Why Brunello Fell

As they say in Italy, behind every great man there is a woman. Or two. Or three, in the case of Dr. Zaia.

Doesn't look like Brunello had a fighting chance, from the looks of this image, dated in the right bottom corner, March 22, 2008, taken in Venice, just a week or so before the Brunello scandal broke (click on picture to see it full size).




By the way folks, this is a spoof, just in case you didn't get it by looking at it.
Now, if we're talking about Rivella, that might be a whole 'nother story.

And yes, there is a Miss Brunello

Revisiting the Familiar

There are so many things that we all take for granted, from our jobs and our place in life, to our health and our age. When you’re 20, you’ve been young all your life and there is nothing to tell you that it won’t be like that all your days. When you’re 40, you begin to feel little pains, and start getting some of those big-life experiences that reshape what was once recognizable and predictable. Sixty comes close and, who knows what is coming? One thing for sure, change will come.

My last trip to Italy was a revelation in the way that I see the country. No longer do I think all Italians are honest, wonderful artistic, kind people. Sure there is still a huge percentage of the population that does meet those standards, maybe even more than in the U.S. Not that there should be a comparison. But now I see Italy in a state of perpetual change. Places that I thought years ago were immune to the big city pitfalls are now giving in to some of those temptations.

20 years ago on a trip to Genoa, outside my hotel was a spot where young kids would go to shoot up heroin. I was staying at a four star hotel and it wasn’t in a bad part of town. That was just what was on the menu in those days for young folks living in a port. I would see hundreds of used needles on the ground, and the hollowed out faces of kids, their expressions blown out from the intensity of the drug they had just injected.

Driving in the countryside on the way to one of the wineries, we joke about the highway being the United Nations for hookers, because you see women from many countries standing on the side of the road at all hours of the day, soliciting for sex. A few years ago there were more Ukrainians and Albanians. Now there are all manner of African women. Years and years ago it was home grown Italian women from the south.

So things we see in an everyday context take on different hues when we revisit them year after year. And it seems that Italy, too, is becoming a coarser society. My last driving experience in Rome, when we were heading back to the airport, was a lesson in just how base it has become. But that is another post.

What does this have to do with wine? Or at least a wine blog? I cannot answer that. And while I am at it, I have been thinking about wine blogging. I am not all that interested in wine blogging. Folks stare out into their screens with their tasting notes and their wishes and their hopes and they pour them out and we are all supposed to drop everything we are doing to read someone’s blog? I have had too many people tell me lately that they can’t and they don’t care to keep up with wine blogs. I understand. For sure, I am not interested in mommy blogs about wine; don’t care what they ate during their trip to Cancun. And those existential quandaries that I have been sent lately by friends of bloggers, people who think I’d like to know about their crisis in Chieti. And so it probably goes with many of my ramblings as well.

I have been thinking for some time about cutting back or at least giving folks a breather, time to catch up with all these posts. But that would assume there are all kinds of folks laboring through these thrice weekly posts as though it were the NY Times or the BBC. They better not be.

I don’t think I want to slow down, the discipline of writing this much is getting close to what is needed to complete a book in a year. And though this is more free form, it still is an established discipline. So, I’ll probably keep up the pace. And folks can come and go as they have been doing.

Italy has been that way with travelers, letting them establish their own pace when exploring all that the country has. There is always that next village on the hill, the remote vineyard in a faraway region, a dish made at a little unmarked osteria near a seaside that draws one back.

For as often as one walks a street or visits a town, there is always something there right in front of you that has been staring right at you, and for some reason you might not have ever been able to see it. And that is the allure of Italy, why so many folks think it is such a romantic place. Because Italy also has an interest in the visitor, and one that, to those who can open their eyes and their hearts to it, will return your gaze or your caress with one that is bigger than life. All you have to do is look straight into the heart of Italy.

written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

photos of graffiti taken @ San Benedetto del Tronto, September 2008

Here Today, Gone to Merlot

There are those magical places that make a wonderful wine weekend destinations. The combination of L’Andana with their sister winery, Petra is an elegant, simple retreat from the everyday realities. In this fantasy escape from those realities, the wonderful luxury of L’Andana, and the simplicity that is woven in the resort, can recharge one very well. As written before, this is Alto-Borghese living. But the stars shine bright in the nighttime sky, and the breeze that sifts through the curtains is pure Maremma. And so if there is a Ducasse donut with the cappuccino in the morning, is that such an infraction? There will be time for more rustic experiences on this 2008 harvest trip, they are coming. For now, we are living in lapland, that space between where you have come and where you will be going. Someone else’s everyday world, opened up for a few days by the wine gods.

