While visiting my friend Mario I noticed a National Geographic from 1916, the same as his birth year. Italy in 1916, the year my Aunt Mary and Aunt Josephine were born. They are all still alive and well. Here was a magazine with many great images of the Italy that both of their parents had left. Fascinating stuff, looking back at Italy some 93 years, to see how it has changed. The photographs on this post are from that issue.Oddly, I think many of us want to find those back roads (and wines) of Italy in 1916. A return to a day when things seemed so much simpler and easier. But then one needs to factor in that time. 1916, World War I, with 37 million casualties (16 million deaths, 21 million wounded), an incoming influenza pandemic that killed 40-100 million people world wide, many younger than 45 years old. So, it wasn’t all rustic charm and simpler times, for those who lived through it.
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.The oldest Italian wine in my possession is a 1936 Est!Est!!Est!!! Amabile. It will never be opened. It sits there, twenty years after the National Geographic issue, in the time of Mussolini, at the edge of another World War.
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 Andre Simon, C.E.Hawker and T.A.Layton and read them now. These were writers telling the story of wine from a time long forgotten by followers of Galloni, Meadows and Vaynerchuck. It worked for Merlin, to travel through time from the future to the past; maybe with wine it would be equally magical. From what I read it sure seems folks want to find something that has gone missing.
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.Or, if you want something simpler, something a little less “nano”, you could read the old books, find the random National Geographic from a million years ago, or you could sit back, pour a glass of ancient Marsala and crank up the Rossini and let your imagination take you away.
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.But if you want to go for the experience of Italy, and you have had your share of visiting museums and restaurants and churches and Autogrills, next time, choose the slow train from Rome to Catanzaro and take a trip back to an Italy that linear time has not accelerated with the rapidity of modernity. You can find vestiges of Pythagoras, Federico II, and Mascagni. You might even find a piece of your Italian soul which you have been looking for.
written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy
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.
A word about fame, something I know a little about. I grew up in a town filled with famous people (Palm Springs, CA) and learned very early not to make a fuss over folks who have been afflicted with it. Leave ‘em be, talk to them normal, change the subject away from them. Some of them might even make the grade to friendship. But, I ramble.
I am a walker. Love to walk the streets of a town. Rome, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Palermo, Naples, Chicago, Dallas. I once walked the route on Elm Street in Dallas where JFK was shot (grassy knoll) to the shop on the same street where John Hinckley bought the gun that he shot Ronald Reagan with. On a hot July day I took my trusty Canon VIT rangefinder and a new Canon AE1 and did my own shooting. The Dallas of that day has altered greatly.
New York? Since 1975, I have trudged the streets of that city camera and wine bag in tow. My childhood friend and photography co-conspirator Bruce took a fabulous street shot, worthy of a 
I spent time in the NY scene with 
I had my time with the world of reportage and photojournalism. One photographer from 
And the old masters, so many of them I was lucky to encounter, sit awhile and soak up their greatness. They were called the 
Imogen. Petite, but never diminutive, cantankerous, strong willed and boy crazy. But a vision and a determination to walk her trail without fear. Imogen was a wonderful mentor to me in life.
On the fringe of the f64 group was 
My dad was a photographer and a film maker. I still have hours of 16mm reels of film he shot, some of it family, some Italy, and also Old California footage. He always thought I should take more sunset pictures.
Being a black and white kind of guy, I could never understand why he wanted to thwart my path. But fathers do that to their son’s even when they aren’t conscious of it. I love to watch sunsets (like sunrises better) but not to shoot.
My college teacher, Philip Welch, introduced me to many of the West Coast school. He was a student of Frank Lloyd Wright and had given me the entrée to that world. He told me about famous people. He said, “Call them up, knock and their door. If they are truly great they will talk to you, if not, they are only famous. You want to meet greatness, not fame.”
I’ve had a few friends through the years who made it to fame, but not quite to greatness. I have also had more than my share of friends who bypassed fame and went straight to greatness. I have photographed them, opened bottles of wine with them, danced with them, laughed with them, cried with them and walked through pools of Jell-O with them.
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 
