Sunday, November 09, 2008

Drink in Eight Years

Yesterday would have been Liz and my 11th anniversary. On our third (and last) anniversary, in 2000, we were given a bottle and encouraged to put it away and drink in eight years. At that time the election hadn’t yet been decided, but what had been put in place in the next three months, by a power greater than any of us, was the downward spiral of my wife’s health and the last days of her life. We were cut off, never got a chance to drink that bottle of wine.

This weekend, while rooting among my wine closet I found that bottle of wine. It was an Italian wine, and it was red, and from a very good vintage. Now the issue isn’t whether the wine is ready to drink. I’m not sure I am.

The last eight years have been a time I would never had imagined in my life. I never planned to turn 50 as a widowed person. Jobs and friendships, loves and passions have all tried to make up for the giant crater in my own personal ground zero. And yes, we do rebuild, if ever so slowly, again.

So I will put that bottle of Italian wine back in its slot in the wine rack and maybe let it rest a little more.



Friday, November 07, 2008

American Terroir ~ Open Your Heart, and Shine it On

Yesterday, at an event for the local farmers and winemakers, there were a few Texas wines at the tables. One particularly appealed, insofar as it corresponded with what I have been thinking about in terms of what American terroir is.

First the wine. Cabernet Sauvignon from the High Plains of the Texas Panhandle. High acid. Very High. Almost to the point of being volatile. Naturally. Tender tannins. Harry Waugh of Latour would have loooved it. A creamy, almost uncanny, balance. I talked to the winemaker about the wine and related an earlier tasting of grapes from the same vineyard, but made by a different winemaker. The earlier wine had been taken through Reverse Osmosis almost to the point of stripping certain fleshy parts of the wine out, making the acidity factor even more stark. The earlier winemaker told me he had done that (R.O.) because the wine naturally had this aspect of what some folks would recognize as volatile acidity and he tried to “work it out.” It didn’t work for him and in the process he removed some of the buttresses that held the wine up, resulting in a wine that tasted as if it had had plastic surgery that had gone bad. Fortunately the second winemaker knew what the characteristic of the vineyard was and didn’t fight it, but rather let nature be. I don’t even like Cabernet for the most part, but this was a lovely drink.

Which is a very long introduction to something I have been talking about to wine folks across the country lately. This idea of American terroir.

It started with thoughts about California terroir (where I lived for half my life, growing up there) and feeling something in my environment before I knew the terms. In those many trips from Southern to Northern California going back to school and stopping in Templeton or Paso Robles, Gilroy or the many little vineyard plots along the way, I would taste a Zinfandel or a Charbono and note something that seemed oddly familiar. Something I couldn’t quite pinpoint. But it was concrete. Real.

I know there are critics who think "California wine" is big and bold and ripe and, well, immense. And other than those creeping levels of alcohol, I really am having a hard time understanding what their frame of reference is. Certainly not from growing up drinking the wines of Italy. Or France. Or Virginia, for that matter.

Yesterday, I also went into a natural foods café and ordered a glass of carrot and celery juice. As I was drinking it, I was really enjoying the earthiness of the carrots, the nervous edge of the celery. It was a perfect drink, and it had tons of terroir from the organically grown produce. A chap behind the counter said I should try it next time with a little apple juice. As I was walking outside in what seemed like a perfect California day (in Texas) I thought to myself, “That would make it fruity.” I didn’t want more fruit. I enjoyed the balance of the fruit with the muddiness of the carrots and the salty-spicy green quality of the celery. It didn’t need to be manipulated with sugar from the apples to make it more pleasurable.

Take a handsome woman. Or man. Lets say someone from Croatia. Or Louisiana. In their natural state, some of us prefer that to a more enhanced look. Some like breasts that aren’t enormously out of proportion. Or lips that don’t look like that got into a fight with Sugar Ray Leonard. Muscles that look healthy, but not menacing. Many of us like wine like that.

A few weeks ago, while in the Maremma, I tasted fresh Merlot grape juice before it started fermenting. It was direct, fresh. The fruit was there but it wasn’t hulky. Maybe that it was pre-oak, pre-malolactic and pre-spinning cones, that attracted me to the promise of the wine to come. Just like the carrot-celery juice. It was standing there in front of you, pure and natural. Senza manovra.