The ride from L’Andana in Castiglione della Pescaia to the Petra estate near Suvereto is a pleasant 45 minute saunter up the coast. My travel companion and I easily slipped into a California state of mind. And this is not to diminish anything that Tuscany and the Maremma has to offer; it is simply lagniappe for the wine traveler.

We are in a time when the fruits are all ripe and dripping their honey. Fig trees droop from the weight of their bounty and the grapes weigh the vines down, waiting for their appointment with the portable guillotines, those hand held harvesters that pick the clusters and send them to their miracle moments.

Much has been written about Petra. It is one of those architectural statements that seems so unusual for Italy, but not for the Maremma. Not too far from L’Andana is another architectural gem, Rocca di Frassinello, a partnership between Chateau Lafite and Castellare. The smart money sees something happening and they know what it is and they have gotten in before the rush. At this point it is probably too late for the rest of us. But there is something about the Maremma that is still undiscovered and quiet in its revelatory being. It isn’t crowded like Napa Valley, for one.

Beautiful land, olives and grapes, wheat and figs. Merlot has a wonderful summer home here. As we arrived in mid September, the Merlot had already been brought in at Petra. What we sampled was still fruit juice, but it was bright and rich and healthy. Like we all want to be, no?

Petra has a cellar and sometimes dining area that has been hewn out of the rock underneath the vineyards. It reminds me of Sinsky or many other Silverado Trail showcase wineries. Still a fairly small production, at this point just about 25,000 cases of wine. Smaller than Chateau Lafite. I hesitate to put down my tasting notes here, as they will be needed for an article in Sommelier Journal. In any event, most folks don’t come to On The Wine Trail in Italy for tasting notes. Or gossip. I’ll leave that to those who are better and more interested in those things.

I am pretty knocked out about the mineraly-stony thing going on under the vines at Petra. Some pictures show an other-worldly aspect to this ancient craft.

We had been told to expect lunch. What I hadn’t expected was this wonderful woman who prepared a simple meal with many fresh vegetables from the Petra garden. As we ate we could look out onto the garden where much of our lunch came from. Zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, grapes. A little porchetta, not too much, just enough to show off the wines. Especially the Merlot.

Folks who know me are aware that Merlot, like Chardonnay, doesn’t thrill me. Except when it comes from areas that I think they should come from. Merlot from the right bank, Chardonnay from the Côte d'Or. That kind of thing.

I am intrigued by the interest by French winemakers in this area. And Merlot, while resembling more their California cousins than their Pomerol ones, still has a liveliness and an appealing quality. Ok, so I can learn to love Merlot from Italy too.

Just as long as I also get to enjoy it in a rustic pie at the end of a meal during the 2008 harvest, on the wine trail in Italy.

written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

In Praise of Pitigliano

Leaving Rome and heading north up the west coast is a little like exiting L.A. and heading up Hwy 1. I had never done it before but somewhere after Civitavecchia it started looking familiar on a molecular-memory level.

It was Sunday morning and after a little cappuccino in the hotel in Parioli we crept out of Rome, with help from the she-devil Gps. The sky was overcast and there was an early autumn breeze in the air. We were heading to California.

I am newly acquainted with the Tuscan coast, so I wonder why it took me over thirty years to get around to it. Maybe it was my mania for visiting every region in Italy. That is, except for Sardegna. I must go there with my landscape-chef friend Francesco, who as a child looked out from Orosei towards the land we were now driving up.

Sunday was a quiet time on the SS1 and once we passed Montalto di Castro my partner in crime started getting hunger pains. The night before we had gone to a little trattoria and had our second on many Last Suppers, but it was a new day, a little rain was starting to fall and there you have it, time for pranzo.

