Indulgence or Sustenance?

Americans can be so influenced by the oddest junctions between aspiration and sensibility. A retail friend was lamenting that this summer all of his big buyers, his “whales,” had disappeared. “They can go wherever they want for three months. They have the money to live anywhere and do their business from the clouds.” His business in the over-$100-a-bottle business was lagging. Meanwhile, I made him a sweet deal on a Morellino that tastes good and even has great press (91 from the Advocate’s Galloni). He can sell it for $10, half of the regular retail ($20) and make money, and he’ll offer a great product to folks who aren’t whales, maybe even people for whom wine actually sustains rather than indulging their egos.

Not Yet

A few months ago it started to get to me. 2012 has been a challenging year in many respects. But after five years and 900 blog posts, I've kept going. Maybe it’s all vanity. I cannot plunge into that pool. What I do know is this: I have met a whole new world of folk in these past five years, and I’m not sure I would have if I hadn’t bled these words and pictures onto this place, all these days, weeks and months. So I am not done. Not yet.

Young Rebel Creamy Soft Porn Wine Marketing = Uncontrollably Juicy Italian

From the "My Way or the (Appian) High Way" dept.

"calling all cornuti"

Just when you thought wine marketers couldn’t find any further contumely avenues, they hand you a lap dance in the middle of the Via Appia. In the current iteration Italy has been ravaged with an eno-anomalism, named “if you see kay.” Cute, eh? Yeah man, the first time I heard it when I was a teenager it really got my attention, way back in, say, ’69.

I thought someone was blowing sunshine and then I scratched a little online and found the potation. Drink in some of the scintillating copy (reproduced below, verbatim, with commentary, from the website), no doubt dreamt up by a marketer who seemed to be otherwise engrossed watching HBO's Taxicab Confessions.

From the website, a prinked procession to push the timeless palliative. Marketing, in the guise of Young Rebel Creamy Soft Porn:

Ogni cosa è illuminata

It was like any other day. A little longer than most, perhaps. As I rose at 5:00 AM to drive 200 miles to work in Shreveport, I packed lightly and figured it would be a day filled with appointments into the evening, with the next day day to drive back slowly, no rush.

The drive to Shreveport was uneventful, save for an angry Texas pickup truck driver, somewhere around Marshall, who didn’t like that I was driving in the lane he wanted to come into from the ramp. I wasn’t passing and was in the right place. But he thought differently, waggled his middle finger as he roared around me in a flurry of smoke and rage. An apt farewell from Texas, I reckoned.

Teaching an old DOCG new tricks

Last week in San Francisco I presented a piece to a group at the Society of Wine Educators conference. Called Deconstructing DOCG, it was an effort to offer a path from the past to the present (and possibly leading to the future) regarding the changes that are coming to Italian wine laws as they assimilate into the greater European Union discipline.

Anyone who peruses the pages of On the Wine Trail in Italy know I have been a bit obsessed with noting the changes in Italian wine laws. Here is the text from the talk. It was accompanied by a loosely related PowerPoint presentation (by the way, I am not a fan of PowerPoint, except to offer visual markers that relate to something I am talking about). It was accompanied by a tasting of four of the five original DOCG's awarded back in the 1980's. In any case, the talk seemed to be a success (aided by lubrication from Brunello, Barolo and Co.) and I am including it. Here goes:

Making the Connection

With all the stuff that is thrown at most of us on a daily basis, it seems to be getting harder to have those singular moments where the outside world isn’t always crashing in. Our digital diet has become super-sized, what with the access to information on the internet and all the daily doses of blogs, social media, email, and work that keeps us staring at these little screens. Our monkey brain is in control, churning out words and thoughts and desires and needs. Those darn needs.

Meanwhile our Italian counterparts, many of them, have unplugged and are at the beach. I envy them this time of the year, with long slow mornings, a leisurely caffe, a sun and a swim and then maybe a roll around town or the island. Then lunch and maybe a nap, followed by maybe another sun and swim working up the appetite for dinner. But dinner is hours away, no need to rush it. After all, it’s August, this is the time to log-off and recharge. Time to re-connect.

You don’t need an island or even a beach, although it is much easier and pleasurable. What one really needs is the ability to quiet the mind, stop the chatter and let the inessential crap float away.

Sanctuary for the Soul

Twelve years ago at this time, life was a living hell. The summer was unrelentingly hot; my wife’s disease was entering its final stages and the two major wineries I was representing were incontrovertibly out of touch with the market. There was little or no respite, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. No retreat, no sanctuary. The fury of hell, with heat, disease and ignorance. A perfect trifecta for misery.

Twelve years later, that hell is not as acute, but the days are not without their challenges. Still we are enduring triple digit temperatures. There are challenges in my family orbit regarding health issues, and my dear Italians are giving us a break for the time. It is after all, the beginning of August. So for the next month, we are unencumbered, free as a bird. As long as we don’t fly too close to the sun.

In a moment of diversion, I came upon a lovely photo project, “Into the Silence”, by the Sicilian, Carlo Bevilacqua. In some of the more remote corners of the world, and especially Italy, Bevilacqua has lived and photographed folks who choose to live a simpler life of solitude.

An Encounter in the Bardo - The Mentor and the Longtimer

Walking along a hiking path, on the edge of the continent and from the neighboring northward country, the longtimer came upon a glen. The temperature was a cool 66° F. The breeze blowing from the straights that separated the two countries was refreshing but brisk. The glen offered a perfect lull from the rigors of hiking and the possibility of a little, stolen nap. After all, the old hand had worked many years and this was kind of a vacation. It would also be a point of reckoning.

