The Miracle of Montalcino ~ A Master Class from a Young Master – Pt.II

In the last week or so, I've been mulling over why Brunello latched onto the American wine imagination as easily and rapidly as it did. The fine wine world here was so French-driven until the 1970s, when Napa Valley took honors at that famous blind tasting in Paris and swept the imagination — and the trust funds — over to the west coast. I grew up on California wines, produce of my native state, and witnessed that excitement firsthand. To have it happen in one's lifetime was a blessing. To then see a similar trajectory ignite in Tuscany not long after — that's like winning the lottery twice, for a wine person. And so it was. The miracle of Montalcino.

Brunello di Montalcino ~ An Honest-to-Goodness Master Class from a Young Master – Pt.I

The Environmental Mosaic

Anyone who has read this blog over the years knows that I have a cynical and sometimes impatient attitude regarding the proliferation of master classes in the wine world. I have been to master classes where revered restaurateurs, momentarily anointed, have stumbled and bumbled their way through a PowerPoint presentation, their ambitions having overshot their capabilities.

And then there comes a class that sets things right again. Such was the occasion last week in Dallas when Gabriele Goretti presented before a receptive crowd his vision of the 2021 vintage for Brunello di Montalcino.

An offshoot of Benvenuto Brunello that the Consorzio del Vino Brunello di Montalcino has initiated, this is an elaboration of the Brunello Forma Series, where designated experts in the field dive deeper into what makes quality Brunello. I found it fascinating, as this subject has been rolling around in my head for years — questions of location, altitude, soil, geological formation, and of course the size of the winery and its production capabilities. Thankfully, younger souls have taken on the task and made great leaps forward in communicating just why and how Brunello aspires to greatness in the world of wine.

Italy: Without a Doubt

...from the archives

When it all gets to be a little too much, when the heat of the day goes from tepid to searing, when all this running around and shuffling and commotion becomes just so much noise and distraction, I pull in. I want my own little vision of Italy to wield its power over me. I don't want to worry about whether or not I speak or understand the language well enough. I never will. I'll never be an insider in the language of words department. That's for other people with those talents. No, the little universe of Italy that's wrapped around my heart and mind is a place somewhere in the middle, with rolling hills and a nearby beach with salty water and the setting for the happiness that Italy represents to me. My Italy isn't perfect, but it's damn well near, and it works just fine for me.

“Errand Boys Sent By Grocery Clerks”

Notes from the Last Wine Blogger Standing

I. The River

The mission came through, as it always does, in the fog.

I’ve been on this river a long time. Long enough to remember when the three-tier system made a kind of sense — when the distributor felt like a partner, when the rep walking your route knew your customers by name. Knew which sommelier was quietly building an Italian list and which retailer would gamble on an Etna Rosso nobody had heard of yet. Selling wine was inseparable from loving it. The rep knew the producer, the place, the reason it mattered.

That world didn’t just change. It was hollowed out, quietly, with an acronym.

A Billion Heartbeats Ago

2026 has been challenging, so far. A short visit at the beginning of the year, to see a friend whom I might not ever see again, started it off. I returned home to receive a vet’s diagnosis that our oldest cat, Buttercup, had an inoperable growth attached to her trachea, preventing her from eating solid foods. We were advised to initiate palliative care and prepare her for hospice. About that time, I realized I had gone down this road 25 years ago with my wife, Liz, who in 2001 was in the last stages of her young life. She made it to her 48^th birthday on Feb 14, 2001, but on the 17^th she surrendered her mortal cloak and passed away. Now, I know a cat and a human cannot be seen by many folks as being equivalent, but the pathway I found myself on this early in the year has had a triggering effect. And I don’t like it.