I spied a delivery truck in front of me and saw that he was pulling off into a little roadside place and my inner Gps said “follow that man.”

It was a very humble place, no tourists and a lone Indian inside the entrance peddling exotic jewelry and speaking a strange hybrid of Italian and Hindi.

We took a table opposite a large picture window and watched the rain float, then strike the outer world. But we were safe inside the little lunch room, and thirsty. I asked the waiter for a good local wine and he recommended a fresh white from nearby Pitigliano. It had been years since I had thought about the Bianco from Pitigliano, when I once brought in a 20 foot container of the stuff for a Jewish client who had an Italian café and retail store. He loved the stuff and sold the hell out of it. I remember it was light and dry and crisp and it reminded me of the Trebbiano from Abruzzo that we drank so much of in those days.

In those days we didn’t call it the Maremma. It wasn’t yet fashionable to render it so. The wines were cheap and cheerful and under appreciated. Morellino would eventually reach the close out list and we’d all make friends with $4 red from Scansano.

For now, it was Sunday afternoon and the Pitigliano was still cheap and cheerful. The owner had opened the picture window and a cool,fresh salty-rain breeze washed over us. And with a platter of fresh fritto misto from the nearby waters, maybe a little plate of fresh tomatoes and mozzarella, a small dish or two of zucchini and patate, was there a more wonderful way to spend an afternoon anywhere on earth?

I just have to say this. A wine like Pitigliano, if it were my local white wine, I would be a very happy man. Yes, my tastes are getting simpler and simpler, and Pitigliano is a perfect wine for the pensioner, the student or the wine lover who just wants refreshment and no barrel chatter. Yes, I would be ignorant, but happy.

After lunch and a café, it was almost like the Indian knew we were thinking about him. He came up to the table and had an array of jewelry, each one with a story. I bought one that my contramico liked. He wanted to sell us two, three, four. He really was a fish out of water, but the water he had landed in was just fine. I mean how could a guy from Mumbai land in the Tuscan coast selling jewelry from God knows where? I’d say he won the lottery of life. He might beg to differ, what do I know?

As we neared Castiglione della Pescaia, our she-devil navigator steered us onto a side road towards La Badiola, where L’Andana was waiting for the fortunate ones who were destined to stay within here pampered walls. It was just like we had seen on the website, except that Alain Ducasse had long left the place to his trusted surrogates.

As we checked into the little jewel of a hotel, I got a faint sense that there are many Italy’s. There is the Italy of Rome. There is the Italy of the roadside café and a simple plate of misto fritto and a bottle of Pitigliano. And there is the Italy of the Alto-Borghese. We were grifters upon this refined side of Italy, with linen sheets and one star Michelin restaurants. With home made donuts in the morning, steaming cups of cappuccino and the sweetest melon this side of the Pecos.

Nowhere but Italy - Guess the wine region, become a millionaire

After a sweet little nap and some mindless television, we would press on into the full moon landscape and try our luck in this new world. It had shaped up to be a very special Sunday along the Tuscan coast on the wine trail in Italy.

written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

Roma: Lupi Apud Oves Custodes *

* The wolves are watching over the sheep

As we were in Rome, so it is also the same as we are back home. Several days ago, I cold-called a new Italian place in an older part of town. The owner was receptive and friendly. So I handed the info off to a colleague. Yesterday I walked into another account to set up a wine event for women only, and our company order was rolling in. Everyone was out taking lunch, so I checked the order in and, seeing as it was the lunch hour, put up part of the order. Part of that “now go back home and sell some of this stuff” business. Who has time to look for a job? I have more work than I can say grace over. A couple of articles needing to be written, deadlines looming, a panel of tasting notes for another piece, an educational piece I’ll be needing for next Tuesday, and a proposal for a tasting today in Cowtown. Too busy selling this stuff to worry about mergers and acquisitions. Selling, not buying, that’s the game. Getting harder, but not as hard as being on the outside looking in. That’s a bowl of future-tripping.

