T.G.I.F. ~ Thank God It's FELLUGA

“Words came so fast the typewriter caught on fire, and the computer was ushered in.”

...n tha land Friuli, where tha mythtacal Pico-lit vidiizzles, flowahs n caps `bout hizzle of it’s crop. Whiznat peches n chillin is tha butta . Whoa whasup? Sounds like mah post'n has been Gizoogled .

Let’s start this again….

The land of Friuli, where the mythical Picolit couches, flowers and scraps about half of its crop through some genetic fire dance. But what remains for the winemaker can be the ultimate expression of greatness. First a fire, then Snoop takes over my brain, now this computer has a tourettes virus? Is this week done, 'cause I am.

I started out writing this with the last of the Nonino Picolit grappa, and feeling that more inspiration would be necessary. When that was discharged, the rosolio of cannella from Sicily was brought in to stoke up the fire of illumination. Seems like my brain might be experiencing the same mutation that the Picolit must have in order for it to be so highly regarded. At least the wine will be treasured, as for moi, the old grey matter aint what it used to be.

It is Friday, and thanks to the most high for a brief respite. While this is just a little calm after the storm, let’s take a stroll on the Wine Trail in Friuli.

Between Gorizia and Palmanova, the Felluga estate bring forth their vinous children in a gentle and respectful manner. If you are in Venice, visiting the birds and the glass and the narrow alleys and just need a break back into the country, look this way. About an hour and you can be in the bosom of a beautiful treasure land. Gorizia reminds me of an Italian Havana, with restored architectural buildings of significant provenance and the occasional American automobile from an earlier time. That’s Josko Gravner tooling around town in his vintage Falcon.

Palmanova is a perfectly preserved star shaped citadel, a fortress town founded in 1593 to withstand any threat. In 1797 Napoleon walked right in without a sword lifted and proceeded to get the first good cup of coffee he’d had in many a moon. Only in Italy do these towns crop up like sunflowers. This one is must be seen and if you can be there on market day (Monday) there are many unusual Friulan delicacies. San Daniele Prosciutto, In August they have the Frico Festival, honoring a characteristic dish of Friuli made with potatoes and cheese and served with polenta. And there’s always the ubiquitous edible offal, Trippe, from the pages of la cucina povera. Finally, the wonderful Montasio cheese.

In between these two places one will discover Cormons. The Felluga foresteria and vineyards at Rosazzo situate themselves in the heartland of Friuli, the Colli Orientali del Friuli. Here is where the region has the greatest expression of local terroir, Colli Orientali, The Eastern Hills. To me they are akin to the vineyards of Margaux or Latour in Bordeaux, of Castelnuovo Berardenga in Tuscany or of Zeltinger Himmelreich in the Mosel. All very different wines from this little Picolit wine, so feeble the vines are here.
The grapes here, instead of the attack from botrytis are subjected to "acinellatura", a form of floral abortion that causes only 5-6 grapes on 30 to ripen. A single vine produces only 4 bunch of medium size grapes, even more sickly than D’Yquem.

I came upon an open bottle earlier this week when the Moet Hennessy USA director of wine and spirit education and Master of Wine, Charles Curtis, was directing a symposium. Late to this segment from an earlier commitment (the day job) Charles saw me and motioned me over to the tiny, soon to be orphaned, bottle of Felluga Picolit. I am a dessert wine lover and have too many of them in my wine room. It’s my Sicilian and Calabrese side, the side that loves sweet, the side that is enjoying this spicy rosolio from cinnamon as I write this in the wee hours ( so as not to interfere with the day job). I took a sip and a shizzle, oops that thing is back. This wine did a little number on me. There were goodbyes to be made, people to get to the airport, rush hour traffic in 100 degree weather, all kinds of distractions. So I took another small taste, made a mental note, and got back in the drivers seat.

