Girls Night Out

Where do restaurant reviewers go when they all just want to let their hair down and enjoy a good meal? Many folks would like to know who they are and where they are. Last night, I was invited out to Chinese New Years with a whole bunch of them.

Yes, they do talk to each other and yes they are passionate about food and wine. And yes, they do love to dress up in disguises.

There are a few curious parallels between the world of the restaurant reviewer and the wine distributor. For one, there are many folks who think they can do a better job. I hear it all the time. Someone says to me, “I love to eat, I think I’d make a great restaurant critic.” Or “I love wine; I think I’m going to start importing it.” Knock yourself out.

A friend cast a sideways glance and a raised eyebrow at me the other day when I recanted some of my recent road trips. I got the impression that he didn’t feel too sorry for me. Not that I was looking exactly for sympathy, although I detected a hint of disgust in his gesture that said to me. “Look, you may call it work, but it isn’t hard work like I do.” That person would be correct, although to make the commitment to spend the amount of time I do, one would be better off if they didn’t have a wife and children. There is plenty to do and not all of it takes place between the daylight hours and in one’s home town. It is incessant and constant. And I do enjoy it.

Back to Chinese New Years. The meal was a three hour succession of small and communal plates. Jelly fish, duck gizzard, drunken chicken, flounder, a wonderful lobster and egg dish, plenty of protein and some dessert of little warm doughy balls that had a sesame paste inside that reminded me of an Abba Zabba.

Wine wise – I brought a few bottles. Among them were a Bruno Giacosa Brut, Joel Gott Chardonnay, Greco di Tufo from Mastroberardino, a couple of bottles of 1970 Chateau Latour, a 1990 Barolo Riserva from Cascina Bruni and a 1986 Zinfandel from Mazzocco (Cuneo and Saini Vineyard- 70 cases made). Of the '70 Latour, one was in prime form, the other was vinegar. The Barolo was a bit young and the Zinfandel was a graceful grandma, more wise than pretty. They didn’t really match too well with the food, but I didn’t know what to expect. I would love to have brought a Pigato and a Gavi, some of those dry Chenin Blancs from the Loire and maybe an oxidized white old-school Rioja.
Friday night, at the Dallas Morning News Wine Competition reception, I sampled a Vidal Blanc from Cedar Creek Winery in Wisconsin. The grapes were grown in New York. I found myself going back for more of that and another strange wine from Domaine Pinnacle. An ice apple wine from Quebec. Maybe I am in the sweet mood, maybe they were just different. They were tasty and delicious and righteously well made.

Early this morning at the Dallas Morning News Wine Competition, I sat in for Guy Stout who had to leave to proctor at the Court of Master Sommeliers in San Francisco. Good news, another one from Texas got his M.S. That would be young ‘un, Drew Hendricks, who worked himself beyond the limits of time and sanity. But he made it – A huge congrats to Drew Hendricks, M.S.

Back at the competition, at our tasting table this morning, there was a whole slew of Italianesque reds. I can’t say too much, for the whole morning sailed rapidly.

A decision soon for Vinitaly and what and who will be on the bus. I have a dear old friend who has never been to Italy. A serious wine person who sits at the table and takes the lesson from the grape as often as the rest of us who have been treading in the cellar of life. At one time a devout Francophile, now wanting to dip his hand in the font of Italian wine.

We twirl, we sniff, we sip and we spit. We taste, we make notes, recommend this or that and then someone goes to the café or the wine store or the internet and the march of progress goes forward. It’s not anything for the Nobel committee, but it’s a good livelihood, hard work, fair compensation and a life lived with a little joy and the hope for another sunrise to see and another bottle to open.

Romantic holiday heading our way this Thursday. It would also have been the birthday of dear Lizanne, who will be missed a full seven years, this coming Sunday.

written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

On The Relationship Trail

When I first planned to visit Italy I spent time talking to a Jesuit priest from New Orleans, the Reverend Clement J. McNaspy. C.J., as he was known, was an intellect and a wit. He loved Italy. He had an amazing grasp of Sicilian culture and was plugged into the Roman Curia. One of his books, “The Lost City of Paraguay”, was the book that the Robert DeNiro movie, The Mission, was loosely based on. I remember meeting DeNiro in Colombia in 1985 when he was there filming. At the time I was a sound technician on a documentary about the Festival del Caribe.

