Here in Big D, Texsom is underway in its 5th year. One of the traditions is for all the Master Sommeliers, Masters of Wine and conference sponsors to get together on the Saturday night before and enjoy some leisure time. In otherwords, music, beer, BBQ and party!
Yesterday the Texsom magic bus took all the partygoers to the Southfork Ranch far north of the Dallas City Limits. This is where the 1980’s hit show “Dallas” was filmed (the outside scenes, that is). It is a working ranch and the family that owned it before were much like the Ewing family, except their patriarch (and yes he was also a J.R) lost the property hedging the ranch against a big oil deal.
Nowadays, Sue Ellen is Tweeting (as is "Dallas") and the Southfork Ranch can be rented out for private affairs. So the Texsom steering committee set it up and what a party it was.
Live music was performed by the Austin band Max Stallings, a country band with a progressive bent to it. Nice, mellow, music that wasn’t too loud and you could dance to it. Plenty of good wine, beer, and BBQ along with a killer strawberry shortcake. But the group was raring to party and party they did!
The house has been furnished with all sorts of “Dallas” paraphernalia, complete with the J’R and Sue Ellen bedroom suite. The sunken bathtub was supplied with the rarest of all wines the 1984 Ch Mouton Rothschild Blanc. Master of Wine Charles Curtis, who now heads up the Wine Department for Christie’s in North America, pointed out the extremely “rare” wine. And he should know.
When I would travel to Italy in the 1980’s and 1990’s, when the Italian winemakers found out I lived in Dallas, their mom or aunt would always ask me how Sue Ellen was or if I knew J.R. So real was that show to them, especially in Sicily and Calabria, that I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I never met them. But I told the aunts and the moms that the Ewings were doing just fine. “Well, you tell J.R. to treat Sue Ellen better,” one would say, or another would comment, “Sue Ellen, she needs to drink less whiskey and more wine, we worry about her.” I kid you not.
Funny that the longhorn steer share the environment with the urban sprawl, not unlike Chateau Haut Brion must with their growing urbanization. One ranch grows cows, the other grapes, but city life pushes the plants and animals further out.
Before the night was finished, the photographer herded all the masters together for one happy group shot. Of course with beer, BBQ and country music playing a few of them got frisky and cut up for the camera. The somms rarely get together in these numbers when there isn’t a test or some task involved and to just share the pleasure of each other’s company is as rare as that white Mouton. So, good for them, they all seemed to enjoy cutting up with each other and kicking back on a warm Ferragosto night deep in the heart of Texas..
Master Sommeliers Joe Spellman, Laura DePasquale, James Tidwell, Drew Hendricks, Keith Goldston and Fred Dame. Hey boys, is that anyway to treat a lady?
We are now officially in the dog days of summer around these parts. Italians are flocking to one vacation or another, cell phones are not working, email is down, fax machines have melted into the past. The Italians never forget August.
In the room where the healer works on the energy patterns of folks who come in with back pains and such, there was quite a psychic stirring. I was off to the side in a private room, really his office with a low table. I fell asleep. When I awoke I heard a women weeping. My healer friend is leaving today go overseas, where he conducts seminars. He came into my room and looked spent. I could feel it. It drew me out too. There is a lot of pain and suffering and anger in the world right now. There is also a tremendous amount of connected emotions. Tielhard de Chardin, the Jesuit paleontologist hinted at that connectedness with his theory of the 
This wine (and life) thing distills to these two coin ends, anticipation and consummation. We want to try this Soave or that Barolo; we want the ’68 or the ’07. We want the orange wine and then the older rosé wine and then the sparkly wine and then the ancient red wine. We want the young girl in the second row with the long flowing hair, and then the red haired mat cutter in the frame shop and then the long haired blond in the restaurant and then the dark eyed beauty in the jeans. We want, we want, we want. Anticipating some immeasurable pleasure or revelation. Desire, desire, desire. We are all hungry little wolves prowling the grasslands looking, hunting, needing.
When I was a young boy, the town I lived in, a resort, filled up for a holiday, I remember lying in my bed on a Saturday night. I was all of 10 or 11. I swore then I could hear people making love, I could hear their collective screams of pleasure on those spring nights when the world was blossoming in my head.
