On the Wine Trail in Italy

So along with two of my colleagues, we headed for a late afternoon appointment. And waited. And waited.

The person with which we had the appointment never showed. Two days I worked on this presentation. For a no show. It happens. You show up and someone throws a shoe at you. Or worse, they just blow you off. After 25+ years, who likes it? But what can you really do about it?

Last week, I did a wine dinner for 30 people. I realized very early in the evening that these folks really didn’t come to hear me talk about Italian wines. They were there for a good meal on a cold night. So I spoke for about 7 minutes and then sat down and talked for the rest of the evening to a couple of people who I really liked talking to. I wasn’t supposed to sit next to them. In fact every time I chose a seat, someone came and took my seat. At first I felt offended. Wasn’t I the person who was here to explain the evening to them? But in reality, that wasn’t the case. The shoe didn’t fit. I was just there along with them. Hey, the owner of the restaurant, who lived on the grounds and whom I have known for 25 years, didn’t even come down to say hello. To his customers! The folks who pay his bills. Forget about being a friend of his for a quarter of a century. Boy, things have gotten really off kilter these days.

Is it really that important? No. It. Isn’t. So why the expectations? I really have no idea. Maybe it is something about the Italian idea of respect for one’s trade and the hope that if you ply it long enough and diligently enough someone will respond with the deserved respect. Well that could be a cold day in Dante’s Hell, if you really think folks peer that far out of their own personal box of consequences.

Life or death, now we’re talking consequences and importance. Not whether we can talk a restaurant manager into lowering his wine by-the-glass prices. The free-market forces will take care of that. The consumers are the real experts in that they will reward (or punish) good (or bad) business decisions. Not those journeymen who breathe it, live it, dream it, day and night, year after year. A sobering thought in the abstract. But weighed against life and death decisions, well, let’s just say if the shoe fits…

There are plenty of folks who wish they could get back into their own shoes. But their life took them to a place where they had to answer for the decisions of others. In the last 5+ years, many of these man and women have been lost to the future. Someone dodges a shoe, others can’t dodge a bullet. Random? Some divine plan here? And what does it have to do with the Italian wine trail? Or rather, what does the Italian wine trail have to do with it?

Not much. If anything. Like our little galaxy, just off to the corner from the really important goings on. Except for those of us who are going through it at the time. As it is with each and every one of us. Except perhaps for the most highly enlightened. Like the yogi master on an island somewhere.

Seventh inning stretch.

OK, back to the ballgame.

Where were we?

Oh yes. Yes, the meaning of our place in this daily activity. The wine business. The holiday season. The economic slowdown.

Like I told a colleague today, if you can feed yourself and wipe your own behind, consider yourself one of the lucky ones.

Or would you rather walk a mile in a pair of shoes that the owner got blown out of?

The sentence I asked folks to finish was:

You know it’s Italian when…

That simple.

It could be something like:

“You know it’s Italian when you drive past a vineyard and they don’t have Pinot Grigio planted right next to Dolcetto and Pinot Noir.”

Or

“You know it’s Italian when the sip of sweet wine is being served to you by a priest, not a sommelier.”

That kind of thing.

And here’s what I heard back. In case there are folks who sent something in and I didn’t post it, let me know, I’ll append. Or if folks just got too durned busy, if’n you want in, send it. Va bene?

Hank Rossi: You know you’re Italian if you were 14 before you knew your name wasn’t “Testa Dura”

You know it’s Italian when the winery has a gas pump like device so it can sell wine to its neighbors in bulk at a good price.

You know it’s Italy when every restaurant recommendation is followed by “and they have good prices”.

Marco Romano: You know it’s Italian when there are strong hints of volcanic acidity in your glass.

You know it’s Italian when the pasta with vongole tastes more of the sea after each sip of wine.

Guy Stout: You know it’s Italian when you are craving Pasta in a Bolognese sauce with wide egg noodles and a few bottles Chianti Riserva.