I asked C.J. how many times he had been to Italy. He said 25 times. That was in 1971. I thought how amazing that someone could get there so many times. Now it is 2008 and I have passed that milestone.

Stefano Illuminati and I have been traveling around Texas with his importer and regional manager. We traveled 1,000 miles in four days, did wine dinners in three cities and consumed thousands and thousands of calories in food and wine. It was a bit like a rock concert blitz with wine. Instead of a bus we had a minivan.

Tonight Stefano is in Vancouver and I am back home. Very tired.

Looking back over my 25 trips in 37 years I have spent a lot of time with Stefano. We have grown up together. I met him first in 1984 when he was 20. Stefano was always overshadowed by the larger than life personality of his father, Dino. Big tree. But now Stefano is taking on more of the direction of the winery, steering it into the future until his son can come up and become involved.

Mandola family pictures

Another side to this story is the Mandola family in Houston. Brothers Vincent, Tony and Damian forged a lifelong friendship with the Illuminati family though Eugenio Spinozzi. Many trips to the winery, many dinners in the Luperia, the dining hall at the estate. Lots of laughs, some tears, many great memories. Eugenio, sadly, left us too soon, but destiny called him away from here. We talk about people who have died like it isn’t ever going to happen to us. Some day someone might talk about our passing as if it will never happen to them. And so on.

All this to say, through the vine we have made lifelong friendships with each other, the Illuminati and the Mandola families. And while sometimes it seems I am on the sidelines watching the unfolding of these two famous and powerful families, what can I do? Some of us observe and record the deeds of others. Am I diminished by their swath? Only if I think all this is about me.

The vine and the road leading to the vine have created bonds that ally us to Italy and the grape. And while it may seem we are out of Italy more than in it, I long ago realized the Italy that I refer to, daily, is embedded on a molecular level. Sure I am not an Italian like Stefano. And he is not an Italian like me. And most Italians are not precisely like each other. In fact there is sufficient evidence that we are all unique. All 6 billion of us. Comforting, no?


Food, wine, tomatoes, family, Italy, Texas, time, memories, love life and enduring amicizia.

Not something you can bid for on eBay or barter for on craigslist or find on some winery direct press release.

It is only something earned from time spent on the wine (and relationship) trail in Italy.

1984 ~ I'm on the far left and Stefano on the far right

1990 ~ Stefano on left and AC on right

2008 ~ AC on left and Stefano on right

Photos from the author

written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

Fire, Forks and Friendship

Sometimes it can be overwhelming. There are just so many commitments, travel schedules that tax the healthiest of bodies, and the constant pounding on the streets to move a few inches forward in this happy battle.

Then there’s the food, and lots of it. Wine service on top of that. The ebb and flow of the pulse of the cycle, which if you cannot detect the counterbalances, can seem either overwhelming in its momentum or perplexed by its downside.

Monday night we witnessed something I never dreamt I’d see in Texas. But more on that later. What really has me going? We’re there, we’re really there, regarding the Italian wine explosion. I hope they send us some bright young ‘uns soon, cause we need their help.

In the back of the minivan yesterday, wobbling back to Dallas from Austin, I managed to get some office time in. And then the phone rang. First time was from the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He wanted his wine director to get in touch with me to talk about an Italian project they are working on. The second call was from a restaurant owner, who was upset because he believed his wine order had gotten all screwed up. He was hot.

The third was from the future, our American blogger in Italy, come home to start a new life. There I am in the back of the van, being driven home and getting all this input from such a diverse array of people, somehow interwoven into my life because of Italian wine.

Later that night our Italian vintner had a craving for a steak, so we stopped by a local place and had our Fat Tuesday meal. It was a nice ending to a long road trip, sitting there while the Maestra Sommelier deftly opened a MacLaren Vale Shiraz to serve with our steaks.

This has been a blitz of wine and dine of forks and corks and of fire, inside the belly and the hearth. Along the way old and new friendships have been renewed and forged. There is so much to be thankful for.

Olives Ascolana-style

Some of the food at last night’s dinner. This was from the “I never dreamt I’d see this in Texas” moment. South of Austin, in Driftwood, old friend Damian Mandola has built a winery and a trattoria. Five years ago the only thing out there was Salt Lick BBQ, which should be plenty for anyone’s books. Who would have thought that 70 people would line up for the doors to open, on a Monday night, out in the middle of the country, to eat and drink “proprio Italiano”? But that we did. Food and wine was memorable, from the Olives Ascolani style to the spaghetti alla Chitarra with Duck Ragu. I’ll cover this meal in another future post when I wrap up the last Waltz around Texas.

