Croce e Delizia

Dream fragment: A great hall filled with people. Two men who must pass through the crowd to the other side of the long, narrow hall. From a distance above this appears to be set in a Gothic cathedral. Is this a ceremony? As the men make their way, they walk directly through the people, who have become formless but not invisible. They have no presence, no corpus, they are all ghosts. Except for the two men, who advance towards the other side of this great passageway.

Before the earthquakes in Italy last week, another dream: We are in the countryside. It is a perfect day, sunny and temperate. From over the horizon a missile bears down upon us. I look above and realize if this thing drops I am dead. It is heading in my direction. There is nothing to do, no time, everything is finished. The bomb dropped, maybe a half mile from where I was. The earth shook relentlessly, feeling like we were all going to be pulled towards the core of the earth.

As I walk the great halls of Vinitaly, I see people I know. Sometimes I don’t recognize them, sometimes they don’t recognize me. Some of these folk I have known now for almost thirty years. Some I have just gotten to know in the last few years. All of us, living our lives, how much this collective honey gathering has been done for the sake of making Italian wine a greater expression of the culture and people and land of Italy?

Over the years I have had passionate, lively and sometimes explosive polemics over the direction Italian wine is going. I remember in 1985 talking to a producer of Barolo about his exclusive use of French barrique for the aging of his wines. I told him then that I thought the wine would suffer under all the weight of the wood, not to mention how much more it would raise the price of the wine. He responded by telling me that I was a young American and that the world is a large place, larger than the way I learned about it in school in America. Yes, I was young and inexperienced and an American, all sins which I was guilty as charged by my more learned and experienced farmer colleague in Castiglione Falletto.

I have had more than my share of passionate discussion about Italian labels. I was an art major at the university, design was my background, coupled with an intimate feel for American marketing. Over the years, I have seen labels that had as much appeal as a mullet haircut. But as we have recently seen, in Italy the mullet is enjoying a renaissance. Wonderful step forward for all of humanity. Why is it a label is so important? I imagine Caravaggio or Simone Martini looking forward several centuries from their time to see their work and how it had survived the fashions of time and wonder why the label designers don’t understand this. But it is after all a product, to be opened and consumed and then to be sent to the trash bin. It isn’t art, no matter how much we want to imbue it with nobility and grandeur. It is sustenance; it is a measure by which we get through the day. Art? Art is not essential for survival of the species. Nourishment is. And perhaps it is because our farmer knows that we will ultimately need the fruits from his harvest, that a misplaced label, or too much wood won’t really matter all that much in the greater scheme of things.

When I was younger the older wine producers would listen to my thoughts, about their wine, about their labels, about their expensive barrels and they would make this barely perceptible grimace on their foreheads. The tell on their face was that I was young and inexperienced and that they were Europe, they were Italy. They knew what would be better for all of us, especially gli Americani. So I would pack my luggage and head back to America to spread the word as they so ordered.

A generation later, the younger wine producers hear an older man rant, about their wine, about their labels, about their expensive barrels, and this time the frown on their forehead is more pronounced. What it tells, without words, but without doubt, is that they know better. They are young and this is a different world, and one must be positive about all of these changes. Or else. So I pack my luggage and head back to my post, the one from which I will never be called back, and ponder on all these “changes”.

In search of the timeless I have run smack dab in to the middle of the transitory, once again. Except this time, I have walked to the other side of the great hall. I have seen through the folly of the mullet, and have no time for delusion.

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

Images from the Abazzia di Novacella Museum

Interview: The Last Vinitaly

By Beatrice Russo

I hadn’t heard from Italian wine guy for over a week and was starting to worry. What with the earthquake in Abruzzo and all, I started thinking the worst. I called TB down in Austin to see if she had talked to him. The old man was OK. His Blackberry was down and he wasn’t getting any email. So I called hid friend and he handed his phone to the Invisible Man and I talked to him for a while. The following is an excerpt from our somewhat lengthy phone conversation.