Farewell to Barbetta

You know, there come along those once in a lifetime restaurants. For me, some of them are Gualtiero Marchesi in Milan, Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Barbetta in Manhattan. All marching to the beat of their own different drummer, but noteworthy and unforgettable. Gualtiero Marchesi is long gone (but not forgotten). Chez Panisse still has a warm hearth and a welcome mat. But Barbetta lost their beating heart. Laura Maioglio passed away January 17 of this year. And on Feb 27, the restaurant will close. I am heartbroken.

Italian Wine's Premiumization and "Affordability" Problem

What happens when you aggrandize and enshrine something that for generations has served as daily ritual

The news keeps contradicting itself. Alcohol causes cancer. Alcohol prevents loneliness. Wine sales collapsing. Warehouses overflowing with unsold inventory. Public health crisis. Social connection crisis. All true at once, all missing the point.

This isn't just a story about wine industry economics. It's what happens when you try to scale something that was never meant to be optimized—when wine went from just what you did to something you now have to decide about.

Flying Over the Future: Why Vinitaly Can't See Texas

"Vale più un rimprovero di un amico che un bacio di un nemico"

Year after year, I've witnessed the Italian wine paradox in America. Producers, consorzi, and government wine agencies trace the same familiar circuit: New York to Chicago to San Francisco, ending up in sunny LA or Miami. Meanwhile, cities like Houston, Dallas, and Austin get bypassed. Flyover country. BBQ country. Cowboy country. Translation: No country for Italian wine.

Flooded with Memories

It was finally a clear day in San Diego. I was visiting a friend whose brighter days were behind him. But he said, “Let’s take a ride around the island (Coronado, where he lives) and get some fresh air and sunshine." Uncharacteristically, it had been raining for what seemed like weeks in one of the sunniest cities in America. And after not having been in my native state since way before Covid, it was disarming not to see the sun. Just clouds and rain, and that piercing humidity that days, weeks, of rain brings. Bone soaking cold.

Earlier, the night before, we sat at a table on the top floor of a building downtown, overlooking the Pacific ocean, eating salmon and drinking French Chablis. Or rather I was. My friend had eaten before I got off the plane. He was content to watch me while sipping on a cocktail, something with bourbon, an Old Fashioned or Manhattan. I’m bad at remembering that sort of thing.

I’d really wanted a Puligny Montrachet, my guilty indulgence. But I don’t think they had one by the glass, and if they did, it would have probably been $50 for three ounces, or something to that effect. So, Chablis it was. I thought to myself, “I’m in California, I really should me drinking California wine, shouldn’t I?” I would tomorrow, with my friends wife.

But the bike ride.

Wine Doesn't Miss You

When someone you love dies—a mate, a pet—there's a hole. They don't stop loving you, but they're gone. The loss is indescribable.

Wine is different.

Does wine love you back? Does it miss you when you stop drinking it? No more than the chatbot misses you when you close the browser.

But for a long time, I couldn't parse the animate from the inanimate connections and emotions associated with them.

From the Sixes: A Surprising and Encouraging Start to 2026

The three wines that began 2026 so well

I’m plodding my way through the puddles in Southern California, on a personal mission. Before I got on the plane, we were invited to a friend’s house for New Years day celebration. It’s a yearly event, and lots of old friends show up, mainly from the Italian wine and food community. It was a pleasant day to sit outside and eat cotechino con lenticchie while sipping on Franciacorta and mature Barolo.

I used the day as an opportunity to liberate some of my older wines. Seeing as the new year ends in a “6” I opted for wines from years ending in “6,” namely 2006 and 1996. Three wines were picked.

20 Years of Wine Blogging: Now What?

Well, that twenty years went in a flash. Frankly, I really don’t want the next twenty years to go as fast, I’m already older than I want to be. But this is where I’m at, where we’re all going to be, one day. And instead of regretting it, I look forward to what this stage of life means.

Twenty Years In: A 2025 Retrospective

Twenty years ago this month, I started this blog. Nearly 1,800 posts later, I'm still here. I was contemplating an end the blog at twenty years. But 2025 brought a bevy of posts (and new readers) that were rewarding and widely read. Strange thing, for I really thought wine blogs and wine blogging were heading to the Smithsonian to rest next to the dinosaurs. It seems Substack has renewed the category, albeit in a different format, of sorts.

