The Angry White Man’s Guide to Italian Wine

Un po' pasquinata, per piacere

God, Guns and BBQ - That's what makes America Great!

The lawn chairs are gathered, the Roman candles have been foraged from the local fireworks store (just outside the city limits). The AR-15 is all ammo’d up and the P938 is locked and loaded, safely holstered and at the ready. We’re coming up on the Big One – Yessir – Independence Day – and aside from Beer and Bourbon, you might need to get “liquored up” with a little bit of Vino. And that Italian immigrant family who just moved into your gated community - you want to show the refugees some of that good ‘ol American hospitality? Offer them up a nice bottle of Chianti or Prosecco or – STOP!

Forget what they want – let’s show them what they need – and what you need to be a better balanced man, when it comes to Italian wine. Here’s your Million Dollar Primer – your screaming eagle guide - to the most important, best Bang! for your Buck!! wines from Italy. That is, until they get religion and switch over to “America First!” wines.

The Fortunes of the Times - Great Italian Vintages from the “Noughties” - 2012-2016

Frequent readers already know this little secret – Italy is in a full-blown Golden Age for wine. Never have we seen more great wine coming out of this land once called Oenotria. After thousands of years, we have arrived to the Promised Land. And the last five vintages have bestowed a largess upon wine lovers almost to the point of excess. Before one thinks this a protestation, let’s examine our collective fortune.

While on this last trip to Italy, covering Tuscany and Piedmont with a dollop of Vinitaly in the middle, we tasted through many wines from these five vintages from 2012 to 2016.

Piedmont’s controversial 2014 vintage in the Langhe

How important is vintage? Does terroir prevail over the wind and the rain and the sun? Does a farmer, who works the land for 40 years, have special tools to overcome the vagaries of the land? Or is it all a cosmogonic crap-shoot?

Those are questions people, far better connected than me, have been grappling with for aeons. But nonetheless, those were the questions I too asked as I stood on the tower in Barbaresco, overlooking one of the dearest wine producing spots on earth. And 2014 was the vintage in question.

Is the World Ready for New Italian Wine?

When Jon Bonné penned his groundbreaking book, The New California Wine, he caused a lot of us to look at wine in a different light. It wasn’t so much that all of a sudden winemakers in California were doing something different than they had done before, for in California, experimentation is always part of the gambit. No, it was that he caused us to perceive, from a different perspective, how some winemakers in California were going about the art and craft of winemaking in a totally unfettered way. In fact, these revolutionaries, some of them, have also become part of the mainstream for wine in the Golden State.

There will always be a large commercial aspect to wine in California and other places in the world where wine is part of the commerce of the country. France, Spain and Italy come to mind. Italy has had, for some time, a robust commercial side of wine. A recent visit to the 51st edition of Vinitaly showed just how vigorous that business still is.

Who are the Future “Thought Leaders” for Italian Wine?

With harvest behind us and winemaking for the year finished, Italians in the wine trade are living out of their suitcases. Traveling to markets around the world, attending portfolio tastings and working with salespeople in the trenches. Last week there was Prowein. This week all eyes turn to Bordeaux for their annual UGC 2016 vintage tastings. But soon there will be Vinitaly. Emails are being sent to round up prospective new clients and export markets. Seminars are being scheduled. Dinners, which will go late into the night, are being planned, in and around Verona. And there are all the people planning travel to Italy to visit and taste, before and after Vinitaly. All this eating and drinking and tasting and talking, what will come of it?

Italian Wine and its Truth-Adjacent Death Spiral

I was making my rounds in the wine job circuit. Serving tables. Sommelier. And now (1981) I was managing a wine bar in Dallas. My son was nearing school age. I needed a day job, being a single parent. A wholesale wine manager, sitting at my bar, told me I’d do great in the distribution side and offered me a job. And so I took a leap.

Over the years, it has been a good ride. I took a few years in between, working for an importer. I loved that side of it as well. But it was always distribution that called to me.

