The Invisible Wine

“Sometimes the older ones, the ones that have been in there a long time, they get forgotten. They become invisible."

It had been a month of Sundays since I last updated my cellar list. Over the years I managed to work up a spread sheet. It was far from perfect, but at least it provided me a list with what I had collected over the course of a life and a career in the wine trade. Sometimes it was in multiples – of three, of six, even twelve. And often it was a lone solitary bottle, stashed away for that perfect dinner, or celebration.

And sometimes, a bottle would get away from me. Maybe we only had eleven and drank all of them. Maybe we actually drank the twelfth and I forgot to mark it off the spreadsheet. It happened from time to time. But when I’d do a full inventory, those stragglers usually showed up and were put back on the list.

This wine was different. It was, well, let’s just say, one of a kind. It was old and dark and from an odd vineyard. Not terribly fashionable with the snotty somm set that beat their drums loudly over every pét-nat and grower’s champers, or an ancient Barolo from Mascarello or Conterno, Aldo or Roberto.

No, this was a wine that had gone out of style around the turn of the 21^st century. You could imagine where it came from.

But first, it had to reveal itself to me.

Leading From Behind

Recently I watched an absorbing and compelling documentary about the musician, Ron Carter. A giant in the jazz world, Ron is now 86 and still playing. Or working, however you might see it. I was fortunate enough to see him perform in 1968 at UCLA, when he was part of the Miles Davis Quintet. He’s a master, not one who passed a written test or a blind tasting. He mastered his art as he journeyed through time and his world, slowly, often painfully. But he succeeded. In the documentary, towards the end, he talks about what success is:

"I think success involves more than me. I’m sure that I could have been successful a lot sooner and maybe a lot longer. I thinks success is a difficult word to define, because it means different things to different people. Does it mean that you work all the time, is that successful? Does it mean that you walk onto a street and everybody knows who you are without your instrument? Does it mean you get paid on time? Being able to fill a house with my name being the band leader? Call three or four guys and say, ‘Hey, now, I got this gig, can you make it?’ They all say yes ‘cause I called? Is success going into the bank and they know you’re not going to rob them? I mean, what is success? I don’t know. I’m not sure how I would determine success 'cause I'm still trying. I haven’t gotten to the place where I necessarily see me as being successful, given all those possible definitions. Having said that, I like where I’m going. My last efforts have been honest. I have meant every note that I have played.”

The man is 86 and he likes where he’s going. If that isn’t success, I don’t know what is. Or at least, that explanation struck a chord in me.

Rare and precious – And other unlikely juxtapositions

from the archives...

It started last night while I was looking for a bottle of wine to go with the lasagne. I wanted something a bit rustic, not too heavy, maybe with some age on it, and red. Isn’t that how everyone does it? Go to your wine closet and pick out something fabulous?

Earlier in the day, at the nearby supermarket, I noticed a display of wine and saw the word Rosatello. Once upon a time, that meant a lightly dry rosé wine from Tuscany, long before “that” was famous. Now it means sweet, red or rosé, still or fizzy, depending on which bottle is presented. But someone shopping in this supermarket would probably get a bottle of either, to go with their lasagne.

Sicily ~ The Oldest Kid in Italy

from the archives..

Ed. note: Prescient this post was, in 2014. For when I next went to Sicily in 2016, I indeed was in a pretty awful car accident that sent several of us to the hospital. Knocked me unconscious and broke a few ribs and cracked my skull (again). A produce truck ran a stop sign, a sign that had fallen to the ground and was not seen. The conspiracist in me might say I was targeted by the produce cartel in Sicily, ha-ha! Nonetheless, I survived. But this tale eerily foretold of things to come, c'est ne pas?

 

Of all the places in Italy, Sicily is the one that scares me the most. I have cancelled trips to Sicily because I was afraid something was going to happen. I have gone to Sicily when my bones were sore from a car wreck. I have driven a car in the streets of Palermo and Catania, which is questionable for an able bodied person. I have stared at dead people, their skin dry, their eyes missing, their bones falling off their skeletons. I have walked on mosaic floors that were laid thousands of years ago. I have gazed up at ancient temples, the sun glaring back. I have walked the streets in the heat in the dark with a bum leg, with the legs of youth and with the gait of one who is no longer young. And all through it ancient Sicily kept getting younger.