You know it’s Italian when it doesn’t fit because it’s too tight.

Jeremy Parzen: You know it’s Italian when you have to BYOB wine to a Chinese restaurant in LA because some people can’t eat ANYTHING unless paired with wine.

You know it’s Italian when you’re at a bar in Sant’Angelo Scalo at 7:30 in the morning and you overhear someone saying, “C’ho tanto di quel merlot da raccogliere” (I got a mess of Merlot to pick).

Jeff Siegel: You know it’s Italian when the wine is made with a grape no one has ever heard of, and the wine tastes a lot better than the stuff made with grapes people have heard of.

Tracie Branch: You know it’s Italian when an old wine barrel is blocking your driveway.

Thomas Pellechia: You know it’s Italian when the drainage tiles in the vineyard are clean enough to serve as dinner plates.

Jon Gerber: You know it’s Italian when you can’t understand what the winemaker is saying but you understand him perfectly by watching what he says with his hands.

Andrew Barrow : You know it’s Italian when it drinks even more beautifully with food

Amy Atwood: You know it’s Italian when you can’t quite understand what they are saying but that doesn’t matter because you know you want more!

Linda Hinton (who works for Louis Latour): You know it’s Italian when there are no Tums or Rolaids on the premises, only Amaro and Limoncello.

You know it’s Italian when the vineyards have been in the family for a few centuries, not generations.

Anon: You know it’s Italian when your taxes are unpaid and your women are

Antonio Gianola: You know it’s Italian when the espresso is always perfect, people who drink wine with lunch are not alcoholics and the men are more concerned about fashion than the women.

Craig Collins: You know it’s Italian when you have been sitting at the table for an hour and a half already, you have eaten so much you can not move, you have drank so much you are slurring, the main course finally arrives and it is only lunch.

Nancy and Gary Krabill: You know it’s Italian when Vin Santo arrives unbidden to your table and the restaurant owner is too polite to point out that you weren’t supposed to drink the whole bottle!

You know it’s Italian when you are the last party in a restaurant and notice the waiters have gone to sleep on the tables rather than approach you to offer your check.

Dana Schrick: You know it’s Italian when you sip a Brunello and your mind conjures up a picture of John Wayne swaggering over to his horse, mounting up and galloping off into the sunset.

Gianpaolo Paglia: you know it’s Italian when there is no penguin, lizard, or other cute animals on the label.

Carmen Castorina: You know it’s Italian when drinking the wine makes them smile!

Joyce Hobbs: You know it’s Italian when you see a person on a Vespa and their dog is riding with them in the middle.

Filippo de Belardino: You know it’s Italian when the kids at the table are drinking ginger ale with a small amount of wine in their glass.

You know it’s Italian when someone the priest at the mass demands a DOCG sacramental wine.

Kim Pierce: You know it’s Italian when the label includes a region, a DOC or DOCG, a town, a family name and a fantasy name, for good measure - all of which end in “i” ,”o” or “a”.

Susannah Gold: You know it’s Italian when there is a strange combination of aromas and flavors that sort of remind you of France, maybe Alsace but then something hits you that seems vaguely Austrian or Hungarian…unsure you race through wine regions and realize it could only be from Friuli.

You know it’s Italian when you sip the wine, get lots of acidity and then it slips into an amazingly integrated mouthful.

You know it’s Italian when the grape variety is hard to pronounce but it makes you dream of far away and exciting places.

Thanks everybody!

Additional…

Robert Pellegrini: You know it’s Italian when you pass a home with a perfectly manicured garden and a statue of St. Francis, or La Madonna in front.

Steve Armes: You know it’s Italian when the descriptions on the menu don’t include words like infused, deconstructed, or anything to do with molecular cooking.

The Italian wine trail has taken me to the Hill Country of Texas this week, from Temple to San Antonio, to New Braunfels to Driftwood to Austin. I’m ready to be back home in my own kitchen, in my own town.