Chitarra con Ragu' di Anatra

As we stopped for gas and jerky in Italy, Texas, with the country twangy music playing in the store, I thought what an unusual place Texas has become again for me. We have the emergence of a global-cultural scene and the folkloric and simple typical Texas –Italy, Italy meets Italy, Texas.

Damian Mandola and Stefano Illuminati

written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

Much Ado About Aroma

This has been a working weekend, waltzing across Texas in a minivan filled with all manner of Italians, taking us to wine dinners and meetings, building upon years of relationships. Something that cannot be done sitting in front of a computer on the 23rd floor of an apartment in midtown Manhattan or in an isolated cottage in Marin County. So while other people, with more time and expertise, slave over how to solve the crisis of wine distribution in America, I return to the road with my winemaker, importer and regional representative, to pursue our labor of love, that of building long term relationships with our clients.

While traveling south towards Houston I read from a book by Luca Turin, called The Secret of Scent. Mr. Turin inspires me, especially after scanning virtually anonymous blogger comments, angrily blasting on about how unfair life is. A walk in the park or a produce section might help.

How can one stay riled when walking into the flower section of a supermarket and smell a dozen roses? Or at least, what does it matter?

If you are in the least bit attracted to aroma, Turin’s book is important. Great scents are timeless, and the ability to capture those scents in your mind takes practice. Like learning the play the piano or speak another language, coming into an understanding of what smell means requires opening up that part of your mentality which sequesters all the primordial receptors for this ancient part of us.


You say you cannot travel in time back to Athens or Tulum? Nonsense. Walk around the amphitheatre at Segesta and pick on the little plants that grow low to the ground. Will you not smell what the Ancients smelled? Stroll by the Colosseum, in Rome or Verona. Scratch your fingernail along the stone or the tufa and bring it up to where you can take in the smell of something very familiar to scores of generations of Romans or Veronese. Where on the internet can you buy that, eBay? Le-Vin.com? Good luck.

You can do this with any wine. It is advisable with a wine that has some character, preferably not one that has been produced in an industrial setting. I’d start with an Italian wine. Seeing as we have been traveling with Stefano Illuminati from Abruzzo and I am real familiar with his wines, let’s use them for the example.

I have in front of me a wine. Or do I? Well, to be perfectly honest, I don’t. But I don’t need to. The memory of the last few days is tattooed on my primitive mind.


This is bilocation and time travel all wrapped up in one’s nose, which hopefully is hooked up to the mother board in the brain.

I close my eyes and am walking up the path in Controguerra to the winery. Along the roadside there is beginning to grow little green plants that will produce a yellow flower in about a month or so. When they do there will be this brown butter and lemongrass perfume that will emerge. As I walk onto the grounds of the winery, to the left is a fir tree, next to the spring. The tree drops these needles that remind me of cinnamon and nutmeg and dust. They mix with the slate-like minerality of the water, which is cool and hard and attracts all manner of flying insects in the warmer months. Along the path toward the older building there is a row of vines, now dormant, but at the edge there are artichokes, with a slightly musty, almost truffled scent, when you run your hands along the stalks. Next to it there is the skeleton of a fig tree. On the ground there are shriveled up fig leaves from the last year’s growth. Pick one of two of them up and run them in your hands until they crumble and disintegrate.
At this point you will start to feel hungry as the scent and the visceral interaction will stimulate something that you inherited from life forms millions of years before.


We’re almost finished. Walk further on past the rows of vines until you come to the pens for the rabbits and the chickens. There, their dregs meld with the earth. This might seem repulsive, but there is always a little of this in many great wines. It is the taste of the earth that has been augmented by natural cycles. Here is where you are entering the perfumist’s Valhalla.

As we enter the back of the winery, there are barrels, recently washed and drying in the sun. They offer a scent of cedar and that slightly acrid yet sweet smell of the forest as it has been refashioned by the hand of man.

What do you say? What does this have to do with the wine? When will you get inside and talk about the Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Riserva? Pop that bottle and get to work, Alfonso.

I have a confession to make – we never left the inside of the glass of that Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Riserva. That was what it smelled of, to me.

