When life on the wine trail in Italy just ain’t spicy “enough”

From the "Some like it Hot" department

Happy New Year, y’all. This looks like the last weekend I’m going to have for a while, what with wine judging’s and weddings and wine seminars slated for the upcoming weeks, followed by all kinds of travel.

So this weekend it’s now or never to “put up” our jalapeños. Jalapeños have become a harvest tradition in the last few years; we planted them along with the other indigenous articles on the garden, the Hoja Santa and the Epazote. These are all things foreign to the Italian sensibility, but indispensable to the Auchtochtono Tejano. And after 30 years, I am also one of those.

New pepper sauce finds from Oaxaca. Even with a name like Zaaschila, I bet Dr. Zaia would ban these in Italy

In fact, and most likely owing to my Calabrese and Sicilian roots, I love hot food. I remember my sister Tina and I had contests when we were kids to see how we could eat hotter foods than the other. Years later we transformed that sibling rivalry to the kitchen when we competed to make hot sauces, each one more fiery than the other. I bow to my sister for her ultimate tolerance for things hot, but we in Texas have an ongoing love affair with the hot and spicy foods of México and I am no different.

While it is often hard to find truly authentic Italian food in these parts, the food of México and Tex-Mex are easily found in abundance and in varying degrees of authenticity and regional correctness. I love tamales, especially this time of the year, along with the sopas and tacos found everywhere.

I love that they call this brand "El Guapo" - meaning good looking, troublemaker, boastful and a ladies man, some of which I have been in the various stages of my life.

Today, during a lull at the one of the world’s greatest Italian wine and food stores in America, I walked across the street to a new market, specializing in the foods of MesoAmerica. Along with finding a stash of new hot sauces, for the living collection, I gathered up the fixins for a seasons worth of jalapeños to “put up”. At 3 pounds for a dollar, I splurged and bought 12 pounds of the big juicy peppers, several heads of garlic, some bay leaf and black pepper. The only thing missing was the vinegar. But back across the street I knew I could find any number of wonderful vinegars to complete the canning project. A quick trip to the local (large) grocer for some glass jars, and tomorrow we will be in "Hot Pepper Heaven."

One of my favorite "value" vinegars from Carbonara Scrivia in the Colli Tortonese

Speaking of hot peppers, I often go back to the Marche-Abruzzo border to visit my friends, the Illuminati's. One of our pilgrimages is to go into Ascoli Piceno and beyond for the mushrooms. Acquasanta Terme is a great little town, worth visiting, especially if you ever travel the Via Salaria back towards Rome or on your way towards Umbria from the Marche or Abruzzo. In Acquasanta Terme there are a couple of notable restaurants I have enjoyed over the years, La Casaccia and Tre Lanterne. For the quality and the value of what we eat in these places, one could only wish to find something like that in Dallas or Austin, or New York. Indescribably delicious, wholesome and authentic.

In Acquasanta Terme there is also a little outlet store, RITI, a family owned business that supplies dried porcini mushrooms and a hot sauce that rivals my dear Calabrese ones. I am always asking folks who go to Illuminati to bring me back several bottles, luring them with the promise of a great meal at one of the recommended places. It always works and is a win-win for everyone. And I gets me my Italian hot sauce fix for the pantry.

I don’t know what it is about hot foods – but they make me happy – and during the winter season when it gets dark early I seem to rely on the curative and restorative properties of peppers to bring me back to an equilibrium where I feel light and hope and am ready to run another mile or two. Like I said, win-win.

And that is my 2 cents worth for the day – We’re on to a new pizzeria which is BYOB and hopefully we can stay away from the sinful tiramisu and bruschetta (here spelled correctly and pronounced “broos'ketta”).

Ciao for niao- never half empty - always half full, with more on the way!

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

Pictures from the Wine Trail in 2009

Looking back at my Best of 2009 on Flickr, go to the Slideshow or click on the individual photos below - these are just a sampling of the images.











Enjoy!
-Alfonso

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

“Cris” Kringle, Hot Shots, Dream Wines & Mad(e) Men

One more day to go for calendar year 2009. Yesterday Sausage Paul was in the mood to pop a few bottles, starting with some Nicky Feuillatte Rose’ Palmes d’or. I dropped by his place in the morning with a little "bling" for his New Year stocking. I know Luca Zaia is trying to get everyone in Italy to drink Italian sparklers. But here in Texas we have an affliction to mix it up. And bubbles are part of the reason we liven up after working three months non-stop to try and get as much wine into the hands of deserving folks in these parts. But today was birthday for two gents, Paul and Joe Akers.

We need a name for Joe Akers, something that fits his demeanor. Let’s see, he likes wine, women and money. How about Joey the Whack? Anyway it was Sausage Paul and Joey the Whack’s tandem birthday – imagine born on the same day in the same year – separated at birth and joined together by a love for Amarone.