After some days in California, where the best food I had was sushi, I found myself in Italian restaurants this week. One was for a dinner meeting with Andrew and Maureen Weissmann, who are opening an Italian place next year in San Antonio. They get it.

Unfortunately the restaurant we were at, the folks in the kitchen were trying to impress him. So they sent out plates that were jammed with too much information. Gnocchi with tomato sauce and fava beans and cheese and, and, and. Like the chef at the table said, “Just keep it fresh, simple and sourced from a quality place.”

And it is that simple. If only folks in the kitchen would get out once in a while and see what the rest of the world is doing.

Italy is constantly being caricaturized, whether it be our food, our wine, our song, our legends. And the Italians who came to America starting 100 years ago, wanting to please their new parent country, bowed and bent and danced their little jig until now what they are presenting as Italian is barely noticeable. We had quite the conversation over a bowl of ragu this week, in the home of a recent-return from living in Italy, one of the best meals I’ve had this month. But our discourse took us over the laundry list of excuses restaurateurs use to explain why they can’t cook like mama did at home.

“Our customers want more food on the plate.”
“They ask for more garlic, we don’t want to use that much.”
“We have to give them a side of spaghetti; they’ve come to expect it over the years.”

And on and on.

Odd, when I talked to chef Weissman ( at the place with the swollen plates), he simply said “ I will do it as I feel it needs to be done. I know I can’t go wrong if I stick to the truth.”

This week we had lunch at a pizzeria napolitana, the owner sat down with us. But before he did we ate. I ordered a pizza with prosciutto and arugula, one of my favorites. As the pie was being set before me I picked up a scent of truffle. From an early experience with white truffles in the 1980’s ( I basically OD’d on the smell of truffles from driving them around in my car for two days, selling them) I have an aversion to them. Or rather, I have a loathing for truffle oil that doesn’t use good quality truffles or oil. And then some kitchen cheerleader bathes a dish in the stuff, making it stink like a Virginia City whore.

My dining partner saw this look on my face. I know he was just a little bit worried. Here we are in an important account, and I’m showing phenolic pain on my face. But then a waft, the angels tail, floats up and whispers in my ear, “give it a try, make sure.” Two wonderful things happened. It was real oil, real truffles, and it was applied with a deft touch. Perfetto.

After, we’re sitting around the table tasting and talking with the owner, Doug Horn. His place, Dough, came out as need for him to deliver a product that in Italy is basic, wonderful and a necessity. And yes, I’m sure from time to time he gets folks coming in looking for a double cheese pizza with extra pepperoni. But then he gets the wandering pilgrims who just want to dip their hand in the holy water, genuflect and get a moment away from the endless missionary work.

His list is 100% Italian wines. He gets it too.

So San Antonio has hope. Austin, in this moment, under the uber-microscope of authentic Italian-ness, let’s say we need a dose of Speranza’s to rouse them from their deep freeze. But that was then and times have changed.

Exactly! Times have changed. So why the big plates and the 5 times mark-up on wine and too much garlic and overcooked pasta with too much going on in the bowl? Why are we still settling for salmon and short ribs as something quintessentially Italian?

Let me say this, to anyone who have scanned down this far on the post: If you are in the wine and food business, tear out a page from Andrew Weissman’s play book, “just keep it fresh, simple and sourced from a quality place.” You can’t go wrong if you stick to the truth.

“Ohh, there must be some easier way for me to get my wings.”

But it isn’t as simple as that. It never is. For these men are Big Trees, and the shadow that they make is daunting for the ones who follow them in succession.

Who has the hardest time of it, the man who has spent 40 or 50 years building an empire, or the daughter or son who has to find a way to grow outside of the shadow of his great effort?

Sometimes it isn’t even the simple transition from a rustic winemaking scenario to one which relies more on science and technology. Sometimes it is more about the character of the person and their presence that is almost indomitable. When that becomes more important than the wine or the land, then the tree can sap the energy of the spirit of wine.