Q. So what’s going on with you in Italy? You have everyone worried about you.
A. Hey, I’m OK. I have had technical difficulties. My phone and email have been down for several days.

Q. Bummer. What do you mean, technical difficulties?
A. I busted a tooth on the first night I got to Italy. Along with my phone and email, my camera has also been on the fritz. Everything is breaking.

Q. So where are you now?
A. I’m in Valdobbiadene, listening to birds and other creatures. No horns, trains or cars, just the sounds of nature. Bees buzzing, donkeys braying, good stuff.

Q. And Vinitaly?
A. I really am thinking this last Vinitaly might be my last for a while. People here just aren’t getting the crisis. Everyone is asking about better sales and they are looking to America to make them up. I don’t see it, seeing as we just ran our first quarter numbers. The French are in the tank. The Italians are holding on, but the cases are down. The good news is, the cost per case is up. Folks seem to be trading up a little. But buying less cases.

But this is like 1985 all over again.

Q. Uh, that was like before I was born, dude. Can you explain?
A. Yes. Italians were starting to embrace barriques and international grape varieties in places like Piedmont and Tuscany. Prices were climbing, even though the dollar was strong against the lira. Barolo and Super Tuscans were starting their long descent into Parkerland. Spoofed wines. High prices. Weird names. Crazy Miami Vice looking labels.

Q. And that relates to now in what way, Obi-Wan?
A. Look, Vinitaly is an unnatural environment to begin with. Pavilion after pavilion filled with the hopes and dreams of so many Italian producers. But many of these folks really don’t have a bead on the markets they are wanting to get into. They talk about China and India being the new England and Russia, but in reality China and India have serious infrastructure problems. They need rice and petrol before wine. But many Italians have bought into the mantra of those two countries being their salvation. And America? They look to America to swallow up untold quantities of wine without regard to price, flavor, wood, concrete, label making sense or fantasy label. And all along no one wants to listen to the Silverback.

Q. You lost me, Ace.
A. Look, America isn't the center of the universe, but we do have a growth potential for wine. But this is a particular market. These over alcoholic, over wooded, over priced wines with hard to understand labels just won’t cut it anymore than a barrel fermented Soave or Pinot Grigio will.

Q. What was your favorite wine at the show?
A. I loved the 2004 Brunellos from Il Poggione and Renieri. The 2005 Chianti Classico Riserva from Querciavalle was a standout wine. Light Sangiovese color (like the Il Poggione) and delicate flavors. Fruit before wood. I had a Sylvaner from Abbazia di Novacella that lit up my Christmas Tree lights.
I learned that Abbazia di Novacella earns money for the Augustinian order through the sale of their wines. Bringing wines to America to help baptize Abraham, interesting thing in these times.

Q. Biggest surprise?
A. I met with the Santa Margherita folks. Seems that Luca Zaia had just been there. They love Zaia in Prosecco land. Up here in Valdobbiadene, they worship the guy. Kind of gives me the creeps. Seeing as he is a food zenophobe. Trying to banish kebabs and pineapples. Very strange agenda.

Q. Did you see anything that really caused you pause?
A. The earthquake in Abruzzo. This is a tragic event on the scale of a Katrina. Many lives have been lost. Now many businesses will also be lost. It could take close to a generation for the Abruzzo wine business to recover. I feel terrible for these poor souls, and now they are starting to do hundreds of funerals.

Q. When will see you back home and on the streets, old man?
A. Before the week ends. I can hardly wait to be back on the front lines. That’s the only place that seems to make sense.

Q. We’ll be waiting for you, Ace.

Imported from Italy

From the Archives ~ March 4, 2007

It’s that time of the year. A month or so before Vinitaly, the annual Italian wine trade show in Verona, I start getting invitations to visit wineries at their booths. Over the past week I have received several requests to import new wines from various producers in Italy. “We want to be in America,” they say. For this family, let’s take a look at what being in America entails.