Joey the Weasel (aka Joe Strange Eye) couldn’t make it. He was busy loading up his vehicle to make hot shot deliveries to restaurants that had last minute “needs.” A coupe of days ago we had five minutes of snow and everybody in town panicked, started canceling New Year’s reservations, And then when the snow melted, 10 minutes later, everyone, and then some, called back, panicking that they wouldn’t get a New Years Eve seat in the restaurant of their choice. Anywho, Joe couldn’t make it.

A couple of veterans and a young lion did show up though. Adelmo was in rare form. Everyone brought a bottle of wine from their stash. Jermann’s "Dreams", the ’05 La Louviere, a tanned and sassy ’97 Solaia, a 2000 Ghiaie della Furba from Capezzana, a 93 Brunello and a bubbly from the Texas, Mexico, New Mexico border town of Canutillo, Texas. Huh? I’d never heard of it either, but there it was from the Zin Valle Vineyards, predictably named “Rising Star.” Well, of course.

Adelmo is my neighbor and man, his trash can fills up with a lot of wine bottles during the holidays. Today we had a beautiful lineup for the recycle tub. And we got to try wines from France, Italy and Texas before the year expires.

After the Rose’, Adelmo poured me a glass of deep yellow wine. I didn’t look at the label but when I tasted it I thought I was drinking a passito chardonnay. I didn’t recoil from it, but it caught me off guard. “I love this wine,” Adelmo proclaimed. “I don’t know what it is about it, but everything is in place with this wine for me.” I could see that. It was spoofulated and statuesque, but not grotesque. It went well with the ceviche. Ok, I’d go along for the ride.

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams."

The last time I had the 2005 La Louviere was in Bordeaux out of the barrel. This time it was showing “advanced tendencies”. The wine seemed super-ripe, California-like. Odd. Again, Adelmo’s is a vortex and funny things happen in his place. We were sitting there making fun of each other; he likes to claim that Sicily is the only Arab country that has never invaded Israel. I countered that one cannot really allege to be Tuscan when their claim to fame is as one of the bastards of Napoleon when he was marooned on Elba. A couple in the corner heard our banter and the young lass let out a whoop. I think she wanted to join the drinking party (and she eventually did). But that is the way we rolled that day.

Adelmo’s friend, Danny, who got out of the retail wine and sprits biz (but not out of real estate), brought a bottle of ’97 Solaia. Danny and Joey the Whack and Adelmo are travel buddies who go to Italy from time to time. They leave a trail of broken “Dream” bottles wherever they go.

All of us are tied to one or the other in the wine biz. Beat, "The Swiss Missile" we all have known for so long, is a passionate guy about any kind of wine. And he is fiercely competitive. David is the other “money” guy in the group; he loves to eat and travel and drink wine and make money, so now he’s part of the tribe of characters. The Young Lion, Ben, has these wild looking eyes – if you didn’t know him you might think he’s getting ready to cloud up and rain on you. But he’s good. He loves wine and selling for his small company and he was so proud of loading up his car with the Texas Bubbly and going out with hand invoices to deliver the wine on the spot. I remember doing that a generation ago with an Italian Novello. It’s front line excitement, making things happen, right here, right now. Feels good.
A pasta dish with clams (why do those waiters bring the cheese around to ask us if we want any?) followed by a lamb chop (with more pasta, this time gnocchi) and then a small plate of veal. My regimen is getting close to being shot this day. We open the Super (reductive) Tuscan from Capezzana. These guys loved it – but they also love big red wine from the Veneto and Napa. I get it; I was on that bus once upon a time.


A mystery carafe appears – a 93 Brunello – from Banfi – maybe the Poggio all’Oro? It was pretty calm compared to the previous wines (that’s right) and it was almost in a hibernative-stage. We were moving through wine pretty fast now.

Slabs of bread pudding appeared on a small plate along with another wine, Feudi di San Gregorio "Privilegio", a botrytis passito of Fiano from Cotarella. I had a slight epiphany here. Cotarella knows how to do ripe, fruity, rich. I wonder what he could do with a Sagrantino in the “old style”. He does an Aleatico that’s a jam-fest. The Privilegio was a little over the top, but it was in keeping with the general theme of the day.

To come (full?) circle, we ended with the Texas Brut, which was fruity. “Rising Star” from Canutillo, Texas. A stone’s throw from Juarez.

The young lass who was admiring our tall tales and all the wine finally came over to see what the stir was all about. Her lunch companion had to get back to work. Some people do have to stoke the fires of the American economy, after all. So we toasted him and he set sail, while she looked at the lineup in amazement. For all I know, they might all still be there drinking in the New Years. As for me and Adelmo, she shot us in our Spy vs. Spy coats. Mine was a gift from a friend whose husband (who was a real Mad Man on NY in the 1950’s and ‘60’s) had passed away. It was a great gift to go into the next year, with a vintage Burberry Spy coat, with hidden pockets. Big enough to hide a bottle of Cristal. Or Jacques Selosse? Like I said, we like to mix it up in flyover country.



See you in 2010!

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