Sometimes it is a vision thing. Whether it is in an established region like Tuscany or an up and coming one like Sicily or Puglia or Abruzzo, the personality that defines the impetus for the wine and the estate can sometimes be the overriding influence.

Then the idea of the wine gets bigger and if it gets bigger than the person that brought it into prominence, there has to be some kind of succession plan in place.

But that is often hard; the Italian child is often trained to be deferential to his parent. Then a child in their 40’s is still responding as if they were still 8. Then the wine suffers.

The energy, while it is given its start from one person, draws from a larger wellspring of energy. And it is the difficult responsibility of the generation that follows to take the lead, to be wiser beyond their years, to take on faith where they must steer the estate and the wine into the future.

A couple of things the Big Tree cannot do. Because it is large and rooted deep, the big tree cannot move with adroitness. Part of the energy of its greatness comes from making a stand, putting down roots and staking their claim.

The Big Tree casts giant shadows. Makes it hard for the little trees around to find enough sunlight to grow. Not bad in terms of survival and making sure that those who do make it out of the shadows are strong and will endure in the greater world.

Doesn’t quite sound like a walk in the park, does it?

This is nothing new. But in Italy, now, this is tipping point for many estates from Piedmont to Calabria, from Liguria to Molise, in the recalibration of the Italian wine standard. Many of the young from winemaking families have traveled the world, selling wine, making wine and learning about wine. When they come back home and see what a beautifully unique opportunity there is for them to make these one of a kind wines. Do they see it with those eyes? I sure hope so.

We don’t need anymore ill-fitting shoes, with Italian sounding names, from China. And we don’t need anymore Napa Valley Cabernets from Bolgheri.

We still need the Big Tree (and the old vines) to remind us to never disregard our essence. And we need a new generation of Big Trees, young men and women, to rise up out of the vinelands of Italy.

I was sitting on my mom’s couch watching the vintage movie Laura, starring the timeless beauty Gene Tierney, and drinking a glass of Etna Bianco, when it seemed like I slipped into one of my alternate universes. After all, here I am in Southern California, doing my National Guard duty for Dr J, who is slowly and happily getting sluiced into the vortex between Texas and Louisiana. It’s the least I could do for one of my fellow Californiano’s.

But something about the Terre Nere Bianco, a blend of Carricante, Inzolia, Grecanico and Cataratto that was such a perfect wine, I found myself gulping it. Mom had made some broccoli rabe with some fresh (and local) garlic we had gotten from the farmers market in Irvine. She also brought out some baby clams, a light meal, not quite the extravagance of last week. But that’s the wonderful thing about the wine trail; it doesn’t have to be a 5.8 on the Richter scale. A simple plate of clams, some greens and a wonderful glass of Sicilian white wine will do quite nicely, even here in So-Cal.

I have opted to shop for wine and vegetable during this Black Friday weekend. That, and catching a little sun and reflection off the Pacific Ocean. One of the perfect days on the West Coast, even while I am planning a late December sortie into Southwestern Louisiana in search of music, hot sauce and boudin. It all relates to the temperament and sensitivity of an Italian born in America from Calabresi and Siciliani.

I took my mom to a farmers market a mere 6 miles from her place. She was lamenting that at 94 she is running out of friends. You wouldn’t have known it as we walked outdoors in the cool sun. Everywhere we went, people talked to her like she was the mayor, a natural extrovert, which she disputes. Fresh squash blossoms and Satsuma oranges, I was walking in the corridors of my DNA’s childhood.

I am having a little quandary with this Sicilian winery, Terre Nere as it is called. I am wondering why I like these wines so much. And, are they spoofilated?

I’m pretty confident that, in the vineyard the grapes for these wines are proprio Siciliani, no homage to wine growing from other parts of the world. Mt Etna has its own matrix working, so that is the theme dominant in those parts.

