The Mark of Zaia

It has been one busy year for Luca Zaia’s Italy. From his power chair on the deck of the Italian Titanic, he has attempted to banish pineapples and kebabs, sell kiwi’s (who knew they were indigenous to Italy?) back to China from whence they came. He defended the Crucifix, Mozzarella di bufala and Sangiovese. He elevated Prosecco to the heights of Barolo and the once mighty Brunello. He was into everything, even collateralizing bank loans with wine. You name the cause and it seemed Luca Zaia was there to defend the proto-Italian position.

He finally, single-handedly, anointed Amarone, the darling red from his beloved Veneto. I am surprised he didn’t move the minister of agriculture offices to Padova, so he could be closer to his dearly loved Veneto. But it seems that will change soon. Luca Zaia is running for President. Not of the world, not of Italy. But president of the region of the Veneto. Does Luca Zaia have his sights set on a higher role in the destiny of Italy’s future in the 21st century?

And why, you ask, is this of interest to Italian wine lovers? Well, dear listeners, there are a myriad of reasons. Luca said this last summer, “Italian vineyards are under attack.” The political is always involved in the doings of food and wine in Italy. And politicians can be a help or a hindrance to those who toil in the fields. Luca Zaia has been an enormous advocate for his Veneto homeland.

But if he becomes president of the Veneto region (and there are those who say he is a shoo-in for the post) will his Lega Nord secessionist leanings unite the wine world? Or will things become even more fragmented? Will the Veneto morph into a San Marino or an East Timor? Will we find easier parking near the Fiera in Verona or hotels we can walk to from the endless pavilions? Dare we dream a dream so large?

Viewing the movie, Gomorra, I can understand why a productive, ambitious Italian from the North might want to put a little distance between him/herself and the tentacled dealings of the South. Both my grandparents walked away from the region, in fact, the country, 100 years ago. My kind can never go back. I got sick to my stomach looking at that film, even though one can point to a series like “The Wire” or even “Weeds” and ask why America would be the preferred zone for setting up a life. We all have our blinders. But this is about Luca Zaia, so we must get back on our high horse and contemplate the New Italy.

“Solo chi conosce bene la propria identità può costruire un ponte.” (Only he who knows their own identity can build a bridge.) -Luca Zaia

Will the new Italy banish tomatoes? They came from the New World. And chocolate? And potatoes? What about gnocchi? And corn? What will the polenta eaters do? How about Cabernet Sauvignon? Or Primitivo? Are they now indigenous, really? Or eggplant, brought to Sicily by the followers of Mohammed? Or rice, brought by traders through Venice from Asia? What will the Italians eat? Or drink?

Luca Zaia, you will have some explaining to do if you achieve your next ambition, which might be a stepping stone to your ultimate goal? What will you disassemble in the world of food and wine to advance your cause? And what is your cause, really? Are you some kind of Manchurian candidate from the Veneto and the Lega Nord, hell bent on taking apart this young unified country we know as Italy? Do you aim to be Savior? Or Sultan?

Is this good for Italy and the food and wine business? Is having a Prosecco Godfather such a bad thing? After all so many things from Italy have been stolen and now they come from other places, like Parmigiano, Prosecco and Pomodoro di Pachino. The nerve to take tomatoes from their ancestral home in Sicily to grow them in China? That would be like taking the Kiwi’s away from the Marche, an abomination.

From a younger country (albeit an older democracy) looking towards you from the shores of America, it appears you want to perform some kind of surgery to the body of Italy. Anyone who studies the culture and the language and the food of Italy, know that Italy is far from “unified”. But tread carefully, lest you take her back to a new renaissance of darkness in your desire to have your prowess magnified.

In reality there are places where things have their origins. Yes, tomatoes, potatoes, even pasta didn’t originate in Italy. But Italy did their best to make the experience of eating those foods something uniquely Italian. And yes I do not like to see wine producers ripping off the popularity of Prosecco by bringing it out from places like Australia. But what is the real motivation for Supernova Zaia? What is behind the mask?

“Let them eat Panettone.” might be the apothegm, as long as you freely pour Prosecco to your legions of admirers (soon to be sans polenta?). Will you wage a larger Holy War to make sure there will be no citron or rum in any of the cakes in the land? Denounce the infidel eggplant and the pagan potato to your legions of followers as you march from Pordenone to Predappio in search of a purer and nobler expression of Italianism? Search for a new name, as the word Italy has no root in the land, it is merely a word invented by the Greeks during their hostile takeover of the Southern lands, those same lands that some wish to someday break away from? Will you break clean and soon? And retire to your eagles nest in contemplation of a new order in which your vision will someday be a reality?

