ocean and all of a sudden fear was so intense that my senses were elevated to a higher degree of receptivity. That’s what I must do with this sommelier business.


Nothing above me, nothing below me, so I leap off.
Something I read in one of IWG’s old hippy paperbacks.

Brunello in Bergerac

Something that I’ve been thinking about since my trip to France last week. First, this proviso: France is one of the top countries in the world for food, for wine, for cheese, for bread. So let it not be misunderstood that I don’t like French products, culture, etc., because they are a lot closer to the Italian experience than, say, China or India. OK?

One night we were sitting around the hearth with a simple meal. There was cheese, there was a little chicken, there was bread, there was wine. We started with a Bordeaux Supérieur. A nice wine, good flavors, nothing improper about it. We finished the bottle and the owner of the chateau went down to the cave and brought back a bottle of Brunello. By this time we were on the cheese course and pretty much finished with the big meal.

We opened the Brunello, a 2001, and decanted it. Gave it a 10 minute period of adjustment. And dove into it.


About an hour or so later when were well into Cognac, I got to thinking about it. Now this is strictly a personal take. My view and nothing more. A light went off inside, an ah-ha moment. Now I get it, now I understand why people are so intimidated by Italian wine. It’s really, really complicated. It isn’t simple. It’s always changing. You can’t go from one region to other without scores of new grape varieties ending up in the bottle or the carafe on the table. It is difficult.

Like the Italian kitchen. The way they cook in Valle d’Aosta differs from the way they cook in Sicily. Enormously . It ain't all spaghetti and meatballs. Duh. But wait, what is the message pounded year after year; from the Lady and the Tramp café love scene to I love Lucy grape stomps, to the Soprano’s. The message: Italy is this. Meatballs, wicker and goomba's.


Is that Italy? Really?

Well, it just ain’t so. Italy, wine, food and culture, isn’t some cookie cutter representation. It isn’t monolithic and sometimes it isn’t pretty. But it is a work in progress. And for folks who like change and the differences, it is a Holy Land of wine and food. Not to say France is below par, not at all. But for a certain temperament, say mine, Italy resonates so deliciously within me that, even though it is complicated and unpredictable, it fits. Perfectly.

So how does that play into the American landscape? The answer is I don’t know. I do know there are people in Midland who understand what I am talking about, because I have talked with them till late at night about this. And they are infinitely more frustrated than the average Italian restaurateur in Queens or Brooklyn. This I know. But Midland doesn’t present itself as the cutting edge of culture (and don’t we all know that now after these past few years).

My interest is in what places like Birmingham, AL, or Novato, CA, or White Plains, NY or Snohomish, WA think and do, and are showing in their cultural evolution and development in that they are integrating some Italian-ness into their daily lives. It might just be a great espresso or a home made mozzarella. It might be a gelato that rivals Sicily or Venezia, or it might be that they just like living a lifestyle that resembles somewhere on the Italian peninsula. This is the vision I had, sitting inside a 400 year old chateau, sipping on a Brunello, in Bergerac.


Pass the passito.

Random Thoughts at Week's End

I’m staring at a set in the wine section and this old man calls out to me. “How did I get here?” He’s trapped on a label of a Tuscan wine.

He’s hovering around the Tuscan section, but he should be happy. He landed in Austin, Texas and someone will think it’s cool and wierd enough to pick up. There’s a lot of that in Austin. And lots of wealth. Welcome home.
After traveling around France for a week or so, staying far from urban centers and deep in the country, I am happy that owls still shriek at night and bull frogs still bellow into the early morning.

The natural life – a true break from the day to day work of making the world turn.

Yeah, yeah, no one cares about my blog or your blog or Myanmar or Ahmadinejad .

Meanwhile, all the containers are lined up – wine is on its way. Here come the harvests of ’03,’04 and ’05.

Kicking Back in Perigord

We were still a few days off from the beginning of harvest. Based in Bergerac for the remainder of the trip, it gave us a good jumping off point to explore nearby areas, St. Emilion, Monbazillac and Perigord. Friends who own a tower invited us over for lunch, commencing at the Perigueux market. And while the grapes were still a few days away, fruits and veggies, and the endless foie gras, were plentiful. The only thing I lacked was a back scratcher. But I improvised.

Actually the back went out right about then, so mobility was limited to a slower pace. No big deal, although 10 days later this is getting a bit tiresome. Meh.

So a short display of pictures I like. Anybody who cares to can go to my Webshots slideshow to see the whole shooting match.

The raspberries. Right behind the oyster counter.

Ever had an oyster with a Kir and a raspberry chaser?

Two little goats. Part of my aroma-vacation. Smelled like an old David Bruce Pinot Noir from the 1970’s.
I like the little guy on the left, he was assertive, in the game. Could use some salespeople like him.

Baby ducks. On a farm called a Ferme Auberge. Similar to an Italian Agriturismo, a Ferme Auberge must produce a large amount of what it serves right there on the farm. The one we went to, Ferme-Biorne, was country cooking at its best. More on the farm and the food here.

The little rabbits we found at the market in Perigueux. The Ferme Auberge also raised the little creatures and they were tasty!

And that’s how Cyrano spent the weekend, a week or so ago, in under 300 words.

L'Odore Del Tuo Raspare

I’m asleep, dreaming about being trapped in a room full of snakes (triggered by a glass of absinthe?). In the distance, outside, in the dark, a tractor is going up and down the rows of vines, harvesting the white grapes. In the afternoon it had rained and the owner of the chateau was worried. The approach of the harvester wakes me. It smells musty, like rancid heather and ancient, dusty ambergris. It’s 5:30 AM. Again.

