5 of the Most Important Patron Saints of Italian Wine You’ve Never Heard About

In Italy, where the seat of the Catholic Church sits in Rome, many souls have drifted away from the sacred to the secular. But there is a cultural attachment to a spirit of place that has been cultivated in the Italian soil for over two millennia. Christianity developed in Italy aspiring towards ascetic and self-sacrificing virtues. When stirred into the pot with an ages-long foment from the cults of the Greeks and the Romans for wine and all things pleasurable, the inevitable consanguinity between the gods and the saints created a genesis of devotion that has been somewhat hidden from the public at large. But over those two thousand plus years, there are saints in Italy that wine lovers and winemakers depend on to get through every harvest and bottling. Here are five of the most important patron saints of Italian wine you’ve never heard about, from recently discovered ancient writings, by a botanist researcher, in the Jesuit Vatican archives in Rome.

The "New" International Style in Winemaking Veers to the Left

Angelo Gaja had this thing for Cabernet Sauvignon and Bordeaux. And so, he planted it in Piedmont in the 1970’s. Pio Boffa went to Napa Valley in the 1980’s and fell in love with the place and with the wines of Robert Mondavi. And he came home "a changed man." Piero Antinori set up shop in the early 1990’s, above the fog line in Napa Valley, bringing with him his winemaker Renzo Cotarella, and proceeded to invest, plant and make wine from Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot. It was a prescient influence for changes that would be made in their Italian wines, back home. Renzo’s brother, Riccardo Cotarella made a name for himself (and a small fortune) interpreting Merlot in the unlikeliest places, like Lazio, Molise and Campania, in the late 1990’s early 2000’s. These were just a few of Italy’s winemaking giants who were moved by outside influences and who shaped the then-International style of wine in Italy. It was a movement that went long and deep, and it took years to see above the fog of high scores, blinded by seductively lush, drinkable fruity and powerful wines, often deeply oaked and intoxicatingly alcoholic. The critics, and the buying public who soon followed, couldn’t get enough of these wines – to drink, to larder away and to showcase in their trophy cellars. And those cellars filled up quickly with the force of a tsunami that has had mixed results for the collectors.

And then, it pirouetted. And everything changed.

The Judgement of Paros – The Greek Paradox

From this view on the perch, Greek wine should be winning more than it appears to be. The Greek wine importers and government agencies are investing heavily in bringing many in the American wine trade to the vineyards. Greece is a Mediterranean epicenter (très chic these days). The people are great. The food is fresh and healthy. The wines are better than ever. As we say in Rome, Quo Vadis?

I say this as an Italian neighbor, but also as one who has much Greek in his family and in his blood, over the ages. I ache for Greek wine to achieve their place in the pantheon of great wine. Indeed, the culture has already secured their spot in immortality. And wine being hotter than ever, with boat loads of visitors who infiltrate the Greek islands (and mainland) this time of the year, one would think this would bleed over into life after vacation.

Old Vine Vs. Old Wine: A Modern-Day Dilemma

In today’s hyper-rarefied clime in which the world’s wine elite bask, for most folks the access to ancient and great old wine can often seem unreachable. If you peruse the many impressive sights, whether it be on Instagram, blogs, paywall-protected wine websites, or pertinent Uniform Resource Locator’s on your phone, tablet or laptop, you might think the world is one giant wine library of Alexandria, waiting for the next abecedarian to enter.

July 1, 2043: No More Tattoos, No More Natural Wine

An unexpected, but inevitable, missive, from Last Gen
(translation by devinchi’s Submarine)

It’s so odd to be writing this note to people who are probably already dead, if it weren’t for the fact that we found a back door in the time-space continuum. So, while most of you have less life in you than the tartrates at the bottom of a barrel of Krug (Boomers) or just plain shaggin-old (X’ers and Millennials), from where I transmit this communiqué, I know this is reaching most of you while you are alive, and still very much full of yourselves.

I am a mid-century somm. Well, we don’t call it that anymore, but the word we use would be meaningless to you (and devinchi can’t translate it anyway), just like the word sommelier is to us in 2043. I was born on July 1, 2018, and am turning ⓴❺ today. Happy birthday to me, ĿǦĕĕ. My device just snapped a holo of me and sent it to my 3 million followers. Instantly I received a holo-cake back with 3 million candles on it. My personal assistant, ĂĬ, “blew” out the candles for me. A good time was had by all. So they tell me.

So, you think you love wine. But do you like wine?

This month, while traveling in Connecticut, I was in a little wine shop in Madison, chatting with a salesperson. She was a self-described millennial, a mother of two young children, and the daughter of a woman who was feted by her religion for selling the most Upanishad books in airports, and, most likely, in the world. “I can’t stop thinking about wine," she told me."Wine! Wine!! Wine!!! It invades my mental space, I can’t get it out of my head and I can’t get enough.” I don’t think she was complaining. Lamenting perhaps, as the demands of motherhood dictates that she also attend to her little ones. But clearly, she has been afflicted with a vinous virus. I’m sure her devout parents might have already counseled her in becoming too attached to worldly objects. And wine is from this world. But is it of this world?

Earlier this week, I’m in the hill-country of Texas, going down a most wonderful rabbit hole of conversation about wine. The young sommelier at the table was bright, energetic and engaged (he reminded me of a younger version of Charles Curtis, who, if you don’t know of him, still has a child-like enthusiasm and wonder about wine). As our conversation veered left and right, the young somm suddenly uttered, “I know many of our colleague’s love wine, they love to study about wine and pour over maps and charts. But I am beginning to wonder which of them really, truly like wine!”

The Bi-Coastal Post-Retirement Italian Wine List Report

In the last two weeks, I’ve been on both sides of the northern corners of America. It must be my busy time of retirement. And it appears the demands of time upon my schedule will be like this until the end of September, when I can really put my feet up and read a book by Ursula LeGuin or Philip Roth again.

Odd, that I’d mention these two writers, as I have been scouting around their respective regions, the Pacific Northwest and NY Metro. The weather in both was cool and pleasant, in contrast to the already balmy and searing heat of a North Texas Spring that has been hijacked by Summer. Both areas abound with plenty of natural beauty, but also with enough of an urban presence to give the Italian wine lover a place to go to, and with a wellspring of choices from the Italian wine palette.

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.