I will leave you dear listeners, and Zaia, with this last thought. If you truly want your destiny to rise up listen to the words of Don Alejandro, advising his son Don Diego on his future:

"Get life into you! I would you had half the courage and spirit this Señor Zorro, this highwayman, has! He has principles and he fights for them. He aids the helpless and avenges the oppressed. I salute him! I would rather have you, my son, in his place, running the risk of death or imprisonment, than to have you a lifeless dreamer of dreams that amount to nought!"

Give it a stab, Zaia - make your mark!

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

The Bottle Handler, the Broker & the Bureaucrat

There are few characters in the Italian wine business that merit this trilogism. Sure enough there will be those folks who think this is about someone they know or even themselves. I will only say this, one more time, it isn’t always about you. For sure, this time it isn’t. It is about someone, but please dear listeners, all in due time. All in due time.

Over the course of my lifetime on the wine trail I have noted certain archetypes in the business. For today’s journey we are uncovering three of them, the bottle handler, the broker and the bureaucrat. Their stories are interwoven in time and happenstance.


The Bottle Handler
When he was young, the bottle handler fancied himself quite the sommelier. He would put on his brown suit and tie and take the elevator up to the top floor of the lofty dining room, filled with the most exotic bottles and people. He saw this little place as his own personal theatre in the round, where he would dazzle the dining masses. Rare wines from France and Italy, and massive wines from the West Coast, all were colors in his palate of flavors and amazement. A couple orders steak and sole; no problem, there would be a match. A party of four orders shrimp, prime rib, chicken and pasta; easily solved. A party of sixteen was ordering everything under the sun but wanted a wine to go with it; can do. And for a time the bottle handler reveled in his power and his prowess. And then he grew tired of the heights he had achieved and sought a more down to earth place in which he could ply his trade. He was after all, an artiste and his talent was being wasted on the tourists that flocked to the top of the little tower that rotated. He wanted “the” dining room that “the” players were dining in.

And so he found such a place. Rare Venetian glass and soft muted light. Plush carpeting and gueridons for classic table side presentation. Rolling carts with decanters and candles and all the accoutrements of the art of wine service. He had arrived. Bin after bin of ancient vintages; 1st growth Bordeaux, famous Barolos, Hocks and Mosels, Grand Cru Burgundies and vintage Port. He was in sommelier Paradise.

And then as it often happens in Paradise, he grew tired. Tired of Pommard and Pouilly Fuisse and Piesporter. Tired of Barolo and Burgundy and Brunello. And tired of the people who came in looking for the new California reds, as young and vigorous as their escorts. But serving the Old Money was wearing. And so the bottle handler cast himself out of Paradise.

The Broker
Our next phase of the story takes us to an intermediary archetype, the broker. Really a merchant without a shop or inventory, the broker works for a supplier of product and is a factor between a producer and a storefront. Often a broker is seen as a idle person who leeches of the work of others, dawdling away countless hours over three hour lunches and innumerable bottles of wine. A percentage of everything that goes through the broker is kept and in return there is the promise that the broker will build the business and bring satisfaction to both sides that are separated by the broker. Our broker was fairly motivated. His beat was Italy and he lived in Italy in his mind. But his battle ground was the under developed American market. The broker had a chip on his shoulder. He thought he knew wine about as good as anyone could. He lived in a fishbowl of his own making. Whenever he would venture out into America he felt the untapped potential of the American wine market tangoing with his unflappable aptitude of domination. He had a very good opinion of himself. As a self-appointed show horse of the wine business he snorted and bucked to show his competitors that he was a leading man.

But he was troubled. He didn’t really believe it when he was away from the limelight. He had doubts. He wasn’t quite sure all the people liked him. His wines didn’t always get good reviews, if they even got reviewed. He lost sight of their provenance and began to lose confidence.

It took many nights on the road, talking to many different kinds of people. It took trip after trip to Italy. To France. To California. To New York. And then a light went off in his head. These wines were ahead of their time. They weren’t reviewable because they weren’t yet fashionable or desirable in a way that someday they might become. And so the broker opened the gate and walked out of his garden, in search of that day in the future.