What Makes Someone an Italian Wine Expert? (And Why It Doesn't Matter)

I was in my local Italian market last week, picking up olive oil and pasta. A woman nearby stood staring at the wine section, Brunellos lined up like soldiers. She looked lost. I asked if she needed help. She did—looking for something specific. I found it for her, pointed out a couple alternatives, and moved on.

Walking away, a thought flickered through my mind: "I bet she doesn't know she just got advice from someone who spent forty years working with Italian wine." I laughed at myself and kept walking toward the eggs. What a ridiculous thing to think.

But it raises a question I've been chewing on for years: what actually makes someone an Italian wine expert?

The Ugly American Has Come Home

When I first went to Italy in 1971, I got my introduction to what people over there were calling the ugly American. Loud, overbearing, disregarding of local cultural norms ("What do you mean, you don't have ice?"), totally unaware that the rest of the world did things differently than we did in the U.S. of A.

A few years later I took a train from Mexicali to Mexico City - three days, stopping at every stop. More ugly Americans, unconscious and insensitive to the culture hosting them. Downright rude, and when drunk, dangerous. 

Over decades and many trips to Italy, France, Greece, Spain, and Portugal, I witnessed too many times the embarrassing and unconscionable behaviors - the attitudes, the mores, of American tourists. Fortunately, I blended in and took a side view to their ignorant ways.

But now, the Ugly American has come home to roost. There's no escaping their thunderous ubiety in the United States, no security in the homeland from the hordes of somnambulists roaming the countryside and city with their oversized vehicles and their propensity to disregard the law. Just try going through a green light without checking if stragglers are racing through the red. It happens all the time. Turns out the ugly American scaled perfectly - from loud tourist to national ethos.

Kicking the Bucket List Habit ~ Five Ways to Surrender to Italy

I keep seeing these bucket lists. Italy bucket lists. Five things, ten things, twenty things you must do before you die. And they're all the same: the Amalfi Coast, a Tuscan villa with an infinity pool, dinner at some Michelin-starred place in Rome where you need a reservation six months out and a credit card that doesn't flinch.

Nothing wrong with any of that, I suppose. But that's not the Italy that's stayed with me for fifty-some years. The Italy that changed me wasn't the one I planned. It was the one I stumbled into when I got lost, when I let go, when I trusted a stranger's gesture instead of a guidebook.

Italy reveals itself differently. Not when you grasp at it, but when you open your hands.

Are you ready for Italy? Or are you only ready for the Italy you've already decided on?

So here are five experiences for your surrender list. Understand this: these aren't things to collect. They're ways to fail by tourist standards—and succeed by Italy's.

"Spas, Tours, Golden Hour Too - We'll Be Blessed If You Come"

From the "Oops!... they did it again" dept. 

 

Apparently word hasn't gotten around yet. 

This arrived in my inbox today.

 

 Click images to enlarge  

 [Editor's note: This is a lampoon. Any resemblance to actual 

press junket invitations is purely... well, you know.]

 

 

© devised and photo-synthesized by Alfonso Cevola 

limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

The Most Important Meal of the Day

Family outing Old California circa early 1930's - Nonna bottom right

Marion Nestle doesn't believe in breakfast. At 89, this nutrition expert who's spent decades exposing the food industry says most of the research claiming breakfast is the most important meal was sponsored by cereal companies. Kellogg's and General Mills needed to move boxes. They manufactured urgency. We bought it.

But nobody marketed the meals that actually mattered. My grandfather's brick bar-be-cue in old California. Every Sunday under the grape arbor. Probably the first place wine touched my lips. Those traditions—gathering, sharing a meal, an anonymous bottle or two of wine—they're gone now.

