The Alacrity of Hope

 “Well, this sure has been one doozie of a year.” How many times, at year's end, have you murmured that to yourself, over the past dozen or so years? Let me see, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012. I could go on. 2016. 2018. And now, 2020. And yet, I remain one gullible and hopeful sonofabitch. 

5 of the greatest Italian wines (that I want to drink in 2021)

♫ It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ♫

When one is marooned on an island, you have a lot of time to think and imagine all kinds of future scenarios. One of my favorite things, vinously speaking, is to look at wines that have aged for a decade or multiples of a decade. In 2021, that would mean 2001,1991,1981,1971,1961 and so on.  It provides a neat measure to time with regards to how these little living things inside (and outside) the bottle are doing.

Another aspect to this exercise is also to use those years as a personal reference. Maybe you were born that year, or married, or a child was born, or someone died. Anything that would be considered a particular landmark in time. It gives context beyond just the wine and the score it received.

I have had every one of these wines before, and while they are considered iconic wines, especially in regards to the prestige they proffer to the greater world of wine, they also imprinted my sensibilities towards an unabashed conviction that Italian wines are as good as any (e.g., French) wines in the world. It was not the case when I started out. In fact, I spent much of my early career expending my most persuasive capabilities in an effort to dispel the myth that Italian wines were somehow inferior to other wines. Now, not so much, as Italian wines are finally the darlings of the sommelier and collector universe.  The mill of God grinds slow but exceedingly fine.

The current state of Italian wine in the world

I remember as a kid, going to a birthday party. I was living in the desert of Southern California, Palm Springs. And the parents of the birthday child were proud Mexican-Americans. The food was great (they had a fabulous restaurant), the music was cheerful, it was a fun, fun party. And to top it off, after the birthday girl opened all her presents, we all took a swing at a stuffed piñata shaped like a donkey.

When all the kids took their swing, the poor creature finally burst opened and all manner of shiny and sweet things flew about the field and we all scrambled for the treasures. I don’t know why, but that memory reminds me of 2020 and Italian wine.

Everyday Italian Wines for Everyday People in Extraordinary Times

For some, this is a way with a deep-seated furrow. The road often taken. The commonplace. The not-so-out-of-the-ordinary. But predictable? Not necessarily so. Wine is a living, breathing, evolving thing. And with that, even an ordinary wine can act extraordinary in these unprecedented times.

That was how I started out with this odd holiday, Thanksgiving. Like Columbus Day, Thanksgiving has come under fire by some who see it as having racist origins, representing a celebration of the conquest of Native Americans. I get that. I also know we, as a country, need something to unify us in this time of discord. I don’t think cooking a bird or smoking a ham will save us, I’m not that naïve. But I do see people finding ways to make moments for peace and serenity. And if celebrating Thanksgiving in the old way that the story was told to us is behind the times, can we not shift from that to a less highly charged observance? We cannot go back and undo what the Anglo-western world did to the indigenous souls here in America. But we can recast the day with thoughts of gratitude and clarity. No, we Americans aren’t the greatest nation the world has ever seen. We aren’t even handling something like this pandemic as well as many other nations on the planet. We have failed miserably. But we cannot shirk away and pretend that all that came before didn’t. We must admit, even concede, that we are not great again, and we must start over again, with the hindsight that we didn’t do it right, all these years. We must change now.