In the winemaking process, what I am finding is one of two things, for both the white and the red wines. They have either been so deceptively well made according to some secret handshake with the wine devils. Or, they have been left to their own devices to be what they are as the wine gods have intended from day one. I truly hope it is that latter, as I am so stoked about that way these wines interface with my taste buds and seamlessly, without any hesitation, merge with my pleasure center. I am smitten, by the white, by the red, and if there is a rose, I am sure I will fall into its trance as well.

That’s all from Camp California for now. On to Paso!

Where have all the great Italian wine experts gone? Over the weekend I have been thinking about who represents the best of expertise in Italian wine. Who is putting the Italian wines out in front? Who isn’t first looking at their margins or how much money or fame they can garner? Who isn’t devising a strategy that includes a book as a vehicle to propel their celebrity before those who still toil in the service of the vines?

Sure there are a lot of self-proclaimed experts who would like you and me to think they have remade Italian wine, and because of their singular efforts, all is well. Well, balderdash. Living large and taking a handsome fee to regale willing participants aboard a cruise ship of their love for Italian wines, I don’t buy it.

This all comes as a result of my procrastinating this afternoon over a shelf cleaning assignment. Instead of doing that and making room for more books I ran across an old Rolodex. A card popped out, and it was as if the person whose name was on that card was trying to reach out from the other side. The card belonged to Lou Iacucci, a crusty fellow from the 1980’s, who was a real expert in Italian wine at the time. He was brash and had a healthy ego, but he also worked the floor of his store and turned many a young person, myself included, on to Italian wine. He didn’t filter me through one of his handlers and then make a 10 minute appearance to regale me with fabricated sorties from his soon to be released best seller and definitive tome on Italian wine.

No, Lou could care less about that kind of crap. He was a noodler; he was always on the lookout to hook another fish on his line. It was through Lou that I was introduced to the wonderful dessert wine Torcolato, from a young Fausto Maculan. He also pressed bottles of Mastroberardino and Hauner upon me.

I had just returned from a three month stay in Italy and had worked the harvest. I was ripe for the picking. Lou was patient with me, and he encouraged me to develop my interest in Italian wine. Through Lou I felt that I could someday begin to approach his level of understanding about Italian wines. Yes, he was a shameless self-promoter, but he made space for the rest of us to gather some of the air in the room. Today, east coast or west, there are too many self-nominated authorities who don’t see the possibility of the rest of us wanting to contribute.

Last spring in San Francisco, I sat next to a young lady, who was so proud that she had been nominated for membership in the Ordine dei Cavalieri del Tartufo e dei Vini di Alba. I mentioned to her how I knew the man who founded the order and gave her my card, suggesting to her that we stay in touch; you know, synergy and all that. She never returned an e-mail.

I met a fellow in New York, an up and coming Italian wine expert. In what has seemed like too many emails to remember, in which he has never responded, I have finally deleted his address from my virtual Rolodex. I hear from Lou Iacucci more often than I do from some of the young lions. They don’t realize we were all young lions at one time.

A fellow in L.A., another self-declared master of all things in relation to wines Italian, was so rude the last time after I went into his store. It seems he couldn’t understand how one of “his best customers” would know me. One of his best customers, a film studio head, just “happened” to be a friend of mine from childhood. That’s how it was possible. But these arrogant young brats all want to think that they have the exclusivity on expertise. They don’t want anyone else playing in their sandbox. Ma va’.

New York has a couple more. I get a kick out of the ones who claim they don’t remember the handful of times we met, had dinner, or sat on a panel somewhere. I’m not talking about the older ones with short or long term memory issues, but again the young lions who think the trail just started up when they got on it. They self-proclaim they’re a flame when they’re but moths in search of their fame.

I have a pile of books from one of my mentors, who like Lou, has passed on. His stories were like guideposts to me. I treasure those stories, for they truly set me on the course. And while I view all this from a serene eddy in flyover country, it offers me the perspective of one who can see all this from a distance. And that puts it into focus.

