Can (or Should) a Wine Be Life-Changing?

The Flying Wallendas

Life-changing. It’s a pretty tall order. I’ve had some things that have happened that were life changing. Two years ago, almost to the day, I was in the back seat of a car in Sicily. My pal, Eric Asimov was driving. We had just finished an assignment for the NY Times (he the writer, I the photographer) and were heading to the Catania airport. Then, out of nowhere, a somnambulist in a vegetable truck ran a stop sign, T-Boned the car and knocked us unconscious. Out. Just like that. Life-changing.

When my wife Liz was in the end-stage of Multiple Sclerosis, on her last day, as her life energy slipped away and she died, that was life-changing. For both of us. And while she bore the greater brunt of that experience, it changed me forever in this life.

When my son Rafael was born at home, and the mid-wife didn’t show, and outside, storms were raging and lights were flickering on and off, it was also a life-changing moment. To see life appear in front of you, under candlelight, is one of those life-changing events. One I will always be grateful for.

So, can, or even should, a wine be a cause for a life-changing event? A mere wine?

Getting All Caught Up in the Tangle of this Grape Thing

It’s 4:00 AM and I’m staring at the ceiling in bed, eyes wide open. And I’m thinking about wine. Wine, wine, wine. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was supposed to be retired, and to move on, to putter in the garden, travel a bit, to ply about in the darkroom on my photo portfolio, hang out with the animals, ride my bike, and get off the freeway of the wine world. And this work thing. I’m still trying.

The Long Green Mile – An Enduring Life in Italy

It is not without the slightest tinge of envy, that I read the many people who work so hard to taste wine, write about it and share their notes with others as to the color, the aromas, the taste, the feel, the quality and ultimately some kind of appraisal. Somewhere along the line, that chromosome dropped out of my being. Instead, I have been sentenced to walk a long green Italian mile, camera in hand, occasionally with wine glass, maybe even a pencil and paper. But I fail the written test, ultimately. This thing is too big, too much of a thing, for my little brain to adequately quantify. I will never be a Cernilli, or a Galloni, or even a Suckling. I am too distracted by the movie that is constantly flickering in front of me. And in front of me is often the boundless array of nature, in which wine serially steps in front of the camera and makes its brief cameo.

A Grand and Beautiful Italian Dilemma

I’ve been in Italy for three weeks now. It has been more than 40 years that I have spent this much time in Italy in one, uninterrupted period. As a result, my perspective on Italy is shifting.

Valdobbiadene: The Spirit Center of Italy’s Wine World

A million years ago, KPFK in Los Angeles aired a story about the Rolling Stone performer, Brian Jones, who found a tribe of master musicians in Morocco, that he became very close to. Jones was searching for the beginnings of music on earth, and it was his realization that the musicians of Joujouka were a large part of that story, embodying a tradition of music that went back hundreds of generations. It was a tale I never forgot, so much that I longed to go to hear the music myself. But life, la vita, found another way to divert me in my search for something rare and ancient, towards my own tribe of the vine.

From the Archives: Pivot or Persevere

(Traveling now and am thinking about this subject, first posted in 2011 and which will have a follow up post.)

Pan di sudore, miglior sapore

The messages emanating from the Italian peninsula in recent days have been ones of concern for their future and whether or not the average Italian will be able to live a life as their father and grandfather have. The reality is that the life their father and especially their grandfather lived wasn’t a bed of roses. Funny how the human mind forgets history so fast. Thankfully the human heart is there to redirect the course of one’s life. And in the average Italian’s life here is what I see.

Starting Your New (Dream) Life in Italian Wine

Dateline: Barolo, Italy and Ian D'Agata's 1st Indigena Symposium

Let’s say you’re 25, finished with formal schooling, looking for a path in life to follow. Let’s say you are in a developed (or developing) country, where the economy is growing, and people are beginning to have time for things beyond the basic necessities of food, shelter and clothing. And let’s say you live in a town or a city where the population is growing, even burgeoning. And you want to stand out in a crowd and carve out a life of meaning. How in the world does Italian wine fit into this scenario, you say?

