In Search of the Untamed - Is it Too Late for Italy?

In a lifetime quest to uncover every inch of Italy, what I have been looking for lately has been a return to something I found very early and didn’t know just how important it was. And that is the secret life of the wild, the feral, the untamed. Sure, fifty years ago, it was easy to walk down a street in Pozzuoli and see an Italy that was pretty much characteristic at the time – chaotic, noisy, bustling with life, kids running after the tall, lanky Americano in patched jeans and a funky t-shirt, back packing across his ancestor’s lands with a camera. It was everywhere. But is it still there, somewhere?

Wine for the Rest of Your Life

“As wine ages, sometimes it goes into this period, let’s call it a hiccup, in which it is not this robust, vibrant, hunk of a wine.” - I wrote in my notes, years ago, about a California wine, (It was a 1976 Jordan Cabernet). The ’76 was Jordan’s debut wine, and at the time, it caused a stir in the marketplace, for it was juicy and bold and sexy and drinkable. In those days, a premium Cabernet from California was rough and tannic, a built-for-the-road kind of wine. Not necessarily an early-drinker, which is now all the rage (and a PR’s person’s catnip). Jordan went on to make many vintages (still does) and their style evolved, morphed, changed with the times. But that ’76, when I had tasted it and written it up in my log, was in a valley, trapped in the fog of its winter.

The wine came out of that fog and further evolved. In fact, the last bottle I had, must have been 20 years ago, was mature, velvety, and still delicious. The crocus bloomed.

Snapshot of a Twenty-Something – the Somm in the Sky

…my very own walk in the clouds

This week, many of the great palates (tongue and minds) of wine descended from their perches to land in Dallas, to judge at the Texsom International Wine Awards (TIWA). There are not enough reasons to make Dallas a destination, in the wine world, save for the commerce. But twice a year, master sommeliers and masters of wine, along with some of us mere mortals, convene together to plow through an amazing array of wines from around the world.

I’ve been judging at this event for more than 20 years, having first been invited by Rebecca Murphy, when she ran it as the Dallas Morning News Wine Competition. As the world of wine has expanded, so has TIWA evolved into a larger, more international event. And with the plethora of talent that has been attracted to Texas, twice a year, because of events like Texsom, it feels like myriads of Muhammads come to the mountain (or mound) of Dallas.

Actually, to Grapevine, Texas. Yes, Grapevine.

Is Calabria the New Etna?

Bucita, Calabria - 1977 - A Member of the Family

When, in the course of talking about Italy and Italian wine with those around me, in the wine trade, in shops, at wine dinners and among the Italians, we often come around to the latest "hot spot" in Italian wine. Right now, Etna is the darling. And for good reason, many of which I and those better than myself have already elucidated upon. But once you put your boat on that river, where else can it take you, what can you discover, what is waiting for you to conquer? Because after all, isn’t this whole wine thing about what Joseph Conrad whispers in Heart of Darkness? “Come and find out.”

Many of the Italians I have talked to have not visited Calabria. There are all kinds of rationales presented. “It is so dangerous down there.” “It is not an easy place to get to.” “The 'Ndràngheta makes it impossible to travel safely.” “They don’t speak an Italian I can understand.” “Saudi Calabria? No way!”

Prosecco’s Epic Fail in the New Italian Hotspots in America

What has happened to Prosecco in America? Has it become but a mere commodity, aimed for a populist demographic, with the lowest price now being the main goal? How is it some of the most expensive real estate in the world (Cartizze), with generations of dedicated farmers and landholders, and in a time of the highest degree of popularity a wine has had (Prosecco), that some of the finest producers and winemakers cannot get their wines listed on the up-and-coming Italian wine lists in America? How is it that sparkling wines from Franciacorta, or Trentino, or Emilia Romagna can get those spots, but Prosecco has been relegated to the lower shelves of chain grocery stores? Has success spoiled Prosecco?

Italy’s Unsung Heroes Series – Giuliano Noé

An influencer behind the influencers

The story I am about to tell you doesn’t have anything to do with words or language. Which is odd, because here I am, using words and language. Well, let’s just say this story cannot be limited by words or language, that they are a jumping off ground. An attempt to explain the unexplainable.

I was sitting at a table last fall, in Piedmont, for a symposium on Barbera d’Asti, commemorating the 30th anniversary of Vinchio - Vaglio Serra’s flagship wine, Vigne Vecchie, a Barbera d’Asti DOCG. This last sentence might not mean much to you, dear reader, but to the thousands of souls who have put their life’s work into their soil, and to have it produce, with the help of God, grapes that have been destined to go into such a wine, a Barbera, it is the apotheosis of what almost every winemaker in Italy has been striving for since the end of World War II. I don’t say that lightly.

I Left My Heart in Barbaresco

High on a hill, it calls to me

What is it about a place that marks one’s soul? When a place seems more than recognizable the first time one walks in that place, although one had never been there? And that the spirit of the place infuses upon that soul and being, a sense of belonging, of an intimacy that transcends mere time and place? Such is the effect Barbaresco has had upon me for the greater part of my adult life. And it surprised no one more than myself, this attachment, this passion, for a place and its wine.

Everything I know about Italian wine I learned from the French

Well, almost…

"My favorite" - Jacopo Bacci @ Four Seasons Hotel - Hong Kong."

Bordeaux − I’m [virtually] in the modern center of the business of wine – for the world. Not New York. Not Hong Kong. Not Rome. Bordeaux. Right now, wine experts, critics and influencers, are migrating to this epicenter for wine, to taste wines that are, at this time, undrinkable, and will only be released three years later to the public, before which they will have already been bought and paid for. These wines, the 2017’s, will follow two highly hyped and sought after vintages (the 2015 and 2016), and which was a vintage (2017) that was challenging, at best. Frost, hail, drought, extreme heat, another potential dystopian vintage of the decade. They will sell. And they will be unaffordable to 98% of us. Yeah, the Italians have something else to learn from their French cousins.

So, You Want to be an Italian Wine Expert?

from the "notes to myself" dept.

We Americans spend a lot of time alone. In the car, in front of a computer, and if one is lucky, taking long walks (or runs or bike rides) in the neighborhoods, in the country or deeper in nature. The monkey mind that is constantly chattering is set aside, and peace, and eventually clarity, arises.

Over the years, my inner Carl Jung has been giving this chat to me, in order to focus my purpose in this livelihood I have been given in the wine trade. It has been an epiphany, of sorts, for me. It is raw and unexpurgated. Proceed with caution – it is not for poseurs.