About 2 hours later, when the dust had settled and I’m home, the jogging trail calls. Halfway though a run I notice something in the way I’m breathing, like there is a tree in bloom. No flowers in sight, I do this run 5-6 times a week. Aha, the lingering finish of the few surviving grapes pressed into the service of immortality! Finally the light of this fabled quaff shimmered on this solitary runner in the dusk.

Links

Gizoogled

Rosolio di Cannella

Gorizia

Palmanova

Felluga

Thank God Its Friuli!

WW II ~ Wine Wednesday 2

"Nebbiolo made like Amarone and Corvina made like Barolo, now that's a delicious Italian Paradox."

Wine Wednesday 2, WWII, the second Wednesday of this month. Italians are lounging on their boats, roasting on their beaches and I am obsessed with purity of flavor, clarity. I can’t get my pool to clear up. Why, amidst these august days of war, am I fixated on this?

Conversations lately with folks in and out of the wine industry. I know it seems like a little circle, and it often seems non-inclusive. That is if you feel shunned from a group of folks who are filling up their cars with wine, reps and itineraries and hitting their accounts in heat and humidity. Come on in, the water’s warm!

Last week, walking in Midtown Manhattan I overheard a couple of folks talking. One said, “This aint nothing! That weather they have in Louisiana is really hot! And humid, like hell!” At that point I was only 5 blocks into a 60 block walk, but I couldn’t agree with him.

A few years back, before Katrina, I was working with a legendary wine salesman in New Orleans, Mike Procido. Mike had so many parking tickets in the French Quarter that if he were to park there his car would get booted. So he parked in a lot and brought his two bikes, one for him and one for, well this time, me.

Riding around the Vieux Carré, on a bike with a wine bag, in August, in New Orleans, well, it was hot. And humid. But breezy. And a whole lot cooler than tramping up and down those subway steps with that same bag full of wine. But this is something that is going on everyday in our “exclusive” wine industry.

Block and tackle, a term I heard in a seminar yesterday. I also heard the phrase “luxury item”. So we have a 300 pound linebacker humping a barrel fermented cult chardonnay. Sounds fierce.
All this as a slow dance intro for the two wines this week that really grabbed me. Like that linebacker or that tow-boot in the Vieux Carré.

The wines
The 2001 La Poja from Allegrini
The 2002 Sfursat 5 Stelle from Nino Negri





La Poja is a parcel , a cru, in the Valpolicella classico territory. An almost Area 51 like situation on top of this hill, as if it had been white heat scorched and bleached, the image of this vineyard is so arresting. The wine, Corvina in purezza, defies categorization. It’s a big wine, bold, yes, all that. Made in the style of a Barolo in the land of Amarone. It’s a string quartet, it’s a master gem cutter, an artist of the perfume coaxing out that shy little fragrance. The bees in the vineyard are the most gentle in the zone. People climb the hill in the winter months to get a little peek at the sun, reflected off that chalky noggin.

The Sfursat 5 Stelle also ascends from lofty vines. Nearly impossible to harvest, Chiavennasca in purezza, the local version of Nebbiolo, and made in a similar manner as Amarone. One of the great wines of the world, Like Grange from Australia, Latour from Bordeaux, the lines to taste 5 Stelle at Vinitaly are longer than they are at the Sassicaia table. This is the Italian gateway to Shangri-La.

What both of these wines share is sophistication in celebration of their ripeness. Oozing lux, drawing the bees of our brain to the cup to gather the nectar for the flight home, home to the queen bee. What these two wines do is to defy the accepted perception of how wine is made in their regions. What we get on Wine Wednesday 2, with these wines, is a look into the soul of the artisan, the master musician, the essence creators.

Or as Lawrence Durrell once wrote, “They flower spontaneously out of the demands of our natures - and the best of them lead us not only outward in space, but inward as well.”

Go Ask Alice

Back from NY, back to the south and the west; everywhere and still nowhere at all. The idea of the wine merchant has been occupying my time, partly because it is in such a radical state of transition, partly because of the book I’m reading, and to a large part because of the market forces in play.

