This week I have been immersed in Piedmont. Barolo, Castiglione Falletto, Serralunga, Cuneo, Barbaresco and on. Sorting out some information for the young sales force. This link between humans and the land that makes one wine taste one way and another, over on a hill 2 miles away, taste another way. The Italian wine trail ends today in the Langhe, but starts in the Marche.15 years ago I landed in a little town, Matelica, to taste the wines of Aldo Cifola from La Monacesca. On that visit we were looking at his new vineyard, Camerte, where his Merlot and Sangiovese vines were newly planted. That will be another story for another day. What happened on that day, and how it leads to Piedmont, is something totally out of the linear way of seeing things. They really have nothing and everything to do with each other.
The inspiration for this came from a photograph I took back then at the estate, of the La Monacesca caretaker and his sons. After a wine tasting, in a little room, with prosciutto he prepared from his happy pigs, they brought out the accordions. Now I’m a sucker for accordions, used to own a couple of them till I donated them to some missionaries in Central America. Maybe it’s the um-pap-pah music of Calabria or the Zydeco of our beloved southwestern Louisiana nearby. If there’s an accordion nearby, count me in. Accordions, the mobile musical terroir machines, for me.
To see this father and his sons, now grown up, let’s back up. The food was raised at his farm: The grapes were made into wine, the prosciutto, the bread and so on. The children were raised here, too. Heart and soil. That’s Italy in a New York second.
This man and his wife took on the stewardship of a land he didn’t even own. They are caretakers. Correction, they are caregivers. From the dirt to the denim, the family was infused with caring, for their vines and their children. The Camerte vineyard, when I first saw it, I wanted to lie right down and die in it. And that’s not a morbid wish, please understand me. I wanted to be a part of what was going on there, on a molecular level!
There are other occurrences. Italy is rampant with them.In Calabria , in the Veneto .
Three years before that trip to the Marche, I was looking at some newly planted vines in Barbaresco. The area was called Montestefano, and the family there was quite excited about this
vineyard that would be ready in a five or so years. Five years! We’ve gone through a mate or two, two cars, two houses, a stereo system, two computer upgrades and 3 cellular phones in that time. And for what? Those vines on those steep hills, patiently working their way up, easing the love from the dirt into the vine, year after year, grape after grape. And what do we understand about that, back in the meeting rooms? What do we need to know about that, how do we convey that sense of connection to our fledgling wine-drinkers back in the U.S.of A.?Look at the way the youth of Italy are exposed to the traditions, but even more important, the love for the obligation to share in the caring for the land and the fruits of one’s labors. For the young boys in Matelica, it first started with a baby pig. The young sommelier, for her, it started walking with her grandmother, picking chestnuts in the Langhe. It grew in them, and they grew into it. Not another new Game Boy or another new pair of designer jeans. Not just that. Time, the influence of the daily communion with the earth.
That’s what makes it so difficult to help our wine industry professionals and the clients. I can’t put that on a sheet of paper with a score and a good price. I try. But it seems so much less than the inspiration that I feel when I take an hour and think about it, reflect on it. Question is, as it has been for some time, how do we get folks to slow their world down to take a peek into this wonderful Emerald City of Wine? How do we impart this in a meaningful way, to the person who decides which wines go on the rack at the wine shop, to the neighbor in the new house who wants to know more about Italian wine? And how do we get it to stick?This ain’t plug and play. This is day by day…really hard work. But it is so rewarding when, at the end of the day, one is drawing a glass of Nebbiolo or Barbera and looking at some incredible site across the hill (even if it is only on this page or in your mind). The neighbor’s house may not be new and improved, and the internet connection might still be dial-up. That’s right. Very, very right.
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.
All through this week we have had the procession of winemakers from Italy making their post-Ferragosto pilgrimage to America. One player, Stephane Schaeffer, export director from Argiano, was in town towards the end of the last week. The last time I saw Stephane it was during Vinitaly in Verona and he was heading into Bottigleria Corsini, the “other” wine bar that we were frequenting, having a glass of Prosecco. Stephane was doing a wine dinner for some important clients and he was carrying wine inside. He had a furrowed brow, not the look of someone who was comfortable. But why should he have been? News was circulating all over Vinitaly about the problems in Montalcino. Argiano had a bulls-eye painted on its front door. Someone wanted blood.
2006 Rosso di Montalcino – for me one of the most enjoyable wines of the night. I cringe when I hear that the Biondi-Santi camp disagrees with the Gaja camp about proposing two different kinds of Brunello, as reported on 
The 2003 Il Duemilatre- identical wine to what they had previously bottled as their 2003 Brunello, but this time no mention of the appellation. Now a Toscana IGT and, for the vintage, reflecting more of the spirit and soul of Argiano than many of their neighbors “Brunelli.”