Anyway the salesman finally shows up to the account with his young acolyte in tow, and they are giddy. Seems the youngun’ has written a proposal for the new Italian place I handed over to his older sidekick. They wanted me to take a look at it. Now mind you, I just went in and talked to a potential customer about an Italian wine list for an Italian-styled restaurant. The youngun' hands me his list, and there’s a Malbec from Argentina on it. I ask him, what the hell is that? I’m sitting looking at a pile of wine for the tasting today and there’s an Aglianico and a Montepulciano, a Monica and a Cannonau. Why Malbec? And then I see the proposal populated with California wine and wonder if we will ever get off this not-so-superstrada of New World wine somnambulism and get back to the Italian wine trail. Yeah, right.

I woke up a few hours later and went to my office. Jet lag was rousing me from my Italian-time afternoon nap and telling me to get busy, lyrics from Dylan’s “Highlands” clamoring in the pre-cappuccino pre-dawn,

Woke up this mornin' and I looked at the same old page
Same old rat race, life in the same old cage
I don't want nothin' from anyone, ain't that much to take
Wouldn't know the difference between a real blonde and a fake
Feel like a prisoner in a world of mystery
I wish someone'd come and push back the clock for me
Well my heart's in The Highlands wherever I roam
That's where I'll be when I get called home

Rome is a walking town; the she-wolf always seems to get you on her turf. I was lucky enough to have my wife Liz still able to walk, when one June we pressed all around the place looking at the antiquities. Stopping in a bar to drink that cool white Colli Albani wine that then flowed into the ever-so-willing carafes. Eyes always staring out from some quiet corner.

Caput Mundi has her silent sentinels stationed in every quarter. In this memory, the most recent of the Roman reminisces, somewhere between the Sistine Chapel and the Colosseum, I eyed a tiny alley with some tables. It was a cool day, and we had miles to go. A few minutes earlier we had stared at and touched a Michelangelo sculpture in an anonymous church, no guards telling us to stand back, no €6 Euro entry fee. Now flatbread and fresh mozzarella called, a spray of arugula and some prosciutto, and that damn carafe of red wine.

Why, when I can have any Italian wine from any list, do I order the red in a carafe? You have a sweater and it fits after so many years. It is broken in. No, it doesn’t go with the Isiaia suit, isn’t meant to. But it is comfortable and familiar. I like to go back to the carafe, especially in Rome; it’s a barometer of the state of Italian wine.

Walking Rome stirs one to reflect about Italy, and all that those of us who work for her wine industry all these centuries. The missionaries in flyover country, the stylists on the West Coast who are like Terry Riley or Harry Partch in their orchestrations of the wines and the interpretations of the food. The driven ones in New York and Chicago, those who actually sell wine for a living. And the Roman salesmen, the home boys on the cobbled streets, with their Vespas and their briefcases, walking the Testaccio and the Trastevere, The Parioli and the Via Veneto. The not-so-silent sentinels. Pressing the flesh for the fruits from the wine press. For hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Just like 3,500 years ago, when the Chaldeans worked with the female Egyptian factors to ensure a continuous flow of red wine to the Pharaohs. Or am I being too archetypical for you?

Rome has become a coarser urban setting, more people with their hands out, hands looking for your pockets. On one of the days, there wasn’t a moment when someone didn’t want to interpret (for a price) what I was looking at. As if seeing it for the twelfth time in 27 years didn’t inoculate me from the swirling bats. Always in threes, non ce' due senza tre. We swat them back into their caves and endure the travesty of time and humanity with our limited interpretations of such things. Or am I getting too paradigmatic for you?

Those old faces staring back at me from behind their glass cases take on a resemblance that 30 years ago I wouldn’t have recognized. Now it’s more like staring at my death mask. Rome is filled with death masks, and they are beginning to look more contemporary to me. Maybe it’s just the familiarity of the remembrance after so many visits, like visiting an aunt in Alcamo or a cousin in Cosenza. These cold, stone carvings are like my family now. Or have I become too paronomastic for you?

And then there is that tattoo-dosage of modern reality that tells you as long as there are people on this planet, there will be those who will have to learn it all, not from staring at the ruins of a long gone empire, but by walking in their own flip-flops amidst the gaze of the Capitoline wolf and making their own mistakes, going their own way without the benefit of history. To survive or perish.

