“More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.” ~Teresa of Avila

This past week, I've been circling a few wine shops, trying to help out the owners. It's that time of the year, and the place to be is on the floor of a wine shop.

Folks come up and ask about this wine or that one. They need something as a gift, another for the meal. In their eyes I see a certain "Please help me, I need to get this right." There's an unsettling desperation in their eyes, like they really, really need this match to work.

I remember a holiday, when I matched a 1974 Ghemme from Conte Ravizza with a smoked turkey. It was such a perfect match that is all but spoiled any future possibilities. I tried to rematch another Ghemme, that didn't work.

Then, one day I just went into my wine closet and pulled out a wine, any wine. And started popping a cork or two.

I let go.

You see, it's not that important that the wine be perfect. Getting everybody there safe, that's important.

So if, one of the side dishes isn't working out, or you only have 4 desserts instead of 5, or you can only get a Vin Santo instead of a Passito from the Veneto, it's ok.



Just get everybody home. Safe.

Walking In the Evening, In the Rain

In the 14th arrondissement, in Paris, there is an area where artists and photographers have lived for some time. The Rue d’Alesia, something about it seems familiar beyond time and space. Giacometti lived and worked here, seemed to be happy, even if it kept him up until 3 AM at times.

The creative process doesn’t have a timetable. It needs to be nurtured. And fed. But the act of creating something, be it artistic or just something useful, needs to be exercised often.

Tonight when I went out for my what was once a run and is now a walk (for now) , I was almost run over, by someone who was too distracted to actually pay attention to what was right in front of them. How does that happen?
In 2001 we had the ruins of two skyscrapers and 3000 people lying in front of our eyes. We were in the mood to be united, “Let’s roll” was our anthem. America was under attack and we weren’t going to take it without giving back some ourselves.

Somewhere along the line it coarsened us as a country and as a culture. We need to work on that.

My 90 year old aunt and I were talking the other day and she was talking about how rude everyone seems to be.

It happens all the time, with strangers, with friends, with family even.

Are people too busy?
When I was a little one, it seemed my sister had time for me. Of course I was helpless and she probably understood that. When we grow up do we stop needing that kind of consideration? Is it too much to expect from folks? It probably is.

Everyone is so busy, so distracted. So hard to connect, even with ones we know and love.

When my son was a little one, I spent a lot of time with him, taking care of him, walking with him, traveling, hanging out. I loved it. I miss it. I should have had more children. One of my friends started a whole new family. I think his new wife isn’t much younger than his oldest child. And now he has a whole new slew of babies.
I swore I’d not let being too busy get in the way of my family. I made a lot of sacrifices, spent a lot of time care giving. Lost my wife along the way to an incurable disease. Stuck it out in the good times and the not so good times. 2006 has been a challenge to me and the family here. I think about my dad, he’s been on my mind, as has been a brother who didn’t make it through childbirth. Funny though, today he was talking to me through the mist as if we have known each other all my life. He’s one who can never disappoint me. What did it mean to my dad to lose his first son? A young man with hopes and dreams, I miss you pop. I wish you would have spent more time with me and my son.
When my Sicilian family came to Texas 5 generations ago they understood the need for the family to stay strong. That family had a reunion last summer. I found out about it afterwards. They didn’t know we came back to Texas 30 years ago. How could they? Hey, a lot of our California family has all but written us Texans off, we’re not part of their inner circle, their priorities have shifted. They have their bright lights on but they don’t see us walking in the evening, in the rain.

Looking Back Through the Keyhole

Some time ago I looked through the famous Roman keyhole to view St. Peters. It was in a time of innocence and hope. Today might not be as innocent but the hopefulness of an earlier time still lives within.

We are living in a ruder world. People are not so patient with each other. I know in my world, our industry is really in a state of conflict the likes of which I haven't seen quite like this. Is it greed? Is it power? Is it progress?
Ideas of beauty, like power, change in time. 50 years ago Gina was the image, now Giada is.

50 years ago red high heals were a fashion statement, now it's Gel-Kayano's that set the pace for a more health-centered outlook.


A month ago I broke a toe. I haven't run a mile in a month. I'm trying to be patient with myself.

Five years ago we were a country the world looked to with awe, with passion, with pity, for strength. Now we are pitiful. I have no intention of cutting and running from this country, but it better start rewarding good behavior and bringing back the best and the brightest into the mainstream.

Our toe in America is broken. We have bumped our collective foot in the dark, by our own deeds. We have bullied people, and expected them to salute us for our misdeeds. We are losing power. I saw this in ancient Rome, walking the hills as a young man. Before that my ancestors lived it and some of that lives on in these bent bones.

We must re-juvenate our society. We must bring our people back under the tent and embrace our wisdom and our democracy. Something has invaded all of us and we have allowed something lesser than the best to clog our arteries and our air.

