Serge Hochar Blows My Mind – Again!

…from the déjà vu département

Serge Hochar shares a story with sommelier Jason Huerta

When I first met Serge Hochar, he was making a quick run through the United States to promote the wines of his family’s Château Musar. It was the early 1980’s and he literally had to take his life in his own hands to get to the airport to leave Beirut, as Lebanon was in the midst of a war that would take the lives of countless souls. The stories he told me over lunch that day 25+ years ago, etched in my mind and fueled the fire in my belly to pursue a life of wine with passion and without fear.

And here we were again, a generation later, our skulls now colored grey, celebrating the wines of Musar and life with our younger peers.

Serge is like the Sardinian shepherd to me. He lives in a small world but a very large universe. And his universe is populated with interesting people, passionate subjects and spices and intrigue in a life of wine one can only dream of.

That said, his life hasn’t been easy. In fact, Serge and his family, the closest thing we have to the heirs to the throne of Bacchus, have had to struggle most of their lives. But Lebanon is a special place for wine. The Romans built a temple to the wine god in Baalbek, a town in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, known in ancient times as Heliopolis. So, those of us who are devotees of Bacchus have a fondness in our hearts for Lebanon and her wines.

Dreaming at the Speed of Wine

`

“You’re all over the place!” my friend Mario said to me. For sure, the past month has been a roller-coaster ride, from Canada to Italy, over to NY and Rhode Island and back to Dallas, only to shove off to Austin and then back to Dallas Just in time for TexSom VII. So as I was chatting up a French chef over a bottle of Chateau de La Chaize Brouilly, my friend Mario was ruminating over my movements.

“Mario, how come I have never seen you drink wine?” I asked him. At which time he picked up the glass of Beaujolais and took a sip. Something I thought I would never see. Mario is soon to be 95, you see, and an avowed Dubonnet and Scotch man. No wine for him. But he recently went through a hip replacement and some heart work and he was down for a few months getting himself healed. But now he’s back and walking with barely the aid of a cane. He’s not afraid of change. Hey, I got him to drink red wine. Now if I can just get him to try some Italian wine, maybe even something Sicilian, like where our people came from.

La Notte di San Lorenzo Guido

Study of ecstasy in a glass of Valpolicella

My blogger amica Susannah noted the August 10 holiday in Italy, La Notte di San Lorenzo, on her blog, Avvinare, “August 10 is celebrated in Italy and by Italians throughout the world as the night of the shooting stars. This film by the Taviani brothers is one of my old time favorites. This night is famous because you can see a host of shooting stars in the night sky and of course, as we all know, you make a wish when you see one.”

“Historically, the night of the shooting stars is supposed to commemorate the tears of San Lorenzo who met his end on this day in the III century.”

And it was an introduction that we really did it up in the Circolo del Vino in Dallas at Paul and Mike Di Carlo’s wine and food Mecca, Jimmy’s. And while the name harkens not in any paranomastic way, shape or form, it was a night of shooting stars.

Alice's Odyssey

Nudi venimus ~ Nudi discedimus

                                            Playing Tag at Night                       Laurel Casaletto

From the perch of my loft on the Pacific coast of Vancouver Island during a recent vacation, I pulled out Alice Feiring's latest book, Naked Wine. Amidst towering trees, some that were saplings before the Renaissance, it was the perfect place to dive into her compact, 200-page tome. Alice sets her sails, back and forth, between California, France, Spain and her five-story walk-up in Little Italy. I don’t envy her the task. She has her critics, some of whom think she writes about wine merely to extend her eccentric arguments about wine and life to a larger audience. Alice writes, looking for something more elusive, some key to her place in this world. And her message is resonating with people.

In the wine arena there are all kinds of players and philosophies. And likely in 500 years there still will be. So to celebrate wines that are apart from the mainstream, whether they are organic or biodynamic or natural or just plain quirky, why not? There are plenty of critics who pay obeisance to the steamrollers of wine, to the tall skyscrapers of production, to the mega-powerfully flavored wines that garner points and awards and big bucks. In fact, to turn away from them for 200 pages might even cause some to wonder where it is we have gone this past generation in our search for bigger, better, broader, bolder.

The Last Leg

from the "uchronic meanderings" department

Thursday Aug 4
The trip out of Rustic Tuscany was bumpy. After a week of cloudless days, it started to rain in Pisa. And rain it did, all the way to New York. The rains must have rusted the cargo bay doors at JFK, because we waited over two hours for our luggage. Really funny to be with several score of Italians, coming to America for holiday, and to hear them talk of the situation like we do about Fiumicino or Malpensa.

New York was wet, but not unbearably so. It actually cooled the city down. I stopped to crash a night at a friend’s house, seeing as I lost my connection to Providence. We walked to a local pizzeria, and had a bite. And while I had beer, I did notice there were plenty of cool wines to sample, including some of Angiolino Maule’s wine and also an interesting Gragnano.

