Merlot, the most hated grape 10 years running, finds a home in Italy (and in my heart)

It doesn’t seem that long, but in 2004 the movie Sideways was released. In the film, Pinot Noir was lionized, and to this day, the sales of Pinot Noir are still roaring. Merlot, on the other hand, was excoriated. The character Miles had a famous line in which he said, “If anyone orders Merlot, I'm leaving. I am NOT drinking any f***ing Merlot!” Ironically, the last wine he was seen drinking at the end of the movie was a Cheval Blanc 1961, which is a blend, predominantly, of Cabernet Franc and Merlot.

I am one of those people who disavowed any allegiance to Merlot. I shunned it; I avoided it at all costs. I refrained from drinking it. I loathed it. Or so I thought.

My (Oh, So Superior) Wine vs. Your (So-So) Wine

Three weeks on the road, driving across Texas - Dallas to Houston to San Antonio to Austin to Dallas - there has been time to talk in the car with my travel mates. We go into a city and see clients, and then get in the car and head to another city. In and out. Over time patterns emerge. Here is what I have seen in these days.

Whether the person you are going to see is a seasoned veteran or a new-on-the-scene wine buyer, they all have opinions. If they are older, they often have a punch list of preferences by which they evaluate the Italian wines we are setting in front of them. If they are the new crop, they too have their list. How the two different types fill out their list is quite different.

7 Questions about Italy, Wine and Passion

A few months ago on Antonio Galloni’s Vinous “Your Say” site, there was some lively conversation when Monica Larner showed up. She peeked in and said hello and some of the folks were off to find their pitchforks and machetes, whereby she ducked back out, never to be heard from again in that chat room. Pity, because I think highly of Monica. But I definitely understand when one is made to feel unwelcome by some of the members. Organizations, families and the like aren’t always comprised of people who play nice. Sometimes they hurt.

Italian White Wines for Collectors – Aging with Honor

Recently, there has been a thread that is developing on these posts. One post, Old Wines for Young Sommeliers, looked into a world the younger generation might consider for their future enjoyment. Another one, White Wine for Red Wine Lovers, focused on white wines from Italy that might be enjoyable to folks with a disposition for red wine. Along the way folks asked me about white wines from Italy that age well. Then another friend sent me a column from Kerin O’Keefe of the Wine Enthusiast, entitle Aging Gracefully, about Italian wines that counter the notion of pronto bevere. It was a short piece, and though the wines written about were definitely age-worthy, the piece wasn’t long enough (probably by design) to get into other specific wines that I find (or want to find) in my wine closet. Let’s talk about some of those wines.

What Do I Need to Learn About Italian Wine?

Wow! How does one answer that one in 1000 words or less? Fortunately I have been asked that question a lot more lately. A new crop of wine salespeople is rushing towards Italian wines. And most of them are women under 30.

I see it all now. The bearded sage is leading hundreds of beautiful, intelligent young women from the summit of Mount Nebo and showing them the path to the river Jordan, where they will pass into the Promised Land.

All of a sudden I get a tap on my shoulder, from a young woman in spandex workout clothes. “Hello? I asked you: What do I need to learn about Italian wines?” Her impatience was implacable.

The Resistance Report - The Return of the Wine Snob?

Status quo is a tricky thing. If you fight to get your position to dominate, someone will come up from behind and try to make their position superior. We see it all the time in the rarified wine world. Some folks will make a particular wine or wine style popular. Ten minutes later and 180 degrees in the other direction, another group will make their plea for relevance. Chardonnay, with oak. Chardonnay, without oak. White wine, with acid. White wine, with fruit. Red wine with power. Red wine with buoyancy. And on and on. Everyone is looking to discover something no one has unearthed. We see it all the time in young wine buyers; they want to find it themselves. Problem is, it isn’t lost. It just has not been revealed to them.

With an old-timer yesterday, talking about this. His take was, “These snotty somms, what kind of life experience have they had, compared to you, to me?” I was shoveling in scrambled eggs, trying to fill up the hole in my stomach from the night before, where a lump of undigested onions was still seething. Last thing on my mind was the future as run by the current cadre of millennials.

From Italy to Argentina to Texas – A Buffalo Gap Sagra

You see it often in Italy. A celebration. Of pasta, of tomatoes, of zucchini flowers. Especially during harvest season, as one drives along the roads of Italy, there are signs of local celebrations, or Sagras, as they are known. Deep in the heart of West Texas, it isn’t harvest season. But our friends from Argentina are in the midst of gathering grapes to make wine. A few of them took a long weekend off to join us in our annual celebration at Perini Ranch, the Buffalo Gap Wine and Food Summit, in its 10th year.

This post will be short on words and long on images. One of the great festivals in Texas for food and wine, Buffalo Gap has retained its “aw shucks” style of simplicity. Lisa and Tom Perini, are on their way to New York to accept a James Beard Foundation 2014 America’s Classics Award, given to restaurants “that have timeless appeal and are beloved for quality food that reflects the character of their community.” Our little ‘ol national treasure, just a hop, skip and a jump from Abilene, is bringing home the medallion. But what makes Perini Ranch and the Buffalo Gap Summit great is that everybody hangs out, talks, drinks, eats and even dances together. No long queues, no Madison Avenue hype, just great weather, wine and food. It’s pretty wonderful. Thank you Lisa and Tom, and all the wonderful folks that make it happen.

White Wine for Red Wine Lovers

and a couple for white wine lovers too

This past trip to Italy, some of my favorite red wine makers showed me their white wines. Italians aren’t as regimented in their allegiance to red wine as we seem to be in America. In America the sign of having arrived as real wine aficionados is to embrace all that is red. Medical news stories hawk the health benefits of resveratrol, never mind that if you drank enough red wine to take advantage of the benefits of resveratrol, you’d probably first die of liver poisoning.