And that is what makes this broken wine business so wonderful and lovely.

Images from The Secret of Scent by Luca Turin. Written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

Walking the Walk

Like any enterprise, one can be too close to always be objective. When it seems that one cannot see the light in the forest, there is one real cure – go out and open bottles of wine and tell stories to the young and willing.

A bag of great wine can void any affronts from unmannerly ones who paint the wine industry to resemble Hell from Hieronymus Bosch’s famous triptych. That is but a delusive exercise.

So, back to what we’re here for, on the wine trail, this time in Deep Ellum.

One of my co-conspirators called me up and asked me about some of my favorite wines lately. We discussed the account, a small chef-driven spot in an older urban neighborhood somewhat resembling Williamsburg in New York or the old city of Torino. The place is called Local and it is a gem of a place, relying on organic produce and grass fed beef, wild caught fish and locally produced products, like cheese from the Mozzarella Company next door. Local carries their Hoja Santa wrapped cheese, of which I am one of the proud organic growers of the leafy herb. So along with Cowgirl Creamery in San Francisco and Artisanal in New York, now I can enjoy products from my garden in Dallas.

We were running late for the appointment, and as I parked and rushed into the meeting, there they were – young and bright and fresh. Oh boy, I thought to myself, maybe I can tell some stories about these wines and maybe they’ll like them.

It was easier than I thought, for the Muse had kicked in and was ready to roll. I was talking about wines that I liked and recommended, often.

I don’t intend this to be a list with tasting notes, but I do wish to mention the wines.
The white wines we presented to the staff were:
2006 Abbazia di Novacella Kerner
2005 Re Manfredi Basilicata Bianco
2006 Tasca d’Almerita Leone

The reds:
2005 Mesa Buio Carignano del Sulcis
2005 Abbazia di Novacella Lagrein
2005 Queciabella Chianti Classico
2004 Castello di Rampolla Chianti Classico
2005 Il Borro Pian di Nova
2003 Petra Quercegobbe
2005 La Lumia Cadetto Nero d’Avola

I’ve written elsewhere about many of these wines. What really pointed me back to all things good and bright was the purity and the clarity and the diversity among these wines. Italian wines aren’t confusing, anymore than perfume is. Italian wines are complex and in a “give it to me now or else” world there isn’t going to be a lot of satisfaction for those who don’t have the time or the patience.

But to see that the Kerner reflects its world ever so much as the Leone does and to know that one may be preferable to you but it doesn’t diminish what the other wine is here for. That would be for the person for whom it resonates with. There is no right or wrong to it, no finger pointing and swaggering. It is. That’s just the way it is.

And while there are those that talk a mean game, who on earth would want to trade places with those souls, who are confined to suffer in Bosch’s infernal triptych, thinking about the paradise they lost because they couldn’t take time from their daily battles to enjoy wine for it own sake. That is the reason many of us are in the wine business.

To those lost souls; may their suffering be brief.

And may we never run out of great wine so we can talk the talk about them. That's just what you do when you're a (wine) lover, not a fighter.

written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

Pulling the Trigger

I feel like one of the judges for American Idol. It seems that every three or four hours I get a call from someone wanting to bring new Italian wines into the market. And while I am not anti-immigration regarding Italian wine, I think someone should stop booking ships to the New World filled with the hopes of Italian winemakers, hoping we will bring them out of their funk.

Today I read it in our papers, finally. America is now officially going through our own “malaise”. Recession has arrived; the cost of war is depleting our resources and the hopefulness of our population. The middle classes and below are being downsized into smaller pieces of the American Pie. Only the 1%’ers can ponder their new Bentleys or their $500 bottles of Barolo. And still, folks call, wanting to send more Chianti, more Prosecco, more Pinot Grigio.

I told one contender today, “I don’t pull the trigger. I'm just one of many who ride the wild horses around the square, in our daily Palio.”

Let me put it this way. It’s not just about price. Or margin. I really can’t bear to hear one more comment about how high the distributor’s margins are when most of the importers are 6-10% higher. My friend Sam Levitas has this mantra. It goes like this: “You don’t take margins to the bank, you take dollars.” Anybody listening, importers, retailers, restaurateurs?