Odd that Maule’s wines come through Dressner, what with the yeast thing and all. Such a nice guy. Maule, that is.

The e-mail one never wants to get from a winery in August

Aug 2, 2011

Dear ______,

Just to inform you that Mr. (and Mrs.) ________ did not show at the appointment.

______ __________ and ______ _____, waiting for them since 10:30, can stay until 1:00 pm. Then they have to attend other obligations and the visit will be considered cancelled.

Best regards,

_____________

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bad enough when it happens - But when people delay their vacation and the visitor is a no-show? Oh, and the winery folks prepared a nice lunch too. And the importer folks did their due diligence in getting the no-show to fill out a form. A lot of good it did  the importer and the winery. All I can do is apologize to them profusely for something someone else didn't do.

Well, let's just say this is one of the easiest ways to incur my wrath for a very long time

But let's back track - This was a process we started back in June and then after the 4th of July holiday, we started sending out emails, via the importer and to the winery. Take a look at the process:

Which Wine with Fish? How's About Red, White & Rosé?

Over the course of a few days, on special assignment in Italy, our travels landed us by the sea. And as anyone who follows this blog knows, I loves me some seafood. Whether it is live Dungeness crabs from Canada or an array of fish and shellfish from the Mediterranean, I’m always ready for a platter of seafood. Lately there has been talk on some of my pals blogs about the right wine with seafood. And after I read through them, I was presented with the opportunity to make further evaluations on the subject.

An Italian Girl Finally Stole My Heart

I’m going to divert from my normally prescient state to a case of absolute infatuation. I have finally fallen for an Italian girl.

First, this is an old soul. A very old soul. Ensconced in the body of a seven year old. I am totally under her spell.

Rustic Tuscany, Organic Lambruschi and a True Original

Italy is full of characters. People with unusual life stories. And in rustic Tuscany, not the one the tourists go to in droves, I ran across one.

Today as we drove the SS1 "Via Aurelia" highway from below Grosseto to Bolgheri, the traffic was thinner than I had thought; this being one of the days Italians pile in their car in droves and go on vacation for the month of August. Around La California though, the traffic slowed, halted, and for 15 minutes or so, we crawled. Very exciting stuff to be in a traffic jam with all of the Italians going on holiday.

Our journey took us away from the water and inland to a mountainous area, seeming very much like Liguria. One in our group ran into a friend at a porchetta stand and he invited us to his place to taste some Lambruschi and salumi.

Wine from an Invisible Island

How did one get here? It is an island on the way to the North Pole. How does an Italian land here and decide to make wine? How does anyone?

In their unquenchable thirst for discovery and adventure, Italians have been exploring and discovering wine regions for millennia. Gaul, Iberia, Germany, the New World, Australian, South Africa, South America. Why not Vancouver Island?

So close to the mainland, and so large, one barely registers being on an island. But for those with a passion for islands, the simple act of stepping off the larger land mass sets the stage for something different, if only in one’s head space.

Dante’s Boot Camp

The sound of the waves crashing upon the shore has been replaced with the sound of my heart beating in my chest. As if in a dream, I am transported across the world from my wild place in the New World - ocean, eagles, tall pines - to a rugged edge of Tuscany - alabaster, olives and sheep.

I cannot say how I got here, because in reality I was sleeping most of the time. And that is my common story: the human, who walks around in his pajamas, sliding across the polished concrete floors, going to get a glass of water, walking from room to room, taking a spider outside and seeing a small group of foxes as they go from their outdoor places.

Here, there are no grapes, except for a few wild stragglers. Italy, the giant peninsular vineyard, here is bereft of those energies. They are transmitted through other things. How interesting to be in a place that has defined my work, my life even, and to not have any of that which is familiar. It is liberating, actually, not to have the message broadcast and to only have the energy, the essence. The raw matériel.

The Call

We’re not home 48 hours and I get the call. “Pack your bags, you’re needed in Italy. Flight leaves tomorrow at 10 AM.” Could it be that Italy and the wine gods are jealous of our latest infatuation with the New World?

On the Wine Trail in Italy Canada

Off the grid for a glorious week. No cell phone. No Internet. No twittering nabobs of negativity. No Facebook. What we did get in return was a life in Nature that we needed so very much. Indeed it is hard to be back home in Texas, in the heat and the mean times. Is that all there is? For us, it isn’t. And a week is darn short time to recharge. But we will forge ahead, onward, through the fog and the haze of war.

From the Archives- Calabria: The Epiphany

This was originally posted in June of 2009

There has been discussion in Italy about the future of wine in Calabria. In brief, there are two camps: one to maintain a more traditional use of the native grapes for the wines of Ciro and one which seeks to elaborate the appellation with the use of more international grapes.

Calabria is where my mom’s mom came from. She left a poor region, which had just been devastated by a terrible earthquake, early in the 20th century. Calabria has been abused by organized crime and tribal urges. It is a beautiful place. The wines are hard to sell, but when someone tastes a Gaglioppo or a Montonico they become enthralled with the fruit and the texture and the echo of the earth from where they spring.