The British wine experts also made red wine a priority. Harry Waugh was reported to have said “The first duty of wine is to be red.” For anyone who wanted to be considered a serious wine person, one had to know their red wine.

Over time, I’ve come to think, like my Italian cousins, that red wine isn’t always the best choice for a meal. Many of the dishes we have require something more delicate. Weather conditions also taken into account, sometimes a beefy Super Tuscan or a high acid, tannic Nebbiolo is just too much for summers in Texas. Or many places in the Northern Hemisphere these days.

The reality is, I love white wine. And many of my wine expert friends do too. It’s not that we don’t love red wine; we just don’t love it exclusively. But walking the aisles of a wine store and asking people what they are looking for, by and large, most of them think they need a red wine. And so it goes.

The following wines are selections I tasted from the last trip. These are wines that red wine lovers can learn to love. And there are a couple of wines just for the white wine fanatics that I call my friends. Here they are.

Old Wines for Young Sommeliers

From the “what would I put away?” dept.

There’s some chatter lately about the young and the old in the wine world. Not having totally destroyed all my memory cells from earlier days, I’d like to share some thoughts about which wines I would buy if I were 30 years younger. Keep in mind; 30 years ago I started to put away wine. Those wines are now like tattoos to me. Some of them have become great friends; some of them I wonder just how they got there. The good news about a poorly chosen wine for collecting, you don’t have to wear it on your chest for the rest of your life. You pop the cork and send it on its way.

Why We Root for Godzilla

Human beings fear the monster. But we also love the monster. The monster, personified by Godzilla, has an enduring magnetism for many of us. Why do we love the monster so?

In between tastings of Lamole Chianti Classico and Bonny Doon’s Vin Gris de Cigare and over a period of days, the image and idea of Godzilla has been slowly resurfacing, much like the monster does in the movies when he comes back up from the depths of the sea. Lurking, seething, totally unfiltered and unrestrained, Godzilla is the ultimate badass. Moreover, Godzilla is old-school, and Godzilla gives each and every one of us tacit permission to embrace old-school ways.

The Resurrection of Italian Wine

It is truly a miracle to consider what we humans do to the land and the resilience that land exhibits. We pour chemicals on it, stir them up and grind them in. Then we put more poisons on the plants that grew up from that chemical baptism. When the leaves send their shoots and the flowers send their fruits, we then trim them, shave them and cast them to the ground.

The World’s First Chianti Classico Gran Selezione

Pietro Losi's 2007 Chianti Classico Gran Selezione 

When I was in Tuscany earlier this month, inevitably the subject of the Chianti Classico classification came up. Roberto Stucchi at Badia a Coltibuono is at the spearhead of trying to move the Chianti Classico Consorzio towards a more comprehensive ordering of the different terroir of the classic zone. That is a slow dance, taking many years, but one which Roberto and many other people are very passionate about. Alessandro Masnaghetti is moving the discussion further with his mapping strategy, which gives a visual person like me the possibility to imagine the differences without necessarily having to reorganize the discipinare. In all, good things happening, albeit at a snail’s pace. That’s said, if a snail can still traverse the path the meaning is that the waters (and the lands) haven’t been poisoned.

In a discussion with Valeria Losi and her dad Pietro of Querciavalle they have positive impressions about the Gran Selezione. They are excited about it. “We have always had a Gran Selezione, which we call Millennium.” I remember this selection starting with the 1997 from the Losi estate. “To us it makes sense, because we are already doing it,” Valeria Losi noted.

Indeed, Losi has also, from what I can gather, released the first Gran Selezione in the world. First in that it comes from the oldest harvest yet bottled as a Gran Selezione, in this case the 2007.

#Vinitaly2014 - New white wine, old red wine, Renzi's hashtag (#campolibero) and new bathrooms

 Baron Alessandro de Renzis Sonnino - Vintage Raleigh, low carbon footprint and kid gloves

Vinitaly 2014 was a little different than the first Vinitaly I went to in 1984. In 1984 there were fewer pavilions and producers. One could see the whole show in about two days, back then. Now, four days doesn’t even begin to cover it. But any longer would be too much.

This year was difficult. Two days before the show started, my throat started to get sore and closed up. I had a slight fever and muscle pain. Mind you, I had been in Italy for some time, first as a judge for 21st Concorso Enologico, the international wine competition sponsored by Vinitaly. After that I went to see producers in Tuscany, trying to get a jump on only having four days at the show. By the time I had done that I was exhausted. But then the real reason for why I came to Italy started, that being the Vinitaly show (and all the satellite shows nearby), so I did what one does, I willed myself to get through Vinitaly.

The Loneliest Man in the World

Sixteen years ago I was walking out of the Vinitaly wine fair with a friend and colleague. Crossing the street, we spotted a well known importer looking at the ground. A local fellow had a shell game going on and he had stopped to look at it. My friend touched my arm to get my attention to look in that direction. He pulled me to the side and spoke in a lowered voice. “That man over there, see how unhappy he appears. He looks like the loneliest man in the world.” 

The Dramas of Life

Here in Italy, as in everywhere on Spaceship Earth, there are the daily dramas. We all have them. For each and every one of us, our personal dramas are often of utmost importance. After all we are the center of our universe. Our life is most important to us. Multiply that by 7,000,000,000 in this moment and probably another 7,000,000,000+ in time. A caveman searching for food for his tribe. An explorer discovering a new route to the Pacific Coast. A winemaker finding a better way to make Sangiovese in Tuscany. Nothing is missed. We are like ants, covering every minute detail of our lives as if the universe wasn’t the large expanse beyond which we could never imagine. And it is probably correct to think often in that way, for to veer into the abyss would surely lead to madness, or worse.