Italian Wine in 2014 - Personal Strategies for Collecting - Part I

I’m very worried. The world is getting flatter. And with that folks, in every corner are finding out about wine. And they are collecting it. Until now, many of the collectors have been collecting classified growth Bordeaux, grand marque Champagne, small production Burgundy and thoroughbred Napa Valley reds. But pricing and availability of those wines have headed into the stratosphere. They have become wine for the 1%.

This isn’t news. I remember a mentor who once lamented that he when he got into the business he could get a bottle of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild for $4.00. A few days after he told me, I spied a half bottle of 1982 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild for $25.00 and thought “my how times have changed.” Yeah, and how they keep changing.

I’ve had my share of 1% moments. You won’t find me crying in my beer. Over the years I have sold, collected and tasted the wines of Gaja, Giacosa, Conterno's Monfortino, Sassicaia, Solaia, Biondi-Santi, Case Basse di Soldera, Dal Forno and Quintarelli. These are the some of the wines several friends have told me are starting to surface in the auction houses, some with possible questionable provenance. One friend went so far as to tell me that there is a place deep inside China where these labels are being reproduced at an alarming pace. I shudder to think, but I am not surprised. Reports say the recent trial and conviction of Indonesian wine dealer Rudy Kurniawan is just the “tip of the iceberg.” And while much of the report centers on wine other than Italian, the day will come when we hear more Italian wines surfacing from God knows where.

The Mystery of Italian Wine

Recently I spent a day with some of the brightest mystery writers in America. Long a fan of the Judge Dee series and the Inspector Montalbano mystery series (tip of the hat to Eric Asimov, who turned me on to them), I admit Italian wine can be a bit of a whodunit as well. Mystery writers understand setting and plot better than most. While there is no shortage of either in the Italian landscape, better writing about Italy and Italian wines is getting harder to sort out among the constant noise of the internets.

The Old California Wine

From the "What's old is new again" dept

Holidays are the perfect time to bring out the wines you’ve been saving for a special occasion. Food, relaxed times, friends and family; what are you saving it for? Many of us who have been drinking wine and collecting the stuff have these little time bombs waiting top go off in our glasses. Open some of them this year.

This week, after our recent trip to far North Texas, my pal Hank offered to open some of the wines we found at my pals place. It was a Petite Sirah (and Syrah) night with some of the regular guys that I taste with in a relaxed, un-academic setting. In other words we sit around, drink and eat and talk about women, not wine. The good news, I am the youngest guy in the group, the baby. Which is rare these days.

Chianti: An Elusive Arrangement, Wrapped in a Fiasco, Inside a Conundrum

How is it classic wine regions like Bordeaux, Napa, the Mosel, are relatively easy to follow but Tuscany’s Chianti zone is still baffling to me and others? This question has been one I have asked for decades. I’ve read every book I could get my hands on. Traveled to the region countless times. Tasted, tasted, tasted, year after year. And still the idea of Chianti has yet to set up in my mind in a way in which I actually can say “I get it.” Is this my grail?

“The world belongs to those who let go.” - Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Late in posting, due to winter storm.

Yesterday in Austin for a Chianti class I was putting on for the trade. Great crowd, young trade folk and some of the brightest sommeliers in Austin were on hand to gather insights about Sangiovese, etc. Really happy we did it, even with the crazy weather heading towards Texas. Thanks, all who came.

From the Cellar of a North Texas Gentleman

Imagine if you will, the autumn of 1981, when I got my first job in the wine distribution industry. I had a young son and needed to be home during normal hours. I left the restaurant side and came over to the wholesale world. One of my first managers, an old guy (probably younger than I am now), his name was Lee High. He was a by-the-book sales manager, had seen it all. A pretty nice guy and very well experienced in the business. He told me a couple of things I never forgot. The first one was that this business was cyclical and as the year unfolded there would be sequences that one could see and these patterns would pretty well much replay every year. More or less. The other thing he told me was that December 1 was traditionally the busiest billing day of the year for wholesale.

Hyperindividualism in Italy and the Obstruction of the Collective Well-Being

It seems everywhere we turn, someone is shoving it in our face. Maybe it is part of the price we pay for this hyper-connectivity. Perhaps some needy souls are just not ready to share the stage with their brothers. However it plays out in our time, for now, the world of the hyper-individual seems to be controlling the remote.

Dallas and JFK – 50 years later

Dallas, Texas
November 22, 2013

Unlike the scene 50 years ago, when it was bright and brisk and shiny, the scene was dark, windy and cold, with flashes of lightening threatening to spill buckets of water. For 50 years, Dallas and the world have cried rivers of tears over those fateful seconds when a deranged soul let his rage boil over onto Elm Street.