Can Cabernet help bring wealth and fame to Calabria? Who knows? When a wine like a Ciro or any number of wines from Calabria tries to make it in America, it is a combination of energies. When the Statti’s or the Librandi’s come to America, the wines are well received and people love them. And surely these two wines often represent different styles and philosophies of winegrowing in the region. The connection isn’t always because of a review or a score. Sometimes it is the personal touch that these people bring to the selling game. So it’s not as easy as Cabernet or no Cabernet, native yeasts or designer yeasts, French barrique or chestnut botti. It’s just all simple and black and white.

From the Archives- Calabria: The Legacy of Local

This post originally appeared here June 15, 2006 and I rewrote it to reappear on saignee when Cory did his 32 Days of Natural Wine last year

"What was it like?” I remember my aunt Amelia asking me later in Texas, about walking into the village where her mother was born. Old Calabria, a little village clinging to a hillside like a vine that had wrapped itself around a sycamore tree and hung on through time and the elements.

I can only imagine what they were thinking 100 years ago, when where they were, in Calabria, looked as inviting as that West Texas dust storm raging on the plains. Devastating earthquake, utter breakdown in civilization, a civilization that had been established in the 6th Century B.C. Desperation, hope, a clean slate, away. Just far, far away.

In 1977, the train took us from Brindisi to Cosenza, and we followed Merlin back in time, the pine tree forest through the mountains over the hill. Back to grandmother’s house. It was the harvest season, September, in a year that would be remembered, by some, as a better than average harvest.

Gone Fission...

It's been a little hectic around here lately - It often seems more like the wine trials than than the wine trails. So we're going off the grid for a week. Nothing's wrong, Sam and Bianca, don't worry. I just need to step away from the world and dip my pole in cooler waters - the rods have heated up and we're approaching critical mass. And I know y'all don't want another mess to clean up. I'll put up a couple of archived posts in keeping with my Calabria themes.

Thanks for reading - back in a week...

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

On the Wine Trail in Italy: Dateline 1811

Tutti ne parlano, pochi(ssimi) lo fanno.

The heat of a July summer will do many things to one who actively plows through the hard work of actually trying to make sense of what has been presented before oneself. It’s a little like trying to figure out what the history is before it becomes historical. An odd way to start something that will eventually swing into dream space, but perhaps it is the realities of the present that compel some of us to find relief, perhaps shelter, from the blunt realities of the present, if only for a few hours. So it was during this night before I awakened that I had the strangest dream. I was being sent back to Italy. I was in a windowless room, with bleak fluorescent lights and a rattling fan. A man walks in, perhaps middle aged, but he was bald. He could have been 45 – or 75. No matter, he was delivering my ticket, and my sentence to serve out one year in the Italy of 1811.

I have been marooned on Greek islands, but for a week or so. I have been sent back and forth from offices, sometimes for months. I have been exiled to work on the road, for years at a time. But never had I been sentenced to go back 200 years in time.

A Swimming Pool, a Sports Car and a Mistress

I don’t recall when it was exactly but recently I was in the company of Italians and we were talking about all things Italian. Politics, the Euro, the malaise of young Italians and wine. Wine follows the culture for sure and so while we were talking about wine, other subjects, riffs, attached themselves to the conversation. We ventured into talking about a famous Italian wine impresario when one of the unfiltered in the group blurted out “What does he care? He’s got it made. He has a swimming pool, a sports car and a mistress.”

At that point the grappa came out and it proved to be a very long night, talking in depth about this propensity that modern folks who love money and power have for “things.”

History's Lessons Drowned in Red Wine

♫ Just take everything down to Highway 61 ♫

Maybe it’s the little 60’s marathon I am running in my head, but lately it seems like we are doing everything we can to kill the wine business in the world. Actively. No, it’s not like we are sitting around doing nothing; we are marching full speed with this one. Or maybe it’s just an overactive imagination once again seared by the blinding triple digit heat of summer. Maybe it is time for a real vacation.

Where to start? Just a few random thoughts and then back to a really busy day.

1) Selling all your wine to one country at the highest price possible will come back to bite you in the ass. Yeah, I’m talking to you Bordeaux. You say it’s a luxury item? Yeah, so is Ferrari, and that’s an even bigger business than Bordeaux. But Ferrari has found a way to build their business in the world – in Russia, and yes in China and India, but also in America. As well as in their home market. And it ain't exactly like a Ferrari is cheap. In fact, Fiat has been kicking around the idea to sell Ferrari, because it is so valuable. Maybe if France ever gets in trouble like Greece (or Portugal, or Spain, or Italy?) they can seize the First Growths as a National Asset and sell the whole kit-and-caboodle to, I don’t know, General Foods? You think I’m kidding? Wait and watch. But one thing for sure, Bordeaux, you’re killing us softly with your song…

Sweet Figs & Red Hot Peppers or Muzak & Malbec?

from the "one of these things is not like the other" dept.