The next great idea probably isn’t going to be an Italian Yellow Tail or Two Buck Chuck. Or a celebrity label, or one from a "famous restaurant". I might be wrong, but looking back over my wine label graveyard collection, there are a lot of "great ideas" that never made it. Why? Because there are no short cuts. It's very simple: It isn't easy.

Let me ask you, if there are any winemakers, importers, brokers, retailers, restaurateurs or just plain folk put there in the enoblogosphere who like to eat and drink: What do you prefer, a chain restaurant or a small place where the proprietor greets you at the door with a smile and an honest, simple, fairly priced menu and wine list? Where do you prefer to buy wine, at a supermarket where you now check yourself out, or at a quirky little store where the owner spent several years in Gascony or Greve fiddling around learning about wine and culture and then bringing that passion back home to share with his friends and clients?

Why would it be any different with new wines? Do we really need another tired concept? How about getting on your own horse and battling it out around the piazza with the rest of us? Maybe fall and get scraped and drag yourself back up, and stay in the race? Or how about just getting in the game, in the mud and the rain and the slop of the daily slog, from walking on all fours towards an eventual upright position? And then to have to carry a shield and a sword and battle some more? That is the state of our union.

There is plenty of work, and more wines than we can say grace over, already. We need some fresh meat in the trenches, throwing punches and winning a few battles. We don’t need anymore armchair generals with self-proclaimed great ideas that will never win a skirmish. Does anybody hear me?

We don’t need any more wine – we need boots on the ground – selling what has already made it through the gates – they need a home before we can send anymore ships loaded with wine and hope, over here.

Enough already.

written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

Wine That Lives On

I started out to write about a trip I took to Galveston, and a wine that changed my life, the 1964 Monfortino. But as often happens when I am gathering my images, a sign appears and we are on another road to Alba.

It happened once, many moons ago; we were on our way there by way of Novara. They make wine from Nebbiolo grapes there as well, and we were going to visit a tartufaio, or truffle hunter. He was a round, jolly man and we met him in a local cantina.

OK, I cannot go any further until I get this little piece of business taken care of. A colleague handed me the latest Wine Advocate and asked me if we had any wines in there. There were some pages about the 2004 Barolo inside and he wanted to know if we had any offering available. I scanned quickly and saw so many of the usual names, when I came to Giacosa. The Rocche del Falletto 2004 had been given a 99. I remarked to my colleague that the 2004 Giacosa was in there but we still had some 2001 and 2003 available. But at US $180 plus (I don’t even want to think about the 2004 price) it and all of those highly rated wines have become a trophies for people who aren’t in the wine business.

I walked into my little wine room to talk it over with the bottles inside. Many of the wines have been there for some time and so the spirits of the winemakers frequently hover and we have this little chat about the state of things as they are now. Luigi Pira sits on the shelf with an ancient bottle of d'Yquem, while an expired bottle of Marylyn Monroe’s Chardonnay lingers and livens up the bin with her sad little smile. So much tragedy on that row between Pira and Monroe, forget that in 1959 d'Yquem was just happy to get a harvest after the disasters of 1956, 1957 and the lackluster 1958. Pira, it had been said, was depressed and 1980, a harvest of misery, was the coup de grâce.

So what is the use of a score unless there is some music that comes from it? If I hear another winemaker tell me what Parker gave his wine, what am I gonna do? Nothing. But I sure would like a way to tell them, abbastanza, I am not the person who will or can buy the 95 point wine anymore. I only can afford wine made by dead people.
Take that 1974 VINO VINO VINO VINO, bottled to commemorate the 20th harvest of the Cantine Sociale dei Colli Novaresi. Signed by the contributing growers, what pride they show in their signatures. A 90 point wine, then? Who cares? Most of them are dead and rid of us, but that little US$7 bottle of wine lives on.

Luciano de Giacomi of Cascine Drago was a hard crust of a man. But he had a soft, warm inside. The archetypical serious Italian, and the founder of the Order of the Knights of the Truffle and Wines of Alba. He was over educated for the world he found himself in. But there he was, in his cellar with his factor, Barone Armando de Rham, taking new wine out of old barrels to teach the young acolytes about Nebbiolo. I remember more from that afternoon than from a month of reading reviews. In fact I remember nothing from reading reviews. Niente.