It is energized and fed by the anticipation of something special. Wine, like passion, when bottled up, can only wait so long. Knowing when to open it up is the key. Waiting can be as much fun as what it is one is waiting for. If you buy that bottle of 1985 Sassicaia and hold on to it for 20 years, the pleasure of anticipation might be as rewarding as the consummation. It might even be better. If the wine is corked, isn’t the last 20 years of thinking about that wine all the reward one could expect? At that point it would. But how bad would that be? Has any one wine really made a critical difference in one’s life?
I still have a few bottles in my wine closet. Some of them have aged with me. I am not sure I want to open them up and end our long journey together. I have more recently and the final act has been wonderful, don’t get me wrong. But then what? Le commedia finite? O comincia?
How many times do we have to read about it? Yes, some folks out there get to taste some a.m.a.z.i.n.g. wines. But to open up the wine magazines or blogs and constantly have to be reminded how lowly we are because we didn’t taste a 10 year vertical of Gaja Darmagi or an 1852 Naval Reserve Madeira Sercial, really, how much of this can we take?
I am on a riff about Elitism again, because it is rife in the 21st century of electronic wine literature. A wine lover opens up a whole slew of rare wines and invites a friend or two over and, Pow! an enthusiast or blogger has to regurgitate every wine, every nuance, every breath of their so wonderful evening. As if us knowing about it will make it greater for us? Maybe for them! But really does it?
I was thinking about some of the wines I have tasted and not tasted in my life and asked myself the question: “Is there any wine you just must have before you die? Will the experience do something for your health and sanity that to not have it would have irreversible consequences?”
I mean, really, all the wines I have had to this point won’t prevent me from running into a wall (or a wall running into me). So, no, there is nothing I need from here on out. Not more of anything. Probably less of some things. Most things.
But think about it. We run from coast to coast or continent to continent, chasing things, Wine, love, fresh air. Around and around we pace ourselves in our lifetime ring looking for the big match, the score, the experience of a lifetime. Will getting to taste a 1947 Cheval Blanc really matter?
But we desire something outside of ourselves. Wine is joyous; yes I’ll give it that. And getting together with friends and colleagues over a lineup of wines is more than the sum of the parts. Yes. But what is there to this kiss-and-tell we are seeing all over the place? On TV the newscaster reads his prompt screen, “Today Michael Jackson died. And Hugh Robinson cracked open a bottle of 1934 Calissano Barolo. Details at 11.”
So what?
Measuring the fullness of our lives by what we have drunk vs. the next person is shallow and snotty. I can’t taste it, reading about it. So what good is it? What does the reader take away from it? I’ll tell you. That the person who brags about their wine conquests is saying, “Look, mere mortals, up here on Olympus this is the way gods drink and enjoy their position. And you’ll never make it up here with us. So stick to your longing and your desiring, because as long as you have it, you make us more powerful.”
Hey, this is my Sunday supper rant, and braised with a little tongue-in-cheek. So before you fire off some flaming comment meant to defend the uber-tasters, stop right now. Look at yourself. Think about what it is you do when you read a post or an article about some great wine tasting. And then, if you write, think again about what you want to say about an event like that, if you even do.
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Dear reader, thank you. But the paths that each and every one of us takes are different. I could no more tell you how a wine will taste to you than I could describe a color or a combination of aromas one might encounter on a run in the country. That is up to you. I can point out a road or two, but the journey is yours to take.
And likewise, when reading about a great tasting, here or elsewhere, don’t get too invidious. All isn’t what it seems. It is fleeting and transitory. With more heading this way. And also not just for the precious few who are fortunate enough to sample some of the great wines that intersect their paths. You too, have the same opportunity to taste greatness in any wine. They don’t have to be harvested during a waxing moon. All it takes is an open heart.
Now, where did I put that corkscrew?