The Bureaucrat
Our final segment of this triptych revolves around the model of the bureaucrat, the pen pusher, the strategist, the corporate man. The lifer. This one is the most frightening, because there is little room for idealism. Time is limited. Pragmatism directed at self-serving survival rules the roost on this vessel. It isn’t always about the best for the most. This is where the challenge to one’s integrity is most subtly tested. Daily. Minutely. Our man here wrestles between personal comfort and the faint promise of a legacy. But who cares? The up and coming young generation knows nothing of history, cares not about the stories. “Get out of the way old man,” is the mantra. And don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Is there a way to mend the tired and broken bureaucrat? Can an old dog be taught new tricks? Possibly, if the bureaucrat hasn’t bought in too deeply of his own persuasive argument. The one he gives to everyone around him to convince them of his infallible ways.

This is where the mirror of reflection, if it isn’t too tarnished, can come in handy. That, and a willing heart that hasn’t forgotten one’s inner child. And if that doesn’t work, there are examples that might jolt one out of stasis and complacency. Not to mention to remember the young thundering herd at one’s back, advancing, rapidly, daily.

Yes, the bureaucrat must battle hubris, developed by becoming proficient in his field. But the future is a moving target and the times are relentless about spitting out obsolete overseers. Crops are rotated, fashions change. Early adaptors evolve. Or so we would like to think. Or to hope for.

These three pieces of the wine trade are necessary. But they must run efficiently or perish. Such is the law of the competitive jungle. I have studied these three characters my whole career from near and from far. I have had a macro and a micro view of them. I think I know then well, as I have been in such close proximity to all of them over the years. But for all I know I might have been too close to really know them. In any event, we are all here, now, at this juncture. The wine business is shaking and moving and changing like the earth above a fault line as it quakes. There is danger and excitement and uncertainty. And these three stagemen have arrived at this confluence together. No kiss and tell this time, except from that solitary someone who shrouds this trio of players on the stage recognized by him as the unwavering wine trail in Italy.

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

The Epiphany before Christmas

Or, It's going to take more than a traffic cone to sort this mess out

Last night we opened up a bunch of wine. Some of it good, some that had seen better days. Some wines aged well, some didn’t. I’m sure somewhere else this will be talked about, so you can go there and read all about that.

What got me to thinking, though, was this current mess in Italian wine. People, usually in Italy, just can’t help but screw up in what seems to be a more than occasional thing. I go back to the mid 1980’s and remember just how devastated me and my colleagues were when we had to help rebuild the image of Italian wines after the scandals in Emilia-Romagna and Piedmont. It took years to get folks over that. And it really wasn’t until Morley Safer came out on 60 minutes with his French Paradox that folks came back to Italian wine (and all wine) in droves. That was in the beginning of the 1990’s. We were also embarking on the 1st War in the Desert and people drink more during wartime.

So we get through a war, and things start rolling along quite nicely in the wine world. Prices rise; people are making a lot of money. People who make a lot of money start investing in wineries, in France, in California, in Italy. And prices rise. Barolos for $200 start popping up. Amarones for $100 seem normal. And Brunellos for $150 aren’t all that uncommon. Farmers, with dirt still under their nails, start flashing gold jewelry on those earth-crusted hands. It was all part of the new trafficking of the Italian wine as a luxury item. And then (and not the first time this happened) someone got the idea that people in America (and elsewhere) were stupid and wouldn’t know the difference if the wine became a little darker, a little deeper, a little stronger. Wine writers started praising the wines. Scores rose with the prices, even as towers fell in America. It had the aura of an unreal scenario being played out.

Maybe America was distracted with their 2nd War in the Desert and Beyond. Maybe the political shift caused folks to look away. And while this was happening, the marketers and con-men of Italy were out hawking their fake Rolex watches and fake Tuscan wines. It was like the first time I took a boat from Naples to Palermo and all these little kids came up to me trying to sell me all kinds of fake useless crap. Well, those kids grew up and it seems some of them went into the wine business in Tuscany.

I’ve had this feeling in the wine business, that as goes Bordeaux, so goes Tuscany. They have parallels in their history. The wines, the wealth, the marketing. Well, Bordeaux is in the crapper right now and it is going to take one hell of a miracle (or tsunami) to rehabilitate its image. History is on their side, they’ve done it before. Even when they have a scandal they find a way to make it go away. But the Italians, they're another story. They love to roll around in the stuff, get it under their nails, and shove it under everyone else’s nose too. This time I think they might have gone too far.