For my family, it meant several voyages on large ships over a period of years. First a father would come and get work. Then he might go and bring his wife back to America. We were aliens in those days. But the fences were down, the gates were open. It wasn’t a matter of walking or flying, it was many days, even weeks, of rough seas, cold weather, strange food and crowded conditions. But there was a dream to pursue.

I have an Italian friend today who is new to America. This Italian sees the limitless possibilities America has to offer. Perhaps the mate of my friend, an American, can see the aspiration and the idealism that a new set of eyes grasps so eagerly. America is promise, America is hope. This isn’t some vapid flag-waving on my part, if one can just see though others eyes, it is clear.

Back 100 years or so, with the cart and the donkey, the pace of progress was limited to my ancestors. They got along better than most, but they saw past their horizon to a place where nothing was impossible. There was sickness, there were accidents, there was fate. But there was potential and room for optimism.

In Palermo, my great-grandfather gives his daughter away in marriage. My aunt Vitina stayed on in Sicily with her Giuseppe, they had a good life. They were fortunate; my great-grandfather had a good business, trading in wholesale leather. They had a car, they were upwardly mobile, in the stream of progress.

His son, my grandfather didn’t have to leave Sicily at 15, but he took a chance and set out for America. Less than 20 years later he was a prosperous business man, also in leather goods and real estate, in Southern California. He had a car and his son, my dad, was being groomed to follow in his path.


My mother and my dad’s mother six years later. This time with one of the new V8 Ford roadsters. When my parents married, they took that car up the coast of California and the Northwest, past the new Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. All of life was shiny bright and new to those 21 year olds.

35 years later, in my brand new 1969 Fiat 124, I took that same road up through Big Sur and Carmel, past San Francisco and into the wine country. Last week I revisited some old friends along the wine trail.


A few years ago, my son, Rafael was living in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Again, we pose with our beloved cars. A few months ago he lost control of his car in the rain. The car didn’t make it; fortunately he walked away without injuries. Our freedom, our cars, imported dreams, imported from Italy. Made in America.

Back in Dallas, on a sunny day in the spring of 1917, my mom and her siblings hang on a now-ancient Phaeton.

We made it here on the back of donkeys, on ships stuffed with hopeful souls, and in cars, more cars, fast cars, speeding towards the dream that is still America.

If you think it is going to be easy to bring your wines to America, think again. The gates are full. You must have a better business plan than just a wish to send your wines here on a boat for us to sponsor. You had best book passage as well and join us for a time, get to know America a little better. It will soon be the largest market for Italian wines, larger than even the Italian domestic market.Welcome to America.

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

Gone Fishin' ...

...for more stories. Back after Easter. Will post from the archives till then.

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

Three Questions: About Italy, Italian Wine and the Wine Business

Three emails that arrived recently:

1- I am going to Italy next month. We will be visiting Florence and wondered if there were some wineries we should visit. What should we see?

2- I am new to wines and Italian wines as well. Our family eats together at least four nights a week and I am trying to find a wine that we can enjoy with our meals. There are five of us and four who are old enough to drink wine. Do you have any suggestions?

3- I love wine and want to be in the wine industry. Could you tell me where I could start out?

1- If you are going to Italy during the Easter holiday there will be times when the wineries will be unavailable. Vinitaly goes from April 2-6 and then there is Holy Week, Easter and the day after Easter. So the first half of the month is taken up with a wine fair and a national holiday. I would suggest you go to Florence, enjoy visiting museums and eating out and don’t worry too much if you don’t get to a winery. If you do want to go into the Tuscan countryside try and find an enoteca like the National one in Siena. There is also a good regional tasting room in Greve as there are also ones in Montepulciano and elsewhere. These will be open and can be fun and instructive. But Italy is a country of vineyards, so it won’t be difficult to come into contact with wine. That is the beauty of Italy, wine is everywhere and you don’t have to look so hard to find something that has to do with wine. Just enjoy the moment and the country and the people and the food and the wine will be right there with them.

