I have been in the Zinfandel Capital of the World this week for the Lodi International Wine Awards and the Sommelier Journal Terroir Experience. Both required a lot of tasting, and in a few days I’ve had several hundred wines pass my lips.If you are looking to do some California wine tourism while taking in some of the Old California Sierra beauty, this is a nice alternative to the North Coast. There’s a lot to love about Napa and Sonoma and the whole North Coast, so this isn’t a slam to those friends over there.
I remember as a youngun’ taking my Fiat 124 Sport Coupe up into the little towns of the foothills, Ione, Plymouth, Murphys, Sutter Creek, Jackson; usually on our way to Yosemite. I loved the pioneer feel to the place back then, in the early 1970’s. Well, there still is an unfettered and unspoiled way about the place. The wines are in transition. The farther you get away from highway 99, higher up on the foothills, I found winemakers who had some calling to make wine from that certain place.
One fellow, Brian Fitzpatrick, a burly fellow with a healthy girth and a Grizzly Adams beard, talked about the calling he had, from very early on, to grow his grapes organically. Brian wasn’t playing at being green because it was the trendy thing to do. Brian is not a trendy guy. But talking to him an afternoon ago, I wanted to plan a vacation to come back and stay awhile at his little B&B in Fairplay. Read all about him here.His wines were styled for my tastes, even his unlikely Pinot Noir and Merlot. I think something happens when you decide you like a person. Their wines then become an extension of them and are ushered in by a genuine liking for the person. Brian’s wines were like that. I felt like I was talking to a college roommate.
I stayed with Brenda and Dave Akin in Lodi, the night before the competition. Dave is a walking encyclopedia of the California wine business. I haven’t talked to someone as knowledgeable of the history since Bob Pellegrini. And they were there, when the history was being carved out. Dave was talking about how his Tannat has a p.h. issue in the winemaking process. Anyone who has ever had a Tannat knows it can be a tannic pest. Dave is on a quest to calm the beast. Kudos’ to Dave, he is only one of a small handful of people who have ever heard of an ancient Central Valley dessert wine which went by the name of Kosrof Anoush.
Leon Sobon of Shenandoah Vineyards and Sobon Estate is another piece of what some day will be the beginnings of modern Sierra wine history. I heard someone remark that Leon was a hippie who moved from the Bay Area to set up his wine lab in the hills. Leon was a Senior Scientist with Lockheed Research lab. Mad scientist maybe, hippie, umm, I don’t think so. Genuinely nice person making interesting wines that reflect the place and the personality of the individuals who are re-settling this piece of the West in a carbon neutral setting.
Chaim Gur-Arieh and his wife Elisheva established an outpost for wine and art with their C.G. Di Arie Winery on the border of the Eldorado and Amador counties. Chaim and Elisheva have a great life and love story, they could have set up shop in Napa, easily. But they committed their wine working life to the Sierra foothills. One of my favorite wines was a Primitivo.There are more stories, but these four really touched the soul of this slave to the wine god. Note that these are four mature fellows; they've had time to experience life, to decide what the like and don't like, to develop their palate sense. These are four fellows who have searched for the philosopher's stone.
Is there terroir in the wines of the Sierras? Some think not. From the little I saw, there was more composing than conducting. But this is a wine region that although it is one of the oldest wine producing areas of California, it’s really in its infancy. Like Dave Akin said, “This area is like Napa was thirty years ago. People are friendly, the wines are getting better and we’re having a great time of it.” Remembering back in my early days, driving the Falcon “family wagon” up and down Hwy 29 in the latter 1970’s, I grokked what Dave was talking about.
Is there gold in them thar hills? Is there terroir? Are there wines that reflect California and the region in a timeless and classic style found in no other place? To address those questions, Marco Capelli, winemaker for Miraflores, went into the cellar and tapped a barrel of Angelica.
Yes sir, he tapped into Old California, the West of my youth, a wine that put California on the winemaking map. Dark, deep, sunny, unctuous, god-awful sweet and sexy. And man, it was just like when I first kissed my girlfriend in the back of the movie house, when we were fourteen and so very young and in love.
written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy
Like the airline industry or the film business, the wine-and-spirits business is contracting rapidly. Big is getting bigger. And bigger. And this being a bottle business, there is a critical mass to the scale of things now. 
