The Butterfly Madonna (with child) ~ Balboa, California ~ 1974
The notes from Italy keep coming. This time is was from Gianpaolo Paglia, a winemaker in the Maremma. He’s in the trenches, working the vines, punching down the caps and dealing with all the changes in Italian society in the 21st century.
Some of his thoughts:
“I can tell you that there is something wrong here.
“People here are afraid of this new world and this new age.
“...They don't (know) what to expect next. They are not used to it, they have never been faced with the outside world, with this new world where economies that once were considered third world countries are now running at a speed that we don't understand. Our schools, our politicians, our people are not prepared to (do) that, hence the feeling of dis-ease.
“The only thing we really need is to reset the country. Have a new start with a new and more realistic vision of the world. We have to grow up and abandon our nest, which is falling down the tree anyway.”
His complete comments here.
Those remarks could have come from someone in the US today as well. The only difference is that our country is younger and more confident in our youthful idea that we are right. Does that make sense? Talk to a young person in their 20’s and they have it all figured out. Or so they believe. And it is like that with this young society. But, there is a key to getting us all through it, in the confluence of the old world with the new world.
This dovetails with something I was talking about to a group of restaurant operators. Italy gave many of their people to America, albeit not so voluntarily. They came to America looking for opportunities. They were entrepreneurial in their nature. America was (and still is) a laboratory for immigrants looking to remake themselves, like Gianpaolo says, to reset their lives. And along with that they made a life here in these lands. But somewhere along the way, many of us turned back to the old country to see where our grandparents came from. And we saw beauty and possibility. It was easier to see it from a distance.In any event, it is probably a pipe dream, thinking that we could start something up in Italy faster than we could in the US. I have already abandoned the idea of living part-time in Italy in the future. In fact, my preference will be to find a rural area somewhere like in the hill country of Texas. Why? Because I know it will be less of a hassle to get things done. Bit I have veered off course. Back onto the Autostrada.
There is a great deal of cynicism in Italy among people in their 50’s and beyond, people who control the economy and the cultural strings that keep the kites in the air. A large part of it is economic power, but that is conservative in nature and it muffles the entrepreneurial spirit so prevalent in the bones of Italians, specially the young ones. Politicians also keep that under cover because they want their power and the money that goes with it. Comfort, ease, control.
What we owe to Italy, here in America, is repayment for sending some of their best and their brightest out into the world, never to return home. Italy, unlike places like France, shared much of their talent with the world. Italy went global before it was an idea. And now they see countries like South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore catching up, fast. It is important to let Italy know that we understand the sacrifice the country made in the 19th and 20th centuries, with the Italian diaspora into the new worlds.
So what can we do?
We have to be patient with things like the exchange rate, which has changed 15% since July. Gasoline - in Italy is $8.00 a gallon. Salaries - $30,000 is considered a good wage. Housing – 1,500 square feet for 3-4 people is a goal. This is really a pittance compared to our super-sized expectations here in the US. Our grasp exceeds our needs. But Italy looks to America and says, “We want some of that.”
Cernilli, The Reluctant Midwife?
Yet, we will still buy the wines and the clothes and the cheeses and prosciutto and the cars. Quality will always have a market but the market might recess a little in 2008. Today an importer told me one of his top-selling Pinot Grigios was going up $15 a case. That translates to almost an additional $2.50 per bottle on the retail shelf (online a little less, but there is delivery costs). He also told me that one of his best-selling Ripasso style wines was going up $20.00. Again, that is close to $3.00 more on the retail shelf. Maybe $1.80 if you are Vaynerchuk & Co. selling it, but again there are delivery costs and the hassle of buying a wine under $25.00 and waiting for it to get to your home.
The market will sort most of this out. Today I am tasting more than 30 Malbec, Carmenere, Bonarda and Cab/Merlot blends from South America. A wine writer is looking for good-tasting reds that will be considered values. That used to be the home turf of wines like Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, Valpolicella Ripasso, Primitivo and Nero D’Avola. No longer. The Italians who moved to Argentina and Chile are creating wines to compete with their uncles' wines back home. Interesting and challenging times.
My point? A rambling one at that, it seems. But if someone would ask me how we could get through this next 18 months, how an Italian wine producer could contribute to making this less painful, here's what I would say:
Please stay in the fields with us, you with the vines, us with the newly born wine drinkers. Let’s tighten up our habits of affluence. Maybe not a new car this next year. Maybe not spending so much time and money on leisure. Spend a little more time not on vacation, perhaps? Pursue what Gianpaolo calls a “more realistic vision of the world.” Get your global goggles on, folks, and gather your tools.
Let’s get busy and deliver this baby.
I got a note from a friend in Italy. Small talk about the holidays, the wine harvest, comings and goings about a couple of mutual friends. Then my friend dropped a bomb.
My first trip to Italy, I walked around in jeans and sandals, with long curly hair, looking at “my people.” I really felt that I’d found the tribe I came from. I gazed upon the people as if they weren’t capable of any crime, sadness or malaise. I wandered the streets of Rome with a camera and a canteen, capturing images from every epoch on display.
The animals make more and more sense to me everyday. They live in balance with our world. They know not of our rules; they answer to a higher source than man. I like the animals more everyday. The pitiful little black cat that waits by my front door for a little food, sometimes in the bitter cold. The baby possums and their mom that come out at night and empty the dish when the cat has gone. The bees in my tree that have set up their business in the owl house. The sparrow hawk couple that comes back every year to nest and mate in the big tree next to my house. The chimney sweeps that come back in the late spring to hang out in my chimney. These creatures aren’t mad, they aren’t angry. They don’t need therapists. They haven’t stopped talking to their mothers. They don’t have these modern problems of civilization. But they do have to live in harmony with people, or at least figure out how to stay out of the way of our oncoming, “Get the hell out of my way” Hummer mentality.