Showcasing Italian Wine in the USA – 3 Events to Put Your Best Foot Forward

Slow Wine – Vino 2017 – Gambero Rosso

February has been a busy month for Italian wine in America. The Italian holiday vacations, for the most part, are done with. Vinitaly is a couple of months away. And Italians, as 21st century road warriors, have their engines revved. The race has begun. And not just for the wine business. This week I huddled in a snow-bound hotel in lower Manhattan, during Fashion Week, amidst a gaggle of Italian designers, photographers and models. The spirit of Marco Polo, Amerigo Vespucci and Cristoforo Colombo, is well and alive, in the hearts and constitutions of Italian artists, merchants and craftsmen and women. And Italian wine is right there with them - all new, shiny and pretty.

The Top 10 Commandments of Italian Wine

With the holiday season fast approaching, and with hallowed respect for Italian wine, let’s take a moment and review the 10 Commandments of Italian Wine.

Life on Mt. Etna - After the Gadabouts Are Gone

It’s wet and foggy. And some of us are scared. The long days are now a thing of memory. We are steeped in darkness. And all the while the mountain rumbles, all through the night. And all those souls who visited us this summer and autumn, where are they now? Back home in their beds, their comfortable lives, with their brightly lit screens, telling the world what a great place it is here. But they’re not here. Harvest has come and gone. The warm, long days have come and gone. And the Etna worshippers have also come and gone. And now the work for the future begins on this desolate mountain, spewing fire and ash, all through this dark, cold winter of our discontent.

Safe-cracking a memory vault in search of the unicorn wine

"Able was I ere I saw Etna"

Memory is an odd bedfellow. Even without the vicissitude of time or trauma it can be a transitory butterfly, flittering about and dropping from time to time upon the landing strip of the brain. Did I really catch that train to Calabria? Did we really eat the stomach lining of a monkfish? Did I really drink that wine?

Over a wonderful lunch prepared by a longtime friend and chef, Carlo Croci, in his restaurant , Bella West, in Ft. Worth and over an embarrassment of riches brought by Piemontese winemaker Franco Massolino, the conversation veered to the past and to long forgotten memories. Carlo and I have been trading wine and stories for longer than we both would like to admit. And along the way, some great wines have passed through our kidneys.

Etna and Eggplant in the National Press: What I shot and how I cooked it

Eric Asimov (L) with Salvo Foti (R) at Quattro Archi in Milo on Etna

In the last month or so, my life of wine (and food) has ventured outside the constraints of the blogosphere. Consider this my brag blog post, for those who don’t read the NY Times or the Dallas Morning News on a regular basis. In today’s era, the ranks of newspaper readership have dwindled, or so we have been led to believe. Then again, who’s reading wine blogs anymore either? I know I’m reading less and enjoying it more, blog wise.

The Etna (and Vittoria) pieces were written masterfully by my friend and colleague (and Sicilian crash tester) Eric Asimov. I was the assigned photographer for the series. It was a once in a lifetime trip and we went to see a lot of folks we both have known for some time.

The World Fumes and Spews, but the Wine Business Goes On

Why I got into the wine business

Me during my first visit to Carlo Hauner -
Island of Salina, 1987- A kinder, gentler volcano

Last Friday, while handing out Italian wine maps to salespeople, I got to talking with one of the young ones. She will be turning 30 on the day before me, next week, sharing the same birthday as a friend in New York, arguably the finest wine writer in the country and whom I had the honor of accompanying on a recent journey to Sicily. He just published his first of four articles from the trip, and I was fortunate to have my photographs of Etna published alongside his well chiseled piece, “Etna Fumes and Spews, but the Winemaking Goes On.”

Memories have recently been rekindled, one as a result of having that conversation with the young wine salesperson, who is the same age I was when I started in the business. The other, as a result of the recent tragic events in Dallas, which have all of us here stunned and saddened beyond words.

What I love (and hate) about Sicily

We live in a world where every word can be a polarizing one. In the past week, I have felt the sting of words, and some of my readers have as well. While some see it as a line drawn in the sand, with a duel to the end, I see it as the beginning of a longer conversation. So, I will begin with a volley.