The 2006 “NC” (Non Confunditor) - touted as the wine that Argiano is looking to spread around as their entry level wine. NC also is the initials of the proprietress, Noemi Cinzano. They mix it up here, Sangiovese with Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Argiano hasn’t been afraid of those varietals and Tachis hasn’t discouraged them from seeking expression from their soil with these grapes. At first I thought this wine was a marketing gimmick and then I drank it several times and it grew on me. Remember, I am first a Californian, then an Italian and then a Texan. I didn’t grow up drinking Blue Nun or White Zinfandel. So this wine eventually recast itself in my vinous memory as a pleasant one. I can be persuaded by sybaritic virtues too.
The 2004 Solengo – And older gentleman in the crowd, now beginning his octogenarian ascent, called me over to his table and asked me what I thought of this wine. It sells for close to $100 in the retail world. I looked at him and told him it wasn’t for him. “Why,” he asked. “Because you have enough wine to drink in your life and you don’t have time for this wine.” Tough love, baby, but he got the gist of it. This is a wine for men with testosterone and money to burn. And for the women reading this, this is a lusty wine that pushes your power buttons. Go for it. Climb the mountain and tell us all about it.
All these families, native born and foreign, assemble their fragile little kin and go about putting their lives in order, one step at a time. And it is through time that we find ourselves shifting and being tested by some of the adjustments. Humans seem to naturally resist change, whether you are Italian or American. Both countries are being faced with huge transformative issues that must be decided upon.
Tastes vary. The Italian salesperson of 30 years ago was faced with introducing Brolio and Bolla and Ruffino. Twenty years ago it was Santa Margherita and Brunello. Now it is Amphora wine from Friuli, resuscitated reds and whites from Campania, fruit bombs from Puglia and the Veneto, and extracted and alcohol driven big reds from Piemonte, Tuscany and Sicily. You ask for permission and hope like hell you don’t have to repeat too many mea culpas. But even if you fall, you must climb back up and move on up the hill.
And when the fashions advance so must this family of wine. In any event, looking back will always make it seem strange from another era; one wonders what made that wine or that clothing so darn attractive. And then one goes right on looking for the next pretty shiny thing.
Along the trail some of us stop and look back on a time that appears to be more desirable than what awaits us in the future. But how many babies have returned to the womb? In this Annie get your gun era, looking back at an age will always be colored by the lenses of hindsight. Don’t try backing the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria into the Old World.
And if we move forward, will there be mistakes made? Without a doubt. Just like those who came before us made. Sweet fizzy white wine from the Veneto seemed like a good idea, just like staying out all night with your girlfriend did. But it passed, and most of us moved beyond it. Every generation likes to think they discovered sex or red wine. “Those who forget history…connect the dots.”
And like those who forgot history, have they also have conveniently misplaced their better judgment about the sanctity of life? Is this reverence just something to direct towards the unborn? Our children, of all ages were not brought into this world to kill and die. When a society truly reveres life then they will value families. Managing their anger might lead towards a world in which we don’t feel compelled to send our babies across the world to do our misdirected bidding, in this time or 40 years ago. To value that unborn soul only to send one’s son or daughter to the gates of hell is something I cannot fathom. It’s a horrific trend in the time I have spent on earth. My Italian friends ask me what it is we hope to do with these dissonant concepts. I point them to their history and remind them they have not been untouched by the same waves of inexplicable behavior in a supposed civilized society asking neither for permission nor forgiveness.
And the torch is passed to the next generation and it begins all over again. Learn to swim, learn to drive, learn to drink, learn to love, learn to forget. And round and round and round we go.
A Republican and a Democrat were arguing about the American flag waving in the wind. The Republican said: "The flag moves." The Democrat said: "The wind moves." Back and forth they argued. Coming upon a giant duck, he said, "Partisans! It is not the flag that moves. It is not the wind that moves. It is your mind that moves!" The partisans were awestruck. The duck then asked them to get off of his diving platform; and a new Zen Koan was born: Nothing above me, nothing below me, so I leap off.
I bet you’re all dying to know, what’s up with the “intern?” I have long ago given up that title, even though IWG still thinks of me as his find. I am so not part of his world anymore, I’ve learned all his mysteries, and I gotta tell you, when he’s running around town saying “ I gotta get more cowbells,” I think we should “make the call", if you know what I mean.
Saturday Aug 30 – 11:00 AMI got a text from IWG last night when he landed. I didn't pay any attention to it till now, Great, what’s for lunch and how well will it go with that last bottle of 1990 Cristal that we be chillin’ up?
Now he is torn, ‘cause he gets this call trying to bribe him to come into the city for a tasting of old wines , journalists just back from their trips, old Italian wines, ready to go. 
He said he felt like he was abandoning his hosts on the “island”. Give me a break, they’d love to see him go 
Sunday Aug 31 – 9:30 AMI told him to not call me before 10. He said he waited until 10:30. Technically, for him, he was right. But I wasn’t ready to hear about his old wine conquests. Our party lasted until 2:30 and some folks crashed around the many beds, while others just split for more private surroundings. I have an aunt of one of the friends who has a cleaning service, he’ll never know. Like he can see anything outside of his own drama? That’s the Mother Lode of Life Theater, boys and girls. Believe me, he’ll never, ever, know.
His Majesty's Truffle dinner and French wine menu:
