That was part of a conversation regarding one’s place in the world of wine and how to explode one’s brand online, as recommended by someone who is very successful at it. They also happen to be young, good-looking and affluent. None of which I purport to be, ever again.
Riding on a bus, from Catania to Palermo, my time on Etna was done. I had apprehensions about coming back to Sicily, almost cancelled coming. The last time I’d been here, someone, or some thing, tried to kill me. They failed, but not without leaving scars. With the passage of the last eight years, and all that we have been through, what with Covid and the ensuing chaos that surrounded that time, I didn’t know if getting on a plane to come to Sicily would be a wise thing.
Fortunately, last year, my experience in Venice allayed larger misgivings about travel. Look, Italy is a very easy place to be in, for many people. Even if one isn’t the most fluent in the Italian language or knowledgeable about the quirky regional customs, with a little humility and the faintest hint of awareness, one can navigate across Italy, and it can be a most pleasant experience.
If we didn’t have climate change, or as some called it early on, in the beginning, global warming, we’d still have Etna. Can the local practices put into place, because of the pressures of Etna, act as an instructional manual for other grape growing places in the world dealing with the immediacy of climate change? I wondered that as I walked along a lava strewn path early one morning. The weather was changing from the warm breeze of summer to the looming fog and coolness of autumn, in the background was the eternal soundtrack playing the low groans of the earth’s core and Etna acting as a megaphone for those rumblings.
While on Etna recently, I talked to a farmer, Giuseppe. He’s been tending his land for several decades now. He’s not a young man, but he certainly has many years left under the volcano. I asked him about co-habitating with La Muntagna.
While on Mt. Etna recently, I would get up early, before sunrise, and sit on my little patio, watching the sun making its way to the mountain. Birds were awakening, the world was rousing. Etna was there, waiting.
But now, in 2024, I was here as a guest of the Consorzio Tutela Dei Vini Etna DOC at their event, Etna Days. They arranged my airfare and meals and hotels while I was in their care. They didn’t ask me to cover the event in any particular way, or really at all. There was no tit-for-tat, although being a lover of Italian wine and Sicily, that, for me was a given. So, let’s dig in.
They answered simply, “Barbaresco? Oh, it just died.”
Huh? Did I hear that right? One of my favorite wines in the world, one of the greatest examples of Nebbiolo the world has ever known, has left us?
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| 🎵 I got the poison, I got the remedy 🎵 |
Not to be outdone, the Italian-American amalgam, a quasi-conspiratorial plot against authentic and traditional food and wine, has catapulted onto the scene, conjuring up wine and food combinations. This either signals the beginning of the end of days, or at the very least, presages a seismic shift from rational common sense thinking to the current craze for a pseudo-realism based on one’s one whims and fancies. Expressed herewith are a troika of such abominations that have recently been spotted in the wild, and which could foreshadow Italian wine and food culture wriggling into Mainstream American culture. Or it might simply mean the end is near. Let’s jump in.
“What is wine?” asks an asteroid, as it careens past me at 40,000 miles per hour. As if said asteroid even had time to consider a deeper dive, such as “What is Italian wine?”
“No matter,” I reply, although I would imagine the asteroid did not hear me, as it was long out of shouting range. And so, I found myself alone, in a cold sector of the Milky Way, pondering how I got there and where in Heaven’s name I was going.
I’m simplifying matters a bit, but if you are living in America right now, there is an energy, a fire that has been lit, and we’re not talking about an arsonist in the Sierra Nevada, or Burning Man, which is imminent. No, this is a larger upheaval. And while it might be a communally driven one, I’ve also been thinking about our individual climbs.
This was precipitated by the death of a long-time friend who battled DLB for the past five years. My friend was a world traveler, an art lover, a wine and food enthusiast and a love-magnet for beautiful, accomplished and fiercely independent women. Oh, and he loved to climb mountains.
While I understand the spirit of Italian cooking draws upon improvisation, there is also a good argument for the great classic dishes that are rarely seen in these parts in their pure form. Ingredients matter. The season matters. The place where one lives matters. But sometimes lines are crossed, and from where I observe, we’ve crossed over into the land of contravention. They’ve stolen our dreadlocks. Italian food has been culturally appropriated. And it’s an unsightly mess.
Meanwhile the younger generations aren’t drinking as much as the older ones did when they were young. Adding to that, it is estimated that about 5,000-6,000 baby boomers die a day. It is estimated also that there are now 11 million less Baby Boomers than there were in 2020, and about 21 million less than in 2016. So, yeah, the liquor and wine businesses are in the crapper.
But it’s not like the mega corporations didn’t have something to do with it. Let’s take a look.