Does anyone really care about the score of a wine if our world is unfit for our children's children?

The ancient bones have been rattled and they have rattled back. We must bring back strength of character or the view through the keyhole won’t make a difference from either direction.

T.G.I.F ~ Thank God It’s Faux-day

Looking back over the year in wines, today I’d like to share some of the unknown wines from Italy that I’ve been told about. Some of these wines have been on wine lists, some have been mentioned from people I have met. I’m not making this up. One of these wines is not like the others. One is real, the others, it seems, were found on the Wine Trail in Italy, during 2006.

Over Crispy Duck and a bottle of Valpolicella Classico Superiore, a fellow looks at the wine we are drinking and asks me if I like Italian wines much. I tell him yes. He says he hates French wine because he hates all things French. I ask him if it is because of the differences between our political orientations (the French and the U.S). “That’s it”, he affirms. “Good”, I say, “next time you hate what a politician does punish the farmer.” He changes the subject to tell me how much he loves Barolo di Montalcino and then asks me to taste a blue 1.5 liter glass bottle of Australian Shiraz he bought for $3.99. That would be the equivalent of a $ 2.00 bottle, a “2 buck sucks” wine. Classy guy, a real big spender. He’s the only person I have ever heard from about the illusive Barolo di Montalcino, but I’d like to taste it, maybe next year? While we were talking another person leaned over the booth and heard our conversation. He had recently been reading about the introduction of Italian wines into India and China. His favorite wine was a Pinot Noir from California but he was very excited about a wine he had read about, a Primitivo di Manchuria.
Finally a wine to go with Peking duck! It doesn’t get any better than this, as they say in old Milwaukee. I get calls often, in the trade, from people looking to find a particular wine. Seems they know they can ask me even if I don’t represent the wine. So a good old boy calls me from Houston asking about a Super Tuscan he’d just had at a fancy steakhouse out in Sugarland, Texas. Something called Flatulentello, or something like that.
I could only hope this person isn’t a doctor or a lawyer or someone I might need to help me some day, to stay alive or out of jail. An email from someone who wanted to know where they could find this Sardinian wine that they had at a restaurant in Houston, near a shopping center, something called a Vermentino di Galleria. A white wine, from the vineyard of a restaurateur. In the immortal words of Joyce, "yes, yes, yes." I’m on it right away. Earlier in the year I got a call from my colleague, Guy Stout. Guy had a friend who was looking for a wine, made for an “adult film star”. Something called, Sogno Uno. Robert Parker reviewed it, gave it a 90 or a 91, why not? He couldn’t rate it a perfect “10”? A blend of Cesanese, Sangiovese and Montepulciano Probably my favorite, though, was on a wine list this week. A new trans-regional effort, a Valpolicella d’Abruzzo. A wine that embraces the northern tradition with the central-southern sunshine. Something to go with crudo or agnello. A wine for Berlusca, for the new Italy. Even if it’s in Frisco, Texas.
So, tell me which one do you think is believable? Comments welcomed, operators are standing by.
As for me, I think what Grouch Marx said to a cop in one of his movies is apt for my present state of mind. “Arrest me, I need a rest.” And that's all she wrote.

For a Fistful of Dollars

Last week, I waxed about the glories of the Viviani Casa dei Bepi Amarone. A friend who is a sommelier, wrote back, saying that he “giggled” when he decanted the wine. Ah, the enthusiasm of youth.
But what a wonderful thing to have happen. And to those folks who dine there, they will put out $157.00 for that bottle. That's less than what it is retail in SF/LA/NYC. A real deal.

A far cry from what I ran into this week farther up the highway.
Day 1) Out west, an “Italian styled” place was setting up staff seminars. Would I take a look at the list?

Would I like a tooth pulled without numbing it first?

A list that is 70 % California (read: Silver Oak, Silver Oak, Silver Oak.) Umbrian wines from Tuscany, Campanian wines from Tuscany. And when they do get it right, aside from the only three regions that matter for red wine in Italy (that would be Tuscany, Piedmonte, not my spelling, and Veneto), then they just put the wines into the “Miscellaneous Reds” section. Like mystery meat. Treating Aglianico as if it were Spam.

And who out there have ever heard of a Valpolicella d'Abruzzo? It was on the list, in the Veneto section.

A wine that costs $6.00 selling for $10.00 a glass or $38.00 a bottle, that’s just wrong. And a Brunello that costs $35.00 going for $120.00, as if we all have that kind of discretionary income, what’s wrong with these knuckleheads?
Day 2) Another foray into an Italian spot for lunch. Asking the server about the wines, he delivered “we have Merlot, Cabernet, Chianti, Shiraz, Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay. Which one would you like?” How about telling me who made them? Forget it, I walked behind the bar myself to see the death of the Italian restaurant in middle America. There was barely an Italian wine by the glass, between California, Australia and Chile, and the lone Italian wine was a pitiful Chianti. Not as good as the one you can buy in a market in Italy for less than 2 Euros.

