A Tank of Gas

Clark's Outpost ~ Tioga, Texas ~ Hugo's hands, 93 years
young and still building Model-T's, 30 hours a week.

During the off hours, we've covered a lot of ground this past week, visiting relatives, seeing sights and uncovering a story or two. A little visual lagniappe for Sunday, give everyone a little break from the verbal meanderings; let you all get caught up.

A mini waltz across Texas, on a tank of gas, from Tioga to Strawn to Temple and back. The cool pool awaits, so you all sit in your rooms and stare at the screen or come out, as it pleases you. I’m heading for my back yard, and a little sun and silence. Happy summer, y'all.

Berry picking in Aubrey

Country "Guest House"

The Spider's Lair

Mary's Cafe ~ Strawn, Texas ~ Ray Price concert announcement and oyster warning (the only oysters served here are the Rocky Mountain kind)

Freshly Fried Chicken Livers ~ West Texas fois gras

Chicken Fried Steak done the right way, pounded and skilleted up, not deep fried; with a side of real Texas pomme frites and okra

High Noon in West Texas for the Italian Wine Guy

Something you'll never see in New York City

Chinese revival mansion in Temple, Texas

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Gondolas? We don't need no stinkin' gondolas

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

The Tex-Mex of Tarantella

"You heard me, get me some chicken fried steak, frito pie and

fried chicken livers over here, on the double. You got it?"

Mixed bag from a crazy week. Where to start? Frank Bruni writes in the NYT about Italian food being the Tex-Mex of Europe. I just wish sometimes that Italian in America was as good as some of the Tex-Mex I’ve had here at base camp. Don’t get me started.

While we’re on the NYT blog watch, something Eric Asimov said the other day struck me: “the dance that comes of shooting oneself in the foot.” He was referring to, who else? The Montalcinisti’s.

All week the spiders in my house have been attacking me in my sleep. I am covered with spider bites. My skin has been crawling for days.

So we have Tex-Mex, Italian, dancing, shooting and spiders; I sense a theme here.

Earlier in the week I was at lunch with my Italian wine loving friend, Paul. We were at a little place in our neighborhood, York Street, talking about wine and food. Tasting a few wines, more for pleasure than anything. At the table behind me an Italian wine importer is chatting up his rep. He goes off on a property in Umbria and the consultant, Riccardo Cotarella, and how all his wines are overblown and why does he make Sangiovese taste like Zinfandel and why, oh why does he make Merlot? It reminded me of someone who was nega-ranting about Alice Feiring’s book ( or her position ) on a blog somewhere. I wanted to ask them all, “So you think you have a better idea? Then present it, get it out there and see what kind of mileage you can get from your point of view.” I know Cotarella is working to break away from the way he is perceived, we’ve talked about it. It’s like an artist that gets pigeonholed for a certain style and then, bam, he can only be a cubist or a surrealist or an abstract expressionist. Or a naturalist or a pure-wine Euro-loving Cali-hating effete snob. I want to say to these angry ones, have you ever picked up the phone and called these people? Or how about an email? Why not engage them in a dialogue? Why does everything have to be High Noon in this culture?

Look, the young importer seems to have a nice portfolio and I’m sure he is repping good people who are committed to their land. But is Cotarella any less committed to his evolution because he has found a thread of success that brings a lot of people to Italian wine? Quit knocking it. It’s cursing the darkness; it’s a mobius strip that will only drive you nuts.

Another day I’m in my kitchen with a bunch of wine and food folks with this cat from Copia and he’s in the basement mixing up the medicine and all of a sudden we’re drinking Riesling with lamb, Chateauneuf du Pape with seafood stew, asparagus with Napa cab and some fruit compote with a maderized 1971 Clos Saint Denise from Bertagna and you know what? Maybe it’s bunko, but everything worked. Even the Burgundy came back from the brink.

Ok, so maybe the dude knows how to do group hypnosis and we all were under his temporary spell, so he could schlep his secret sauce. The point is, there is always another way to look at things, without applying some dogma to it. Just being with it, observing it, thinking a little about it, maybe letting yourself be changed by it and moving on down the road to the next scenario that the future has in store for us. Huh?

Right now 40% of restaurant business in the US is take out, so that means they aren’t selling wine to those customers. The restaurant business is in the tanks. I was in a restaurant last night with a friend and he gets a call from a client wanting about 20 or so bottles of wine. The fellow couldn’t have planned his business a little better? And now he expect the salesman to stop everything he is doing so he can waste time and gas on a losing proposition to deliver this poor-planner his pittance of Pinot. And then the restaurateur wonders why his business is doing so badly?