A week earlier I was stuffed into a plane to cross over to France, excited about visiting the planet of Aroma. On the plane, a young man in dirty jeans sat next to me. He reeked of mustard, sweat and semen. My nose isn’t my best friend on a plane. I took off my seat belt and headed into the restroom, where I thrust water into my nostrils to wash out the arôme de foutre.


A glass of cheap Bordeaux, an Ambien and 25mg of a generic antihistamine, that’s my “formule”. Six hours later I wake up ready to land in Paris.

I have taken my nose on vacation. The rest of me doesn’t want to be here. Part of me wants to stay home and look after family matters, of which I can do nothing about. Another part of me just wants water, a beach and a platter of grilled langosta. Not this time.

The walk to the rental car. In the airport terminal there lingers the aroma of cigarettes, dark Turkish. Resin, patchouli, more sweat, this time from Africa, paste wax, silicon spray and burnt crust.

Once in the parking lot, the pavement, a mixture of tar and concrete, wet from a recent morning rain, welcomed me to the earth of France with a coppery, rust-like greeting. Once at the counter, the cultures of people from three continents helped me to pick up my car. The European smelled like butter and violets, the Asian reminded me of frankincense and pork brisket and the African smelled of starched cotton, and pine that had marinated in an ant pile.

On the road to Beaune I find an Autogrill. Hoping for un café Italien, I get a soppy mass of dank, dark bitterness.


A moment in Beaune, and back to the road, across the massive central of the country. France, a country as large as Texas. And we are driving down it, across it, over it and, eventually, back to where we started.


Along the way a short stop in a little run down hotel with a restaurant on the second floor. The aromas of burgundy wine steeped in an oven with lamb and veal. Ripe local cheeses, perfume from an elderly lady, and the smell of the dust of baking flour, a thin sheet of mist that settles on everything. It is invisible, but, like scent, is very present. A moment with a bottle of rosé wine, a plate of string beans in butter and olive oil, like my grandmother used to make when I was the only one at the house. I used to ask her, “Nonna, why butter and oil?” She would say, “So we can always remember the times when we can afford both butter and olive oil.” This would be a short long trip across the plane of the country we were now exploring, this planet of perfume and forests, butter and duck fat, Pinot Noir and Merlot.

As mentioned two weeks ago, time to take some deep breaths. And what a place, where all the aromas and smells one could imaging are gathered in this confluence of aromatic ecstasy. A chunk of bread, a slice of cheese and a row of lavender. Did you notice I didn’t mention wine? Not yet. Remember? We've just started harvest.

Coup de Gras

Dale is doing his supertrooper thing, busy ganging up all the local sommelier talent for his latest venture.

Ziff, meanwhile, has been taking pleasure in the delights of the French countryside during the harvest season.

Foie gras entier de canard, Confit ou magret sauce périgueux, cabécou du Périgord.

Grapes, strawberries, raspberries.

Cahors, cognac, absinthe.

The plat thickens here in the enoblogosphere.

I'll Be Seeing You

Beatrice , Arthur and I will be taking some time off, convinced it is time to take some deep breaths of fresh air.

When the ship returns, so shall we.

Mortadella, Portobello, Mozzarella

At the Italian buffet today, Francesco had lots of good offerings. Andrea asked the server about the mushroom that was offered. "What is it?” he asked, "Porcini?"

The server said "No, Mortadella."

"Are you sure?” IWG asked. "It looks more like Portobello."

"We call it Mortadella in Spain." the server responded.

“What do you call the meat that looks like Baloney?” Andrea asked?

The server replied, “Mozzarella.”

Guards! seize him!

Click on image to enlarge

The 300

Beatrice and Arthur challenged me to write something in 300 words or less; a length that wouldn’t lose their generation. I have been on the road, working out of hotel rooms, long hours. So that could be easier than usual.

Today I see many new faces in the wine scene. Young men and women just starting out on wine trail, needing to learn about wine. They are moving through the stages of wine faster than previous generations. What’s that mean? Usually one would start out with fruity or sweet wines, Riesling or a fruity Zinfandel, moving on to Beaujolais and then on the Cabernet and then on to Burgundy. Something like that. But in a time span of maybe 5-15 years. Now we have youth in the 20’s who say, great, Napa Valley Cabernet, what's next? For me that is a revelation. Also, these newborns aren’t afraid of the $20 price tag. Hey, they are driving BMW 3 series and plunking down payments on urban loft spaces. They are expecting the good life. Minor concern is they cycle through the process so fast they keep sailing right out through the exit-chute. Then we are left with the next cycle of bambini and the process of exciting, educating and keeping them engaged in this profession.

What can help? Travel, tasting and talking to different folks in their world of wine. When you see that you belong to a small global community of like-minded people whom you can have friendships with, it makes up for perhaps not having the biggest paycheck in your peer group. Challenging yourself to the mastery of something is an honorable endeavor. I stand along the trail with my pitons and haul bags, ready to help any and all, on their way up the summit.

Dream Storyboard

It isn’t about Italy. It isn’t about wine. And what trail have you been on? Those were the words that came hurtling at me like so many spears in the sky, blotting out the light, bringing on the darkness. If my eyes hadn’t already been closed. And if I hadn’t already been asleep for some time.

Today’s post isn’t so much about words as it is about images from a dream.

Pictures to follow, view on...