Persona Non Grata

Retrieved from my spam file 😉*

 

 

Click images to enlarge

 

* --- Editor's note: No actual consortia were consulted in the writing of this memorandum.

 

© imagined and photo-synthesized by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

wine blog +  Italian wine blog + Italy W

Midnight in the Cellar: Wine, Sleep, and the Slow Burn

Wine, time and transformation

The scent woke me. Not an alarm, not a voice - just that yeasty, intoxicating pull of fermentation working in the dark. It reached through the window, through my first sleep, drew me from bed the way the aroma of those ripe figs had drawn me when we first arrived in Bucita that September of 1977. Siren calls, both of them. Irresistible.

I made my way to the cellar. Cool stone underfoot, a single light carving shadows from the darkness. My cousins were already there, not doing much of anything. Just present. Just attending. We didn't talk much. Didn't need to. The wine was holding court - that gentle gurgle and hiss of wild yeast doing ancient work in wicker-wrapped demijohns that might have held our great-grandparents' wine.

The Great Inversion: How Italian Wine's Future Moved South

Here's the thing nobody's saying out loud: northern Italy is dying faster than the south.

Not literally. Not yet. But the vines are telling a story that contradicts oodles of years of wine history. Barolo is sweating. Chianti is scrambling. Prosecco is looking nervously at the thermometer. Meanwhile, on a volcano in Sicily and in the forgotten hills of Basilicata, indigenous grapes that have spent millennia dealing with heat and drought are suddenly looking like the smartest bet in Italy.

For the first time in modern wine history, the center of gravity is shifting. Not because of fashion or critics or investment. Because of physics. Because southern Italy—the part that was always too hot, too rustic, too other—turns out to be the part that already knows how to survive what's coming.

The Economics of Bullshit: Wine's Junket Folly

Scroll through Instagram on any given Tuesday and you'll see them: sun-drenched vineyard photos, perfectly plated lunches in Tuscan courtyards, selfies with winemakers, glasses raised against golden-hour light. Don't forget the hashtags — #blessed #winetasting #sponsored (maybe). The aesthetic is flawless. The credibility? Not so much.

But here's what you won't see: the unspoken contract. The implicit understanding that this week in Chianti, these meals, this business-class ticket, comes with an expectation. Not a requirement, mind you. Just an... understanding. You don't bite the hand that flies you first class and puts you up in a restored monastery. That would be ungrateful.

Is this journalism? Marketing? Or something murkier that we've all agreed not to examine too closely?

Has Wine Lost Its Moorings? A Response to Eric Asimov

Eric's been thinking hard about wine's troubles in his latest New York Times piece, laying out prescriptions for an ailing industry: lower prices, lose the snobbery, simplify offerings. Thoughtful stuff. But reading through it, one question kept nagging at me: Has wine lost its cultural moorings?

Prophecy and Perspective on the Blackland Prairie

The buffalos are coming back. The soccer moms in Escalades have upgraded to Teslas. And the crystal ball I peered into a decade ago sits on my desk, a little cloudier, a little wiser, mocking me gently as I thumb through that 2015 post about Italian wine regions to watch.

Ten years I wrote 5 Italian Wine Regions to Watch in 2015. Ten years - long enough to age a Barolo, to see a vineyard replanted reach maturity, to watch trends rise and fall like the tides at San Benedetto del Tronto. So what did I get right? What did I miss? And what does the murky sphere tell me now?

Your Essential Guide to Italy's DOC and DOCG Wines - 2025 Version

You're standing in front of a wine list. Barbaresco, Barolo, Brunello—all those B's swimming together. Someone at the table asks what the difference is between DOC and DOCG, and you realize you're not entirely sure yourself. Or maybe you are sure, but explaining it without sounding like you're reading from a textbook is another matter entirely.

I've spent forty years navigating Italian wine in America, and I still find myself circling back to these fundamentals. Not because they're complicated—they're not, really—but because understanding them changes how you see the entire Italian wine landscape. It's like learning to read the grain in a piece of wood before you start carving.