Some years ago I was sitting at a dinner table near Lake Garda enjoying a meal of roasted meats with a group of winemakers from Abruzzo. It was the time of Vinitaly and everyone was glad to be sitting down and getting off their feet. As the night progressed, some of the winemakers started ordering bottles of local wine. The first round of wine, from Quintarelli, these guys examined it, liked it OK, but thought it was light for their tastes. I thought it was a good example of what Valpolicella should be. Light, but correct. Then they ordered another wine, a Ripasso, known for being stronger. And we set about to drinking it. After a while, one of the winemakers at the end was beaming. I looked over at this normally really quiet guy and asked a friend of mine why he looked that way. My friend said, “He is looking that way because that bottle of Ripasso we are drinking from Valpolicella has so much of his wine in it, it is like we are drinking his Montepulciano. It makes him feel at home.” So here we were drinking “Valpolicella Ripasso” and the winemakers liked it better than the earlier Valpolicella we were drinking (from Quintarelli) because it tasted more like they were used to.

Back to the future-now. So the fault lies not with Tuscany, but with the changing tastes of the Americans? I call that B.S. and find that kind of rational to be the worst kind of traffic cone porn I have ever heard from Italian bureaucrats. You guys are losing me. And while I may be a small stone dropped in the middle of a large sea, I am angry. I am pissed. I have spent my whole adult life working in the hinterlands of America, in flyover country, where it is not easy to find converts to these wines in the first place. But I have been in the army and have gone about my business, day in day out like a good soldier. I didn’t take a month vacation this year; in fact I am leaving two weeks of vacation on the table to be lost on Dec 31st. Why? Because this has been a tough year and I felt I should stay on the home front and work. So we did. On Saturdays. Sometimes on Sundays. Trying to keep the fires burning bright for the winemakers back in Italy. And then unscrupulous hooligans go and pull this crap again in Italy? Wasn’t the Brunello scandal enough of a wakeup call? Haven’t you all hurt the image of Italian wine enough? Are you folks in Italy in the wine business not angry enough about having to rebuild your trade? Or are you just thinking about the two weeks you will be taking off for Christmas, New Years and the Epiphany?

I am admonishing you in Italy and specifically in Tuscany. You all better start having your epiphany now and get your act together. Argentina is clamoring for your business, Australia will take away your boxes and France will come for your money, too. Luca Zaia (maybe you should put down that glass of Prosecco and postpone your victorious brindisi), the administrators of the Chianti Classico consortium, the Brunello consortium, wine producers, grape brokers, journalists writing about these wines and influential groups such as the Unione Italiana Vini - someone needs to do something more than just putting traffic cones around Castellina. Or you will lose in America. Big Time.

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

On a Hot Streak During a Cold Snap

I must be crazy.

Wednesday morning I awoke to sub-freezing temperatures. My Hoja Santa long past giving up the ghost, I set out to check on my arugula and radicchio plantation. The radicchio had relocated to one of Dante’s hells but the arugula was fighting to stay alive. I covered it and under the cover of a late autumn fog I headed off to catch a plane to Houston.

The night before I had gotten a call from a colleague who had informed me that I had gotten removed as moderator to panelist on a blogger/social network round table that the Italian Trade Commission was doing in NY in Feb. “They bumped you for someone who had more name recognition – Andy Blue.”

I am in the habit of understanding that Italian government employees work in a separate reality, so while I was disappointed I wasn’t surprised. After a round of emails to other folks on the panel and in the bloggy-blog world, I realized there was an opportunity to be on the panel rather than to moderate it..

Last year at the Italian extravaganza in NY, what did they call it - Vino 2009 - where there were all kinds of seminars and dinners and awards and tastings and everyone left NY feeling all warm and fuzzy? Well they will do it again next year in Feb, Vino 2010. And I will trek from La Jolla to Dallas to New York to show up and be a good soldier for the cause of Italian wine and the bloggy-blog world.

Thinking that the social network can hold up just fine without me for a day or two, I ventured into the wine jungle that is Houston. 30 degrees warmer than Dallas, which was a welcome change. But hopefully I would be able to embrace the deeper side of things Italian, especially during this moment when all things sharp turn smooth and all things bitter turn sweet.

A warm porchetta at Giacomo's and the welcome embrace of Lynette with a bottle of Trebbiano was a good start. Beets, cauliflower and a little taste of insalata di mare misto sent my altered regimen of eating into the stratosphere, if just for a day. But here, as I have written before, is a place that gets the sensibilities of things Italian. Thankfully the Houston restaurant reviewer, Alison Cook, totally gets it. Great review, lots of business. Read here.

We slipped over to another friend’s place, this one a bit more of a challenge because the next generation is taking the reins of the business, slowly. Still, this has been a field we have steadily plowed over the years. Houston is just too young of an urban blot to make a deep enough impression on the Italian experience in America, even though the Sicilian heritage is long and deep.