What in the hell is wrong with these restaurateurs?
And the salespeople who call on these places?
And the diners? Where is the outrage?

Day 3) I have gotten my prescription refilled and had my rage medicine re-adjusted. And also went to the woo-woo Doctor to have my chakra’s re-aligned. Really. Not joking.
Some of the restaurant owners remind me of the guy in the picture, lots of gold and glamour. But really, do they ever look at their world? I know some folks do, my friend who gets excited over a bottle of Amarone that he will sell as a great value (and at $157.00 it’s 5 times the wine Silver Oak is, but there are only 6000 bottles of it made and there are 50,000+ cases of S.O. being made). But for every one of the excited ones there are guys out there who would rather not deal with it, buy it for $6.00 and sell it for $38.00. And you don’t want to ask if the fish is farm raised or wild. Or which kind of mushrooms they use. (Hint: they aren’t porcini).Who’s putting who on? This is a what a gentleman today called a scherzo. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. More is coming to this industry, assaults are coming from all directions, and friends for years can no longer share ideas and move things forward as easily. I haven’t seen something this disjointed since I last had a barrel fermented Pinot Grigio.
If these were the good old days and restaurants were Mama Leone’s I would understand. But when Mama Leone’s wine list from the 1960’s begins to look like something I wish I had seen these past few days, then we definitely have run aground.

I’m not interested in attending another funeral. If Chianti is dead, along with the future of Italian wines in restaurants, then maybe moving to Oaxaca and tending a mezcal field might not be such a bad idea.

This industry has invited anarchy to the table. Bring it on. Make my day.

A Menu for Hope III -- December 11-22

For the past two years, members of the food and wine blogging community have raised money for various charities through a tremendous project called A Menu for Hope
The original event was conceived shortly after the Asian tsunami a couple years by Pim (of the Chez Pim blog) to raise aid money for the victims. That initial project was a great success and last year, the culinary blogging community raised an amazing $17,000 for UNICEF by doing an online raffle of various culinary/food/wine items.

It's time for A Menu for Hope III and this year's beneficiary is the United Nations' World Food Program.



HOW IT WORKS:The campaign is essentially a big raffle for prizes. You look through the prizes, figure out which one(s) you want to try to win, and then you buy "virtual raffle tickets" -- one for each $10 of donation you make to our cause on the special web site set up for that purpose.

When you make your donation, you simply specify the prize number(s) (each prize should have one) and the "number of tickets" your donation is buying. Donate thirty bucks, get three tickets, and use them for one prize, or for three. Just be specific in your request.

Here's the site to enter / donate.

THE PRIZES:So first of all, remember that these are just the wine blog prizes. There are TONS OF OTHER PRIZES awaiting you over on Chez Pim’s site. Go check them out too. But not before taking a look at these incredibly generous and creative donations from wine bloggers far and wide:

All of the wine donations are listed on the Vinography site

WB09 - Italian Wine Guy is Your Sommelier for a Night. Courtesy of Italian Wine Guy

I will be offering to be the sommelier at someone's private dinner party for up to six people in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas Area for an evening (or farther if someone wants to pay transportation costs). They will choose the menu to cook for their friends (or the restaurant to eat at) and I will bring the wine, including some from my cellar to match the cuisine and tell people about them. Approximate value: $200

The more you give, the better your chance to win. The campaign is scheduled to run from now until Friday 22nd, 6PM PST. So get a move on!

All of the wine donations are listed on the Vinography site
Roll your mouse over the thumbnail photos to see prize code and description. Click on a photo for more details

This year's deserving charity is the UN World Food Programme -- a fitting recipient of the goodwill from food and wine bloggers and their readers. I hope you will consider donating something. The smallest amount is a mere $10, which if you're sitting in front of a computer that you own, you most certainly can afford.

Here's the site to enter / donate.


More Details and complete instructions on following page...

If you're interested in participating, here's what you need to do:
1. Go to the donation page at First Giving.
2. Make a donation, each $10 will give you one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. Please specify which prize or prizes you'd like in the 'Personal Message' section in the donation form when confirming your donation. The prize code for my Italian Wine Guy Sommelier for a Night is WB09. Do tell us how many tickets per prize, and please use the prize code -for example, a donation of $50 can be 2 tickets for WB02 and 3 for WB09.
3. If your company matches your charity donation, please remember to check the box and fill in the information so we could claim the corporate match.
4. Please also check the box to allow us to see your email address so that we could contact you in case you win. Your email address will not be shared with anyone.
5. Check back on Chez Pim on January 15 when we announce the result of the raffle. (The drawing will be done electronically. Derrick at Obsession with Food is responsible for the application that will do the job.)
Thanks for your participation, and good luck in the raffle!