I think California gets a bad rap. From folks who think they know what California wine is. And from winemakers who have mistaken their winemaking hats with their deity hats. I know when I talk to some of my winemaker friends like Robert Pellegrini, how they seethe when people try to reinvent "California wine", as if with one swipe of the sword it can all be commandeered. In the meantime, folks like him have their wines downgraded by the critics in favor of more voluptuous wines with a hedonistic bent. Pave paradise to put up a parking lot. And a tram.

I hear you, Bob. I too, remember the promise of California. And that seems to be a forgotten promise in today’s menagerie of players along the coast, from the numb and number corporate-crunching wine machines to the post-mid-life crisis wine lifestyle gazillionares.

Last February I went up to Stony Hill at the invitation of Peter McCrea. It was the Napa of my childhood, still as I remembered it in the beginning. The wines were a pleasant 12 ½%. There was no overpowering weight of wood. Acidity was healthy, bracing. The taste of the earth was present. That is how I see terroir in America.

And as America seems to be at a turning point, wouldn’t it be a great time for all of us to put down our preconceptions about what we think California wine is, or should be, and just “let the sunshine in?”





Wednesday, November 05, 2008

For Your Pleasure

It doesn’t seem like eight years has passed since we entered the new millennium in 2001, but it has. It was the beginning of a very difficult time; my wife Liz passed away in Feb 2001, the political process started to change and the world changed with it. September 11 showed up on the world’s doorstep, and many of us have been taking it one day at a time, hoping for better days to come.

As I was jogging this evening by the high school, a speaker announced over the stadium address system, that there were refreshments in the concession stand. He described the available items: candy, popcorn, hotdogs, and then he said three little words, “for your pleasure.” It sounded like a throwback in time when things were so much simpler and in its uncomplicated message I thought back over the last 40 years and what some of our cinematic dreamers and Italian wine visionaries thought the world would be like in 2001. And while it sure wasn’t all that they projected in the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, it sure has been a heck of a trip. So, at this time I’d like to jump into the WABAC machine, back to 2001 and see what wines I would have predicted for the past, here in the safety of the future. Of course the wines are from the Italian trail, and beyond.

Ever since the time I attempted to simultaneously sell a Tuscan Novello and a Vernaccia di Serrapatrona, that would have been about this time in 1984, I have wondered why Italian wines chose me. Not just me, but for some of the hard stuff, I sure have had my share of those assignments. Driving around with a delivery van full of baby Sangiovese alongside a quirky, dry, foamy red wine made by a madman in the hills of the Marche. What was I thinking then? Even now it sounds bizarre. Don Quixote, only this time we weren’t looking for windmills. We were looking for space stations for these special travelers. And in honor of those two wines, in the 2001 of our little story here, we have an homage: Novello Di Ascoli, a modern wine about reincarbonation.

Chianti: 2001 was a little project that went beyond Chianti 2000. I’m not sure if people realize the first Italian in space was Sangiovese. A little known experiment resulted in growing and harvesting the grapes aboard the International space station. Limited release, only about 20 cases, hydroponically grown. It was intended to test the ideas of extra-terroirestrial winegrowing. It is an amazing red wine, without the pull of gravity and ratings. No, only the influence of the astro-agronomist-winemaker, an American of Italian descent. It challenges the limitations of the Italian wine trail that we terrestrials put on it. Buckminster Fuller said, “Whatever nature lets you do is natural.” I wish all of you could have tried it with me. But alas, a quick trip to Washington D.C., some time ago, was the only opportunity any of us will have. But there will be more. Watch for a sparkling wine to come, made in zero gravity, called Zero-Zero. No dirt on their space-boots, but lots of ardent advances orbiting above us.