Friday I was scheduled to pinch hit for a supplier friend who was in the hospital on an emergency. The Friday wine staff seminar was all about grappa. Let me say, I’m not wacky about grappa, but a little but never hurt, especially if the meal had too much garlic or pepper, something that never happens in these forlorn backwaters. I arrived early to set up the grappa, the laptop for a possible PowerPoint presentation, tasting sheets, the whole kit and caboodle. What was I thinking? 13 grappas from Nardini and Jacopo Poli, two producers I had recently visited in Bassano del Grappa. I had been there; I had something to tell the servers on the front lines about, a selling strategy, a complete formula for success.

Only one problem, I was explaining color to blind people, sound to deaf souls, and taste to prairie dogs.

This is awful, feeling this way. I read some of the wine blogs and sometimes get a sense from some of the writers that they are above the rest of us folks here in the enoblogosphere. Some of them I have written to, sometimes with praise, sometimes with a question. I'm sure they regard themselves as the uber-bloggers, the rock stars of their world. They too, are important. Jeesh, they aren’t the Jefferson Airplane, though some of them do act like Grace Slick and Paul Kantor. Others, folks like Alder Yarrow and Regina Schrambling and David Anderson, are responsive, engaging and gracious in the communication. Thanks, on my knees, with gratitude, to them.

So when I burrow back into my borough and work on raising the ship and some snot nosed server who doesn’t know the difference between prosciutto and prosecco hijacks a serious grappa presentation with their ignorant whine that they “don’t like grappa” it’s all I can do to douse them with some Nardini and turn ‘em into burning man. Yeah, I’m pissed, going on 30 years in this colony and the somnambulisti’s rule as though they know what they are doing! Same as it ever was.....

Maybe it’s just the age I’m from and the age I’m showing, trying to impart something to these babies in the wine business. It’s not all numbers, but it is about making progress. 30 years is a long time to keep chopping in the woodshed. It’s time to light a bonfire, but where does one start? At the top of this food chain in the industry, the leaders are so bogged down that they rarely get word from the boots on the ground. The folks on the front line are there for a paycheck, a promotion, a career path. Who’s advancing the culture of wine? Which of the elephants are taking a chance on the tightrope?

Michael Bauer is commenting on high wine prices in restaurants and the comments he got (54 at this time) were all over the map. Restaurant owners explaining the high cost of operations, angry folks flaming over some minutiae, and on ad nauseam. Shoot the messenger, shout your talking points over the voice of the others, win, win, win. Glad that problem got solved.

Alice Feiring doesn’t have comments on her blog. She has a voice and ideas to convey. I’ve written her several times, she's been very helpful, very accessible. Alice has a great set of words as her intro when she writes, “I’m looking for the Leon Trotskys, the Philip Roths, the Chaucers and the Edith Whartons of the wine world. I want my wines to tell a good story. I want them natural and most of all, like my dear friends, I want them to speak the truth even if we argue.” Forget about points (100 scale and talking), forget about depletion allowances, forget about brand development funds, let’s just cut to the truth. Bravo, Alice!

There is coming upon the horizon a new stage of the blogger, some call it the super blogger. These folks will change the fabric, re-weave the threads of commerce, cause unknown entities to intersect and reconfigure in ways we can only imagine. But time is compressing, it’s heading this way faster than many of us will be able to see until it is moving through the station.

So the grappa was talked about, some tasted, the wine bufoon juggled the grappa pins in front of the wine babies, trying to get them to like the circus they are in and to not be afraid of the clowns. Maybe one or two of them got it. Hopefully, I gave them a grappa gospel that Poli or Nonino or Levi would approve.

Or maybe it will just be seen as a Catiline conspiracy that will be condemned by a present day Cicero.

What it is it what is has been for many moons….what moves it forward is ultimately the sell. Artfully, creatively, unceasingly. We will move forward, with or without you.