Another restaurateur can't buy wine because he has to decide whether he should pay his wine bill or the note on his Mercedes. Of course, image is everything, so he stiffs the wholesaler. Again. And then someone like that will threaten the big suppliers if they don’t come in and spend money in the place. This whole thing this week is like watching a bunch of rats drowning from broken levees and in turn they start chewing off the arms of their fellow rats so that can have something to float on. Bizarre week in flyover country.

A comment on the state of the importer. Business is slow and people in Italy have got to know there is a slowdown in America. But hey, July is coming and then August and then Ferragosto, so we need to tidy up the office, get the orders in, so we can get on with our vacations.

I called a Brunello producer today. The last time I called him he was in India and said he’d call me back. Well, he must have forgotten. So I called and called and called again. Finally I reached him; he was in some ex-Soviet satellite city doing a winemaker dinner. I ask him how his Brunello is going. He says to me, “everything is Ok, everything is OK, just order the wine, Parker just gave it a 91.” We've got Toscana IGT's that Sir Bob gave 90's to and they are 1/3 the price of Brunello. And they're sitting in warehouses, moving slowly. So, how about instead, Parker giving me a gas card, something I can use?

I told him I wanted to know how his certification is going. I guess he is too busy spending time to develop the emerging economies to backtrack to the American circus. Just let Parker rate it and everything will be OK? NO-K.

Have you heard of the word staycation? That’s when you stay at home because it’s too expensive or you don’t want the hassle of traveling in these times. And more people are doing that. It’s only a small step before wine lovers do the same with wines. Hello Italian winemakers, marketers, owners, enologos and everyone else who is looking to the largest economy in the world for their wines: we do not want to be treated like we are total fools. Yes our demand for more than our share of the world’s energy is ludicrous. Yes we are fatted calves. But you are feeding from the trough and it’s got a shaky leg.

That same leg that the foot dangles from got shot by its owner, on account of we too, like the winemakers in Tuscany, and people all over the world, are still working this being human thing out. We are still trying to find our somewhereness on this blue orb. Do you or don’t you wanna dance?

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

Intervista nel Futuro

From the 23rd Century, near a place in Tuscaremma, called Montalcinapaia.

Q. Montalcinapaia has changed, so it seems. What is the most important change, in your opinion, in wine in the last 200 years?
A. For one, we are a dry area, very arid now. Ever since the Wind War of 2059-69, this area has relied more on natural species for their survival skills than for their elegance. But we have found out that if we work in this minimal environment, we can coax a lot out of the soil.

Q. Tell us in the past a little about the wine you are making in your time?

A. Interesting that you would ask, because right now we are seeing an interest in bringing back Sangiovosso to the vineyards. After LVMH's Castello Banfi was leveled by a tornado ( see picture) and the community decided to establish a wind farm on the property once owned by Banfi, Antinori and Argiano, the area had been left to go wild. The earthquake cycle of 2101-12 also contributed to re-arranging the area. The whole time we had stories of the robots who worked on the windmills telling us about a vine that would grow up on the posts of the giant rotors. But because the area is so hot we rarely send humans out to investigate in the spring and the summer.
Anyway, we have been making wine from Frappatocino and Nero D’Avellino, because they seemed more suitable for the region. But we are investigating these wild vines from around the ruins of LVMH's Banfi property.

Q. Any other developments in the past 200 years or so?

A. This area now has been active in growing the blue Agave. We can concentrate the spirit and use it sparingly. Since we learned that drinking more than 2 glasses a day of red wine was harmful, in the 22nd century, we stepped back from overproducing wine and have sought to supplement our farming and our diet with more appropriate products.


Q. Agave, that was pretty drastic wasn’t it, getting a succulent from Central America to replace a large part of your wine production?
A. You mean like the tomato and the potato? We were searching for sustainable spirits and agave was best suited to our world. We were very fortunate that the Sicilian grapes did well in Tuscany and that we were able to save them before Southern Italy was forever altered.

Q. Back in 2000, there was a lot of talk about the so called International varieties, Cabernet, Merlot, Syrah, that kind of thing. What has happened to them in your world?

A. When the Chaîne des Puys came back to life and erupted in 2076 in France, that changed everything for Bordeaux and Burgundy. And then 10 years later when Duppacher Weiher spewed, that brought Germany to their knees. We have actually been very lucky in Central Italy. Southern Italy, that is another story. What happened though was that winemakers and farmers were looking for crops to grow that were self sustaining and didn’t need fertilizers and little water.

Q. And what role does science play in winemaking these days?

A. It’s very important. Now we need ways to help the plant work on their own and since enology met nanology it has been a great boost. Now we can develop the grapes, via nanology, to notify the winery when they are ready to be harvested. We harvest berry by berry and so our yields have not really suffered. But because we are now a world population of 63 billion, the demand is still great. Another development is the birth of new fruits that we can harvest in space, the extra-terroir-estrial varieties, like Vitus Veronellus and Vitus Iacuccius. These have been heaven sent. The best (and now, the only) Riesling comes from a space station that circles the moons of Venus, from a variety called Vitus Theisus-Shiroshekar.