Down in the Cilento National Park, there is a colony of Italians who speak Esperanto. They escaped the area around Vesuvius many years ago and decided to leave behind their dialect. But they took their grapes with them and started making a red wine for the new millennium, to coalesce their past with their future. It is a cult wine on the islands around Naples and further south. I have only seen and had it once, from a private cellar in Panarea. The wine reminded me of the reds made by Galardi. I have heard people say they have traded two bottles of Le Pin for one bottle of “Vulkano” Campania Ruga. I have tried both wines. I would say two bottles of Le Pin for one from the Esperantani’s is a fair deal.

About 11 years ago, in a place near Colfiorito, there was a terrible earthquake. When they got to digging out some of the buildings, rescue workers found a lab book from a vineyardist, describing a project code-named “Il Grifi”. The project, like its name, had as its goal to combine three grapes to make a new wine. Here the vineyardist had been researching, via recombinant DNA, the creation of a wine that had as its parents, Sangiovese, Sagrantino and Montepulciano. And yes, for many years in Umbria and the Marche, winemakers have blended these grapes together to make various wines. William Sylvester, who starred in the Stanley Kubrick film, had made a film in Italy and was fascinated with this area and with wine. So he funded this little known experimentalist. Italy loves to resuscitate ancient things: statues, grapes, legends. In this case, as we headed back to 2001, we discovered that the wine had finally been made, in minute quantities. An amazing wine, combining the ephemeral verve of Sangiovese, the tannic and alcoholic power of the Sagrantino and the lubriciousness of the Montepulciano. Joy upon joy, an almost perfect wine in time for the new age. But alas, only one year was made and only 1113 bottles. They were mostly served at an autumn Sagra in Colfiorito for the special red potato named after the area, which makes the most wonderful base for the local gnocchi. The wine disappeared into memory, along with the best gnocchi I had ever had. The wine? Sangrapulciano.

Two wines, Navicella and Passeggiata, were “good soul” efforts to make right the promise to reach the moon before the end of the decade. In the Italian’s efforts, though, it managed to arrive about 30 years later. End of decade, end of century, end of millennium, hey it’s only time, no?

Navicella was the wine intended for the first course, something from the aquaculture tanks. Passeggiata was created for the second stage, more experimental than the first wine. It was a sci-fi way of twinning tradition (Navicella) with innovation (Passeggiata) and for those who experienced the wine, I've been told it was a magical. Again, this was eight years ago when the Italians were embracing the next big thing. Now we are earthbound again, arguing this time over tradition vs. innovation. There are a few of these wines available on the auction circuits. A large enological school in Northeastern Italy was in incubating site for these wines. The Lega Nord, and a then unknown party operative, put an end to it. That little known operative would someday, in the future, join with Berlusconi and attempt to influence events in a larger and more important wine producing region, with near cataclysmic results.

Out last find caused a little flap among the retro-futurists in the room. Paraspruzzi was proposed to bridge the workers in the fields, those who tromp through the primal slime in their waders, with the elevated shapers of fashion. Originally the marketers wanted to call it “Chiaccerone”. Another on the board wanted to name it “Lo Scroccone”. But it was felt that normal wine lovers wouldn’t know how to pronounce it. Not that Paraspruzzi is that easy, but it sounded like the celebrity photographers who were known to frequent all the “in” places looking for those same nine beautiful people to snap up.

This was actually one of the most successful of the wines; it had a run of three vintages. Later as it was being packaged to sell to one of the large Euro-spirit-lux corporations, there were a string of lawsuits. As it turned out, everyone spent more on lawyers than the plan could ever return in ten years, so the project was jettisoned. A real shame, because the wine had a bona fide grip on the cognoscenti of the Italian wine industry. The bloggers never found out about it, this was buried deep in Puglia under the cover of an ancient Masseria. The remaining wine fetches a pretty Euro.


There lies my time and space odyssey of 2001, following the wines of the future back to the past. Submitted for your pleasure.





Post #400

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Old Wine in Old Casks

Italian wine, winemakers and movie stars, and American politicians, make for strange bedfellows indeed

Once upon a time, Italian wine importers tried desperately to sell their juice to America. They went to any length to sell wine. Once such effort was to make these decorative fired clay vessels shaped like donkeys and elephants and color them up real bright and perky and then hang a little thingie around the neck with the slogans, “Vote Republican” or “Vote Democratic.” The Italians were very good about making sure every party had a mascot filled with bright and sassy red wine, usually from Emilia-Romagna. Probably a Sangiovese or some high yield red wine that could be utilized for little or no cost. The clay figures now are worth more empty as a collectable, although some of the ones in my collection still have wine in them.