T.G.I.F.~ Thank God It's FALESCO

Ok so it's been a hot week all across the country and here comes the weekend, so it's time for my weekly T.G.I.F. posting... Today I'm thankin' God for Falesco Vitiano Rosato! And why not?

I'm getting delivery of my new Hasty Bake Charcoal Grill and I'm all fired up!

This moment of Rose' adoration brings us a lovely melange of equal parts of Sangiovese, Cabernet and Merlot from Umbria. With Riccardo Cotarella at the helm of his Baby, Falesco and his "made for pleasure tonight" brand, Vitiano, we've got it goin' on!

Salmon ( preferably wild and not from Chile or the Atlantic...for environmental reasons), pulled pork from happy piggies, Free range Chicken (on that charcoal grill), or a nice slab of Baby Back ribs.....Yeah!

What I love about rose' wines ( and I had one last night with my aunt at her 90th birthday celebration) is that you can have the cool of a white wine and the flavor and body of a red wine...Sounds like a merchant, yeah? And what's wrong with that?


BTW- I'm currently reading a great book about wine through the ages and the role of the wine merchant..I recommend it, highly!
Wine: The 8,000 Year-Old Story of the Wine Trade by Thomas Pellechia


Ciao for now!

Wine & War

It was reported today that the Wine Trail in the Bekaa Valley was in the middle of the fighting between Israeli and Hezbollah armies. This brought to mind all the many kinds of wars we have around us.

Earlier in the week I was back in New York for meetings, one of which was near my old neighborhood, Chelsea. At the old Nabisco Building, meeting with the Moet-Hennessy USA folks, in the meat packing district, flanked by Batali & Bastianich’s Del Posto and Colicchio’s CraftSteak, this area is not the depressing place it was many moons ago. Now it’s 140,000.00 a month rent for the Italian job and 29.00 for valet parking. And a bargain at that. World’s gone crazy in so many ways.

On my many walks across the city, one of my first stops would be the Chelsea Hotel, to see if my friend was doing ok. The Chelsea was a cheerier place than work or home at the time, I know. Pretty depressing.

The messenger who went into the World Trade Center building on Sept 11, 2001. His bike, his last message. Buildings bombed, people perishing…What on earth is going on?

On the recent walk, which started at 85 10th Street and ended at Park and 61st, I had an hour or so between appointments and thought to revisit some of the old haunts. 4 miles, no big deal. July, coat and tie. Comfortable shoes. Just the kind of gear for a war. Or wine education from the street level.

Along the way I looked up to see the giants, the Empire State Building and the Chrysler building. What kind of wine do the folks in these tall trees drink? A few wine shops along the way display some of the usual suspects from California and Australia; some even show a few from Italy and France. The good stores don’t show their good stuff in the windows. Inside Grand Central Station the shops with their artisanal cheeses and meats of Italian origin (or inspiration) reveal our insatiable desire for fresh, for special, for peace.

Far from the suicide bombers of the Mid-East, here in mid-town America, we can decide over Culatello vs. Copacolla.








or Sottocenere vs. Pecorino Marzolino.








Or a Castello di Monastero vs. a Chateau Musar.

We are at war, in our minds, with our neighbors, with our families. Look around you, turn off the Cable TV and see for yourself. A doctor, who took the Hippocratic Oath, suicide bombs himself and his house, in the Upper East Side around the corner from Sherry-Lehmann and Bottega del Vino. The war is not only being televised. It is now in your neighborhood, on your block.

Hoopin' it up!

Motivation "in the hoop" w/the best in the biz, Carlo Pellegrini

This has been a tough couple of months. It's not always fun and games. The weekend brought me to NY for a "mission". Around the corner from the hotel, the Verona wine bar, Bottega del Vino, opened up a satellite here in NYC, with panini and espresso. Nice people. I was in town for just a short trip and an appointment with Charles Curtis, an American Master of Wine and the Moet Hennessy Director of Wine Education. Charles and I will be presenting a symposium on Nebbiolo at the Texas Sommelier Conference in August. More info here to come and on the Texsom link.