I don’t know what to tell him. Hell, I don’t know what to tell myself. Everywhere we look we're getting kicked in the nuts. We have too much. Of everything. Time for a diet. Time to pause. Or is it? It looks more like this is the time for hand-to-hand combat. 
The small companies, are they in any better shape? They can move faster, but can they sustain anything, grow it? Only to lose it to a larger concern because they cannot grow it any more? Yes, great, unpolluted wines from the Loire and Liguria come from them, but then what? 
From the deck of this ship, it doesn’t matter. The forces in play are moving, growing and aiming to swallow everything in their way. I stare into their eyes every day. And I am afraid, very afraid. 
A California winemaker who still thinks their cabernet is worth $200? A producer of Amarone who is spending so much on French oak that he must charge over $100 for his wine? The rivers run red with the blood of bad decisions. A reserve bottle of Malbec from Argentina that someone is asking $75 for? A Syrah from South Africa that the importer says must sell for over $50? The Escalade generation isn’t bling enough for this. 
When I get this way, I turn to Rossini. I must get back into warrior mode. I must find a way to help make our world smaller, something that we can wrap our minds and hearts around. We don’t have that much time. There are forces of destiny heading in our direction at light speed, intent on eventually swallowing all of this up. 
I have been staring at a computer screen for two days now. With month end comes new reports. I don’t even know where to start.
Still, with all the running around and sending out information, going to this customer tasting here, and a private one there, what does it all add to the bottom line? Or does it just keep the bottom from sinking even lower?
Oh yeah, we still have the hilly vineyards and the romance of the gentrified farmer. Or if you prefer, the Leed certified winery that farms organic and fines with fertile egg whites in a gravity fed facility. All neat and shiny.
After spending a week in Napa Valley, we headed over the hill to Sonoma. Destination: Occidental, California. The sun that had been our companion for two days headed back behind the clouds. Driving, I was reminded of the John Mayall song, 
There is something about the way the air of California caresses me. I grew up with it in southern California, but on a good day in the north, there was only one thing better for a California youth. I have never felt it in New York or Texas or Italy. It is unique for me in California. The place is a huge visceral caress.
Maybe that was why my son asked me to come visit him in Occidental. He was looking into a possible position with the 
As we drove through the hills from Sebastopol to Occidental, getting a little lost along the way, there were signs of the early Italian immigrant. With names like Piezzi Road and Rossi Road, Mancini Road and Cuneo Court, I could feel the souls who had passed through Ellis Island and ended up eight miles from the Pacific Ocean. They had found their Paradise. Grapes, figs, apples, nuts, land, mud, sun, salvation.
“I don’t think I can live in a city right now, Pop.” My son is searching for his place in the sun, somewhere away from the big tree, so he can grow in his own right. There was no arguing, this was a beautiful place. Organic gardens filled with the most wonderful and edible plants. Tradition born from the dawning of the new age. I recognized what he was looking for was something our Italian ancestors had been looking for all the way back to Columbus.
After a week in the high concept of Napa, which I admit openly that I love, here we were in this little pocket, this vortex of a place that is an original part of California. Grapes are everywhere, as are young women with long hair and long dresses. Such a departure from the day before, when we went to a special tasting of new releases on Howell Mountain. The new ultra-modern green building, a state of the art facility, a Leed certified winery on its way to becoming Leed Gold. The winemaker, from an Italian family that settled in Lodi.
Later that night in the City at a little eight table café, 
The next morning, Sunday, as we headed out of Sebastopol on our way to catch a plane in San Francisco that never showed up, I silently wondered if I would ever get back to the garden.
It is like the first love. Young and beautiful. Desirable. Meant often for another. She has a solar gaze that shines over we trembling ones and we all want to be loved by her. But she cannot love just one; she has been created to break hearts with her beauty. And she does, often.
Saturday, during a barrel tasting of probably 200 wines - after about 20 my tongue felt like I had just taken a razor to it. It was finished. So I walked over to the dining area at Greystone, which is the kitchen for the Culinary Institute of America. There I found rigatoni Bolognese, gnocchi and polenta. There was also baccala, wonderful green salads with frisee and avocado. Cioppino in little cups had shrimp floating on the surface. Dutch ovens of risotto Milanese, done properly. It could have been Italy, easily. The sensibility in the kitchen was overwhelmingly Italian.