The donkey is a perky, happy-go-lucky character. He makes you think he might be your best friend who would never let you down.

The elephant is a little more self-reassured, standing on his hind legs for his pleasure, not yours, and deigning not to make eye contact. But he is an elephant decorated in such a strange way, almost like those Indian Ganesha statues that they put into the Ganges every year during the Hindu festivals.

These and many other characters were brought in by an importer who made a lot of money bringing in wine from Italy, first from Emilia-Romagna, then from Tuscany. Nowadays, we wouldn’t take an importer seriously if they tried to market Italian wines in this way. But you have to remember it was barely 15 years after a devastating war. Remember 1993? That doesn’t seem like so long ago, does it? Well in 1960 that was the situation and to make matters worse, Italy wasn’t taken seriously as a wine producer of any consequence. That was the purview of France. So what do the Italians, and their American importers do? They make some silly wine casks that represent the political parties in America and schlep them over filled with some inconsequential red wine. Very cute. But not very serious. And now so very kitsch.

Which leads me into my final political/wine reflection piece. This time it covers the influence and possible separated-at-birth coincidences of some of the frontrunners with various Italian winemakers and Italian film stars. Huh? Well not quite to the letter. There is kind of a maverick twist for the last one. You’ll see, don’t scan ahead, work with me, ok?

Bruna Giacosa and Cindy McCain, what is going on here? Is it deer in the headlights or maybe a little too much time under the sunlamp? I’m sure both of these women are loved by someone, if not just by their parents, both whom are alcohol industry giants in their own way. One in the beer business and the other in the Barolo business. These girls know their way around a curling iron and a blow dryer. The only question remaining: Do you go for “Drinkability” or “Age-ability?”

Joe Biden and Bruno Giacosa – both proud fathers. Joe, of course had to go it alone, with a little help from his remaining family. Bruno went about carving a neat little niche with his stable of mighty fine reds. Bruno has a daughter who is succeeding him in running the business. Joe has a son in politics, so there is a possibility of dueling dynasties. But aside from the vague resemblance and the serious demeanor, what else do these guys have in common? I’m not sure Joe has ever Jonesed for a Dolcetto. And I rather doubt Bruno craves commuting on Amtrak. So these gents are as polarized as most of the people in this country are from each other. The only remaining question is: Do you prefer single vineyard wines from Piedmont or a single payer health care system?

Sophia Loren and Eleanora Brown and Michelle Obama and Jill Biden – We’re doing a Two Women riff with this one. And while Michelle and Jill are not at all in the same predicament as Sophia (Cesira) and Eleanora (Rosetta), all the woman represent overcoming some kind of tragedy and rising above their circumstances to become more than they started out as. I know this seems like a bit of a stretch. The only remaining question is: How do you want your pizza, Margherita or Deep Dish?

Marcello Mastroianni and Barack Obama. I doubt if they really have anything in common other than liking cigarettes and posing in a pensive manner with their hands on their heads. Mastroianni had a nickname, Snaporaz, and Obama’s nickname is Barry. I prefer Snaporaz.

What else? Best Reaganesque advice Snaporaz can give to Barry: “I don't understand why these Americans have to suffer so much to identify with their characters. Me, I just get up there and act. It's great fun. There's no suffering in it.” What Barry learned from Snaporaz? “It's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you will realize your true potential.” The only remaining question is: Red wine with chili or white wine with linguine con vongole?

And finally, the pièce de résistance.