My friends Carlo and Patty met us in the city for a day at Central Park. It was hula hoop day. Carlo is a great soul a clown and a juggler and a bigger than life person in my life. Check out his site, Juggling Matrix. Patty, she’s just the best. All friends for many moons. And Kim too….we all hula hooped it up.

So why this posting? Eric Asimov is blogging about Arbois from Puffeney and Alder Yarrow over at Vinography is in Gravner heaven. The Italian in me is saying, "August is just around the corner, your mind will be on vacation for a few weeks."

Tomorrow I’ll be in Nebbiolo Nasa Prep center for the symposium, but today is all about the hula hoop. August isn't here yet.

Little did we know when we ran into a recent NYU grad that the hula hoop is cool again. All I wanted to do was to be able to do it again like we did so many summers ago. Lithe and effortless, our teacher showed us a few moves while Carlo showed her how to juggle. Simple pleasures, you don’t have to be in the investing class to enjoy this lesson. Or this day.

The wines? A walk in the park today. We started out with a little Prosecco with poached eggs and an egg white omelet. Lunch was light and easy, a few take out panini from Bottega del Vino and a sip of a nice Santi Ripasso. For dinner, a light salad and some fresh grilled seafood. To go with it, a fresh Pino & Toi from Maculan . All three wines from the Veneto, once known for cheap and plentiful wines. Now the Veneto is a lion again.

There's enough serious in the world these days....there's not enough good hula hooping, though. But that's about to change! See you back here on Wednesday


photo's by Patty Ferrini

T.G.I.F. ~ Thank God It's Fusion

Today we're tooling around in the Alto-Adige with the top down . On the wine trail is the Abbazia di Novacella, founded in 1142. One of the oldest wineries in the world, the Abbey was built in the middle of the vineyards, located between 600 meters above sea level.

The wine is Kerner, a fusion between Riesling and Trollinger, developed in the 1960's. It's that 60's show again.
The Abbazia do Novacella 2005 Kerner is brand spankin' new and ready to roll! This was the best wine I've had this week, so it is my T.G.I.F. wine choice for the weekend.

Bright and floral in the nose, these wine went well with Mussels in a broth of white wine and garlic, topped with pommes frites and aioli mayo and then a cool cucumber soup, mmm good!

Fruit and slate, crispy and tight-rope precise, really focused flavors that are a treat to sip or to gulp.

Alto Adige is far northeastern Italy and even the web site is first in German and then in Italian. Ancient and modern at the same time. My days in the Alto Adige were limited ( alas, aren't they all?) but I came away from there with a respect and love for my northern cousins with the steel blue eyes and the penetrating clarity.

the floral quality of this wine is rock star fabulous! This is fusion in the slow lane, on the wine trail in Italy...











Links
Abbazia di Novacella

Via Travel Design

All that glitters isn’t gold in Orvieto ~ Umbria Underground

Many are told, when they go to Orvieto, to stop by the Duomo and take in the brilliance of the gold laden façade. It is especially brilliant during sundown, when it mirrors the sun in the finest garments of gold the people of the time could afford. Inside the church are frightful depictions of the Apocalypse, around small corners in alleys Mad Madonna’s stare right into our grimy little souls with little mercy for our inadequacies. All very bright and fearful and dreary. Oh well…Little known to the outsider are the underground passages that line the world below. In times past those passages would be used to ferry out princes and royal families, other times to smuggle provisions and weapons in to punch up the warriors in the ongoing struggles between the warring city-states. Never conquered by force.

In later years these tunnels would be lost or would cave in or be resurrected as a disco or a laundromat. I remember Riccardo Cotarella telling me, as we wound up the hill to the hilltop town, of his boyhood adventures in the selvatici (wilderness), hmmm… I’ve seen the Fellini boyhood memories; could our globe trotting winemaker have another side that we don’t know about?

