We’re deep in the thick of winter now. The seersucker has been shoved to the back of the closet. Wool and other warm fabrics shelter us from the cold. And our wines? What comfort are we getting from them in these days?I am fascinated by the use of velvety in describing a wine. That rich, deep pile mouth-feel a wine shows when it has a full flavor. And seeing as we often cuddle with cast-off fabrics of the past in this blog, why not embrace velour?
My first real brush with velour was with a 1975 Petite Sirah from Souverain. Bill Bonetti was the winemaker and he brought out a wine that even in the tumbler that it was poured into showed this thick, embracing and very seductive red wine off in a way that after thousands of wines and almost thirty years, it persists. Ya feel me?
For some reason a 1955 Biondi-Santi Brunello comes to mind. When I drank this wine we were profoundly ensconced in the 1980’s, a decade where velour was foundering. But the wine wasn’t. I remember the color as being this deep clay going towards the ripe crimson of an early morning sunrise. And the wine had some stuffing, real meat in the flavor, something you could wrap your palate around. Gorgeous, juicy, classic Sangiovese. And gift wrapped in velour.
In the heady days when California wines were styled as big immense reds, there were too many to recall on this post. I’d have to say a wine like Randy Dunn’s Howell Mountain Cabernet, in those early days, ran the plays for everybody on the valley floor. Now we have too many players on the field and those high price tags have a lot of them looking for an arena they can play in. The 4th quarter meltdown gave ‘em all a bit of a concussion.
Italy also has a Maremma full of velvety dawgs, but I’m not sure who be wanting ‘em on these corners. Yeah, they gots ‘em some bling, but the rest of us soldiers down the line, and the little people, they don’t have the cash to crack open a Bolgheri once a week.
Is there a plush red or two we can ride for the next six months or so and get on over it? Something you can get for a Jackson? Anyone reading this have any feedback? Remember the rules (Marco):the wine is lavish, rich and velutinous.
Sidebar: There is a hybrid roaming about. The cardinal aspect of this deviant has merged the feel of summer (seersucker) with winter (velour). You will find this among many winery owners especially in Bordeaux and once upon a time in Italy. They would walk around wine tastings in their winemaker’s jacket uniform. Benjamin Siegel popularized this in the last century. And we all know what happened to Bugsy, no?
The Italian stays true to his roots. Milk is milk, sugar is sugar and velvet is power. Velour is recombinant command. These two pictures illustrate.
Personally, I have been enjoying a little red from the Langhe, from Ca` Viola. The wine is Bric du Luv, 95% Barbera and 5% Nebbiolo. It’s a little spoofilato, hey we’re talking velour here, not linen. But it’s got me begging for more.
Not to dwell in the past, especially one which, one might argue, has little significance for the new generation, folks from 14-30. There were barely paved roads, or toilets. Nano I-pods? Bluetooth? How about a toothbrush? No, it was like it happened a million years ago, to the inheritors of the future.
Wines in those times. Now we see them nostalgically, their wild yeasts and oxidation-rich profiles, and we’re not talking micro-oxidation either. A shame, because we talk about the heritage of great wine from Italy, but is there really much to ponder on before 1945, when the world experienced a change on such a level that in the Olden Times it would have been called Biblical? We sexy it up and call it “quantum change” as if the atomic age affected winemaking. Which it did, if not directly.
The linear acceleration of agricultural progress hasn’t been without its casualties though. The story teller, the master and the apprentice, the craft of the wine business, all this has morphed into some 15 minute superconducting version, where, in their place, now, young sommeliers walk on water in restaurants across the planet. I was there too, man. We have all been there before.
Maybe I should get out my 
When it comes to Italy, one can actually do this quite easily. Calabria or Liguria would be a great place to start looking for those core experiences in the Italian landscape.
I’ve found the Italian of our imagination and our dreams can be a better substitute Italy than the reality on the ground now or 93 years ago.
Andrea Fassone decided to start an Italian wine import business in the last quarter of 2008. Timing is everything. But unlike General Motors, he didn’t take 3 years and numerous trips to Italy to get rolling. He knew what he was looking for before he even got to America. The timing aspect has been a bit of a surprise, but in this short, end-of-year interview, I think you can feel Andrea’s sense of entrepreneurship and willingness to go boldly through the fog. Anyway, here he is in less than three months, up-and-running with his new baby, Enotria Imports. I caught up with him by phone as he was delivering wine through the holiday season. He sounded like he could use a little help, sales are brisk.
Q. How did you manage to start your own company and get the wines in so soon?
Q. Any particular surprises about starting a business in these economic times?
Energy in the USA? I like what I see in Austin and in Atlanta toward Italian wines.
Yesterday I was driving to the older part of town to visit a friend who was in the hospital. He has been a mentor to me, and as I was nearing the facility, I saw the old street where my dad and his family had lived more than 90 years ago. The picture above was taken there, 1313 Hall Street, Dallas, Texas, where my dad was born. The house is gone. All that remains of his original family is his sister, my aunt Mary. She's the little baby in my grandmother's arms. 
Cigarettes didn’t cause cancer, yet. Diseases were being conquered. The atom was being harnessed. Seat belts weren’t necessary. Front doors needn’t be locked. 