Don Corleone: Why did you go to the police? Why didn't you come to me first?
McCain: What do you want of me? Tell me anything, but do what I beg you to do.
Don Corleone: What is that?
[McCain gets up and whispers in the Don's ear]
Don Corleone: That I cannot do.
McCain: I'll give you anything you ask.
Don Corleone: We've known each other for many years but this is the first time you've ever come to me for counsel or for help. I can't remember the last time you invited me to your house for a cup of coffee, even though my wife is Godmother to your only child. But, let's be frank here. You never wanted my friendship and you were afraid to be in my debt.
McCain: I didn't want to get into trouble.
Don Corleone: I understand. You found paradise in America. You had a good trade, made a good living, the police protected you and there were courts of law and you didn't need a friend like me. But, now you come to me and you say "Don Corleone, give me justice." But you don't ask with respect. You don't offer friendship. You don't even think to call me Godfather. Instead, you come into my home on the day my daughter's to be married and you ask me to fix an election.
McCain: I ask you for justice.
Don Corleone: That is not justice, your race to Washington is still alive.
McCain: Let them suffer then. As we suffer. How much shall I pay you?
Don Corleone: McCain. McCain. What have I ever done to make you to treat me so disrespectfully? If you had come to me in friendship then this scum that ruined your election chances would be suffering this very day. And if by chance an honest man like yourself should make enemies then they would become my enemies. And then, they would fear you.
McCain: Be my friend... Godfather.
[kisses Don Corleone's ring]
Don Corleone: Good. Someday, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me. But, until that day, accept this justice as a gift on my daughter's wedding day.
McCain: Grazie, Godfather.



Q : Guns? or Cannoli's? Buonasera. Buonasera.



Friday, October 31, 2008

O Soave Fanciulla

I’ve been passing an evening thinking about the Italian man and his obsession with women. Older men with younger women, younger men with older women, young men with young women, mature men with mature women. You name the combination; there are scores of Italian men this very moment obsessing on a woman somewhere.

One of the attractions is the sheer pleasure of thinking about this subject. Whenever I talk to my fellow friends, it seems that whatever the age, and whatever their marital status, the conversation eventually heads into woman territory. Maybe the Italians are oversexed or just easily aroused, what does it matter? It just is.

When venturing along the wine trail in Italy, sooner or later, wine runs into women. And vice versa. After all, wine is romantic. Wine is a catalyst for love. Or a lubricant for lust. Maybe that is why wine is so doggone indispensable.

Look at a young couple as they are falling in love. What do they do? They linger over a bottle of wine, or two. Lubricant or catalyst, wine has a place in the course of romance.

What are some of the wines we men see as more effective than hormones? Which are the corks to pop that lead beyond the barrel room to the boudoir? After a scientific polling of a handful of male friends (the committee), here are a few wines that have been very successful in their pursuit of amorous adventures. Mind you, this is research and as such has been carefully compiled and recorded for posterity.

The first step is bubbly. Be it Champagne or Franciacorta, Prosecco or Cava, nothing succeeds faster than bubbles. Our committee has chosen a rosé Franciacorta for the sparkling representative. And while Champagne is ultimately a very classy choice, Franciacorta suggests subtlety and the slow dance to the “chambre”.

Rosé for the light onion skin color, similar to the object of one of the groups’ fascination. Dim lighting, soft music, little or no food (keep the senses alert) and moving the object of affection closer to the web. Not yet time for Rossini, patience. Just a little light chamber music, maybe a twelve string guitar with slow, calm melodies. And let the wine fill the emptiness and prepare the way.

For the second act, my consulting group suggested we move towards red wine, higher in alcohol and a little headier stuff. The dew is off the lily, the excitement of newness is behind us now. And while we must still act like we are interested in romance, are we not men? We want one thing. Always. One way or another. Or so the women always tell us. Embrace the archetype, is the counsel of the committee. And nothing embraces the archetype better than a bottle of Chianti. We’re in stage two, not time to bring out the big guns, the Aglianicos and the Amarones. Just a little classico, sans fiasco.

Act three, we wander into la donna è mobile country. Time for power, richness, whelm and overwhelm. Long arias, lengthy and more time-consuming. So we will be needing something from Piemonte. A blend of Nebbiolo and Barbera or possibly even some of the dreaded Cabernet. Coppo in Piemonte makes a red wine called Alter Ego, a Cabernet/Barbera red which is plush and concentrated. More than a sipping wine, so have some food for the poor dear, don’t starve her. Don’t worry; there will be plenty of time for Brachetto and dessert, after midnight. Just let Verdi work his magic along with Coppo’s concoction.