There are many mysteries in Italy; mystery is to mystical Umbria as opera is to Naples or Palermo. Part of the DNA of the landscape.

One such path on the wine trail in Italy takes us back into the hills for such a visit back in time. Our visit was to a small producer of Orvieto, and the destination was to visit the grandfather’s cave, where the ancient abboccato, the muffa nobile, was enshrined.

This has been one of those wonderful mysteries of the wine trail, for I saw this and heard about it and have never heard about it again. It’s like a train vanishing in time and we got a last glimpse before it disappeared in the tunnel. I hope this isn’t so. It would be like losing an opera from Rossini or a sculpture from Giacometti; it is part of the liquid history of Italy.

A forest behind a clearing and a little shack. To the left a cave, sealed to intercept the bats and the insatiable Italian teenagers. Once inside we saw these mead-like wines sitting in jars along the walls of the cave.
Like being inside of a truffle, there was the sensation of the humidity, the texture, even the aroma. And this golden elixir sitting in bottles covered by months, years of cosmic dust layered like a delicate Neapolitan pastry.

Our host opened a few bottles from various decades and again the room filled with narcissus and lily, honey and rose petal. This wasn’t a wine, this was a perfume! This was the alchemists gold at the end of the rainbow, or tunnel. Here was the same energy, underground that we witnessed the day before falling on the façade of the Church, and here was a wine we could take as communion in honor of a time that is only a memory now.

On the way back we ran into a group of nuns, in town for a wine tasting. Should we direct them to the catacombs of that rapturous liquid noble rot? What? Could there be any question, after first encountering the mad Madonna? We must have happiness among the nuns of us. Of course, we told them. From the angels lips to everlasting bliss.We can only hope...

< Thanks to Hank "Enrico" Rossi for some of his wonderful photos >

California Dreamin' ~ 5 that made a difference

1969 – San Francisco Bay area – an exciting time in history. For a young whippersnapper like me, it was a time of wonder. And it was when I was first bit by the wine bug.

University life in Northern California exposed me to the young wine industry all around. At the time it was slow and artisanal and more of a cottage industry. Things were just gearing up.

Overall, the industry had been dominated by bulk production, and many a bottle of jug wine was uncapped in those days.

There were many, but these five people made a difference in my life.

Martin Ray
André Tchelistcheff
Robert Mondavi
Amerigo Rafanelli
Tony La Barba


Living in the Santa Clara Valley, going to the University of Santa Clara, was like going to a school for winemaker’s kids. Even the president of the college, Father Terry, was a winemaker. So it was kind of “in the water”.

On weekends some of us would trek about. One favorite was to head up to Los Gatos on our bikes.
Martin Ray was one of our stops. This was before he went into the battles with his investors and lost part of the vineyards that would later be known as Mt. Eden. It was a quiet time, and it was Old California, casual, slow and friendly. What I remember was a man who conveyed the sense of mystery and wonder about the miracle of grapes into wine. Here was a man who was laboring in the fields and in the cellar, a busy man, too busy for young students sent there by the winemaker of Novitiate Winery for a learning experience. But time he took. A teacher once told me, “If you want to know something go find someone who is the best and ask them. Doesn’t matter if they are famous, go knock on their door.” And knock we did. I think my love for white wine stems from this mans willingness to open a few bottles and show us the difference. High above what was to become Silicon Valley, we sat on that mountain and tried wine after wine, white, and then red. Young and new and older than us and whatever he brought out of his cellar. Thank you, Rusty.