“I need you to go have lunch at you know where,” the salesman left me the message. Usually when he leaves one like that we need to go in there and spend a little money. Oh well, how bad could it be, four star rating  with no lack of talent in the kitchen. A shame the chef usually scowls when you walk in the place looking to drop some cash.

So it went this week in my little corner of the world. Some good, some bad, some in the middle, some out, some in. July is here, it’s so damn hot, thank heavens my little isola is brimming with life.

2006 Vietti "Rocche" Barolo and Mom's iconic Eggplant Parmigiano

Taking a break from the DOCG madness and the Calabria Sequence, which got a nod from Eric Asimov and the New York Times this week. A brief flashback to Southern California and last week, when I made a quick trip to see my Mom and my Aunt Mary, who are both nonagenarians. Aunt Mary, my dad’s sister will be 95 soon and my mom was just 97. Both live independently ( my mom still drives and goes to the gym!) and both are good barometers, on both sides of the family, for longevity and health. We should all be so lucky.

Bare with us: Italian DOCG wines are now "71" and climbing

♫ Got the wings of heaven on my shoes, I'm a dancin' man and I just can't lose ♫

It was too good to be true, that we might have a brief hiatus in the race to guarantee every appellation in Italy before the curtain shuts. But alas, the latest folly is the Castel del Monte DOCG – a trio of guaranteed appellations. Because three is three times greater than one! Oy, what a kebash in old Italy.

Here are the three, not one, but three new appellations:

• Castel del Monte Nero di Troia Riserva
• Castel del Monte Rosso Riserva
• Castel del Monte Bombino Nero

Making a grand total of Italian wine DOCG’s not “69” but an asymmetrical “71”

The complete list, and new map, after the jump…I hope the Italians take a break soon, so I can get back to blogging the things I really want to blog about.

A huge thank you and shout out again to Franco Ziliani and also to Hande Leimer for alerting me to this development. I will be forever grateful to all y’all.

Calabria: Full Circle

I was really wondering what I had just done. On the road with a young family which seemed like an eternity, only to land in some desolate town in the hills of Calabria. What on earth was I thinking, that I could just walk into a village in southern Italy and hook up with my long lost Calabrese relatives? We barely spoke any Italian; our lives were as different from these people as they could be. We had two young children, one in diapers, and we arrived in the midst of harvest, typical Americani.

I looked over to my wife, shrugged my shoulders and said “Let’s walk back to San Fili, take the train and go back to Cosenza. There’s nobody here who will claim us as kin.” She could see the despondency in my eyes, hear it in my voice. I walked hunched over, at a loss to know where to go next. And then.

A fellow on a donkey ambles over in our direction. Kind of gruff and looking like Ray Bolger’s scarecrow character in the Wizard of Oz. But we weren’t on the yellow brick road, were we?

Summer Blockbuster Season Begins: Italian Wine DOCG map - for the moment 68 69"71"

Click here and hit the magnify button when you get there to enlarge map.Or click on the map and enlarge...Enjoy!

Note to American sommeliers studying to pass various levels in the Guild of Sommeliers:
I gather if you all are looking for a list that Guild of Sommelier governing board deems to be the official one for their purposes in order to set a standard for their testing, then by all means stay at 59 (and counting). However in the Italian wine (and sommelier) community, most of us know the Italian government is painfully slow in publishing the new DOCGs, rendering them "official". In those circles, the number is now 71, whether the “official” paperwork has been filed or not. And with a summer vacation upon them, those of you studying for your MS, etc in late July in Vegas will be even more stressed to differentiate between the Guild of Sommeliers official number and what we know in the Italian wine community to be the current ( and climbing) number of DOCG’s. Sorry for the confusion. I didn’t set it up, just reporting it.

All pretty silly when one takes into consideration this whole Italian appellation system will cease to be relevant about the time the Mayan calendar ends, in late 2012.

Good luck, in any event…

by Alfonso Cevola all rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

Calabria: High Noon in the Hills

“Sometimes you need to go forward to go back in time.” That was the word being transmitted to me in a dream on the 21st floor in downtown LA, mere miles from where I was born. I awoke to the sound of traffic below – it was 4:00 AM. It was going to be another long night before I started seeing the light, But I was a million miles away, in Cosenza, on the road to Bucita, in Calabria.

It’s often hard to try and understand why certain pieces of the puzzle are scattered on the table as they are. This week, I found myself walking around the Hollywood Forever cemetery, looking at gravestones. One of the first things we did when we walked into the little Calabrese town was to go into the cemetery and look at the names. The immersion into life (and death) of Calabria forged a life of wine and service in wine. Today as I walked around Hollywood Forever, visiting the graves of Mel Blanc, Rudolph Valentino, and innumerable unknowns, I thought of the symmetry. Not one mile away, I worked for a time after I got back from Calabria, fired up with food and wine and family. Later in the day, I’d attend a wine dinner in an Italian place specializing in Southern Italian wines, with the promise of a rare wine from Calabria. Looking back now, I wonder how these seemingly unrelated events weave into a life.