Running over to Tony’s to taste with Jon and his colleague; Rosenthal wine rep was there with a full bevy of great French and Italian wines. The Piedmont wines from De Forville and Brovia were showing gorgeously. Also opened were a Nero d Avila from Las Lumia which was stinky and wild and wonderful and a Primitivo from Pichierri that was equally savage in its unbridled refusal to surrender to the Rollandization of wine. Very happy to taste these wines with the Rosenthal examples. All these years showing these wines to somms and wine stores and not having anything to go on but my story and a hope that folks would connect with these authentic examples of individualism in Italian winemaking. Very happy.

Later in the day the very same colleague who had to break the news that I had been bumped in favor of Andy Blue called again. “You’re Calabrese aren’t you?” I didn’t know if I was in trouble for something, but I said, “Well, yes, my mother’s family came from there.” My friend then asked me to moderate a panel on Calabria wines.”The Italian Trade Commission felt bad about the way they disregarded you and they wanted to ask you if you would help out with the Calabrese panel.” Being a good soldier, I said sure. Look, my life is pretty good; all things are working out just fine. I always remember the energy of this whole thing revolves around the wine gods and sometimes you gotta serve somebody.

And that, dear listeners, is 24 hours in the life of an Italian wine guy, on the wine trail, this time in Houston during a cold snap. Mmm, gotta find me an amaro before I call it a day.

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

Sombudsman, Wine Cougars & Straddle Baggers

The O-N-D Chronicles


Sombudsman
I got an email from my buddy, the Big Guy, early Saturday morning. “Enjoyed our lunch together. I’ve been thinking about the Blue Sky.” I had no recollection of what he was talking about, regarding the blue sky, so I called him. He reminded me of the late 20th century fondness by wine buyers, for having so many wines available. Bernie Madoff & Co put the kibosh on that. Large distribs were looking at their bottom line, trying not to lay off drivers, salespeople, admins. Small distribs were just trying to make payroll. Occasionally some of the great stuff would stick, but the brand names were struggling to stay on the shelves, on the wine lists. Robert Mondavi wines were no longer found in prominence. Meanwhile the young somms, working their way up out of the primal slime to some high and dry land where they wouldn’t get tugged back into the undertow, they were trying out their lines.

“You were a little tough on John,” B.G. admonished me. John's a somm who wanted to order some wine. I was all "just the facts ma'am" that day. B.G.’s been a friend going on 30 years now, ever since he pawned those five cases of Rafanelli Gamay off on me when I was a struggling wine bar manager. He had risen in the ranks, the hard way, and had managed to distinguish himself in the wine world. So I reckon he deserved my ear. Plus he had sprung for lunch. “At least you could have thanked him for ordering some wine. But you chumped him off; spit him out faster than a bad Pinot with mercaptan. When are you gonna play nice?” He'd made me feel bad, but that was a good thing. There are very few people who really can talk to me like that and do it with love. That, and I get to call him on his B.S. when he gets uppity. So it got me to thinking. What the wine world needs now is a Sombudsman – someone who can bridge the gap between the real word of economics, finance, supply and demand and the world of the Blue Sky sommeliers. We need both worlds – just gotta find a way to intermesh ‘em. B.G. is a likely candidate – an experimental rolling laboratory to get the needs of the present linked to the dreams of the future. I know this is probably getting a little too esoteric for most folks, plus I’m a little wordy these days, so I will leave it at this and plant the seed. I will be back. Later. For more.



Wine Cougars
Later that day I walked into my favorite Italian wine and food store in the world. I was jonesing for some eggplant. My latest diet was gotten me jazzed about vegetables and I love eggplant. My oldest dish, the one I’d “wine and dine” ‘em with in college, was this ancient recipe that my grandmas, my mom and my aunts taught me. It is my ultimate comfort food. But I was looking to do a few modifications of it, see if I could tweak it a little. Sausage Paul’s older brother, Johnny Cash-not-credit, always had a line of good produce.

It was Saturday and the store was buzzing from the cheesey-meetball-umami vibes from the sandwich counter. People were splayed all over the tables in food comas. Wine bottles were open, the espresso machine was cranking out an aria and all was well in my favorite Italian wine and food store in the world. Along the aisles, near Abruzzo a woman in endangered boots was looking for Montepulciano. Innocently I asked if I could help her. “I just got back from Rome, and we had this fabulous Montepulciano. It started with an “M”. Yes it does.