Italy is a force, even for California. I’m don’t see the wines where the food definitely is. When will the winemakers realize what has happened to the cuisine of California? The marriage of the Italian sensibility, so long ago, among others, cultivated by the Italian women of Napa. Could it be that the food has been under the influence of the female energy, that California recognizes so readily, but the wine is still be held hostage by the masculine vigor? Taste many of the rich and powerful red wines of Napa valley. It begs the question of who they are making these wines for. An $80-300 bottle of wine made for a blood-rich chunk of meat, whose California does that belong to anymore?
Last Friday I was sitting, parked in front of a beauty salon in St. Helena. Parades of elderly Italian-American women were coming out of the shop, their grey hairs all arranged in perfect order. My 94 year old mom and 92 year old aunts also have this ritual. It’s a little rite they perform, to strike a balance with their well being and the way they present themselves to the world.
I’m taking a few days in Napa for the 
Earlier in the day one of the seminars was about breaking the news with 
Speaking of treats, the chickpea fries with Romesco sauce at 
While we're schlepping our Best Of’s, the hanging duck and bacon at 
We mommy blogged our way through the City on Sunday, stopping in Japan town for some tea and chimes and then finally to 
What are the 
In December, Dr. Zaia said,” We must launch the pineapple strike and of all those products that have nothing to do with the Italian agriculture. Yes, therefore, to zampone and cotechino. And no, instead, to the non seasonal products, that do not belong to our tradition and that, often, are cultivated in countries where it is still possible to use insecticides."
And a month later the Italians were banging the drums that they were the 
America has a new president, elected by a large margin, some would say overwhelmingly. His childhood home is Hawaii, and Zaia is throwing down on the national fruit of our president’s homeland. Meanwhile kiwi - which is native to China – is being sent from Italy to China. Whose carbon footprints are all over that?
Or they could all go back to riding horses in Italy, like we all do in Texas. Then Dr. Zaia could show off his horse-whispering mind-meld talents. Another 60 million horses in Italy wouldn’t have too serious an impact on global warming. It’s only 60 million methane producing mini-factories. Maybe they could feed espresso beans to the horses and the Italians could harvest them after they passed through the horses digestive systems, like the civets in Indonesia. Then it could be considered truly Italian.
Why am I so angry? It’s because I see politicians not understanding the way the world is going and not wanting to lose their power - their gravy train - so they work to keep people down by fear and ignorance. Don’t buy pineapples because they are not local, but let’s sell a non-indigenous kiwi to a country where the kiwi originated from, which just happens to be halfway across the globe. Then the rest of us have to clean up the politician's messes.
Do we ask too much from any wine? With the grapes long ascent through time, asking nothing from man, except to be held and loved and partnered in a glass, maybe with a little cheese and bread. But we want to triangulated it and take it apart, stem by stem. Both camps, the terroirists and the wine-stylists, want wine to be what they think it should be. But what does a grape made into wine really want? Maybe it just wants to be your man.
So I took the last thirty years in the service of the Old Country and her wines. Along the way, fashion led Italy to take on the mantle of the New World, only to cast it off as the fashions change. And those of us who never went to med school, but were expected to perform surgery in the field, without anesthetics, what was in store for one whose life took them in that direction?
The cycles, the trends, the oak, the concrete, and every autumn the grapes would ripen and souls would pick them and squeeze them and let the fateful mystery cling to those rotten bunches and make diamonds appear. In the New World, a master of wine and war would fantasize in the darkness of the sunset, thinking about his Old World home and the maidens in the field busy with the grapes being born and dying. Planting by the cycles of the ocean and harvesting by the fullness of the moon. Grab a horn and blow the walls down. Dig a hole and drop the precious liquid inside it. And wait. Three months, six months, nine months or more.
And to what end? To end up on a wine list in some rotating bento box 600 feet in the sky, waiting for someone to pay $195 for a meal? Or $120 for a bottle of wine? And we send our best and our brightest up to man those stylites, fending off diners pleas for white zinfandel as if they were the advances of Satan?