Ten Years After: What I Got Right (and Wrong) About Italian Wine in America

A decade ago, I threw some educated guesses into the wind about *where Italian wine in America was headed. Looking back is still easier than looking forward, but at least now I have some data. The past is dust, remember? But sometimes it's instructive dust.

A Hundred Years Wrapped in Etna’s Fiery Embrace

 Mapping the Life and Soul of a Wine Born from Fire and Time

 "A fascinating wine showing flower stems, orange peel and bark with some dried mushrooms. The structure and length are exceptional with a medium to full body and tight, focused tannins. Ends with a persistent, polished and refined finish. Caresses in every sense. Better in five years but if you get the chance to drink now, go for it!" 98/100

So wrote James Suckling in 2024 about the 2022 Terre Nere Etna Rosso 'Prephylloxera' La Vigna di Don Peppino/ Caldera Sottana

Last week, a few of us friends gathered for a long, laughter-filled luncheon—one of those radiant affairs where time bends, stories sprawl, and the corks keep popping. Among the bottles opened that day, one stood out—not just for what it was, but for what it promised to become.

The 2022 Terre Nere Etna Rosso 'Prephylloxera' La Vigna di Don Peppino is a wine forged in fire—literally, born on the volcanic slopes of Mount Etna, where ancient vines dig deep into ashen soil. It inspired something more than just notes and ratings. It begged for a myth.

So I decided to trace this wine’s imagined evolution over a hundred years—through time, memory, and metamorphosis.

To help, I enlisted my clandestine consigliere, ÅïΩfonso—an arcane ignis fatuus who whispers tweaks, nudges metaphors, and occasionally channels the Ancient Greeks. ÅïΩf claims to see the long arc of a wine’s soul. I'm simply the relayable messenger.

Who better to guide such a journey than Empedocles, the 5th-century B.C. Greco-Sicilian philosopher-poet who believed all matter arose from the eternal dance of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water—and who famously dove into the molten mouth of Etna in a bid for godhood.

Examining Cultural Appropriation in Italian-Inspired Cuisine: A Closer Look

Recently, I read an article in the local paper about a chef who opened an Italian-styled restaurant and the food they are serving. One dish on the antipasti list was a late addition after the chef tried a rosé vinegar and decided it had to be incorporated. The result was Prosciutto e Melone made with Texas cantaloupe, culatello (an Italian cured ham similar to prosciutto but from a different cut and aged differently), lightly candied hazelnuts, figs, and basil. The dish is dressed simply with olive oil and the lightly sweet rosé vinegar.

The chef noted ironically, “We have a lot more of what people consider traditional Italian,” but also admitted, “we couldn’t skip the opportunity to put chicken parmesan on the menu.”

Whispers from the Forgotten Frontiers of Italian Wine

Beneath the surface of Italian winemaking lies a shadowed realm—wines yet unborn, enigmatic and silent, waiting in the dark to rise and unravel all we think we know. In the hushed, forgotten corners of the vineyards, these unborn wines murmur secrets—shifting shapes and fleeting shadows of flavors unseen, poised to rewrite the story in ways only the future dares to hold. Ghosts of flavor and form haunt the folds of Italy’s land—phantoms of vintages never made, whispering cryptic truths from a future that may forever keep their true essence shrouded in mystery. Nowhere is this more hauntingly evident than in the Etna zone, where thousands of ancient indigenous vines lie dormant along forgotten hillsides—silent remnants of a time when Sicily’s wine trade pulsed with a vibrant, restless energy—now faded into memory.

Go to Rome, go to Florence, go to Venice, but please don’t go here!

When people travel to Italy, they go to Rome, to Florence, to Venice, to the Amalfi Coast, maybe even now to Sicily, thanks to the White Lotus. But in Rome, many rarely get around to digging into the Lazio region, which could take a lifetime to explore. Tuscany, yes, the wine trails there are established and finely tuned to squeeze every last Euro out of the tourist pocket. Venice, to some the Disneyland of Italy, also has long figured out how to capitalize on their place in Italy. Rarely does a tourist in Venice take a short hop to Treviso, which is like a mini-Venice without the hordes of tourists. Or Valdobbiadene, where Prosecco land flowers forth with exuberant beauty. Oh yes, now folks venture to Etna, and to Alba, Montalcino and Verona. But Liguria? Why in Heaven’s name would anyone go there? Oh yes, to hike the Cinque Terre. But Cinque Terre is but the tip of iceberg. Liguria is one of Italy’s best kept secrets.

What Photography Taught Me About Wine Appreciation

It’s no secret to regular readers of On The Wine Trail in Italy that I have a slight obsession with photography. One hint is that, for years, most of the photographs on this blog have come out of one or another of my cameras. I am a visual thinker, and photography is my compass in navigating life’s path. How’s that for a well-worn cliché? Nonetheless, it’s true. I love everything about photography. And I realize it has informed my wine journey from the get-go. So, let’s dive in.

Devotion, Direction and Dissent – The Divergent Mantra of Contemporary Italian Winemakers

It is an onerous task spotting the minor changes in societal shifts, when one is living in the present. By pulling back focus and envisioning a larger swatch of time, it’s easier to see. With most things, change takes place in incremental doses. In this way, winemaking in Italy has evolved. And along with that, the philosophies and direction in which the winemakers view their oenological palate going forward. We have seen a revolution in winemaking for 80 years in Italy, why would anyone think it would stop here?

Distilling it down into three areas - Devotion, Direction and Dissent - let’s dive in.

Trebbiano and Chicken - A simple meal which might just save the world

During the week, I banged out a piece, which upon reading and trying to edit it into a more peaceful position, decided to let it sit. It’s August, it’s hot. The world is burning up. What good would another screed be?

So, I went into the kitchen and took my knives to some skin-on, bone-in chicken breasts. With the oven preheating at 325°F, and the outside approaching 100°F, I took off my shirt. And put on a cooking apron, the one I got from Petra winery in Tuscany. I love that grease-stained smock. It’s army green and has seen a lot of skirmishes in this kitchen. The cats started to come around, for they have long sensed that when someone is in the kitchen hustling about, there might be treats in it for them. They are well fed. They could be Roman street cats.

Love - Wine Appreciation's Secret Sauce

Perusing the sites where wine writer’s articles are posted and listed, I’ve come to the realization that many of these folks haven’t stepped into a wine shop recently and talked to the actual folks who buy those wines. The disconnect between the sages of the screen and the rank and file, the “little people” who actually complete the cycle as end-users, is significant. Maybe it’s part of the mid-year slump, but to hear it from the overlords of the wine-writing class, the sky has fallen. The scribes on Mt. Olympus don’t appear to be underserved while they constantly harp upon the end of the golden age of wine, what with their endless bloviating on subjects near and dear to them. No surprise wine blogs, podcasts and Substack’s are inconsequential in 2025. “Abba, shpakho - dileitin imon tiel tein.”

“Well, shut my mouth!”

Lately, when I’m out in the world, I keep getting this sense that I had when I was a youngster. Namely, to stop talking and let the adults talk.

I was in my Italian store the other day, straightening up the shelf talkers. A young man was in there and he was looking intently at wines. He’d just passed his WSET level 2. He was so proud he told me three times. Bless his heart! His fiancé (which he told me several times and emphasized w/one “e”)  he reported, was encouraging and also proud of him. “Follow your passion!”  

The Stages of a (Wine’s) Life

Rummaging around my wine closet recently, I realized it was turning into a vinous elder hostel. 25% of the wines were 25 years or older, with the oldest one approaching 89 in the fall. With that, I took a stool and sat down and had a little chat with some of the golden agers. I know, it’s a discarded practice these days to sit at the feet of the ancients and glean for any wit and wisdom. But it was a long, hot summer day outside, and the cool dark room of the wine closet was a refreshing change from the tumult of the external world, these days filled with so much hair-trigger melodrama. I figured I had nothing to lose. Boy, was I in for a jolt.

Haven’t we been here before? A signpost on the wine trail in Italy

As I look over the essays and posts I have written this year, I warily eye the subject matter that appears on this site. I shouldn’t be, I’ve written all of them myself, just as I have been doing for going on 20 years now. But I can’t help wondering if I’ve reached the bottom of the barrel, tapped out, so to speak.

In essence, the jury is still out. I’ve done a bunch of stuff here on the wine trail in Italy. And it has become a repository of images, ideas, and notions that I find myself referring back to more often than I ever imagined I would be doing. So, it has achieved the goal of being a web-log, for my purposes.

As to if it still holds any interest to the thousands of reader who happen upon this site weekly, well that is another question for another day.

David Brooks wrote this column in the New York Times recently, Be Careful About What You Want, in which he ruminates over these five struggles:

• The struggle between craft and reward  

• The struggle between gift love and need love 

• The struggle between excellence and superiority 

• The struggle between high and low desires 

• The struggle between ambition and aspiration

Reading and observing over these almost 20 years (in five months) regarding the wine trade where I worked for 40, those struggles resonate. Not just in work-time but in living a full life. Now that I have the time and luxury of reflection, they impart an urgency that grabs me and shakes me and interrogates me and accuses me. 

And I ask this question: Haven’t we been here before? 

Like Nothing Ever Before

How often have you opened a bottle of wine and thought that you had never tasted anything like what just came out of that bottle in your lifetime? Early on in one’s experience, I imagine one could say that often enough. But after a few years of tasting hundreds, maybe thousands of wines a year, when does that special bottle percolate up to the top and reveal itself to one’s taste buds?

Problem: Wine in Crisis? Remedy: Move forward, like an arrow. Fearlessly.

The past month I have been feverishly working on a project involving Italian wine and how better to communicate its better aspects to consumers, who seem interested but are deluged with a tsunami of wine offerings from Italy. Call it a laboratory, if you will. What it is, is one place in time and space where the progress of Italian wine can be measured, albeit somewhat anecdotally. It is a real place and real people are making buying decisions on the wine they will drink tonight or during the weekend, and any number of situations where wine is called for. And I have good news.

In Service of Italian Wine

Now that I am “retired” I’ve spent some time reflecting on the years I worked in the wine trade. I am glad I survived those years, for I have a list of men and women who didn’t. At first, I thought it was just normal, but as the list grew and grew, I realized I was dodging bullets. Scores of young people, my colleagues, perished in the 40 years I was working. And they were not old people. Time just caught up with them earlier than the rest of us. That said, in reflection, I also realize that there were a few bullets aimed directly at me. How I managed to survive them is the subject of this essay.

That ain’t Italy, folks – Tourism in the 21st Century

The image above was taken from the Instagram site of a hotel I stay at occasionally in Rome. It is their way, I suppose, to offer up a fantasy view of a Rome that is Disney-like in its aspirational tone. While I can appreciate their desire to offer up a vision that will lift people up and take them away to a place where light and joy reigns, my present thoughts about travel digress. While we all need a little escape these days, and we are in the summer months, which for many people, traditionally, is a time for a vacation, this is also a time when many people around the world are suffering, needlessly. To take time “off” from the pressing and urgent problems of our day, seems ill-timed. Add to that, the over-consumption that is designed into today’s tourism industry, and put it in a place like Rome, Venice, or all of Italy, and all of a sudden, a country turns into a cruise ship. The recent events in Venice with the spectacle of a billionaire’s second marriage galvanized this concept into a gigantic, sparkling mess.