There is fear and dread in every corner, and there is hope and clarity after a long night in the corner of a cold room on top of a hill in some forbidden village. How one interprets that opportunity or yields to the udders of the she-wolf, well, that’s up to each and every one of us in our own way, isn’t it?

written and photographed by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

Roma: In front of the Ministero delle Politiche Agricole

Dr. Zaius, what are you up to?


Brunerlot?


Don't get excited...It's just an early morning jet-lag joke. Un'scherzo...

written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

In Gps We Trust

Rome, Rome, Rome, always the beginning and the end of so many stories. In the recent events, it was the point where we started the circle and finished it.

Coming into Rome from the airport was so much easier than it was the first time; just turned on the GPS-she-devil device and plugged in the hotel address, and 30 minutes later we arrived at the front desk. Not like the time in 1990 when I had my wife, Liz, jump into a cab and I followed her to the hotel. After wandering around the city for two hours.

Driving in Rome is an interesting challenge, one that seems to have become more intense in the last 30 years. Italy, too, has become less civil and angrier on the road. And then there are the motor scooters and two wheeled space invaders that plague today’s Rome. But that’s the way of a city, even one as old as Rome. Wisdom doesn’t come so easily.

The 2008 harvest is underway and in the coming days I’ll be posting notes from what I saw and touched, drank and thought. This year the harvest report centers on Central Italy, with Tuscany and the Maremma on one side and the Marche/Abruzzo on the other, like a teeter-totter between Sangiovese and Montepulciano. Other grapes as well. But we won’t be going off too far into esoterica on this trip, no, this isn’t the time for too much autochthon. This is a time to batten down the hatches and lean out, make it through the present cycle, which is not without its challenges.

I have a friend who is starting an import company right now, and mainly working the NY-east coast. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes. But to his credit, he understands that the relationship with the restaurateur is more important than holding the hand of the winemaker. It’s a buyers market, and like my 20 new best friends, wine salesmen in Rome, told me last week, it's all in how you bond with the customer.


Interesting find in a neighborhood that I like to stay in, Parioli. A little spot called La Balestra on the Via Simeto 2/F. Not on anybody’s radar, no reviews, just a great neighborhood spot with good service, clean food, fantastic wine prices. I will post about it later.

Another place, on the other end of the trip, was in Monteporzio Catone, in Frascati country, a place called I Tinelloni, found as a result of a Slow Food recommendation from a book Sausage Paul pressed into my hands before I left. Definitely worth a post as well.

The wine trail led us this year, from Rome up to the Tuscan Coast to Castiglione della Pescaia. We climbed over and into Firenze to meet up with an old friend, and then trekked over to the Marche/Abruzzo coast at San Benedetto del Tronto. A couple of day trips from there, one during a wet afternoon to forage for mushrooms over white tablecloths. Fish on the coast, meat in the hills. And then back to Rome via Monteporzio Catone.

One story. On the last day, we were about 40 km from the airport, with traffic no more than an hour. I set the GPS for the quickest route, not the shortest (I had learned that the hard way when we went from Castiglione della Pescaia to Firenze, over every last hilltop town).

But then we got into the traffic flow, and flow is a kind word, more like a molasses surge, I knew we were going to have a tale if we didn’t miss the plane.

Roman drivers are singular in their ability to ferret out every last drop of pavement in which to claim their driving space. They are aggressive, meaner than a junkyard dog, sometimes not paying attention, and ultimately forgivable in their ability to recognize another who just has to get to the airport on time.

I drove the wrong way on a street to jump in front of a traffic line and get myself back in the direction that the polizia told me to go. I gave people a wave to go in front of me and got the finger by someone behind them because I didn’t give it to them as well. I got honked at mercilessly by an ancient Roman because I was blocking the road, never mind that I had a red light. He had to turn right. Guess the poor old guy had to pee. In any case, the polizia, who just gave me directions, turned their heads away as I crept past the line so the vecchione could get on with his turn. I had scads of bottle rockets, Vespas and other two wheeled insects buzzing all around me, you think I was a pile of oregano in bloom the way they were swarming the car. But I made it through, without a scratch. Two hours later.