Sicilian target practice without a license (or a seatbelt)

One of the intriguing aspects about winemaking in Eastern Sicily, especially around Etna and Vittoria, is how tradition has very little to do with it. While Tuscany is foundering with Chianti and their traditions, and Piedmont is riding a wave of popularity, Sicily, especially Eastern Sicily is in re-invention mode. Oak. No oak. Nerello. No, Pinot Noir. Chardonnay. No, Carricante. Moscato, sweet, no dry. Cement tanks. Inox, Amphora. For those who look at it, Eastern Sicily very much resembles the landscape in which it sits. Busy. Cluttered. Fast. But also in this confluence of things that don’t necessarily harmonize with each other, there is a spark of creativity that Tuscany and Piedmont could find inspiration from.

Etna’s little (and formidable) sister, Vittoria

It would be too easy for casual wine trekkers to bypass the area south of Etna. After all, the wines of Etna are among the current darlings of the wine world. And for good reason. But if one were to step off the mountain and head in the direction of Ragusa, you would find a whole 'nother world there. It would take a good GPS (along with some good old-fashioned analog directions), a sturdy car and time.

Time, because the area is spread out, not as concentrated as the Etna wine region. It’s flatter, warmer, not as sexy, and a bit more entrenched in the daily business of winemaking. As I have written elsewhere, Etna’s Golden Age is long gone, in terms of the influence and swath it once had in the western wine world. Not that we’re setting up funereal march, a “second line,” for Etna. Far from it. But the glory days of old are just that.

Is the Time Right for “Big Wine” to Cast Their Footprint on Mt. Etna?

Rolling down SS120 from Randazzo to Passopisciaro, there’s a modern structure, empty and abandoned. It could be a dystopian bunker, built to survive the ravages of a lava flow from Etna above. Or a nuclear attack. But it’s a winery that nobody wants to talk about. So new, it doesn’t even show up on Google Earth. The structure looks like it was airlifted straight out of Napa Valley. It’s gorgeous. And it’s out of place. Will this be the place where “Big Wine” makes its stand on Mt. Etna?

A Wine Zealot's Survival Guide to Etna

After 30 years of going to Etna, I’ve learned there is a simple way and there is the hard way. I’ve done the hard way a time or two. Simple is better. I’d like to share a few tips for those who are aching to go taste wine on the mountaintop.

Wine in Italy – from a Greek Perspective

Italy is a place of confluence, in the flesh, and in the mind’s eye. One of the mindscapes I reach into, especially when going into southern Italy, is the Greek perspective. Soon I will be in Sicily, which once was considered to be part of “great Greece” or Magna Graecia. The food, the language, the customs, the light - when one walks these paths, the Greek influence is revealed. Puglia, Basilicata, Campania, Calabria and, of course, Sicily, are part of the ancient colonies. In the next week or so I’ll be “getting my Empedocles on” ̶  ensconced in the primal slime. I can’t wait.

Aglianico’s Ashes - Stockpiling old wine for a new generation

Pity the poor Aglianico vine, set within the shadow of a volcano whose better days are lost somewhere in the dustbin of geology. Imprisoned in a land that missed out on most of Italy’s post-WWII economic growth in the last 70 years. Save for a few points of light, Aglianico in Basilicata is stuck in a time trap, unable to move fast enough to keep up with Barolo or Brunello and eclipsed by a much sexier (and more violently vibrant) Sicilian volcano and her wines. It’s not a good time to be an Aglianico. But it’s a great time for the collector.

The 100 Day Wine Abstinence Program

Has the role wine plays in our lives become too invasive?

After a five hour drive this past week from Dallas to Houston (a bit longer than usual because of storms and accidents) I rolled into my hotel parking lot. A friend and colleague invited me to a wine tasting – 45 rosé wines. I told him I’d pick him up in 20 minutes and would be our designated driver. My friend likes to drink wine.

Odd, going to a wine tasting in a time when I haven’t yet returned to drinking wine. I taste from time to time, but full-on enjoyment isn’t part of my plan. Yet.