Too late for an overture, but maybe time for a sorbetto. Freshen things up a bit. Spruce up the place. Nothing too sweet, maybe slightly bitter, something that will move into the romantic realm, but not too blatant. Time for a white wine? I would go with a Fiano with a little age on it, that way you could be a little philosophical while you are spinning your web around your little drosophila. And with something like a Fiano, or even a higher level Soave, there will be ample alcohol to divert the object of your attention from the main objective. All the while the parties are experiencing a wonderful wine and so if the finale doesn’t result in what you had planned, all is not lost. But most likely you will succeed. And still not veer too far off the wine trail in Italy.

Sometimes it just seems that it will never lead to what you have been desiring, like going to see La Bohème and arriving to the opera on the night they were staging Gilbert and Sullivan. But if you should persevere and be patient, then you will be rewarded. Life, love and loss, all part of the cuvee of a grand wine. For this act, we thought it could only be staged with a sultry Amarone. And not a small player but something that makes a statement, like a Viviani or a Le Ragose, Cavalchina or if possible, a Dal Forno. One in the group thought a night with a bottle of Amarone could persuade even the most bitter and cold-hearted woman. Not that any in that group would ever attempt to scale a peak in the depths of the Underworld. Call it overkill to overshoot the mark and reach the goal. Sound cynical? Cold? Calculating? Were not talking vodka martinis, that would be cold and calculating. No, Amarone is powerfully persuasive but classically romantic.

Wild passionate one night stand? Bizet’s Carmen and a powerful and volatile Sicilian red, what else? Something like the Lamuri from Tasca or the Cadetto from La Lumia. This is wine to drink in a moment of passion before the sun rises, and to be gone before she awakens. Brandishing swords and swashbuckling and a climactic though far too soon lowering of the curtains.

Next, mixing it up. Some in our group had variations on a theme in mind, so to propitiate them we team-worked the wine for that occasion. Sexy but not vulgar. One of us really wanted to propose a southern dessert wine, a passito. Another suggested keeping it a little lighter, maybe a moscato d’asti. But neither of those ideas really clicked. And then one of the geniuses in this brain trust hit upon the idea of a little known white wine from Lazio. Coenobium, a blend of Verdicchio, Grechetto and Trebbiano, organically farmed and made into wine by Cistercian nuns. Sexy? Oh yes, this is a white wine masquerading as a red wine of little color, a pigmentless wine with plenty of stroke. Did I really say that? And while there is the monastic craft of the wine, there is a communal pleasure that the wine delivers. Nuff said? Now I’m really going to hell.

Where is Puccini when you really need him? Waiting in the wings, for the finale with that sweet little bottle of wine? But this is no time for Moscato or just any passito. This might be the last time, so why not take down a bottle of the stuff legends are made of? I will need to go back to one of my posts and plagiarize myself (and Coleridge).
“Sagrantino passito from Antonelli San Marco in Montefalco. It is one of the primal wines of central Italy."

"Lights down, music to a low chant, with only the heat from the candles. Once inside, the wine turned my palate towards the pagan. We had landed in Xanadu: the sacred river, the pleasure dome, the caverns measureless to man and the sunless sea. The milk of Paradise. "

"What to do with such a wine? if a dessert is needed, go to your local church and pilfer some of the communion hosts, pre-sanctified. Dip them in a wild honey and dust them with cinnamon. If you must have the Body to go with the Blood.”

All the while Verdi’s Nabucco plays into the morning towards its meeting of destiny with the rising sun.



Romance is so exhausting – Nessun Dorma – Bona Notte


Wednesday, October 29, 2008

My Hedge Fund

Back in the 1980’s and 90’s I invested in a personal hedge fund. At the time there wasn’t any overriding strategy other than perhaps a hedonistic one. I started out with little investments here and there, and one thing led to another. A little trading, some long-term holdings, some quick-turn-around buys. All this over a period of the past 20 years.