Out in the San Fernando Valley and Escondido and Cucamonga, the family would picnic in the vineyards. Note the happy faces and the glasses of wine.
My dad with some of the many women in his family. His Aunt Mary, his sister (my aunt) Mary, Josie and Cuccia, Tootsie and Anna, and Rosemary and on. So pristine in the simplicity of their happiness. Wine, women and song. And food, what great food. Local, fresh, not microwaved, not from a can. California, the Golden State in a golden age.
My mom and dad, with riding boots. Chances are, Dad made them. How much my son looks like him. I now am the age my father was when I wondered what it would be like to be his age. I think I might be happier at this age than he was, but his youth sure looked good from this vantage point. And my mom, the classic Italian beauty. She’s almost 93 and still pretty fired-up about life and living. Thank God she’s in good shape. My friend in the hospital, what I wouldn’t give for him to have been that fortunate, too.
My Aunt Josephine, on the right in the picture, next to her brother Felice and his East Texas bride, Reba. And my dad and mom. A night out on the town. Was it in Dallas? Or Hollywood? They look out at me from this picture as if to say, “Bring us your best bottle of Italian wine, and come sit down with us and enjoy your family.” If only I could, Uncle Phil. My mom and my Aunt Jo are both in their 90’s now, both in pretty good health. Still driving. But not in the rain.
My brother-in-law Nick was born a hunter. Growing up in Greece during WWII, where famine was the norm at the time, he learned how to survive at a very early age. When his family immigrated to the New World, settling in Southern California, I could only imagine what he must have felt like, as a child. He took to California and the American Dream like a duck to water.
On a visit earlier this month at his and my sisters rambling Tuscan ranch house, on the 16th green of a PGQ gold course in Indian Wells, we got to opening a few bottles of wine. And talking about what makes a wine great. It got me to thinking about the way we collect our wines. Are they trophies to put on a rack and lay claim to bragging rights? Or is there a deeper meaning to the wines we have opened, enjoyed and appreciated over the years?
In my mind I’d be putting Barolo and Barbaresco up on the wall. Brunello? Most likely, but these days, Brunello is bothering me. If you put it into the context of 50 or so years, then OK. But right now, I’d say Brunello is on probation with a lot of us.
About ten years ago my brother-in-law and sister and I were having breakfast at a hotel. A few tables away Angelo Gaja and his field rep were seated. I mentioned to my brother-in-law that the gentleman about his age was a famous Italian winemaker. I went over to the table and said hello. After all I had first sold Gaja’s wines in 1981.
No doubt Barolo, Barbaresco and Brunello are in my club. But the fourth wine? I’d like to think 
Haven’t we all had a shoe or two thrown at us this year? That was my thought this afternoon. I had spent two days preparing a proposal for an Italian-styled restaurant. They needed to replace a whole slew of wines that a distributor had lost. And we got the call. I’m not sure they really needed me. I think they might have been looking for less expertise and a deeper pocket. With a blank check.
The person with which we had the appointment never showed. Two days I worked on this presentation. For a no show. It happens. You show up and someone throws a shoe at you. Or worse, they just blow you off. After 25+ years, who likes it? But what can you really do about it?
Last week, I did a wine dinner for 30 people. I realized very early in the evening that these folks really didn’t come to hear me talk about Italian wines. They were there for a good meal on a cold night. So I spoke for about 7 minutes and then sat down and talked for the rest of the evening to a couple of people who I really liked talking to. I wasn’t supposed to sit next to them. In fact every time I chose a seat, someone came and took my seat. At first I felt offended. Wasn’t I the person who was here to explain the evening to them? But in reality, that wasn’t the case. The shoe didn’t fit. I was just there along with them. Hey, the owner of the restaurant, who lived on the grounds and whom I have known for 25 years, didn’t even come down to say hello. To his customers! The folks who pay his bills. Forget about being a friend of his for a quarter of a century. Boy, things have gotten really off kilter these days.
Is it really that important? No. It. Isn’t. So why the expectations? I really have no idea. Maybe it is something about the Italian idea of respect for one's trade and the hope that if you ply it long enough and diligently enough someone will respond with the deserved respect. Well that could be a cold day in Dante’s Hell, if you really think folks peer that far out of their own personal box of consequences.
Life or death; now we’re talking consequences and importance. Not whether we can talk a restaurant manager into lowering his wine by-the-glass prices. The free-market forces will take care of that. The consumers are the real experts in that they will reward (or punish) good (or bad) business decisions. Not those journeymen who breathe it, live it, dream it, day and night, year after year. A sobering thought in the abstract. But weighed against life and death decisions, well, let’s just say if the shoe fits…
There are plenty of folks who wish they could get back into their own shoes. But their life took them to a place where they had to answer for the decisions of others. In the last 5+ years, many of these men and women have been lost to the future. Someone dodges a shoe, others can’t dodge a bullet. Random? Some divine plan here? And what does it have to do with the Italian wine trail? Or rather, what does the Italian wine trail have to do with it?
Not much. If anything. Like our little galaxy, just off to the corner from the really important goings on. Except for those of us who are going through it at the time. As it is with each and every one of us. Except perhaps for the most highly enlightened. Like the yogi master on an island somewhere.
Oh yes. Yes, the meaning of our place in this daily activity. The wine business. The holiday season. The economic slowdown.