When one of my friends wanted to go home to see their parents in Napa, often I’d tag along. Get out of familiar settings and head on up. Highway 29 was a sleepy little road and one could go from Yountville to Calistoga in 15 minutes. Not so today. My friends would usually have an errand to run before we headed all the way up. Stopping at a winery like Beaulieu Vineyards was just part of the errand. In those days André Tchelistcheff was not a young man but André was a romantic and like so many of us, didn’t see his age as a barrier from interacting with those of his mindset. Youth were who he related to. Here again was another soul who just embodied the spirit of the wine gods. And his red wines, in those days, when we stopped and he was around, the rest of the day would disappear behind stories and bottles and lore. God, did we love it! André taught me to love red wine and to love red wine as it came from where it came from. I don’t think they were using the word terroir too much back then and it wouldn’t have mattered to me. What I remember tasting is now what I think of as the liquid history of a place I dearly love. California, Napa, Red, Wonderful. Thank you André.

In those days we’d be in San Francisco with any free time. Music and revolution, the place was hopping. Napa folks were active in the antiwar movement and often after a day in the city, we’d keep heading up and back to Napa. Understand it is nothing like it was then. Napa Valley was Slow. And mellow. Robert Mondavi had just started his winery only a few years earlier and kids at our college always had an “open door”. Mike Mondavi had recently graduated from Santa Clara and was blazing his way though history. Robert, he was a busy guy. But again, these guys made time for the young-uns. The Mondavi winery was like a sunrise in the valley, foretelling of things bigger and better to come. Napa Valley, in those days, was for sale. Orchards and a few vineyards, it was considered a second cousin, agriculturally, to the greater Santa Clara Valley or the “Big Valley” in central California. But the vibe here in Napa was not going to do it that way. Here were artists and tastemakers. Robert Mondavi ( we called him Mr. Mondavi ‘cause he was as old as our parents, but he always said, call me “Bob”.) would take us into a shiny new lab, pick up a few bottles and head outdoors somewhere. Was it a dream or a memory? So many of these experiences start feeling like a dream, they seem like they were so long ago and far away. I remember my first taste of white wine with wood ageing. And a Cabernet Sauvignon blended with other “Bordeaux” grapes. Something was going on here, this place wasn't going to stand still. And the energy of this place, this Robert Mondavi and his vineyards, moved me. Thank you, Bob!

Years later I would move southwest to Texas and wine would take on other influences. One such influence was when I’d go on wine trips back to California and into Dry Creek. A buddy of mine and I would go see our friend and client, Amerigo Rafanelli. Am, as he was called, and as we called him, was like an uncle to us. I really loved that man. And his wines, his wines were what an Italian American really felt bridges the two cultures in a bottle. His simple red, Gamay Beaujolais (that’s what we called it then) or as he called it, Gemmay. There are Pinot Noirs today that would sell their soul to taste like that Gemmay. Am really nailed it! At lunch his wife would set out little spread and he’d bring a bottle of Colombard to start. Not for sale, only for him and the family. Crisp and clean and fresh and fruity and dry and fresh and wonderful! Zinfandel? In those days that was just starting. Cabernet? Just a twinkle in the eye at that time. Man, do I miss people like Amerigo Rafanelli, A gentle guy and as open as his open top fermenters he loved so much. Thank you, Am!

Last but not least, not a winemaker, but a tastemaker and a history shaker. Tony LaBarba. Texas is and probably always will be a sovereign state in some form or another. Something here lives in strength, not always right but always certain of its place in destiny. Tony’s mission was to bring wine to the frontier.
But it was with California that he played a great part in its eastward migration of New World wine culture.
Tony would go out to California time after time, like a violin maker going to a forest, looking for the perfect piece of wood for that perfect instrument. He was the great salesman, he sold California wines. No, he believed in California wines before the Californians did themselves. Talk about selling water by the river, Tony just loved wine and people more than anything. He taught me not to give up, to pull myself up after getting thrown off that horse and get back in the show. I miss you Tony, California and Texas is poorer because of your loss. But richer because of your belief and your determination. Thank you, Tony!


Without these people and many more we'd still be here. Thanks, Guys! Happy Trails!