I could tell she wasn’t about to be allowing me within her force-field – I was a gnat – or worse – a salesman. So I backed off a little – what we call in the trade, creating a vacuum. After all, every known Montepulciano (from Abruzzo) was sitting there on the racks- save the Villa Reale which I had just sold. So I recoiled to let her graze.

She had a vexing allure – I identified her as a probable wine cougar. She liked her wines young. But she had just come back from Italy, so she was “in the know.” And - she still had her deflector shields up. Eventually we got it out of her that she was looking for Vino Nobile (remember egg and eggplant?) so I handed her off to S.P. He’s the guru of Vino Nobile.

She strayed back into the Abruzzo vector – maybe it was the smell and the feel of the Douglas fir racks that moved her out of her “sure-zone” – It seemed she wanted something – So I bit and opened my unfiltered mouth. “Well if you really want to know something about Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, I am really well versed in those wines.” I didn’t want it to sound like a brag; I was trying to be a love cat. And having been there 20+ times I figured I had some expertise in the subject. Maybe a little.

Nah. She wasn’t buying it. She had just been to Rome. She was “in the know.” No sale.



Straddle Baggers
Joey the Weasel calls me when I am there. "Hey have you seen Flip’s wine book?” Flip was a restaurant owner who was jettisoned out as driftwood into the wine world without a job. He took one with a small wholesaler. There are a few of those guys around. They used to be wine buyers with big important positions. People were scared of them, bowed to them, acquiesced to them. They were like gods. And then the business turned or their position changed and they were out beating the street with the rest of the peddlers. But they had been to the mountain top. They were prominent. And old routines are hard to break.

“No, Joe, I haven’t seen Flip’s wine book,” I answered. “Why?” I ventured.

“Well he left it at the store three weeks ago and was looking for it.”

Well maybe it is with that stack of wine he sold them that’s been sitting there for the last two weeks, uncut and unpriced.” Ya think?

Straddle baggers – aging wine geeks who have had to reinvent themselves but for some reason they don’t think the rules apply to them. You know - pay your dues, pay your dues, and pay your dues? Maybe it’s a fire in the belly thing. Maybe it’s languor. I see one of the peddler-gals, Brandy, out there hustling. She gets it. Young, confident, feisty, not afraid to ask for the order or get in someone’s face if they are putting their wine into her slot. I like her – she’s got moxie. The other day a gent walks in and want two cases of wine and he walks out ten minutes later with four. I’m filling up boxes of stuff and Brandy gets my attention – zap – 6 bottle of Rosso di Montalcino from her slot. Now that wasn’t so hard - all she did was make the contact and ask for the order – she got it – she thanked me for it - glad to help her – wish our people could hire folks like her.

As we put the pedal to the metal to thrust our way out of O-N-D, with barely a month to go, the bulls and the bears I find sure do make for some entertaining observations, all along the wine trail in Italy and everywhere you find fermented fruit.

written, with photographs taken in front of the Börse in Frankfurt, by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

The Guile of the Private Label

A cautionary tale, jettisoned from the vacuum of commerce

Back in the early 1980’s I decided to make wine. It started out as a way to identify with the winemaker and their task. I was fortunate and made some wine that I liked to drink. The problem was I made a lot of wine.

Nothing wrong with it, but I was just getting into wine collecting and tasting on a regular basis and my education wasn’t going to be served well by drinking my daily drek.

Eventually I gave away or drank most of the wine and went back to sampling wines from all over the world. I still have a case or so of wine, some in large format bottles, to see how well they age.

A few nights ago I was talking to a friend who is looking to open a little Italian wine and gift shop. One of the first things that came out of his mouth was "Giuseppe is going to help me get my own private label together." This friend was still a friend and not yet a client so I opened my unfiltered mouth and let it fly. "Jerry, who in the hell do you think you are? You are not an Italian. You don’t live there. You are not a winemaker. You are a merchant. Why not stick to what you do best and source wine from the people who do what they do best? It isn’t just a label, man; it’s a way of life!"

I guess I scared him off a little, although I doubt I talked him out of some future folly. But it got me to thinking about private label wine from Italy and what a bizarre proposition it is.

Imagine a wine shop owner or a restaurateur sitting at their family thanksgiving table with an ever-present bottle of private label wine. Every day they schlep the stuff and because their pride is such that they have convinced themselves that they are a "wine producer" they expose themselves to their family, friends and clients, on a daily basis, with these endless bottles of wine. They cost $5 and they sell for $20, $50. They're genius in their own mind, but they have also become prisoners of their own making. They have hypnotized themselves into believing that this is the best wine and no other wine comes before it and because of silly notions like that they risk cutting themselves off from the community of winemakers all over Italy and the world. What did you say? Isn’t his wine made by winemakers somewhere in Italy too? No doubt there is a hand of man involved in the project. But it is a recipe, a formula, another product from the catalog of someone who has planned his life in terms of profit and gain. And in reality one loses out to so much the world of Italian wine, and culture in general, has to offer. All for the sake of a dollar?