Calabria: The Goddess and the Scoundrel

Settling into Cosenza with my little American family that I dragged from Greece to Italy, our little hotel seemed empty, save for a handful of women who seemed to be staying there intermittently. I thought it odd, and asked my wife what she thought was going on. One of her eyebrows lifted and with a twinkle in her eye she said, “I think I know why they are here.” The year is 1977.

Italy has a particular connection with women. In one way, women are revered, so much in the South that the ancient cult of the Goddess, Diana, et. al., has controlled the cultural creep through the millenniae. It only takes a little stroll through a church or coming upon one of the many country shrines to Mary (Athena, Diana,etc) to know the prime energy force of humanity is driven through the female energy.

On the other hand, women are treated like lesser citizens at best, whores at worse. It is only recently that the widespread practice of honor killings has stopped, or ceased being reported.

Calabria: Wild at Heart

Unbridled in ways I had never imagined. Verdant and abundant, dripping with the stuff of life. If the gods ever stepped down from Olympus and they didn’t go directly to Athens, they headed to Calabria. Anyone who has ever stumbled into this region know Calabria is full of the raw material that makes life and the life of plants, grapes, eggplants, tomatoes, garlic, squash, you name it, this is the place to be.

And so it was the first time I arrived to this place, to Cosenza, from which I would fan out and explore the wild heart of Italy.

Where Sicily is philosophical, Calabria is emotional. When Sicily inspires with words, Calabria draws me out with music and dance. Sicily is where I look for strategy, for planning, for the chess game. Calabria for the dance in the darkness across the fiery coals.

Palermo: One last stroll before leaping

La Vucciria and beyond...

I love the legend about the Sicilian philosopher Empedocles, who at the age of 60 leapt into the abyss of Etna. In the summer of '71, who knew a mere 40 years later one would find themselves standing on a similar precipice? A year later at the base of Mt. Shasta in Northern California in a Zen Monastery a retired restaurateur would repeat his favorite Zen koan, “Nothing above, nothing below, so I leap off.” Time is no longer linear, but stitched together perfectly for this traveler.

Palermo: It’s now or never

“Se Non Ora, Quando?”

I was young, but there were younger. And now they like to think they run things in Palermo and Sicily. And sure, they should know better in places like Padova and Modena. Italians should be running a fairly smooth country by now. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Italy is stuck. A generation of endless childhood, contrived by a previous generation of folks who ran things expecting entitlements. Like retirement money and health care and sex with multiple partners, 20-30- 40 years younger. Italy is mired. How, when the country is in a mess like it is, can things still happen and people still take the month of August off?

Everything's Bigger in Texas - Including the Italian (Wine) Expo

From the "are we having fun yet?" dept.

"Grappa Joe" Kemble - the "brains and the bag man" for the highly successful Italian Expo held every year in Houston

“What’s with you and Palermo?” my pal Giulio asked me. I reckon it’s time for a little divertimenti, so while my Puccia obsessed pals in Apulia kill me with the food shots, I’ll take a note from that play book and put down the serious conductors baton and get all light and fluffy on you for this Sunny Sunday in Texas. I’ve got the top down and a trunk full of Franciacorta and am on the Italian wine trail in Texas for the next few days.

Huge kudos to Joseph Kemble and the fine folks at Specs and the Italian American Chamber of Commerce for another great Italian Expo in Houston. And a huge Grazie to all the Italian wine partners who made the trek from Italy and all over the USA to show the Italian wine love to Joseph and his company. It means a lot to me and the folks who sign my checks.

Happy Sunday y’all – Drive Safe – and remember – don’t drink (or text) and drive, ya hear? Enjoy the glam shots below...

Palermo Underground

Another sleepless afternoon in Palermo. Tossing, the noise from outside on the Via Roma. The smoke, the heat, the life outside waiting, waiting for me to walk among the living and the dead. All of Palermo is throbbing to the heartbeat of a distant Etna. I can feel the heat, searing my youth with its eternal flame. I must get out of this room.

Again, slipping out. Taking the stairs down the four floors so as not to disturb any family with the sound of the ancient elevator. The man guarding the entrance to the family compound on Via Roma sleeps in his chair by the gate.

Palermo: Baptism, Confirmation and Shotgun Wedding

The first Sicilian wines I had in Palermo were in restaurants. I have memories of being in a place with family and they brought a bottle of Corvo Rosso. My first taste of nerello. It was a wine from the 1960’s. At one point later in time in the 1990’s I had a bottle of the 1964. It was luscious. Corvo, luscious? You raise an eyebrow? Well, let me tell you in those days, most Sicilian wine was naturally delicious. Sun kissed, ripe and ready.