Sometimes things seem more seductive than they really are. Two out of the last three weekends I have been in Northern California for conferences. Right before the Bloggers conference ( I could not take the time to go) in Napa I spent three marvelous days learning about information, networking and meeting old and new friends at the 
I was rested and ready. The store was closed, so no distractions. What is a guy like me doing on a Sunday resetting a wine section, when everyone else is at church in their Sunday best? Well, it’s not just any store. It’s one of the 
You know I can be a big picture guy, but sometimes you have to zoom in on the macro and get down to the root. The floor. And that is where I was, on my knees, in my seersucker shirt, trying to get all the wines in their proper places.
A word about the average salesperson. The average salesperson is just that, average. They come in a store, try to find something that's out of stock that they can get an order for. So they bury a case or two in the cold box. Maybe there’s a case of Barbera that has been sitting in the corner for a few weeks. It isn't hurting anything, and there’s no more room for another wine in the Piedmont section. And there it stays. And stays. But the salesman gets his piddly little order and slinks out to find another victim. All the while the wines made by the hands of the Italian man and woman finds their last stop in a little store in the corner of America and there it sits, their life’s work, their heart and soul. And the soul of their ancestors. History kicked under a stack of Pinot Grigio and forgotten. All because some salesperson was too damn lazy to help find it a final home.
Our reset went slow. In fact we never quite got out of the white wine section. We kept finding 2003, 2004, 2005 white wines from Italy. And we aren’t talking 
Dallas, Texas
Have we heard enough? Is Brunello dead? Have the Italians taken one of their greatest wine symbols and thrown it to the devil? From the looks of it, that seems to be the perception in the shattered market of late. The timing of the whole incident was horrible, but would there ever have been a good time for deception, misrepresentation and the endless mobius strip of Italian bureaucracy? But it isn’t the first time. It won’t be the last.
I ran some reports today. The 2004 Brunellos are trickling in painfully slow. The problem is the 2003’s have stopped and, though inventory levels are about half of what they were this time last year, people have shied away from the category of Brunello. This could take years to rehabilitate the reputation and status of Brunello.
A major part of the problem is the perception of exactly what Brunello is. It isn’t a Napa Valley Cult wine blockbuster of a wine, anymore than the 
I was in the trade then. It was devastating for a young industry person to spend their first years (and specializing in Italian wines) to have the carpet pulled out from under them. To start over, to pull oneself up, dust oneself off and go back into the trenches. I really thought the Italians had learned the lesson. But another generation longed for recognition and affluence. How many Porsche Cayenne’s clog the tiny roads around Montalcino? I’ve been there, seen it, saw the gold jewelry and the designer clothes and tanned bodies. All these things cost money. But the currency was the soul. The temptation was too great for a few and now all will suffer. This is happening in a time when the world economy is drawing down, so recovery will be years in the making.
In Buñuel’s Movie, 
“Have you seen the castle?” I must have heard that a half dozen times in the few days I was in Napa and Sonoma, telling folks I was in the area researching a project. Finally as we drove up the hill I thought maybe I had translocated to Tuscany. Castello Banfi it wasn’t. 
At the nearby Seghesio winery, there is a different vibe. Here, Fiano and Arneis seek sanctuary from Chardonnay and Merlot. And on a day when the temperatures hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit, cool white wine, with a revealing fragrance and come hither flavors, was as energizing as sitting in a pool in Positano watching the sunset.
Leaving the bees to their work, we took a run up to Asti, where an ancient winery now sits in waiting rotation for its renewal to begin. Italian Swiss Colony, anybody remember the catch phrase, “You can’t miss with Italian Swiss”? And for a while it was hit, but now it is missing in action. The growers have blended into the countryside, they are indigenously American now. The chapel and the cemetery still hold memory and shelter for the spirit of those Italians now conjoined to history.
Rolling down the road to Santa Rosa and a quick stop at the library, a goldmine of oral history, photographs and documents. How did the Italians make it through Prohibition? Through the grace of God and the purchase orders of the archdiocese of San Francisco. Long time merchants like the Traverso family span the decades and carry the torch forward. Michael Traverso is the latest generation of ambassadors of Italian culture – food and wine – in Sonoma.
Sangiovese, Fiano, Zinfandel, Sagrantino. Sattui, Seghesio, Rafanelli, Pellegrini. Open-top. Full immersion. With pleasure. More to come.