2- If you are on a budget and are looking to find wine you can drink on a daily basis, I would start with something basic, like a basic Chianti or a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo for a red and a light white, maybe a Soave or an inexpensive southern white from Italy like a Grillo or a Falanghina. Plan on spending $8-10 a bottle for a decent wine and budget it like you would vegetables or protein. Look for sales, find a merchant or a little store where you can find good values. In most large towns there is an Italian store, like Claro’s in Southern California or Jimmy’s in Dallas. These stores have a clientele who are used to drinking wine on a regular basis, so they are looking for values. Remember wine is an integral part of the Italian lifestyle and it doesn’t need to be a Barolo or a Brunello every night. That’s what they have Dolcetto and Rosso Toscano for (once in a while, though, it's nice to break out something special). Above all, remember to take the time at the table to enjoy the whole experience and the wine will taste much better.

3- If you want to be in the business a good place to start is in a restaurant. Be a server; find a place that has a good wine program. Usually folks from the trade will frequent it and you will have the opportunity to network and move your way through the industry. Another way is through a retail store or even a market that has a good wine program, like Whole Foods or Stew Leonard’s in the Northeast. If you want to get on in the wholesale end, those companies usually have an entry level that most folks starting out have to go through. The steps usually are an orientation period, a trainee period, possibly a merchandising position and then a route assignment that is usually a route that is saved for beginners. Once one goes through these steps then one is assigned a route that can make a little more money. Another way is to work for a smaller or start-up company. These usually are a good way to meet the important accounts in your area and get to know if you can develop a rapport with the players. If you can and do it well, then you will be valuable to any wholesaler, as these key customers are major players and every company vies for their business.

Everyone has to start out at the beginning, even the experts. Oh, the stories I could tell you...

Italian Wine Guy with three Master Somm's, Guy Stout, Drew Hendrix and James Tidwell, evaluating new wines.

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

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

I'm wild again, beguilded again

What a confusing time. I have spent the better part of the week out in the trade and I have a headache. We are nearing the end of the first quarter and Vinitaly is just around the corner. What I have encountered this week, some of it has been good. Some of it has been downright bewildering.

Earlier this week my bees hive became overpopulated and the hive split. The new colony hovered over a tree limb as a storm approached. Eventually they made their way to wherever they were going. I love my bees; they keep my yard healthy and happy. And they keep the hornets away. The bees are productive, usually gentle creatures and I like working around them in my yard.

Bewitched
Likewise, this week when working out in the market, I ran into a group of young sommeliers, the future leaders of the wine scene in these parts. They were an energetic bunch of fellows who really seemed to be excited about the wine business. One wine several of them flipped over was a simple Moscato d’ Asti. We’re talking a 5.5% sweet fizzy wine. Not exactly like the 1988 Pichon Lalande that was on the table. But some of these somms just went nuts over this wine. That does my heart good, because to be able to appreciate a low alcohol, sweet fizzy wine for what it is gives one the ability to embrace all kinds of wines.

I was talking to Scott Barber, who was named Texas’ best sommelier in 2008 at Texsom. Scott lived in Italy for a time and loves to talk Italian wine. I was hoping to see him on this day, so it was fortunate that we ran into each other. He really has a passion for Italian wine in a genuine way. Such a contrast from a certain wine director that I have been struggling to find a communications equilibrium with. But more on that down in the post. Scott, born in a great year for Barolo and Aglianico (1968) really encourages me to keep climbing the mountain.