I had just turned 20, and was immersed in Sicily ala natural. Baptism, confirmation and shotgun wedding all at once.

Later on in the 1990's I would find a bottle of 1971 Gattopardo rosso in an enoteca on the Adriatic. It was as if 1971 was still trailing me, making sure I stayed on course, initiated in that gestation period in August, in Palermo, in 1971.

Yes, yes, yes. I wasn’t going to stray. My Sicilian godfather wouldn’t let me. I would be a good soldier for the wines from Sicily. And when they tasted like those early wines, it set my inner sensibilities in a way that cause me to keep looking for them today.

The Midwives of Palermo

in search of Marsa Allah

“Where did you go? We were worried about you!” My Aunt Vitina thought something had happened to me out in the streets of Palermo. And indeed it had. I witnessed my birth in an ancient bodega, filled with Marsala and surrounded by the midwives of Palermo. I was too invigorated to even speak; she must have seen the look on my face. “Thank God you are alright, if anything had ever happened to you, I don’t know what I would tell Alfonso and Giulia.”

I would slip out again and again. And for the next moments, months, years even, I would go back into that delivery room in the quiet little alley, filtered with shade and sunlight, and sit there, listening to the barrels tell me their history.

Palermo: The Invisible Prints

Love in the time of Catarratto

The front has been perched above the city for days now. Hot, humid, hovering. Stalled. All the while I have been locked in the time machine, trapped in another place and era, Palermo in 1971. And while I go back there to retrieve an image or a memory, this time I am walking the streets in August, alone, invisible, camera in hand. What will I bring back this time?

Pictures, poetry, imprints from a time that seemingly was just yesterday. As time will have it, it was nearly half a century ago, mind boggling to grasp something like that. But the tunnel of life shreds time as the wind blows hot and steady across the Sicilian plains.

The Two Most Important Words

A package arrived today. Sort of auspicious. A gift from a secret admirer? A promo puff piece from a P.R. company trying to sell me on writing a blog post for a mango flavored vodka?

I opened the box. And saw two words – Neiman Marcus - good start. Then I opened it.

And saw two more words - Armani Collezioni – even better. It was a beautiful shirt, black and grey pattern (which I am favoring these days) gorgeous shirt and one that I would never think of buying for myself. Not because it isn’t beautiful and wonderful. It is. I’m just a bit more frugal. But I’ll take it!

And then I saw the two most important words – Thank You – from a couple who recently traveled to Italy. I had the pleasure of setting them up on a dream tour of Piedmont – some of my favorite places – three days in Nebbiolo country with many wonderful doors opened – a tour I would have taken, gladly, if I hadn’t just been there. But my friends at the wineries stood up and took care of my new friends.

The couple, a doctor Phil (no, not that one) and his wife and their friends, another couple, asked me to set them up. Friends of the CEO of my company, and mellow cool, LA folks. But man, the card, with those two words, thank you, that really made my day.

I put together trips for folks all the time and once in a while I get a note. Or a personal thank you like I got the last couple of days from friends here in my home town who were just in Italy and visited places I set them up with. And I love to do it for my friends. But these kind folks, I really didn't know. And you never know how deep they want to go or how much the visit will mean to them. It looks like it really clicked this time. Which makes this Italian wine guy Very Happy. And I gotta say “Thank You” to Dr. Phil and his wife for the thoughtful gesture. And an even bigger "Thank You" to all the winery folks who made it possible.

And I am really loving the new Armani addition in the closet. I might even wear it next week in Austin for the big shindig.

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

Lionello's Brunello & Luigi's Limoncello

Have you ever wondered what it must be like to be someone else? In this case, that someone else being Lionello Marchesi, the globetrotting wine mogul, who doesn’t know a stranger, or isn’t shy about giving a pretty woman a hug or even a kiss.

Palermo and the Invisible Man

Passing through a cloud of unknowing

Notes from a journal, not about my grandfather, but my great grandfather. In Palermo. He died before I ever knew about him. But one day many years ago, in the family home on Via Roma in old Palermo I was introduced to him in a vision. It was August and all of Sicily was an inferno. The road outside my window was filled with noise and smoky little Vespas filling the air with all manner of intrusions. I was feeling queasy and disoriented. An omelet I had eaten near Alcamo hadn't set well with me. That, and the sizzling heat. My aunt would bring me water with anisette in it, cloudy, cool, refreshing, soothing. But my stomach was a mini Etna.

Montalcino Deja Vu: What a Difference a Generation Makes

From the Archives while the Invisible Man prepares the bandages

In 1984 Montalcino was a sleepy little hamlet

Sometimes, it seems I don’t throw anything away. There are some who would say I never let things go. From the tossing and turning the other night (was it the buffalo steak or the stake in the heart?) I couldn’t argue. But, with the grace of patience and the hope of wisdom, some of the bumps on the wine trail might eventually smooth out.