Q.What about the idea of alcohol in culture and society?

A. What a strange question. I'm not sure I understand the context. With the world being almost 2/3 Hinduslam and meat eating and alcohol seen as part of a life style for the privileged, this has had some social repercussions. Getting around on the land hover vehicles now is seen as a quaint but particulare’ amusement for the Gigglionaires. But really now alcohol isn’t taboo with the eastern religions, it’s more a problem that the governments still try and tax and regulate it, to fund their space colonization programs.


Q. If I could have brought one thing from 2008 for you, what would you have wanted?

A. Water.

Q. If I could give you information from 2008, what would you want to know?

A. Nothing really. We have survived the Wind War, the Tornadic era and we have skirted the Volcanic era. We have been very fortunate. But there is one mystery you might be able to clear up for us. We have these ancient bottles of wine, from the 2003, that we found at the estates where the wind farms now are. One was called Brunello and the other was called Duemilatre. Could you please tell us what those wines were?

written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in 23rd Cenutury Italy

Featured Father ~ Albert Moulin

He's already been gone half a year, this son of New Orleans, father and mentor to so many of us. Al was one of the forefathers of wine in America. He was there at the beginning, right after World War II, when the budding wine industry got its start. A great story teller, a proud grandfather, a lover of women, a classic New Orleans chef, and a slave to the wine god, in the very best sense.

This isn’t an easy post to write, because we are all still smarting from his absence. Two years ago, on Fathers Day, we slipped some Champagne and appetizers into his room at the home he was temporarily staying. He couldn’t live alone at the time and he bemoaned the dismal vittles. So we rustled in some tasty contraband.

He always had the New York Times Food section open somewhere near his reach, along with the op-ed section. Well read, an active mind, an engaged soul, who loved passionately and deeply. Sometimes too much.

I still remember his home phone number, but he’s not there. When I was in New Orleans last month, I had a dream about him. He’s dancing in Galatoire’s, making mischief in Commander’s Palace, lifting tablecloths in Brennan’s. He belongs to the Ancients now.

Al had an encyclopedic knowledge of classic food and wine, but he was always interested in what was coming around the corner. I met him when I was just starting out in the wine business; he was still on the streets. We both called on a wine store owned by a South African gent, and Al was in there pitching wine from Chile. This was in 1981!

He had a collection of menus from New Orleans and all over the country. He had stories about the wine business, some which were archetypal. They were, for me, instructional from the point of view that they indicated markers along the career track that would later come across my path. I learned survival skills from Al, who mentored me for a generation. Like other mentors who influenced my trail, they are life lessons that I use often. Those who knew Al, or who have had that kind of guidance, know how extraordinarily lucky one can be to have that exposure.

Al loved women; he had an invisible pheromone that attracted young and beautiful women to him all his life. Maybe it was his famous Café Brulot or his Coquilles St. Jacques. Anytime I walked into his home there would be something cooking. And there was often a beautiful lass by his side, learning his technique. He was a gentleman, and he loved the ladies.

Few people know that Al first brought American wines into the White House. It was his second tour of duty, the first being World War II. Al loved this country and being a true son of New Orleans, was a national treasure to me, much like the Crescent City is, to many of us in our country.

From French and Italian heritage he loved butter and olive with equality. And wine? We talked about wine all the time, his library of food and wine books was a research center for me. Whenever I had a question about something that I could not find, I’d call Al and he’d get back to me with the answer. Often he would have several versions.

Our conversations burned through cords and cords of wood, over the years. He was a happy man and a role model for me, not just about the successes, but also for the failures. When he was afflicted with a stroke, some years ago, he reinvented himself, embraced physical therapy and found a new interest in physical therapists, especially when they were young and pretty.

Later, when my wife was struck down by M.S., Al was there to listen to me, to share a glass of Chianti or Cognac, to be my friend and my wine dad.

Life for Al was never half empty. It was neither half full. For Al, pardon the cliché, but his cup always runneth over. And he was more than happy to invite friend and stranger alike to the party, to share his table, his love and his joy for life.

Happy Fathers Day Al, we’ll raise a flute in your honor today, though I know our Champagne will pale in comparison to the cuvee you will toasting with Tim Russert and all your gang.

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

Headlines & Quotes ~ Interns & Avatars

Excuse me, but I have just had one of the best food and wine combinations of the year. I was out with friends to an outdoor concert with picnic food. They brought fried chicken and I brought a bottle of Pio Cesare Arneis. Holy Mother of God, was that a match made in Heaven. Give it a try sometime, no kidding. OK, back to business.