Bothered
During a lunch with an Italian supplier friend of mine, she related an incident that happened to her. She went into a retail store to get a couple of bottles of her wine. She needed some to show to clients. She knew what she wanted. A sales clerk approached her and asked if he could help her. When she told the fellow what she was looking for, he attempted to try and sell her away from it. “What if I was a consumer? What kind of message would that send?” she said. Well, she was the consumer, and the message I took from it was that the wine she had come in the store to buy, the one she liked and wanted wasn’t, by the behavior of the clerk, thought to be a very good wine by the establishment that was stocking it. So if one of the wines that was in the store someone who worked there didn’t like, or was trying to sell the customer away from it, why would anybody have any confidence in that person to sell them something else? In other words, why would a store have a wine in stock if they didn’t have some small belief in the validity of that wine? I’ll tell you. The store has a private label, which has a greater profit margin on it and probably an incentive for the guy on the floor to push it. Ok, I understand that. But how about this: a customer walks into a wine store looking for a specific bottle. The clerk helps them find that bottle and then says, “If you like that wine, we also have this wine which you might also like.” He validates her taste and marries it to his other product. Bingo, a clean double. Ah, if the world only ran like I wanted it to.

Bewildered
But here’s the one that really blew my mind this week. One of the somms that I ran into works at a little spot. This spot decided to change up their wine list, “freshen it up”. They removed a wine from the list that I liked a lot, a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. In a year this little spot bought 117 cases of the wine. Over that time the gross profits in dollars, for that one wine, was over $40,000.00. But they took the wine off the list, because they wanted some new faces. Were the customers tired of the product? Doesn’t seem like it. I went and talked to the owners, I thought they understood what I was saying, seemed to agree. But is the wine back on the list? Not as of this time. Young somm just says it’s the owner’s decision. Young somm, if you don’t give good advice to your owner, you’ll be out of a job someday. That’s really the bottom line on that argument. Unless you like being unemployed.

There’s another hot restaurant in a tony part of town. Can’t get into the place. Two hour wait. Won’t take reservations. Young chef gets lots of ink. Young chef has worked in a fair amount of places in a short career. But young chef is “hot”.
Young chef told wine people,

“I’m tired of all you wine salespeople coming into my restaurant and taking up the time of my bar manager. It’s just wine, why are you all making such a big deal of it? People don’t come into my restaurant because of your wine; they come in here for my food.”

Some of these wine purveyors had been coming into his restaurant and spending a fair amount of money on his food. Why would they go back? I’m not interested in stepping into the place. But this kind of thing has been happening a lot lately. Brash and arrogant egos getting in the way of good business decisions. They come- they go. I’ve seen hundreds of them. I’ve gone to funeral of chefs who died before they were 40, because they thought the rules didn’t apply to them.

So, yes we aren’t quite on the wine trail in Italy on this one, but this is part of the Stations of the Cross we have chosen to carry up to our Mt. Calvary. You think they’d listen to some of us silverbacks.

Well, at least I’ve got Scott and guys like him to help me bear that rugged old cross. And somewhere I have to dig out that old ’68 Monfortino and pop it for the young bees buzzing around my hive.

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

Photos by Diane Arbus

Fear of Lots

The Ancients prayed for it. Gods and goddesses were created for it. Temples were raised and burned because of it. Dynasties arose and fell with it. And through the ages, mankind learned to live with it. Or without it.

So, as one of my childhood friend’s Jewish mamma said, “So now what’s the problem?”

Can abundance be too much of a good thing? Have we reached a tipping point when it comes to wine, and Italian wine, in the New World?

Maybe it is because we’re approaching Vinitaly (April 2-6) but there isn’t a day that passes without at least two or three emails from some hopeful producer in Italy looking to sell their wines. Their web sites still use that abominable interface Flash, even though years ago I admonished the Italian wine producers to lose Flash on their websites or lose potential customers. They didn’t listen. Now the spigots have been turned loose and they just want to get in, under the imaginary (but very real) limbo pole.

Dixie Huey is a bright young person who has a wine consulting company and a website to pass along her advice. Recently she wrote a great post, Seeking Distribution: Tips for New or Growing Wineries on How to Approach the Wholesale System (here in PDF format, great for forwarding), which is required reading for anybody looking to get into the American market. I have already sent it around the world several times this week. Read the post, forward the PDF file to anyone who has the dream of being in America. It is simple to understand, but hard to put into practice. But it’s golden advice for the cost of a few minutes of reading.

Now that is just for folks looking to enter into a traditional importer/wholesale channel. There are emerging and alternative ways to come to market. Several folks I know use a NY based importer that essentially provides compliance help with bringing the wines into the U.S., a warehouse to store the wines, and a delivery and invoice system for sending the orders to restaurants and retailers. My understanding is that this service is available on the east coast. But one of my friends, Andrea, has sold close to a container of wine in three months,by himself. And in these times that is pretty admirable. But let’s have no illusions about it; he worked the streets daily, up and down the subways, bag of wine samples, getting every last order. He didn’t send a fax from Portofino to see about his business. He was and is on the ground. And no, he won’t be going to Vinitaly to look for more wineries, he already has more than he can say grace over. But he’s paying his bills, and soon, he’ll even cut a check for himself.

If an importer actually asked me for my advice, about what to do right now, what would that advice be?

1) Bring us wines that aren’t over 14% in alcohol. They are just too darned tedious to drink. I don’t care if you put an ice cube in every bottle, get those alcohol levels down. If they can invent spinning cones and deep purple, for God’s sake, these winemakers can figure out how to make a wine that doesn’t burn going down.

2) Wean your winery off of small French oak barrels. Put the savings into vessels that can be used longer. The Romans invented concrete, or did you all forget about that?

3) Enough with all these fantasy names. You have line extended beyond all reason. Make a Chianti Classico as well as you can. And leave Merlot and Syrah (and Cabernet) to other countries.

4) Quit using the talking point, “We are making a traditional wine with an eye towards innovation.” That’s just a load of horse manure. Stop it.

5) You want to invest in your future in the American market? Then quit trying to make your Ferrari payment on every bottle. Invest by making less in the beginning, like my friend Andrea is doing. Take fewer vacations to Cuba or Sri Lanka and get back in the game. We don’t need any more absentee winemakers.

6) It doesn’t matter one iota if you are a count or a baron or any kind of titled person or that you are wealthy or famous or powerful. You want to succeed in the wine business in America? Get on over here, or hire someone to live and work here, and beat the streets, daily.

7) Don’t expect the wholesaler or the importer or Robert Parker or Gary Vaynerchuck to build your brand for you. You are the brand; pump your own damn gas.

We are here to work with you, not for you. We are not your slaves or your little young American idiots. We are not the center of the universe, nor are you. If you want to plant your feet in this sandbox and be successful, you’ll have to overcome any fear of work, of toiling in the fields of commerce, and in a setting that is crowded with lots of other hopefuls wanting to get their wines flowing in the American marketplace.

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

And They Call Wine Bloggers Irresponsible?

Am I opposed to mainstream journalism? Of course not. Some of my best friends are underpaid journalists just looking for a way to make a living. And they have a certain standard, a code of ethics that I find admirable and worthy of emulating. So when I saw the front of last week’s Weekend Journal (Wall Street Journal) with a section front promo at the top shouting “Never order the Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio,” I turned Refosco red.

Disclosure: I do not sell Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio. In the past I worked on the floor of restaurants, as a server and as a wine director, and during those times I have sold the wine. I remember when it was not a brand and no one had ever hear of Santa Margherita, let alone Pinot Grigio. That was back when everyone, including Saddam Hussein, was drinking Lancers Rose. During a stretch between the late 1980’s and the early 1990’s, I worked for a wine distributor selling the wine. But at this time I have no interest and make no money selling or promoting the brand. Neither Santa Margherita nor Terlato Wines International asked me to write this nor was I ever approached to do this piece by anyone. I recently met Tony Terlato at a cocktail party, and we posed for a picture together. In fact I compete, hard, to sell Pinot Grigios other than Santa Margherita.