To do so undermines their credibility in other areas. Where do they get their fish from? Are those really black truffles? Is the Pecorino truly from Italy?

I wish restaurants could serve the food on the table that I have had in the kitchen of the winemakers. From Puglia to Valdobbiadene, Controguerra to Suvereto, in the homes of wine makers; not only their wines, but their tables have been shining examples of the best and the brightest from Italy.

So how does it get turned around, when the Italian experience is represented in America, that we have, from single storefront restaurateurs to mega big box chains, telling us what Italian wine must be?

There is no provenance in profit, or abracadabra to artisanship. It comes from the soul, not the spreadsheet. It isn't a game, it is someone's life. And that is, dear listeners, why private labels are often a pitiable surrogate for the genuine article.

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

One Upon a Time (again) in America

One never knows what a day will bring on the wine trail. Yesterday started out with a snow flurry in the morning followed by a lunch with my wine men's group in a local restaurant. The food was good, but I managed to get in an off-kilter mood by looking at the wine list. For some reason salespeople in large companies just aren’t getting what these small account are looking for. They keep pitching the same old things and the chef who drives the restaurant is looking for more engagement from their purveyors. Passion, not program, fuels the owner-operators of these boutique restaurants in most towns.

Towards the evening, Marilisa and Maria, the angels of the local Italy American Chamber of Commerce, were expecting me and my wines at their holiday bash. I had no idea where I was going or what would await me there.

The snow had disoriented folks in this flat little town which had grown up on the high grass prairie. As I made my way through the toll way toward the center of town, I nearly passed a 23 story building that I had never noticed. The party was at the penthouse way up top.

Once up and inside, Italian antipasti and wines filled the room with warm aromas. People filtered in and the wine started flowing. Outside on the chilly patio a pizza oven was throwing off heat. I made my way outside to see what was going on.

Out there, Enrico and young Raffaele were making all kind of pizza. Margherita, Calzone and a flat bread filled with caponata, prosciutto and mozzarella, Raffaele called Pannuozzo in his Neapolitan dialect (it was very similar to something my Calabrese Grandmother and my mom made when I was a kid). Raffaele fascinated me; he was animated, filled with wonder, with the energy of a child who sees everything for the first time. I immediately took a liking to him. So we got to talking.

Twenty four years old, in America for one year. Married, starting a new life and a family. He made his way from one restaurant to another before he went to work for an educational institution. Health insurance, a possibility to pursue a college degree and a piece of the American pie. It reminded me of another southern Italian who came to Dallas 100 years ago, my grandfather.

100 years ago, Dallas was a little more wild west, and for an Italian, back then, I can barely imagine what he and my grandmother must have had to deal with. Leaving their culture behind. Family, friends, a way of life that was familiar. All for the promise of a dream called America.

My grandfather wasn’t one to pursue higher education, but he had street smarts. And Dallas forged his way into the American dream that was to take all of us off the wine trail in Italy and onto the trail of dreams we call America. And young Raffaele, up on the patio of the penthouse, tending the pizza oven, told me a little about his dream for America.

“I want the possibility of an education that will let me have a family and a life here in Dallas. When I first came here and married my American wife, someone told me my life was like the story of cosi fan tutti.”
What is it about these opera-archetypes? I remember seeing La Boheme at the Met in 2001 not even a year after my wife died and saw the parallel story between the stage and my life. And here we have this young man from near Naples who also has his opera-archetype. The patterns we recognize and bow prostrate before.

The pizza was looking done. Enrico had walked into the warm hall while Raffaele prepared more dough. I stared into the oven and thought it was getting quite done. Confession: I like burned bread, it settles my stomach. Italians from the mainland look at me as if I had just blasphemed Jesus Mary and Joseph when I say that.

We were in this building and there was this pizza oven on the patio of the top floor because one of the tenants, Renato Riccio, lived in this building. Renato has made his life and fortune building pizza ovens all across America. Funny that we had never met all these years.

I went inside for a moment; some folks needed a sip of wine.