All I want is the music inside the bottle. I don’t want to know that your winery is carbon neutral, but you take your private jet to France every year to pick French barrels, which you replace yearly. That's not a carbon-neutral imprint, that's a McMansion floor plan. What kind of shadow does this cast? It's the Hummer school of wine, and they have the big, bad wine reviews to gas them up and send them scurrying from city to city, recanting their narcissistic-cum-artisanal stories of how great they are. Huh?

That's not how the old dead guys taught me in Italy. We went to lunch, yes, and without cell phones. So maybe, once in a while we headed down little dirt roads in fast Maseratis, but all with respect to the localita’ of it all.

What did they do to me? Did they turn me into the mean old men they were? Or did they inoculate me with their un-steroided Nebbiolo? Delicate? Yes. Light in color and not ashamed of it? Yes. And if we had Dolcetto, it tasted and cost like Dolcetto, not some œuvre-oaked, muscle-ripped, winner-take-all winegasm, for the 1% who can afford it.

Yeah, I've gone deep-end-of-the-road on this one. You know the one, it’s a little out of town, and on the right there is this little cemetery filled with the souls of winemaking past. And from time to time they “call” on me to ask how things are going these days.

And I tell them, at my house, it goes well. As do their wines.

written and photographed Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

Buon Anima ~ Luciano e Armando

I Coulda Had a Maserati

This week I came roaring out of debt-free status, after five years. For that time I felt like a millionaire, insofar as I had nothing hanging over me. But opportunity called and the timing was right. So I signed a loan to buy a condo as an investment. No big deal, compared to what folks have to do to buy a place in NY or San Francisco.

But as I signed the contract, I looked down at the bottom line and exclaimed to the loan officer, “I coulda bought a Maserati.”

The Maserati is a running joke. When I was a youth, my dad always said he wanted to buy me a one. I suppose it made him feel good to think he would someday do it. He never did, and he never had to. He did buy me a pretty cool Fiat and he also saved my financial butt more than once. And he did it when he was having hard times. So, bless the memory of my Pop, he had the best of intentions.

And while I’m no longer enamored with automobiles as I once was, a Maserati Quattroporte is a lovely sight.

Tonight in North Texas is getting a might cool. Nothing like Minneapolis or Sondrio, but we’re in the thick of it for all that we’re used to. The new harvest is deep in the core of the earth, slowly emerging. The bees have disappeared from the tree in front of the house. Even the pitiful old black cat is scarce in these times. Squirrels are a bit cranky, it’s like they have entered some period of collective insanity. They peer over brittle branches and shout their staccato insults at invisible dogs and peacocks. Poor things.

Valentino said farewell in Paris. If he hadn’t, the hook was there in the wings, ready to pull him off. There they were, telling those around him that his day was done, his time had passed. Fast forward 25 years and they will feel the chill from the metal synch. Be it Milan or the ancient vineyards of Chaldea, 3,000 years ago or 200 years from now, one's time is brief and then it is time for the new bees to appear. Nothing to feel superior about, it’s merely a cycle that is more dominant than man. It binds us to the earth in the wine business, because we must follow the cycle and be in symbiosis with it.

Last week Matteo Bisol was telling some folks about the vineyards of Cartizze. In case you’d like to see a picture of Cartizze, some of the most expensive vineyard real estate in the world, here is a picture I took four years ago with Sergio Mionetto. It is not so manicured like the first growths of Bordeaux, but the land here is more suitable for grapes than for great chateaux. The people on these steep hills are a simple, rustic folk. They don’t wear tuxedos or stiletto heels. The tree reminds me of a tree I saw on the freeway today. How is it decided that one tree gets to live in this beautiful hillside and another gets to live on the side of a freeway?

I decided tonight to sip on an Amaro from Braulio. It is a special Riserva 2002 which I first had a Sal e Pepe in Sondrio a few months back. When I splashed a bit into the snifter and was walking back into my inner lair, I was transported back to Bormio and Monte Braulio. Maybe the UFO that was recently seen nearby had something to do with it.
It seems the right libation for a cold winter night; a bitter from the Swiss Alps.

Tonight I had little to inspire me to cook. I had some of those wonderful tomatoes from Salerno, capers from Pantelleria, Reggiano, olive oil from Sicily and some fresh eggs. I poached the eggs in with the tomatoes and had a marvelous soup of poached eggs in tomato puree. Simple, warm, filling. And an apple for dessert, with the Braulio for the after-dénouement dram.

It really is a dog’s life.

written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy