From the Archives: Featured Father ~ A Modern Day Marco Polo

In Memory of Hank Rossi, who left us last year...

Watch out, Bin Laden, "AK-47 Rossi" is on your tail

Enrico “Hank” Rossi has the wandering spirit. Oh, and he likes to wear black, makes it easy to pack a bag and disappear for months at a time. In the shot above he is at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border testing out his skills. He is my featured father for Dad’s day.

From the Khyber Pass to Lalibela, before it is all said and done, Hank will visit almost everyplace his heart desires on earth. He just returned from a 2 month journey across the Silk Trail, spent last Christmas holiday in Egypt and Ethiopia.

How Much Do Wine Expert Ratings Matter?

 

Luciano Pavarotti and young fan at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

In the last year, I have been consulting with my local Italian wine shop, primarily making point-of-sale materials (shelf-talkers) for them. It’s been an interesting project and one which doesn’t take up too much of my time, but also allows me to keep a toe in the water of the wine trade, albeit in a passive and almost invisible manner. Just as I like it. But one of the surprises I have found in making these materials is the relative influence of the various wine writers who review and score wines. There are more now than ever, so the field has been diluted. Hence, it takes a little searching on the internet to find those voices and opinions (and scores) which I gather when making the shelf talkers for the store.

“Don’t Age Wine Longer than 10 Years!”

It was just a simple coffee meeting with an longtime Italian wine colleague, who, last time we talked, has since gone on to their version of fame and fortune. We were talking about how long, ideally, Italian wine should age before it is considered long enough. Seeing as 25% of the wines in my “cellar” are 25 years or older, I was interested in another person’s opinion, as I have had more misses than hits when opening these oldsters. I guess I was looking for advice or maybe validation? In any case, my friend launched into a prolonged jeremiad, which I recorded (with permission) and whereby this post now goes into that mode. Here goes:

In Memoriam: The Death of a Loved One

From the archives

In a world where there are so many tragic events  ̶  from the father who lost his wife and daughter when he was 30 and raised his two sons as a single parent, only to lose a son when he became a grown up, to a young boy who, at 5, lost his father to tribal warfare in Ruanda ̶  what does the loss of one tree matter?

Earlier this month, crisscrossing Texas by car, time and again, I recall the morning I was driving from Dallas to Houston and saw a large, mature oak tree in a field that had toppled over from the rain. I was going 65-70 and as I saw the newly fallen giant, I felt a sharp pain inside. Still green, still hopeful from a Spring filled with energy, this tree wouldn’t see another autumn.

A few weeks later, driving by the same spot, the tree was brown and lifeless now. There was none of that “It‘s still green, it might just be sleeping on its side” pretend one does to internally forestall the inevitable reality of death.

Is Your Favorite Italian Wine ‘Coded?’

It seems "things being coded" is all the rage these days. My preferred AI overview posits coded thusly:

In the context of social media slang, “coded” means that someone, something, or a behavior embodies or resembles a specific character, stereotype, or archetype. It's a way of using recognizable traits to make quick, playful connections and associations, often without explicitly naming the reference.

Jumping off from that point, it got me wondering if Italian wine is coded in these days of disruption. Almost anything can be, especially when one trawls the eddies of social media. Here’s what I have surmised from my brief but spectacular subterranean foray into the dark world of the coded.

An American in Rome – Can a world leader reshape the long tail of Italian wine?

By now the world knows there is a new pope and most of us have become acquainted with him, if just superficially. He, no doubt, will alter the conversation for peace in the world, which has been perched precariously over a precipice, caused by the wants and desires of men.

While the dance cards of peace and humanity and civility and truth and, while we’re at it, reality, get shuffled here in the 21^st century, what about little ‘ol Italian wine? Can Pope Leo XIV reignite the fortunes of growth for this sputtering agro-economic powerhouse? I’m sure there are a few households in Italy where the candles are burning, the altars are set and the prayers are coming at a feverish pace. Yeah, I’m in the “thoughts and prayers” stage over this matter.

A Master Plan for the Master Class

The decade we’re in started in 2020, and it was then that heightened consciousness was brought to racial injustices, and covered many aspects of life, from the way we talk about housing to the language that we use in general.

It was then that the term “Master Bedroom” had a light shone upon it as being indicative of those invisible prejudices we’ve lived with, seemingly, all our lives.

The Red Badge of Carnage (or the other wine that crashed and burned)

While rummaging through my wine stash, I came across a red from Italy and another red from Greece. We were having smoked brisket and I wanted to open up a few bottles of wine to try with the smokey, mellow red meat. I also had cooked up a pile of pinto beans ala Ranchero, the slow way, and they were simmering and ready.

The reds, a 2012 from Mt. Etna and a 2008 from nearby Mt. Ossa in Greece, were my choice after a brief consultation with a friend overseas. Both wines did not make it into my final cut a few months ago, when I consolidated my wine collection down to less than 200 bottles. There just wasn’t room. So, Easter Sunday, they were chosen to show their stuff.