In these days the market is in the tank, up and down like a yo-yo, heavily driven by an emotionalism I find too volatile to deal with. But along the way I have been lucky enough to dodge the important bullets and my hedge fund has grown. Now, what should I do about it?

Several cases of La Chapelle Hermitage from Paul Jaboulet, from 1985 and 1989. These have been the house wine for the past 15 or so Christmas dinners. Initial cost was about $20 a bottle. Current appx. street value $150-300 a bottle. But if I sold the remaining cases, how could I tell how an Hermitage will taste at 50 years of age? After all that was the reason, to buy a wine that everyone told me would age for 50 years. I have 30 years to go, which is just about how long I expect to last as well. Position:Hold and Drink

A magnum of the 1960 Vega Sicilia Unico Artist Series, bought a very long time ago for about $100. About now this bottle is going for appx. $1600-2500. I’ll probably keep it and open it when it is 50 years old, which is in two years. It’d also be great for anyone who was born or married in that year. Maybe there is a hedge fund manager who is swimming in dough and was born in 1960? I’m not married to the Vega Sicilia, but seeing as it represents an amount that I would never spend on a bottle of wine, maybe I’ll just open the damn thing for the hell of it. Position:Hold or Sell.

Chateau Mouton-Rothschild. I bought many different years of this wine because I liked to collect the labels, from 1982 to 1990. Now these wines represent a lot of capital, but none of which I really tied up. I think the most I paid for a bottle ( the 1990) was $50. And while I cannot sell them all and buy a Porsche Speedster, it really wouldn’t matter. I don’t want a Porsche Speedster again. I do like the Francis Bacon label, though. It reminds me of the time I did a tasting in Bordeaux at a famous negociant. They showed us a wall of first growths and told us how many millions of dollars it was worth. They neglected to say the triptych of Bacon’s that they had in the hallway leading to the wine vaults was worth about $50 million. Position:Hold for Now.

I’ve had my flirtations with Super Tuscans over the years. There still is a good stash of Sassicaia from 1979 to 1990 in my portfolio. The most I ever paid for a bottle was about $70.00. I remember actually selling the 1968 for about $28 to my clients. I had found a cache of the first bottling in a cellar in Florence in the early 1980’s. It wasn’t an easy sell. So I tended to keep the early wines, drinking a few here and there. I’m not as interested in Sassicaia these days (when they go for about $200), but the older ones still have a sense of place and lack of manipulation. Position:Hold or Drink.

I also dabbled with a little Solaia, the 1997. I am not sure if Doc Micro-Ox or if Miss Perverse Osmosis infected this wine. I traded it for 3 bottles of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Riserva. Now it has a street value of about $400.Position: Sell.

A few years ago I traded a bottle of Mouton, a bottle of Sassicaia and a bottle of Tignanello for a Hasty-Bake wood barbeque grill. Now that was one of my better trades.

Back in the early 1990’s I walked into a river-bottom liquor store and they had 1988 Bruno Giacosa Barbaresco for $14.99. I bought all they had (and got a 10% discount). Today that wine is easily worth $150. So delicious and now just about ready. Position: Drink what is left. With pleasure.

Lastly, I bought a bunch of Port, thinking 1990-1994 would be good wines to drink when they are 20 years old. The oldest of that bunch are starting to get close. I am particularly fond of Quinta Vesuvio for several reasons. It was one of the quintas farthest up the Douro. I had probably the best bacala I have ever had, there. And during crush one year we pressed the grapes, by our feet, in the ancient lagars. Truly a transcendental experience. We're talking Old-World, Old-School stuff here. Not some snotty California wine-camp-crush stuff. The real deal. So I love my Port and my hedge fund portfolio is weighted well in these long term holdings. Position: Hold.

There’s a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth in these days. It seems a lot of people are poorer on paper than they were a month ago. But really how poor are you, if your closet if filled with all these long-term high-return wines? I have been visiting my wine closet a bit more lately, if for no reason other than to reassure myself that even though I will need to work quite a few years more, there will be a continuous supply of great wine, bought at low prices, available for those lean years ahead.

"Dale a tu cuerpo alegría, Ma'dalena, que tu cuerpo e' pa' darle alegría y cosa' buena'"




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