As a young boy I would sit out in the desert and talk to my old friend whenever my mom and dad were arguing or when I was alone and didn’t have anyone else to talk to. Growing up in Palm Springs was a gift. It was a small town (locals called it “the Village”), the night skies were breathtaking, and my old friend, Mt. San Jacinto, was considered an ancient and wise one by the Native Americans, the Agua Caliente Cahuilla tribe.I would sit before that majestic pile of primordial rocks and pour my heart out, and old San Jacinto would talk back. Sometimes it would be in a dream, and sometimes it would be far in the future. But my meetings with the wise old man would be an important part of my upbringing and a source in my life for silent counsel and revelation.
From the years I lived in the desert and into the times when I would return, there have been special memories of events and encounters that oddly intersect some of my experiences on the wine trail in Italy. I’d like to share a few of them with you.
Capture the FlagAs Boy Scouts, we’d often camp around the desert. One place we camped was Chino Canyon, at the base of Mt. San Jacinto. I loved being a Boy Scout, for it got me away from home and feeling self reliant, an independence that, in those days, was a safe way to loosen the umbilical cord a little at a time. One of my favorite past times was playing Capture the Flag. Basically it is a free-for-all between two teams of boys, played in darkness. In the desert, if there wasn’t a moon, there were always plenty of stars to keep the night from being pitch black. We were two packs of wild boys, with few rules, intent on capturing players on the other side and ultimately, the flag. What I loved about it was the freedom, the uncertainty, with some fear of loss, and the thrill of victory. All this taking place under the desert sky, running around, not worrying about the snakes, tarantulas, scorpions, coyotes or bobcats. It was pure joy.
I liken it to a wine I had recently from Liguria, a Pigato. Also a desert dweller, in the semi-arid hills around Imperia, Pigato has that wildness and racy quality about it that is exciting and ultimately joy-giving.
Midnight at the OasisAnother Boy Scout camping trip. This time we were at the 1000 Palms oasis. Surrounded by wind-whipped dunes and the occasional out cropping of Tamarisk trees. 1000 Palms always seemed exotic and mysterious to me. This time we were invited to a wedding ceremony of an Agua Caliente couple. I remember the music and the drums. It all seemed so natural, not like when we would go to Disneyland and see some watered-down re-creation of life in America before the European invasion. No, this was a simple ritual, performed with grace and respect. I loved it. I remember, for some reason, fried bread. And dates. After the wedding, we went back to our tents on the Western Front.
This time I recall a Franciacorta, a style called Saten, which is calmer and subdued. It has a nice toasty, yeasty nose, reminding me of the fried bread. And the silky quality of the Saten is a wonderful wine for a ceremony, even if it is only with baked eggs on a Sunday morning. Of course it would taste better if we were camping outside and cooking the bacon over an open fire.
Lost HorizonOften we would hike up Tahquitz Canyon to the falls. Frank Capra made the place famous when he used it in a scene from his movie about Shangri-La. Frank was a Sicilian from the same village as my father’s parents. They spoke the same Arberesh dialect, so I have been told.
In the 60’s, hippies would go up to the falls, get naked and take LSD. I would go up there and film them. The 10 minute 16mm film I made has long since disappeared, along with some of those souls. But the place was so beautiful, and in the heat of the desert in the summertime, to walk a couple of miles and be able to take a dip in the cool mountain water was a thrill of nature. We were living in paradise.
What kind of wine from the trail corresponds with an experience like that? For me it would have to be a wine that would be white, cool and exotic. Something like a Malvasia from Lipari or a Torcolato from the Veneto. Just a little sip, not too much. Just a touch to rekindle such fond memories.
Engaging the BrujaIn later years after I had moved away, I went to a gathering in Palm Canyon. We had the baby with us. Somewhere along the way I got separated from the family, and in a little nook of the canyon, along the trail, a native woman approached me. She was young, like me at the time, and possessed an aura of power about her. She confronted me, not in an angry manner but as one alpha animal to another in the wilderness, testing the other's relevance. It was right out of Castaneda, but it didn’t scare me. It was almost like recognizing one of the creatures in the desert and knowing not to disturb its place. With rattlesnakes, one can sense them near by their unique odor, similar to heather, dust, a little mildew, rotting truffles and sage. The spirit woman wanted to know why I was here. I told here I was not here to disturb her or challenge her, merely to show my son the desert. I often wonder what happened to the bruja. Did we ever meet as children? Or was she a spirit, in the guise of a coyote or a spider, testing my will?
I am reminded of a Sicilian wine when I think of this memory. The wine is Lamúri from Tasca d’Almerita. Native red, Nero d’Avola, grown in sandy soils and tempered in French oak. Taking the indigenous desert daughter and confronting it with the wood of the Great White Father. Testing the will of the wine.
Lamúri, which means love in Sicilian dialect, reminds me of that moment in the desert when lightning struck.
I have never told these stories to anyone, but they make up a part of my core that is as important as my Italian heritage. It is my connection to this native land where I was born.I have a childhood friend who is Agua Caliente. We have known each other for many moons. I think of her and remember her as a sister.
Sometimes when I dream I go back to the desert and visit my old friends, the shamans and the wise ones who watched over me when I was a young one. I also feel their watchful presence on the wine trail in Italy.
OK, Italian winemakers, importers, suppliers, brokers and other hopefuls, listen up. Today we are going to have the tango lesson.
But there are so many wines to be tried from Italy and because the new place will be in an area where local folks consider the fine wines of the world to have names like Silver Oak, Screaming Eagle and Contoured Edge, wines with names like Camp du Rouss, Pergola Torte and Zanna are a bit “furrin”, and right now “furriners” are laying low.
Along with Italian wines they are also trying wines from everywhere else in the world.
The scent of a wine times 150 – now what are the odds that your wine will get picked? If you cringe at this kind of exercise, wake up, because this is happening everyday across the country, just like this, many times over. To get a single placement that may or may not bear fruit. I kid you not. It isn’t romantic, it isn’t pretty, nobody likes it, but it is one of the facts of life in these here United States, if you want to sell wine. So many wines aiming for so few slots.
Today, in the parlance of the sales world, is the last day of the year. You see, in the wine business, we have this flexible view of the Gregorian calendar, and in order to reach some lofty goals, we have extended 2007 until today. It’s a new-math way to squeeze a little more out of the already hesitant retailers and the almost exhausted restaurateurs, who are entering a busy segment of their cycle for the next 3 months. For the retailers, though, stick a fork in them, they’re done.
December, though, has been the beginning of the downward spiral of the cycle, as I see it. The worrisome bit is, usually the alcohol industry rallies when the economy slumps. People self medicate. Witness the post-Katrina growth of business in Louisiana and New Orleans, especially. I’d drink more if it would make this 12 day headache go away. But that’s another story. The story this time is that people arent rushing to fill their liquor cabinets, in the same way as they used to.
I penned a quick email to another blogger on my way to tango lessons.
Already new suppliers are emailing and calling for appointments. I looked at our inventory today and we have as much on order as we already have in warehouses. That would be a response to the price increases and an attempt to load up on already proven items in an attempt to forestall increases to the trade. Buying time by buying on time. Forget about just in time, this time. Roll ‘em in, hope like hell to sell them before the slow moving report sends them to Purgatory (close-out land).
And still more suppliers knock, wanting to get in. Please send 100 more great salespeople and 500 more great accounts. Then let's tawk.
My adult introduction to Italy was August 15, 1971. I had decided on my twentieth birthday in July that I would go to Italy by myself. So I bought a round trip ticket from Los Angeles to Rome for $900.00, a tidy sum then. 
Once I arrived at the Stazione Termini in Rome I decided to look for a place to exchange dollars for lire. Impossible, it was a national holiday, Ferragosto. It was also a Sunday. To make matters worse, Nixon had just devalued the dollar. I walked around the neighborhood of the train station, found a little pensione on the Via Palestro near the university and somehow managed to talk the landlady into letting me have a room.
I was excited and a little bit jet lagged, so I set my gear down and decided on a little nap. Some hours later I awoke to the sounds of an Italian television program in the kitchen. I thought I had slept for days, but it was probably 4 or 5 hours, just enough to keep me from getting on Italian time.
The kind landlady made me a plate of pasta and some vegetables, and offered a glass of red wine. How wonderful it all tasted. Here I was in a strange boarding house in a big city with people I didn’t know, who were treating me like family. It was a moment that really made me see Italy and Italians through a lens that I still sometimes use. We were only 25 years away from the liberation of Italy during World War II; perhaps the landlady took pity on the young American. It wasn’t that much money, I think with half pension it was about 1,500 lire, or $2.50 a day. My room I would have to share if someone else came in. But it never happened that anyone else came to that pensione in August.
Walking around Rome during the day would be my introduction to Italy. And I walked everywhere, with my cameras, photographing everything in black and white, Tri-X film, with my Canon rangefinder cameras. I was living the dream of a young man to be a street photographer, and Rome was my canvas.
From the Villa Borghese to the Fontana di Trevi, the Sistine Chapel to the Baths of Caracalla, there was no backdrop that I wouldn’t shoot in the blistering heat and humidity of Rome in August.
In that time the city was quiet, many people out of town in cooler places. Just a few tourists and the workforce of Rome, who stayed behind to keep the city running. Many shops were closed for the month, but there was enough life in the Eternal City to get a feel for a place that humans have inhabited for thousands and thousands of years.
Even though I don’t get to Rome so often these days, I have an affection for the city that took me in as a young man, without lire and without being able to speak much of the language. I had my Michelin guide, my cameras and my desire to learn about the country of my grandparents. This would not be my last trip to Italy, but rather the beginning of many visits to Italy and to Rome.
During this past year, 
Next year there will be some changes. Sometime I’d like to clean up this site and make it 
I ride around all day with my sidekick, the one that I’ve been riding with all my life and I'm a little surprised when I look in the mirror and see that aging fellow that looks like my father. Inside I’m still a 25 year old young'un with a lot of hopes and some fears, some innocence, and some fire. I’m not going to let them snuff the fire as long as I can help it. It seems sometimes, that all I’ve got. But I look around and I see my peers getting older and older and giving in or giving up and I just am not going to go quietly. So I better find something to say.
Ladies and Gentlemen, children of all ages, see you all next year.
The wines I have been enjoying over the past few days?
The arguments can linger, after grappa, after the short Tuscan cigars, after all the telling and the retelling of the jokes. If nothing is resolved, then there is always that faithful plate of spaghetti al peperoncino in the early hours of the morning.
It’s easier on a full belly. But is the farmer in the country having these conversations, these fears, these doubts?
So while we witness this stirring in the Italian soul, what about the farmer? Where is his place in this opera? And what have we to say to the ones who help to provide food for the tables which fill our bellies which lead us into discussions of whether we have lost our way or our soul or our purpose? What about the farmer?
I had a note from another friend in California who, it appears, is shedding his materialistic trappings. He almost died a few years back when he turned 50, from cancer, and since then his discipline with yoga has helped to keep him alive. He actually has become a different kind of person. I think he might look at this and simply say that we have too much stuff. I agree.
It starts in darkness and ends in darkness. It is short and uncertain. At this point. There is hope and there is fear. And it will be quick.