This was the week I was quoted but this wasn’t the week my “deal” came through, whatever that is ‘sposed to mean. Anyway, it’s Friday the 13th, so I thought a little “spoof” would be a fun way to end the week.


All kidding aside, there were a few notable quotes from a local mag and a Houston paper. Earlier in the week I got an email about a wine blogger conference in Sonoma in October. The day before I was invited to participate in a series of Italian seminars across the country, sponsored by the Italian Trade Commission. We shall see.

Press is good – Sales is mo’ bettah. And this week I have been pounding the pavement, like I promised. With more to come. Austin, Houston, I’s a comin’.

About my Intern-Avatars. Here in flyover country we need ways to help us carry the message and I am in the throes of trying to decide which new Intern-Avatar I should choose. We have narrowed it down to two.

The hottie and the nerd.


I’m kind of leaning toward the nerd, as she seems to have a better sense of her place in the world. And it seems she has a more timeless design sense. Of course she can be a little blasé. Please feel free to comment.

These are not a real people. This is not a real post. Except for the quotes. They are real.

So were the chicken and the Arneis.

OK, back to business.

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

Who Died and Made You Dr. Zaius?

This was supposed to be the follow up to the last post. But I need a break from serious. So let’s have a little summer camp, eh? Besides, I have these wonderful pictures that are so timely.

Italy loves the paternal, the overseer, the luxury of primacy, when it comes to culture, food, fashion and sometimes, wine. But let the administrators in and you might as well let the monkeys run the place.

Not that the good ‘ol US isn't straining under its own weight of dominance these days. Our Hummer mentality is crashing into wall after wall, the gas tank is nearly empty, and we still want to call all the shots. And we probably will until they pry the power from our cold, dead hands.


Meanwhile, Montalcino has decided to upstage Spoleto, unveiling their operetta about “the little red wine that coulda-shoulda-woulda.” What a mess they have made of this Brunello business, to the point that the US has had to scare up a tomato scandal just to get a little ink.

So now we’ve had inexcusable mozzarella in Southern Italy, dubious red wine from Tuscany and wayward tomatoes somewhere in the Americas. What will we eat? How will the Commedia continuare?

And we worry about a wine list and its relevancy. How can one be so vacuous, so insensitive?

We worry about endangered grapes from Ischia and Cadenabbia. And our levels of certification. Really?

From Zardoz to Zaius
I’m taking a break from Zardoz and hangin’ with Dr. Zaius for a post or two. Is that a Nehru seersucker suit, I wonder?

Anyway, seems that the administrators have wrestled the monitoring of the Brunello appellation from the Consorzio.

Steven Kolpan of NY, commented in Decanter that “Brunello di Montalcino is one of the world's greatest wines, and it makes no sense for its producers to shoot themselves in their collective foot. Perhaps one day the world will find out exactly what happened to create this scandal in Montalcino and beyond, but something tells me it's not really about the quality of the wine or the commitment of Brunello producers.”
Look, it might not be all that wrong to appoint fellows like Dr. Riccardo Ricci Curbastro, president of Federdoc (National Federation of Voluntary Consortia for the Oversight of Italian Wine Appellations); Professor Vasco Boatto, director of Enology, Department of Agronomy, University of Padua); and Dr. Fulvio Mattivi, director of the analysis laboratory Istituto di San Michele all’Adige (the institute of enology, province of Trento). Still, the way it is being delivered seems like it comes straight out of the playbook of paterfamilia.

Eric Asimov blogs from The Pour about this. One thought he finished with resonated with me. He said, “Internal politics, local animosities, rivalries and disputes that may have little to do with the actual public issue may all be playing out behind the scenes.”

It just seems that there is a byzantine process in play here, and outsiders, of whom virtually most of us are, can only speculate.

Odd, that in California they can add Syrah and Teroldego to Pinot Noir in an effort to boost the profile of a wine that in places like Burgundy and Trentino they rest on their own. Odd especially for Trentino, as Teroldego grows with Pinot Nero in proximity to each other. And two different wines are made and appreciated for their own merits.

Curious, that Bordeaux can grapple with their image and make changes. And they who have much to lose from making the wrong change.

We will see. But I wonder, will the world really care about Brunello once they’ve let their little operetta play out? Already we are seeing Brunello sales going soft. Again, the 2003 vintage won’t be considered a classic by many of us out here in flyover country. Then again, in flyover country it seems there are other concerns, like the corn harvest. And what to do with all of these tomatoes. And soon all those darn melons. It’s just too much for man and ape alike.

Where’s Barbarella when you need her?

Maybe I need another vacation; this time a quiet place with a beach, perhaps?

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

Still photos from the film, Planet of the Apes, with an occasional exception or two.