All those years Lou took the road from Firenze to Siena, were constant pilgrimages back to the source of the energy. One of those trips the wine gods called him back. He didn’t take one or two trips and write a book. He drove those roads till they wore down with his incessant search for this or that little producer.

He didn’t conspire with importer B or C to prevent restaurateurs from having access to their wines. Sure, he wanted the lions share and he often got it. In those days not many folks clamored for wines like Montevertine or Selvapiana, let alone knew about it. But if they did, he didn’t do his damnedest to prevent others from taking pleasure in them. He didn’t hog the great wines just for the sake of a bunch more money.

So as I continue to roam about the world of wine, whether it be in Italy or America, I see that some of the most important things in my cellar are my relationships with people who will understand that we are not in competition with each other, we are only in competition with that person we can become. And that becoming is in a constant state of change and refinement. But the wines and the friends make the journey so much more rewarding than any pile of money or book deal could ever promise.

I don’t know what it is about Sunday. Where once there was a family dinner, now there is solitary reflection in front of an empty screen. From the perspective of practice, when I look around these days, what is it about Italian wine that seems to have become an endless catwalk of the richest, biggest and most obvious? Standing in line, waiting to talk to a wine buyer last week, I was thumbing through a pile of wine reviews and noticed how the wines that were getting all the accolades ( read: 94 points and above) seemed to be these shorn up, beef-caked, tag-team wines that more resemble porn stars than classics. Who is putting these wines in their cellars, let alone their goblets?

When did the search for the Shangri-La of wine go so off track? The history of Italian wine shows us that it was built up over the ages by the monastics, who took care to keep the light burning through some dark and dreary days. Nothing so glamorous then, working the fields in the dark, at 4:00 AM in the biting cold. Year after year. With no love, save the Divine Love, to keep the solitary worker in the field, hopeful for a better day. Hope and faith. Not arrogance.

I went through a wine collection yesterday, one that has been in the works for 30 years. In it many of the bottles were created by people that are long gone. Some of the newer wines, one in particular, A Super Tuscan from a producer in Montalcino, struck me. I don’t know what the owner will do with the wine. It has too much power to be enjoyed. It’s too noisy, wants to lead but doesn’t really need a partner to dance with. I’d say to put it in the ‘drink now’ bin, but I’m not sure it will ever be ready to drink.

I spied a few California wines, some which were blockbusters in their day, now shuffling off to the veteran’s home, no fire left in them. Maybe that is where these over-promising and under-delivering Super Tuscans will end up. Which seems like a waste of the Tuscan land which wrought them from the ground.

Whether it is Tuscany or Campania, Sicily or Friuli, Italian wines are at a crossroads. They have fashioned themselves to be these worldly wines in a universe of other worldly wines, all competing for the attention of the same buyer. And those buyers are looking for the next big thing, whether it is an Ovid from Napa or a Mollydooker or God knows what. Why? When did Ferrari seek to emulate General Motors? Or Ducati chase after Harley Davidson? Still, Italian wine chases after the Shangri La wine crowd.

And if an Italian wine becomes a landmark, say a Sassicaia or a Bric dël Fiasc, does that really lead them (and the rest of us) into the Promised Land? How does it go, for what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

And if the Italian wine succeeds in becoming the king pin of all wines, then what? Defending a territory that for all purposes doesn’t exist in Italy? That would be the fitting punishment for succeeding in looking away from all that is unique and indigenously wonderful in many of the wines of Italy. It’s not too late to turn back, some of the young winemakers have looked beyond marketing and their Upper West Side flats to embrace their soil. Not glam, but sans arrogance. We can only hope. And work to help those who see this as a time to return to their winemaking as an act of selflessness and true vocation. Sounds almost ecclesiastic. Oh, wouldn’t it be loverly?

Then all we’d have to do would be to figure out what to do with all these monstrous wines lying around.