"Well I’ve never been to Heaven but I’ve been to Bufalina"

Frank Cornelissen's Etna Harvest 2013 wrap party in Austin

Etna Nov 11 - Photo: VolcanoDiscovery.com

Is wine and pizza a divine combination or a marriage of convenience? That debate is ongoing while America is enjoying a pizza renaissance as evidenced by landmark places like Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix, Spacca Napoli in Chicago and Kesté in New York. And while I personally enjoy a good beer with pizza, there is a surge of dedication to matching the best pizza one can make with some of the best wines on the planet.

Little old Texas, always a few years behind the trends, has been doing a fabulous job of catching up. One of the rising stars on the pizza (and wine) scene is Bufalina in Austin. Bufalina has a limited (but pristine) menu of pizza and a noteworthy wine list, which focuses on wines from Italy, France (yes, France) and California producers who hail from the natural wine school. Proprietor Steven Dilley is building a reputation as one of the most serious pizza meccas in Texas, if not beyond.

One Word to Sommeliers (and Chefs): Travel

Colline Teramane

If there is any one thing that can expand your world, it is simply stepping away from your familiar (and comfortable) surroundings and immersing yourself in another world.

For years now, I have taken this advice, foisted upon me at an early age by a teacher and mentor who told me I had to step outside of the world I thought I knew. At first it was intimidating and scary. Going to a place where you don’t understand the language and the culture, it challenges all the preconceptions one has about the world on the inner screen of the mind. The realm one thinks is real.

How I wish every wine director I meet would take this advice. How much easier my job would be. Let’s drill down a bit.

Remembering Dad, Dallas, JFK & a bottle of Thunderbird

Today would have been my dad’s 98th birthday. How the world has changed since he left us in 1985. I was thinking about that as I was driving past Dealey Plaza and the Texas Book Depository yesterday, while in downtown Dallas on business. Dallas, the place where so many things happened that affected me, my family and ultimately our country.

A last supper with an old friend

The internets are rife with social media sites where folks post great wines they just had. This is not one of them. This is a story about an old friend who has been living with me for thirty years. We celebrated his passing with a meal fitting his life, his character and his destiny.

I first met Morello in a cellar in Florence in Piazza della Santissima Annunziata. It must have been 1984. I remember the area because years before I had spent three weeks above in a pensione. I remember we didn’t have the budget for warm water in the bathroom, but I found a way to turn on the water heater when we showered. We were traveling with our two children, one 8 and one 11 months. Wine was still a few years off in the distant horizon.

Miley Cyrus and Bob Dylan: Harmonic Convergence in an Alternate Universe of Orange Wine

♫ I’m just average, common too
I’m just like him, the same as you
I’m everybody’s brother and son
I ain’t different from anyone
It ain’t no use a-talking to me
It’s just the same as talking to you ♫

♫ I put you high up in the sky
And now, you're not coming down
It slowly turned, you let me burn
And now, we're ashes on the ground ♫

Bob Dylan and Miley Cyrus, now there’s a pair. It makes sense in a non-linear world. And so it was this week at FT33, which is one of the hottest restaurants in America.

Etna Harvest 2013 Report from Salvo Foti - Images from VignaBosco

The latest note from Salvo Foti on Mt. Etna is a series of images - They pulled fruit off the old vineyard the Vignabosco (elev 1300 mt.) on Nov 4. The Bosco vineyard is 100+ year old field blend of bush-trained Alicante, Grecanico, Minella and other minor varieties in the area of Bronte, where the great pistacchios come from. This is a grand-mother vineyard of Etna, in my estimation. Great fruit. Great farmers. Solemn and holy place for a Sicilian. The wine being made, as we witness, is the Vinudilice, a rosé beloved by the Etneans and those lucky enough to have tried it. According to the Quincunx site, “It is cultivated by hand and with the help of Ciccio the mule. No refrigeration, yeasts or filtration are used in the wine making process. Decanting and bottling follow the phases of the moon.”

Remember Me? I’m Your Brother

Grappling among the Offshoots ~ Gaglioppo and Nerello Mascalese

I’m the one who played tag with you and listened to you sing and play the piano. I’m the one who fell, more than once, sometimes just to the earth and sometimes out of sight. I’m your brother.

In the vineyards, when the grapes were full, you called from afar to pick the ripe ones for wine. You made pasta and poured red wine and gave shelter for the time. And when the harvest was over you bid adieu, until the next time you were in need. You paid just enough to make it through the winter.