The path of the wine trail took me today to a Chinese family who has had their restaurant for 33 years. The father has passed on, and the son and his wife now gaze into the pond of his dream and are working to re-cast their nets into it for the next 33 years.
Just like the winemaker. It can start with one person, and then maybe the family, a son or a daughter, can take it into the next generation. In Italy we see it often, because it has to be carried forward. There is more tradition in Italy with the wine, but we’re also talking people’s lives being lived in the service of the land and the fruit and the miraculous process and lastly, the people who will open the bottles and hope to enjoy the fruits of the labors.
Why do we eat out? That was the question I was asking myself today at lunch. I was in a little Italian-styled restaurant where we had convinced the owners to do a progressive wine list. Unfortunately they hired a manager, still wet behind the ears, who thinks he knows better. “The people can’t find the wines they are looking for; we need to make it easy for them.” We were – by arranging the wines in the order of their styles so they wouldn’t have to depend on the constant turn of wait staff and managers who have no real life experience in these matters.
The Italians have been wonderful for all of us. Who would have thought a simple plate of pasta would give so much pleasure day after day, throughout the generations? A little flour, an egg, some water. A little tomato or maybe some porcini. And cheese, my heroin.
Not just the Italians though. One day on a Good Friday in Frankfurt, we happened to walk by their Wall Street, the Börse. Outside, tents had been erected and impromptu wine bars were pouring Riesling and Muller-Thurgau to the businessmen and women. What a grand revelation – the leaders of business for one of the strongest industrial and economic powers, lollygagging outside, talking to each other on the eve of a holiday. Drinking wine, not making money. How civilized, I mused, how very wonderful.
The fabulous city of slow food, 
A picnic in Perigord. A visit to the farmers market and a wine shop or two. A roasted chicken, some potatoes, and green beans. And red wine from Cahor. A light breeze through the trees that were shading and cooling us, and people we just met were strangers no more. Today one of the couples emailed me from New York. They were at Babbo and were wondering about a Traminer on the list. Not some traditional, tired wine list. They had their hands on a list with spunk, with balls. For lovers and fighters, with passion and purpose.
The road whisked us along the mountain trail, once a stream for winter runoff. As the autumn light faded, the ancient crags loomed ominously. We were on our way down now.
Waiting is what they are still doing, more than two years after Katrina hit. From above, one can still see the path of destruction that has reshaped a region. On the ground, hopeless folk wait for help from their countrymen. But a war must be waged on, we must all descend into Hell a little more. The grapes sit in the tank, fermentation is stuck, the barrels stop churning. Stopped.
More rain, more snow, more darkness is on its way. Hurrying to finish the tanks, filled with the blood of the gods, it presses on. Forcing their way into something useful, maybe even wonderful. One thing is certain, if it is to be wine, it must have a strong heart and a will to make it through the darkness and the bitter cold.
Once it has made its way towards becoming something other than a failed attempt, then it begins its long, solitary march towards refinement. Again, in darkness and silence, the new born waits, barely stirring. As if the mediation in the barrel would be enough. As long as all that it needs to be great came through the vine and made it through the hopper, the crush and the selection. Otherwise all it would become would be worthless plonk for a million barren shelves in anonymous supermarkets, in towns long forgotten by greatness or destiny. But that day of reckoning is still some time off. Now is the time for more slumber in the quiet and the dark of the secured cellar room.
They will have to overcome the barriers to entry into the new world. Just like the 21st century immigrants, often branded criminals, many for want of a better life. But in this case the barrier will be in the exchange of the price from the strong currency of their motherland to the weak one of this New Power. Once again they will have to prove their value, as if making it through the crags and the sticks and the storms and the flush of fermentation wasn’t challenge enough. No, now they will have to be subjected to the animal, known as man, and his market forces. Powers that restrict the flow of trade, manipulating the value of the currency. If the wine is strong and unmitigated and the agents and angels oversee their path to entry, then they will have made it in. But, even then, it is not finished.
Coffee – went over to a friend’s house. He just got a coffee roaster. I smell that aroma in all kinds of wine from reds from Tuscany to whites from Burgundy. I like it. It’s cleansing.
Pine – sometime ago I was in Yosemite and in the upper part the pine trees on a hot summer day sent out this smell that was pure and beautiful. I sometimes smell that in California wines and also in some French wines from Bordeaux and the Rhone. Also in Barbera d’Alba.
Bacon fat – Aglianico, Nero d’Avola, Zinfandel, Lagrein and Hermitage. Very cool. Who wants a size 2 wine? Give me some meat on those ribs.
I really had no idea about the Vallé D'Aoste. It was one of two regions I had little or no contact with, the other being Sardegna. Yes, I had sold wine from the region, many years ago, and that little exposure had colored my view of the area. Other than that, I thought it similar to other mountainous wine regions I had been to. Boy was I wrong.
Imagine being in the passenger side of a little Fiat Panda, a goat-trail scrambler of a car. To the right is a drop-off of about 500-700 feet, no rails, plenty of free-fall space. And picture the driver, long used to traversing these trails, heading up the path as if he were entering a freeway. As my dad so famously said, many times, my rear end crawled up around my neck and almost strangled me to death.
We visited several winemakers this day. On our first visit we found a winery where the wine was good, the conversation was lively and the people really seemed to be happy in their life’s work.
