Ab Urbe Ad Rura : A Byzantine Procession

Looks like I'm heading back to Italy this week. First stop is the city of Verona, where there is a little wine judging to be done for the Vinitaly wine competition. That will be followed by some time in the Calabrian countryside with one of my winemaking pals and fellow Calabrese. I’m hauling the laptop and three cameras, so as long as I have a connection, this site will most likely pore over the details of my oh-so interesting life. If I can get past myself, there might even be something of use for you, dear reader.

There’s a bit of the Byzantine connection between these two regions, so hopefully I will fall under the influence of the longue durée school of thought in my dispatches. We can only hope.

Thank you.

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

wine blog +  Italian wine blog + Italy W

Premature Jubilation

When I left my home Monday morning it was dark and foggy. I decided to head to the airport a little earlier in case the flights were being juggled around. When I got to the airport the fog had lifted and the sun was rising in the east. Another week on the road, one of many in the life of an O-N-D warrior. Last week it was Austin and Marfa, Texas. This week it is New Orleans. Tuesday there would be a national election. I had scheduled a full week’s worth of work before heading back to Italy this weekend. My bag is staying packed until Thanksgiving.

The Last Bottle

In 1980 I bought my first case of wine. It was a 1976 Johnson’s Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. The sommelier at the Italian restaurant I worked at, Il Sorrento, thought it was a good wine and she was selling it off the menu. I tried it and liked it and so she arranged for me to get a case. Thus started my road to wine collecting. Over the years I would open up a bottle and try it. And the years just flew by, 32 of them. And then there was only one bottle left.

It was from the same year my son was born. And November 4th is his birthday. I invited him and his lady friend over tonight for homemade meat balls. I bought some good bucatini from Jimmy’s and made my own sauce and meat balls. And we had an old-fashioned Caesar salad. And the last bottle of the 1976.

Thanks for a Rockin' October!

Milan

October was an especially busy time on the wine trail in Italy. Traffic was up 28% from October of 2011. Before the wine blog awards were announced I had been thinking about taking the blog posts down from 2 a week to maybe 1. No reason in particular, just a busy life. But I kept plugging away. In October I posted 19 times, something I hadn’t done since May of 2010 when I was in Sicily. So thanks all for reading and keeping me motivated. For those of you who have been too busy or those who have told me, “You are posting too darn many times, I can’t keep up with them,” I will list the posts from the most popular on down. I have had a huge week of travel with wine dinners every night this week, in Dallas, Austin and Marfa. And with no end in sight for the foreseeable future.

So read on, if you care to. I will be posting as I care, too. Probably a little more than I should, but the tap has been turned on. There’s very little I can do about it.

October's posts in order of popularity: ( after the jump)

A Gathering of Tomatoes, Olives and Harvest Songs in a Little Corner of Tuscany

The sad and abandoned tomato patch was enduring the last few warm days of the year. Tomatoes were hanging on, with little hope, as the house had been closed for the season. Thanks to the olive harvest it was briefly re-opened to feed and shelter the scant army of olive pickers, of which I was one. After four days of visiting wineries in Piemonte and gorging ourselves on white truffles, these few days under the sun in Tuscany’s hilly Maremma area would be a good way to balance the life. The olives were ready to become oil, but what of the tomatoes?

Federico, one of our band of brothers in the olive harvest went out to the patch and rescued the survivors. “I will make a nice tomato sauce for lunch,” he declared. And so it was, the life of the tomatoes in that scrawny little patch would not be for naught.

What’s Old is New Again @LaScolcaWines

Giorgio Soldati is a very lucky man. Famous for a white wine in red wine country, dancing to the beat of his own drum, making memorable wine against the tide of fashion, and staying true to a vision that he has cast aside in favor of an easier way. And though the years are catching up with him as they do with all of us, he has an energetic daughter, Chiara, who not only has the past emblazoned in her veins, she sees the future and is very much heading towards it with no fear or reluctance. Chiara is one of a burgeoning cadre of women in Piedmont who are a force of nature unto themselves and will not relent to a kitchen and an apron and a basket of laundry. The tale of Gavi is ongoing, and as a white wine lover, I am very much in favor of this continuing crusade.

How many times have a driven through Alessandria and Gavi, on my way to another place? In the past five years though, this has begun to nag on me. “Why aren’t you stopping at Gavi? How is it you’ve been selling and serving the wines of La Scolca for over 30 years and you’ve never made the time to visit the Villa?” No one needed to guilt me about this; my childhood Catholic sense of guilt did the job well enough. Finally, I got off my high horse and made the appointment.

A museum in Nizza Monferrato: the life and times of Arturo Bersano

Carrozza Siciliana ~ Emozioni Tantrici

Often when visiting wineries in Italy they will have a space set aside for a museum. This past trip we visited no less than three such museums. The most interesting one though was at the Bersano winery in Nizza Monferrato. One of a handful of historical wineries in Piedmont that are grandfathered in to make Barolo and Barbaresco, even though the winery is in the Asti province, Arturo Bersano was a forward thinking man and one with many eclectic interests. His Print museum is a fascinating place to linger and peer into the mind of an early 20th century collector. Many passions, a fair amount of personal wealth and power, Bersano is a fascinating study of a Piemontese wine baron. His widow still lives above the building, is past 90, and let us in to look over the dusty collection, which is interesting beyond any of the panegyric attempts we read so often on the internet, often describing the most mundane and insignificant things.The museum, created before the hype of the 21st century, is a trip back into a silent world of thought and emotion. Quite a wonderful experience.

My Tuscan Family Reunion

Teresa (Scalora) Borgia and grandson Andrea Farru with picture of her parents in 1921

It appeared to be just a coincidence. We were out picking olives, trying to stay away from the stinging calabrone, when one of the neighbors pulled up in his truck to help. Giovanni owns the sheep farm next door. “My wife’s mother comes from Sicily.” Giovanni came here from Sardegna with his brothers Mario and Bernardo. The terrain is conducive for raising sheep (resulting in great pecorino). Giovanni’s brother Mario also appeared. Mario was more gregarious and joined in the conversation. Mario asked me where my parenti were from. When I told him Sicily and Calabria, he shouted out, “You are terrone, cento percento.” Even in his Tuscan/Nuorese accent, I knew what he meant. He qualified it by saying, “but all of us, we are all terroni in purezza.” Where had I heard that before?

When we delved deeper, we come to find out Giovanni’s mother-in-law came from the same village as my paternal grandparents, Piana degli Albanese. “You must come to Sunday dinner,” Giovanni urged. “Come meet your cousins.” It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

"James Suckling is dead"

If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a hundred times in America. But in Italy, it’s very different story. One would think, from an American point of view that James Suckling committed career suicide when he decided to go out on his own. What we Americans didn’t calculate into the equation are the relationships Suckling has developed, from Italy to France, California to Hong Kong and Havana.

Here in the last week in Italy I have been hearing that he still is relevant to the Italians. More so than Gambero Rosso, which under their present guardianship there is a cloud of concern regarding their impartiality and even their relevance. “No, Suckling has never made any doubt about his motives. He helps us, we help him,” one winemaker replied. “Yes, he has made a good living off of us, but we too, gained. When one of our wines gets 90+ points, we sell it. Maybe not as much in America, but in the global market, Suckling still has pull.”

The Secret to Buying Real White Truffles from Alba

"Location, location, location" 

That's no potato, folks, that's over $1000 worth of genuine white truffle from Alba

White truffles are just coming into Alba stores this week. It has been a hot, dry year, and so the crop is slow to show up. Word has it that many folks are offering white truffles that have been shuttled in under the cover of night, from Croatia. My friend Luca Currado of Vietti, who manages to share a truffle dog with a friend of his, says he hasn’t had time to search for them this year because he is too busy with the wine harvest. “Who has time to wake up at 3 o’clock in the morning to go out hunting for truffles when you get to bed finally at 1AM?”

Tajarin and white truffles with @JuventusFC ~ this time with Barolo

How does the taste of fresh white truffles differ when having them with Barolo versus Barbaresco? In a rare confluence of coincidence, we had the opportunity to gauge the pros and cons, at a private dinner with the Torino soccer team, Juventus, and their executive management team.

“The Last of the ’90 Paje’ ~ The First of the Tartufi Bianchi” – Aldo Vacca

Ovello to Novello redux

Our first stop this Monday on the Langhe Harvest Trail was Barbaresco. Aldo Vacca, director of Produttori del Barbaresco, had just finished the harvest and the wines were fermenting. I’ve never seen a more relieved Aldo. “2012 harvest is safely tucked in the tanks – let’s go eat lunch.” Not one to argue with Aldo when his winery is across the street from one of my favorite trattorias in Italy, Antica Torre.

Over an impeccable plate of carne cruda (with no truffle oil, America) and followed by a plate of tajarin with shavings of white truffles, Aldo started us with a bottle of his 2011 Langhe Nebbiolo. If that wine is any indication of the harvest we are in for a treat when the classic Barbaresco is released followed by the crus.

Marziano Abbona Sulfite-Free Langhe Rosso - "No Amphora, No Nomblot, Just the Moon"

Marziano puts an un-sufured cork in it

A wine I wasn’t expecting to try, as I started my lap around the Langhe, was the ZEROSOLFITI Langhe Rosso of Marziano Abbona. After a stellar lineup of Arneis, Viognier (don’t cringe - there’s a story - for later), a Dogliani DOCG Cru, a Barbera from Alba and a host of uber-delicious Nebbiolo wines from Barolo and Barbaresco, Marziano’s daughter pulled out this red wine. “We only make a little of it, to see how far we can try to take the wine without sulfur.” She explained the rites: painstakingly and excruciatingly rigorous denial of sulfuring in the vineyards, in crushing and wine-making, in the aging and in the bottling, including in the barrels and the bottles and even going so far as to wash the vines off after copper preparations. Wow, I’m tired writing this, let alone all the work that went into it.

Kinetic Graffiti and Sunburnt Sicilian Orange Wine in Milan

Near the Porta Genova

How does one explain “orange” wine to friends outside the natural wine cabal? Last night, I had a free night in Milan and met up with a fellow I had been wanting to meet ever since I read about him in the New York Times. Carlo Bevilacqua is a photographer who is of the great tradition of shooters from Italy who witness the world that most of us walk right through. But the world through his lens is a richer place and one he is willing to share with all 100% of us.

One of my favorite indulgences is to wander a place alone with a camera. I slip into my invisible clothes and take to the streets without map, GPS or a destination. I’ve done it in Rome, Venice, Palermo, Naples, Torino, Florence, and not just Italy or the cities. The cities are fecund with the amalgam of the human condition. Milan is a working laboratory for all those little heartbeats that fill the canvas. I’m not sure if the graffiti that infects the city acts as a de-sensitizing buffer or as a Rosetta stone to its greater understanding. As an outsider I find it immensely interesting, a palimpsest of visual imagery that makes me dizzy drunk. And that’s before I’ve even had a sip of wine.

The Difference between a Secret and a Lie

The big lie has been for years that Italians ship different wines to America and save the best wines for themselves.

The big secret is that the vino sfuso (house wine) you find in many trattorie in Italy are better than most wines you can find in a supermarket in America. And you cannot find these Italian wines in America because they are not marketable. They rely on freshness and are wines for the moment. They are very simple wines, often very good (like the vino bianco I had in a Milanese trattoria today).

In response to the age-old question I hear so many times, “Why do Italian wines taste different in Italy than they do in America?” More as a response than an answer: these wines do not represent the best of Italy, but whenever I go into a humble café or restaurant in Italy I often go straight for the vino della casa. I am seldom disappointed. I would not import nor would I ever cellar these wines.  

But with a plate of fritto misto, there isn't anything better.

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

wine blog +  Italian wine blog + Italy W