Once ensconced upon a picnic blanket, and after a light meal and a sip of fresh rosé wine, he slumbered. And the dream came. And inside the dream the messenger appeared. And as with all messengers, there was a dispatch. It was meant to review the old timer’s working life, this life in wine, and deeper inside the world of Italian wine than all the other wines. And as it was a dream, there would be no escape, until all the material had been transmitted. It was more like a Grand Jury.

The courier took the form of a mentor, long gone, but one who had a similar trajectory, only the generation before. So, while it was meant to be unfiltered, it wasn’t unkind. But it was frank, this review of one’s life in work.

Priority Access

Last night I found myself in a most wonderful predicament. High in the hills of Marin County for a small concert, with people I didn’t know. Artists and musicians, many from the once-upon-a-time Soviet Union. Totally out of the realm I usually find myself in Texas, even though there are probably like-minded folks in my home town. It’s just that I don’t often run into them.

Musically, the evening was magical. It’s the kind of experience that makes me long for the California of my lost years, although I am realistic enough (or is it a Frank Zappaesque cynicism?) to imagine if I really lived here I wouldn’t feel quite the same way. That aside, in the moment, I loved it.

One of my host’s friends, who was working the video camera, came up to me. Light conversation ensued. I was a little gun-shy, as the last person I went up to, let’s call her Anna (she had reminded me of Alice) tolerated me for a while until she psychically dismissed me (or her introversion had had enough of being "outdoors"). In any case, with the new person in front of me, let’s call her Tina, I was polite and responded.

Something about writing about wine came up. “What is there to write about wine?” I don’t believe she meant it in a rude or defensive way. More out of curiosity. I then proceeded to channel my inner Gerard Asher.

Home Remedy, Bottle Variation and the Voice of the Master

From the "Two Geralds are better than one" dept.

Upon setting foot on the west coast, the 2nd time in a month, I am in awe of air that isn’t blisteringly hot. The California I knew as a child, the embracing breeze off the Pacific, is a welcome relief. When we talk about the maritime climate of Italy aiding the growth of the vines and making for conditions which the grapes can thrive, I look back to my childhood place, California, and am thankful for the home remedy that it is to me in this time.

The wine god is alive in California. Upon setting foot back here, one of my internet pals, Gerald Weisl, fetched me from the hotel. I am here for a Society of Wine Educators conference, and tomorrow I am giving a seminar, Deconstructing DOCG. Trying to make peeling paint interesting. Wish me luck.

The Last Italian Wine I Drank

Last night, over a wonderful dinner, our host brought out two dessert wines, a Sauternes and a Vin Santo. The Sauternes was a famous one, Chateau d’Yquem. The Vin Santo, from the heart of the Chianti Classico region, was actually a declassified Vin Santo. It was 2002 and the d’Yquem was 2003.

Folks around the table were curious to taste the French wine. After all it is famous, perhaps one of the most famous (and expensive) wines in the world. And yes, we tried it and it was lovely. But it didn’t fit the night. Where we had come and where we were going, with the food and the preceding wine, the Vin Santo was the more appropriate wine. And for the evening it was more delicious.

What has become of our land?

Tonight in front of a sold-out crowd in the back room at my favorite Italian store I led the group through a tasting of Italian wines. There were a lot of new folks there so I told them my story. And for the first time I realized how tied I am not to one, but three places. First is California, which is where I was born and grew up. Next is Italy, which is my wellspring for inspiration. And lastly, there’s Texas, which in its basic natural state, can affect a gravitational pull. All three of these places share a commonality – they are being altered radically from the vision I have of them inside my heart of hearts.

A Fine Line

An Italian Wine Blog

It doesn’t happen that often. You’re planning a meal at home and choose a wine. The wine turns out to be the wrong choice. No big deal. You find another and move on. That happened to us recently.

The problem? The initial wine wasn’t one I would normally select. A 15.1% Santa Rita Hills Chardonnay. The wine aged exclusively in French Oak (75% New Barrels) is not available to the public. It is only available, as a gift, to select members, restaurants and fine wine shops.

I was intrigued. So I opened a bottle and tried it. Within minutes I was repulsed by the imbalance of the wine. I am a California native – there are Californian wines I like. The other night I opened a 2006 Rafanelli Cabernet with a steak. It was perfect with the food. The wine was rich and oaky and delicious with the meat.

The Ultimate Wine

That by which you can taste, but that which you can never taste

As with all things, there is always the Unobtainable. No wealth, no power, no amount of influence matters. Race as we may, looking to try this bottle or that rare vintage, some things cannot be held. Sometimes it is just beyond the human experience.

Sound odd to you? "What is that you are claiming?" you might ask? Less of a claim than a reality. The reality of the Ultimate Wine.

The Ultimate Wine doesn’t exist. Not for mere earthlings. Or at least for the tainted adults on the planet. The wine is possible, even probable. But no one has ever tasted it and reported back. No score, not 100 points. That would be bringing it down quite a ways out of its higher range. No lofty purple prose to describe it. Words, really? Again, that would be a pity to cut it down that way.

At best a wine like that could be an aspiration for a wine lover. But a destination? Sure tragedy. For to achieve an appreciation of something like the Ultimate Wine one must have Higher Powers. And wings not secured by wax.

The Summer of Zibibbo

In June of 2001 I went to Pantelleria for two weeks by myself. My wife had died four months earlier and I was grieving her loss. It was summer and I just wanted to go away. Thirty years earlier I had passed on an invite to go to the island. This time I just went, alone.

I ran a lot and swam and rode a scooter around the little island. I went down to the market and bought fresh vegetables and fish and cheese and cured meats. And wine. Being not far off from Sicily there were few choices. But one of the wines I bought, a dry Moscato Zibibbo, was one I still remember fondly.