For people who think they might like to find their future path on the wine trail in Italy, and speaking from a lifetime of experience in this matter, I’m going to share with you, not so much my singular experience, but a pathway that was not unique to a young man in America in the 1970’s. it could equally apply to a young woman in Shanghai or middle-aged man, starting all over in Copenhagen.

Prosecco: What it is and what it isn’t

Of the epiphanies I had at Vinitaly this year, one of them was over Prosecco. Watching the Prosecco phenomenon over the last 25 years has been one for the books. As I have written before, somewhere in this blog, one of my first encounters with Prosecco was to find a pallet of the stuff in the corner of a warehouse, wondering what the heck it was. What it was at the time, was more frizzante (although the product was so old, it had been “stilled”) than what we now know Prosecco to be. But enough of the rear-view mirror stuff, let’s dive in.

Vinitaly 2018 - Impressions and Epiphanies

For my first time in 34 years, Vinitaly was an exploration of a different kind. While, previously, I have attended as a tradesperson, now I am free to go wherever I want. Thanks to Ian D’Agata and his generous network, I went to in-depth tastings, enjoyed lunch, sitting down, like a civilized human being and had access to the best bathrooms at the fair (not a small thing). But the real epiphany was what I stumbled upon, wondering as I wandered where my feet led.

Italy as the Starting Point on the Journey to the Center of the Wine World

For years, the Italian winemaker has sought to please the global wine lover with a spectrum of flavors, from the rustic and feral to the refined and bridled. Much of this comes from our inborn desire to please. Imagine a highly-trained opera singer, like Pavarotti, crooning Neapolitan folk songs. A bit below his station in life, people said, when he did. But boy, did the masses eat it up. Italians live for love and approval, at least from where I perch on the tree of life.

So, what if the Italian winemakers have, with all their energy (male and female) in the last 60 or so years, created a model where they no longer need to mimic to please, but in which the world now spins on their axis? Bear with me, this is a bit of a thought experiment, but also a way to perceive another way in which Italian wine and culture, by extension, could be a Tesla coil of sorts. And how, you ask? In the way in which we go about perceiving, tasting and even evaluating wines from around the globe, doused by the ablution of Italian wine.

Reorganization Man at the Dawn of a New Age

We’re only a week into this next chapter, and I’m bushed. And I’m also relieved and excited, like I just crossed over on a tightrope, without a net, to the other side. Now what? Well, the now isn’t so much a “hurry up” as much as an “OK, let’s see where this road will take me.”

Parting with the shadow to pursue the substance

Eo Romam iterum crucifigi

How easy it is, these days, to give in to the dark and destructive tendencies which seem to be roiling the bipeds on the spaceship. What is the best way to say goodbye to some (if not all) of the constant haranguing that is filling up our cup these days? Is there a path out of the shadow, towards a more meaningful purlieu? I have spent the greater part of my adult life in service of something, someone, whether it is family or company or the other. Serving something. I am now at a juncture in my life and the sign on the trail clearly says, quo vadis?

How Influential is an Influencer?

From the Navel-gazing Observatory on the Italian wine trail

Recently, I peered into the petite armoire of a colleague in wine who passed away a few years back. I was looking in on her husband and had time to dig around the wine collection. What I found was a cornucopia of disparate bottles - some deeply iconic wines, and some which just happened to find themselves ensconced in the little closet along with the rest. There were “unicorn” wines in there by the boatload, and there was a bevy of unadorned wines as well. It sent me down a rabbit hole, wondering “Why do we long for what we long for?”

Six days in an Italian jail

A story inspired by real-life events...

What would you do if, all of a sudden, you couldn’t drink wine? If the forces of destiny didn’t allow you the freedom you had become accustomed to? To go where you want to go. To see who you want to see and to eat and drink what you want to?

For those of you who have experienced Italy, whether by living there or by visiting, one of the great things about the place is the access to beauty in its many forms. And isn’t beauty a piece of the truth? To sit on a table next to a vineyard, with light spring weather, cool but not cold, and a breeze which is bringing in pollen and butterflies and sand from the Sahara. To tear apart a fresh loaf of crusty bread, to have a platter of salumi and cheese, and a bottle of fresh wine from the nearby vineyard. Things many of us take for granted. To be able to walk out into the field, to be able to sing, to dance, to hug someone you love.

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

from the archives...

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.