I like to stand in front of a few bottles of wine and have people come up and try them. You never know what is going to happen. Oddly, I often get people who want to tell me what they think of the wine. It is like they feel they have to tell me what the wine is. To them. But the impression I get from them is that what they think is what is the final word on it. And it being wine, I have found out that there is no final word on a living thing. Not while it is in this ever changing state. None the less, people love to name something and set it inside their little gift boxes, compartmentalize it and move on to the next thing. I have no quarrel with it, as I know it is harmless, even if it is misdirected. It is wine. It can be a simple quaff. That is perfectly fine for it to be that way. It can be fruity, it can be light. It can even be mellow. It is only a glass of wine, not the Kyoto treaty.

A woman comes up to me and asks me about the Sicilian wine, the Nero D’Avola. “What is it like? Is it like a Cabernet?” Is anything like a Cabernet? I tell her if anything it is similar in weight to a Shiraz. A few minutes later she returns with an aging man who has done something very wrong with a hair product to his hair. “Try this syrah,” she tells him. I ask her why she is calling it a Syrah.”I want him to know what it is.” I want to stick my head inside the pizza oven. But I take a deep yoga breath and say,” It is Nero d’Avola, not Syrah. It is Italian, not French. And it is time for you to know that and accept that.” She looks at me as if I have just landed from another galaxy and just walks off.

A couple come up to me and ask for a glass of bubbly. I pour it in a regular wine glass, like it is done in Italy. “What are you doing? Why are you putting it in a wine glass?” More experts trying to train me to do it the right way. Pizza oven. Deep breath. One more time. “This is the Italian way.” I know of what I am talking about. I walk on the fiery road of the Italian wine trail every day, my whole adult life. But in this town that my grandfather plopped us down onto 100 years ago, we still have more battles to bring the truth and the light and the way of things Italian to even those who have this Italian thing in their DNA.

I thank the powers that be that they just keep sending us Raffaele’s who are fresh off the boat and haven’t been dulled and lulled by the sleep and who still have their dream and their life in front of them. Maybe we might just get it right in this town, once upon a time in the 21st century.

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

The Good Mentor: On Wine Buying

A few years ago, one of my wine mentors passed away, leaving me with a pile of wine books with notes placed inside them. Every once in a while I come upon one; they are like my continuing education from the other side. This weekend, while I was placing some of the books, finally, on my shelves, this one popped out. It looks to have been written (and mimeographed) in the late 1950’s or early 1960’s when he lived and worked in New Orleans. For what it’s worth, these suggestions still seem to have relevance in today’s wine world. Hence I am sharing them with any people who might be interested in them.

Wine Institute training sheet for wine buyers in restaurants – How to get what you want and have everybody like you.

1) Don’t overestimate and under deliver. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Consider the scale of your operation and work within the parameters. There will be plenty of time to become emperor of the wine world. Start with getting your wine list working for the times, the clientele and the economy.

2) If a salesman gives you a price sheet, and there are wines of interest on it, for God’s sake, file it and keep it handy. They don’t have time to be your personal secretary.

3) Take what you order. And take it when it comes in. Get it in your cellar as soon as you can. Those wines are your babies, take care of them. If you change jobs and the wine comes in that you made a deal for, find a way to make good with your supplier, it will pay off in spades.

4) Do you have a wine you like better than the one the salesperson is showing? Give him a bottle to try, don’t say anything; let him be the judge. He lets you evaluate his wine; why not confer that reciprocity on the salesperson? No one likes to continually hear about other wines that are better from a wine buyer or a sommelier. It gives you the reputation of a fickle wine buyer and shuts you out of special deals in the future. The salesman is only human; keep him close and you will get some of the cherries. As Dale Carnegie says, “If you want to gather honey don’t kick over the beehive.”

5) Take someone else’s word for a change, especially if they have experience or proven results that will make your business more money or more successful. The notion of ego Freud has been talking about lately.

6) Buy for your clientele, not for your palate, and when an advisor who might know more about your clientele or your business gives you counsel, listen to it and give thanks. And while you’re at it, keep your margins sane. If you buy a bottle of Chateau Lafite for $3, don’t gouge the diner by trying to get four times what you paid for it.

7) Stop trying to buy wine that isn’t available, wine that is in another storehouse, another state, another country. There is plenty to sort from. Take your opinion of yourself out of the equation and everyone will be much happier.

8) There is no room for lofty thinking in the buying room. You’re negotiating the sale of an agricultural product that is meant to give joy – not pain. Learn to integrate not just your expertise but your kindness. Think of your work as your neighborhood and your colleagues as your neighbors.

9) We have a saying here in New Orleans, “Danse à la musique.” Take your place in the ballroom and make the best of it. Everyone will benefit from it, especially you.

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