This has been a long, arduous month. I thought after Christmas we’d get a respite. But the history of January, in my life, hasn’t been one of rest and reflection. More like throw some more wood on the fire, let’s crank it up in here, 'cause we aren’t through yet.

So, there we are.

Mom, Apple Pie and Throwing the Italian Wine Goomba from the Train

So you make wine or you write or you bake and you think there is more. You think you want to take it from a hobby or an advanced passion to the streets. You start marketing your wine, you sell a piece here and there, you start selling your apple pies to the local cafe.

And then, late one night, you actually think you can take the giant step. Outside of your norm. Maybe even make the big change. Make a living doing it, full time. But you need a boost, a validation from something larger, something "out there." You think you need to win greater approval before you jump.

If you make wine or write or bake or engage in any activity, you might think to enter a competition. Or someone might nominate you for one. It happens all the time. Full time professionals are lauded all the time. The Nobel, the Pulitzer, the Oscars. People love to compete. And win.

How many times have wine-sellers in my field gone to their clients and told them, "It won a Gold Medal in the Orange County Fair"? How often I have looked to see which science fiction writer won the Hugo Award. Or the Nebula. Or if both, slam dunk into my shopping cart.

Salumi, Dolcetto and Sophie

With one of my long standing friends, I was having one of those conversations. No filters. Carne cruda. Maybe it’s a guy thing, no maybe about it. It’s a guy thing. Men love to hunt wines down and conquer them. Women like to get “into” a wine. I know, I know, gross exaggeration, but to my point with my dear friend, we were talking about our two favorite things, women and wine.

“It’s that whole thing you have about the dumb DOCG list. Ace, who cares?” My friend had me. I don’t know why I followed something that was destined to be a dead end. I had to remind him that was exactly what he had done with the last three women in his life. Yep, we like to throw ‘em hard and right into the middle of the strike zone.

“So what is it, are you going to try and sell me that our tastes in wine and women are parallel?” He was going somewhere with this. I hadn’t quite thought of it that way, but my pal was on to something.

A 21st Century Gastaldi

Alessandro Masnaghetti

Readers familiar with these pages know I have a fondness for maps. One of my favorite links is Frank Jacob’s Strange Maps, a quirky and endlessly entertaining site. I love maps. My current afflication to note all the DOCG wines of Italy is matched only by the map made to cover this little piece of human folly by the brilliant Italian architect, Annito Abate, who has mapped all the current 65 Italian DOCG wines. Maps are the foreplay of travel. Maps often lead one to treasures. Once, when I was in the office of a lawyer I spied a map of the New World and took a look at it. On the map I saw my family name, Cevola, and immediately knew the lawyer would be able to help me. The area on the map covered parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. We found gold.

A Brief Reprieve From the Onslaught

Ceiling fresco - Casòn Hirschprunn, Margreid, Südtirol

Because of the encounters I have had in the last month and with all the rush to award guarantees of origin to the decadent and irrelevant Italian appellation system, I have zigged, zagged and ran scatter-shooting across this April month. Not that it hasn’t been a romp. Jump on a plane, beat the jet lag, eat this, drink that, run, run. My mom likens it to a vacation. I could use one of those right now. But it “ain’t gonna happen,” there’s too much going about in the wine trail that I find myself perched upon these days. And that’s more of a song coming from the mouth of the sparrow hawk above my home than a kvetch. A shriek of pleasure.

But not without its moments of sadness, or at the very least, contemplative reflection. Last night, after a long day, in the early evening I was summoned to a wine dinner. Pouring wine, sitting with new people, making conversation, trying to attend to their needs as well as to my host and our winery folk. I never really thought I did justice to any of them. I was strewn, but sincere. At the end of a very mellow evening, almost frighteningly so for the normally cacophonous venue, as we were boxing up wine for the clients and tidying up, sipping on an espresso and generally heading towards comatose places, a lady came up to me. I’ve known her for what seems like ages. Always very friendly, although never going too deep. But civil. Respectful.

The Latest Italian Wine DOCG Update - Italian Double Holiday Reveals Two More - Making it "65"

from the "when the going gets weird, the weird turn DOCG" dept...

I can barely keep up with it. Can you imagine the Italian government and the overworked apparatchiks at the Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana trying to make sense of a law that in 18 months will be meaningless? Monday April 25, it seems, was a double-headed holiday. With Italians celebrating both Liberation Day and Pasquetta, they're running a little behind in the official announcement dept.

There have been insightful and sapient peregrinations on the web about the antediluvian DOC/G system. I tend to agree. It has become a theater of the absurd. But so very entertaining, in the way only a Latin culture can provide.

None the less, duty calls, so now let us welcome the two new members of the DOCG club:

Colli Bolognesi Classico Pignoletto - see article 8

Rosazzo - still searching for the "official announcement" for the DOCG from the GOVT


Current list after the break

Italian Wine DOCG Update - We Have Risen to "63"

From the "Let my people go" dept...

It is that time of the year, when they roll out Charlton Heston and the 10 Commandments epic. Kind of an American ritual, to sit around the TV and watch the pageant of Moses and Ramses and all the comings and goings of 3,000 years ago. I have come to think of Charlton Heston as one the most iconic Biblical Hollywood figures, and he weighs in often on these posts. So in commemoration of that and the 3 (or is it just 2?) new DOCG’s we are rolling back the Red Sea with these new proclamations from the DOCG on high. We're up to "63" and counting...

Buona Pasqua!

A Week in Italy - 7 Wine Finds from Vinitaly

from the "bringing Vinitaly to flyover country" dept.

Seven days in Italy. Seven wines. So it was my friend Paul diCarlo at Jimmy’s in Dallas asked me to put together a tasting for his little back room, his “circolo del vino” for 57 of his closest friends and clients. “Show me what we missed.” I thought about it. All the wines I sampled in Italy, how to reduce it down to seven? Not so easy. But when I was sitting outside my porch in the Langhe, looking out over a vineyard I got this idea. Why wines? Why not people? And then it got a little easier.

Vinitaly 2011 is a blur. I was only there three days, instead of the usual five. The UGG en primeurs in Bordeaux stole a day on the front side and the Summa 2 event in Trentino borrowed another day. In 2012 there will only be four days for Vinitaly and will start on a Sunday, March 25 and go through Wednesday March 28. Yes, those are the correct dates. It seems the earlier decision to run the show from April 1-4 got in the way of the UGC Bordeaux en primeurs and the WSWA show in Sin City in 2012.

Sifting Through the Fine Red Dust

So far, 2011 has become an extended road trip. Work related events have taken me on the road most of the year. Italy, New Orleans, New York, Dallas, Baton Rouge, Friuli, Austin, Aubrey, Berkeley, Napa, Veneto, Arkansas, Paris, Bordeaux, the Langhe, Buffalo Gap, Texas. It just keeps getting better.

I know there are those out there who tire of the constant barking of the poodles, the bloggers, whether it be about wine or the next great meal one just had. For me too, sometimes, it does seem like one long tome in self aggrandizement. Remember, it is a (b)log. And it is voluntary reading. But from the traffic spikes, it seems someone out there likes these on-the-road rants.

Buffalo Gap Wine and Food Summit - Fried Chicken, Sabered Champagne and Jaques Pepin

From the "I wonder what the rich folks are eating?" dept.

Right off the plane from France and Italy I was whisked through a veritable Inferno on a scale only Dante could aptly describe. It seems there have been some hellacious wind and fire storms in West Texas and we drove through them to get to Abilene, where Tom and Lisa Perini host the Buffalo Gap Wine and Food Summit, now in their 7th year.

The Meaning of Hospitality

From the Bolognese, Branzino and Grignolino files

Tonight. My last night. Two weeks away from home. France. Italy. Everyday, somewhere to be. Wine to be tasted. Ten hour days. Driving. Weak eyes. Sore feet. And then finally the last hotel. Near the airport. So close.

One more meal. Near the hotel. 50 feet away. Why not? After a wonderful day in Barolo, with Anna and Emanuela and nine wonderful wines going back to 1990. Dolcetto. Cortese. Barbera. Nebbiolo. Moscato. Great chef. Amazing lunch. Wonderful company.

And then the drive to the last hotel room. And the last meal.

Castiglione Falletto: What a difference 27 years makes

Luca Currado is very animated about this land. And with good cause. From a family heritage dating back before the unification of Italy, Luca's family was really out in front of the evolution of modern day Barolo. That's not to say modern Barolo, though. In fact, this second time around, the wines have steered forward in a timeless manner.

The last (and first) time I was here, in 1984, Luca's father, Alfredo, was at the helm. And it was heady times. All of Castiglione Falletto was this vibrating bee hive. Cavalotto, Scavino, any number of people I visited in those days, there was building and barriques. Rotating fermenters, technology gone wild, modernity in full swing.

Happily, my inner Rip Van Winkle, upon awakening and returning, has found that this land has found a few stewards to take the course back due North and maintain the ascendancy of these great wines and terroir.

Room With a View and the Best Pizzeria Wine List on Earth

from the Nebbiolo in Neive chronicles...

Finally, I can get into the vineyards! After nine straight days of tasting, usually from 9:00AM until 6:00PM, followed by lengthy dinners and a long drive back to a room, I am in the Langa. Two quick days to make a few rounds, visit some friends. I am staying with a long-time friend and man, if that isn't the sweetest view outside a window I don't know what is.

After visiting Lageder and the Summa alternate conference, where I tasted Giacosa, deGresy (in anticipation of today) and a whole range of Lageder, Marco Felluga, some amazing Rieslings and some wacky Austrian wines, I am calibrated. A four hour drive got me into Valdivilla just in time to catch the magic bus to Neive to have, what else, pizza and Nebbiolo in Neive.