That said, I was pissed. Let me tell you why.

Putting the section-front promo line at the top with the line “Never order the Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio” might have been the work of the section editor. If it was meant to get someone’s attention to turn to page W3, it did so in a style that I find shoddy and sensational. We are reading the Wall Street Journal, not tuning in to the car chases at Fox News. I don’t know whose decision it was, and would like to think the authors of the piece most likely had little of nothing to do with it. So we either have an editor who is looking to give us a jolt, or someone who is very insensitive or just plain ignorant about wine. Would they run a promo that said “Never order Nathan’s hot dogs”? Or, “Never order Budweiser beer”? This is irresponsible and reprehensible. Doesn’t mainstream dead-tree journalism have enough problems?

As to the authors, I can understand their frustration with seeing the wine offered on wine lists at a larger than normal mark up. But why stop at Santa Margherita? Are the authors anti-Santites? And to offer up a Gruner Veltliner, as they do, because it is a better value might be a really cool way to snowboard off the avalanche they just found themselves on. But it was a cheap shot. How many Italian restaurants have Gruner on their wine list? And Italian restaurants are where you will find most of the Santa Margherita being sold these days.

And so you say, they found it on a non-Italian restaurant and give John and Dorothy a break for Crissakes? Look, there are reasons for both wines. And if someone wants a familiar, comfortable wine, and they are willing to pay the premium for it, God Bless ‘em. Isn’t that more fiscally responsible than running up their charge cards with therapy?

But my complaint isn’t with John and Dorothy trying to get folks to spend down in a restaurant. My larger gripe is that these folks work for a financial journal. And Santa Margherita is an economic success story for Italy and America. Why single it out so cavalierly when the consequences for such advice will fall on the Italian farmers and American wine salesmen?

Why would a journalist or an editor want to punish them with promo lines and assertions of outrageous pricing, when it is the restaurants that are setting the pricing? Most likely some back-of-the-house bean counter looking at COGS, thinking they can get away with it. Or, maybe nobody thought this through? And the MSM calls us wine bloggers irresponsible. Yeah, right.

"If you stick within your comfort zone, the wines that you already know and you already like, you will be punished, pricewise. Get away from Chardonnay. Get away from Pinot Grigio." - John Brecher

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

Making Gold in Old California

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

Leviathan

I have been reading Asimov lately. Isaac, not Eric. I just needed a hyper-jump to another head space, so I headed back to another world, far away in the future.

I am feeling overwhelmed by the direction of the wine business. California is churning out expensive wines that are loaded with wood and fruit. Bordeaux is pumping out investor-class wines for hedge-fund managers that no longer exist. Hong Kong can only take on so much. And the Italians? Well, they just want to get on the ship and into the warehouses in America.

I know this sounds like an endless lament.

I have gotten to know Darrell Corti; he has been helping me research a project I am working on about Italian farmers in America. Over a bottle or two of older California wine, the history that we are going over seems to circle back to wines that we both tasted over the years that just didn’t have the explosive and volatile flavors. OK, so that subject is best left to folks who have it zeroed-in on their scopes, Alice and company. That’s not where I'm going here. I am staring at the monster coming over the sand hill.

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 had a meeting with a Sicilian winery export manager on Thursday. He was in between the Gambero Rosso LA and NY shows. So he took a flyover break. Here is a producer who says they make 500,000 cases of wine, looking for a distributor. In our house there are already many Sicilian producers of all sizes. Sicily is not Australia, yet. But he is a warm fellow. I feel our Sicilian bond, really feel for him. Every Sicilian wants to have his American connection. But the stock houses are full, and the huge ships lumber ever so slowly across the territory.

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.

In the meantime, we must find wines worth swallowing and people to bring them to.



"Behold, as a wild ass in the desert, go I forth to my work."

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