What it did to me later, as I was resting in the plane, was to give me the royal boot back to America. “So there you have it Italian Wine Guy, we took care of you one more time. You slept in nice beds, had great food, saw wonderful countryside, and drank delicious wine, from the carafes you love so much to the finest vintages. Now go back home and try to sell some of this stuff. And don’t come back until you do.”

Oh yes, I got my due. And now it’s back to paying my dues.

written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

Grapefruit, Eggplant & Montepulciano

From the Archives ~ June 9, 2006

Something that’s been bugging me off and on is words to describe things that are taken from another word which has another context. About once a week I get someone in a sales group or wine shop asking me about the different Montepulciano wines, that "noble" one from Tuscany and the “other” one from some region to the east of Tuscany.

It is part of the distinct charm of the Italian state of mind to give unlike wine similar names. Or anything for that matter. Anyone who has driven in Italy and tried to find a town starting with the name of Colle, Castello, Rocca or Monte will recognize the dilemma. But, after all, it’s Italy and people have been finding their way around, eventually, to the town or the Café or the vineyard. Or not. And then it’s merely a matter of “recognizing” that wherever they have landed, either be it for lunch or a wine tasting or a day in the country, is just “perfetto” . One of my dear friends would say “ottimo”, most favorable. It’s that Italian sense of latitude relative to their compact with happiness.

What did he say? When in Rome…..

So, what’s with the fruits and vegetables? Those who speak English (and Italian) know the difference between grapefruit (pompelmo) and grape (uva). Also the English speaking (and Italians) know the difference between eggplant (melanzana) and egg (uovo). The Italians use different words than the English so there is no confusion. All clear?

But this Montepulciano business is really something that keeps coming up. The folks in Abruzzo say the Tuscans should rename their Vino Nobile and some of the Tuscans tell the folks in Abruzzo, “Hey, we were here first! Get your own name!”

Mary Ewing-Mulligan, Ed McCarthy, the authors of Italian Wine For Dummies, say it best in their book, and I quote, “The confusion is understandable, but these two wines are definitely different wines made from different grape varieties. Vino Nobile is a dry red wine made primarily from the Prugnolo Gentile variety (a type of Sangiovese) around the town of Montepulciano in southeastern Tuscany. Montepulciano d'Abruzzo is also a dry red wine, but made mainly from the Montepulciano variety, which grows in the region of Abruzzo on the Adriatic coast, southeast of Tuscany. The Montepulciano variety is believed to be native to the Abruzzo region, and it has no connection to Sangiovese or to the town of Montepulciano in Tuscany.” That’s as simple and clear an explanation as it gets! Now go and get the book, because there are other nuggets in it.

In trips to Italy I have been really fortunate to spend time in the Abruzzo region and make friends with winemakers there.

There are great memories around the open hearth with vine branches roasting fresh lamb and pork from the macelleria with bottles of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo.


Oh, and the people too. One great wine pioneer, Dino Illuminati and his family, stands out in my heart . It was in the town of Controguerra that Abruzzo made Montepulciano theirs. That’s Dino’s town and he’s their Antinori or Mondavi. And he can eat for all three of them. Great guy. Bigger than life. Historical. The stuff great novels are made of.










Now do we have it all sorted out? Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and Montepulciano d’Abruzzo? Eggs and eggplant? Grapes and grapefruit?

What about this just to mess you up? How do the Italians deal with telling the difference with words like uva (grape) and egg (uovo) when they are growing up? Or what about that Calabrian peasant recipe that has a casserole of eggplant with eggs? You get the picture? Confused again? Good.

And that calls for a glass of wine.What shall it be? Maybe something... Montepulciano? Maybe from a Castello? Or a Poggio? Or a Monte? There is a Monti Montepulciano d' Abruzzo. But dont confuse it with the Montori Montepulciano d' Abruzzo, who also happens to be Dino Illuminati's good friend. But we're way beyond confused again. Pop the cork.

Bona Notte!

Links Italian Wine For Dummies
Illuminati Winery & the US Importer info
Elio Monti Winery & the US Importer info
Camillo Montori Winery
Macelleria Photos from Hank's Wonderful Vacation

written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy