On the Wine Trail in Italy

I’m in transit this weekend, heading over to Vinexpo in Bordeaux and then Sicily to visit winemakers. Not sure if there will be WiFi anywhere before posting time, so just in case, I’m posting something from the archives (June 9, 2011). Once I get settled I’ll continue to post from the wine trail ( in Bordeaux and Sicily) in the coming days. Buon weekend!

“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?

I didn’t mean this to be a rant, but the past 40 years have just been wiped from the chalkboard. History has been erased. There is no experience worth relating, no advice worth taking. How could it be, when the leaders use the country as their personal concupiscent supermarket? Italy is enmeshed in web of their own making.

So much for the naïve view I first had. I actually thought all Italians were honest and friendly. As I live longer, not only do I find a different reality, there is a class structure that is very much still in place.

“We are the rulers. You are the servants. We rule, you serve. We have the power and the wealth. You get some bread and a liter of wine. Be happy with what we dole out to you. It’s more than your grandparents and their grandparents ever got.” Oh yeah, anyone who says the revolution of the Middle East cannot make it to the shores of Italy, well, they just don’t know how close Sicily is to Africa. It’s on a small boat right now. It’s coming. Closer.

“No, it will never start in Sicily,” the Italian to my left declares. “They are too conservative, they lean too far right.” “Like Salvatore Giuliano?” I quip back.

Was he on to something? Southern Italy has been very conservative for generations. But now the boats are streaming from Africa, like they did from Cuba and Cambodia and it will change Italy.

I walk down the Via Maqueda, slurping on a gelato, looking for a short sleeve shirt, trying to find the address the young lady gave me on the steps of the Opera house. It’s 1971, I’m looking to indulge my youthful needs.

40 years later the leader of Italy is still trying to satiate his youthful needs. And with it all of Italy is looking for those twinklings of pleasure, those moments now which one will never have to pay back in a month a year, a generation. But down the street the accordion is playing the piper’s tune. Someone will have to pay.

If it could only wait until after the summer is over and our vacation at the seaside is finished, no? Se Non Ora, Quando?

Letters from the void*

Dear Italian Wine Guy,
“I recently visited a long-established Italian place in my town. The owners are good friends and honest hard working people. The owner said his business was spotty. “Some days are good. Some days it’s like a mausoleum in here. What can I do?” I sat down for lunch and the waiter took forever to bring me a glass of water. Before that he asked me if I wanted anything from the bar. I asked him what kind of wine he had. “Pinot Grigio, Chardonnay, Chianti, Cabernet.” His heart clearly wasn’t in it. I asked for the wine list. The water eventually showed up as did the menu and wine list.

The place was empty, maybe three tables. It was blisteringly hot outside.

Eventually I settled on a glass of Frascati. The wine was fine enough, but they served it in one of those wine glasses from the 1960’s, you know the ones that are thick like jelly glasses. The wine was cold though, so I overlooked the stemware.

I ordered a mixed antipasto, really more of a vegetable salad. The waiter brought me that along with cruets of oil and vinegar. The oil was rancid and the vinegar was that faceless industrial balsamic stuff that you see around these days. I ate the vegetables dry, sprinkled a little oil on them and tried not to notice its fetid nature.

My question to you is: What do I tell these owners, friends. They clearly are fine people but the world outside their restaurant has moved on, in some cases light years beyond where they are stuck. I just got back from Italy and this is not what Italian food and wine (and service) is like in Italy.”

Signed,
Bewildered.

Dear Bewildered,
“Welcome to my world. Or anyone’s world for that matter. Some folks catch the wave and some get stuck in the eddy. Capitalism allows for anyone to choose how they are going to run the business. And capitalism will also sort out the wheat from the chaff.”

Another note recently came though the cloud:

Dear Italian Wine Guy,
“A Neapolitan style pizzeria just opened in our town. I was very excited because we live out in the sticks and don’t get anything near like the pizza I experienced when I went to Naples a few years ago. In fact it was that trip that inspired me to know more about Italian food and wine. I took classes, made trips to special markets and stores. Read blogs. Got into it.

I went to the pizzeria for lunch, because I had heard the place at night was impossible to get into. I had a day off and was meeting an old friend, so I was in the mood for a leisurely lunch.

The server showed up and asked us if we wanted anything to drink. I asked for a wine list. She handed me the list and immediately recommended an Italian Cabernet. It was 95 degrees outside. I remarked to her that Italian Cabernet wasn’t exactly the first wine that came to my mind in a Neapolitan Pizzeria. She was cool about it, just said it was really popular. I opted for a Barbera. She brought the wine and served it to us. It was warm, so I asked her to bring a cooler and some ice to chill the wine down. She returned with one of those ceramic wine chillers. You stick them in the freezer and they come out cold and are supposed to keep the wine from getting warm. Problem was those things don’t chill a wine down. She wasn’t really listening to me. I shrugged it off and stuck a few cubes of ice in the wine.

I asked her for a salad before the pizza. She served it, with little bottles of oil and vinegar. I noticed that the vinegar was balsamic and asked her if they had any real wine vinegar in the back. She answered curtly, “No, balsamic vinegar is all we have, and it is wine vinegar.” Not wanting to argue with someone who didn’t know what I was talking about I asked for some lemons. When life hands you lemons, you make salad dressing. No sooner had I dug into my salad than the pizza arrived. Fortunately the pizza was awesome, even if it was poorly timed. But it wasn’t like the salad was all that remarkable. They had those little black California olives in it, you know the ones we all would put on our fingers and eat one by one, when we were kids? So pushing the salad aside, I tackled the pizza. And it was pretty good.

At the end of the meal, the served tried to sell us tiramisu. And cappuccino. It’s two o’clock in the afternoon and I didn’t need to load up on creamy stuff. I don’t remember, do they serve tiramisu in pizzerias in Naples? Maybe they do. Anyway, I asked her if there were any Italians in the back. She said, yes, of course there are. I asked her to go to them and ask them to make a short espresso, “corto.” I knew I was probably getting on her nerves, but she did as asked. The wines came back short (and woefully weak).

My question to you, is this the best it’s going to get for me out here?”

Signed,
Hopeful yokel

Dear Hopeful Yokel,
“Of course this isn’t the best it’s going to be for you. You can always buy a ticket to Naples and get you some pizza, some salad with real wine vinegar and a real ristretto. But it will cost you. Look, I know where you live and you should have seen the place 30 years ago. It was all buffalo and prairie. So before you complain about the way it is, think about how dreadful it was with all those buffaloes roaming around there preventing people from getting a decent pizza and thank your lucky stars they have cleared the place out and gotten rid of those dreadful creatures. And having to drink a glass of Italian Cabernet isn’t all that bad. Some Italians have been doing that for hundreds of years.

We all want what we can’t have, or we want what we once had and can’t have now. There are good and bad everywhere. I recently had a bad pizza in Italy. And they also served up a salad with balsamic vinegar (they did have the real stuff in back though). Nothing is perfect, and the capitalism mode will sort out the good from the bad. Unfortunately it takes a few bad experiences for folks to find out they aren’t going back. I say embrace the good times and let the bad times roll down the side of the toilet bowl of life. Life is too short to linger over a lousy corto. When life hands you warm red wine, throw in an ice cube (it’s probably too high in alcohol anyway and that will adjust it back to pre-global warming levels of alcohol).”

Nothing is perfect, including ourselves. I once had someone ask me to make them, tableside, Fettuccine Alfredo and Spaghetti alla Carbonara and mix them up together on the same plate. I also suggested a Fernet Branca at the end of the meal (they declined). This is life.

So to those folks who write me these letters (* if only from within the post office of my mind) I reaffirm that we all have freedom of choice and we can choose to eat it or drink it or not. When one gets enough of the good stuff, here at home or on the wine trail in Italy, then one begins to sense there are higher expressions of food, just like music, philosophy, art and love. Search for the higher expressions and don’t worry about the flotsam stuck in the jetty back there. That’s in the past. Move on – onward through the fog.

written and photographed (in the Vatican Museum in Rome) by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

* and yes, just so there is no confusion, these are “letters” written to myself as a way of presenting situations put before me and possible explanations,solutions and ways to understand how to deal with them. No big shakes, just using a journal exercise. This is after all a web-log, which is in fact a journal, yes?

A fantastic blogger/judge

Admittedly, not all roads lead to Rome. But eventually they lead to something Italian, at least in my case. This week I spent in California, first in Sacramento at the California State Fair Wine Competition. Three days of heavy spitting ensued. Along the way we had a caper or two.

The folks at the wine competition are great. I love the vibe and I learned a lot about wines made in California that I am underexposed to. There seems to be an enhanced growth of diversity among wine types and varieties. We tasted Barbera, Teroldego, Cabernet Franc, Primitivo, Graciano and Pinotage along with the usual suspects. Cabernet Franc was a huge surprise, a wine that I don’t warm up to so easily. I think we will see big things coming soon about this variety. Stay tuned.

Teroldego and Primitivo were also surprising, in that the ones I tasted displayed characteristics proper to the variety. California is growing up quite nicely.

Dick Peterson (R) with young winemakers Shauna Rosenblum(C) and Jackson Starr(L)

Before I left Sacramento, I happened to spend some time with two of the giants of the California wine industry, Dick Peterson and Darrell Corti. This was the first time I had met Dick and we became fast friends. It’s not often one can talk about old California wines to someone who knows what you’re talking about. It happens I have a few of the wines Dick made in the 1970’s in my wine closet back home.

What I really loved about spending time with Dick, though, was his childlike sense of wonder about things. He doesn’t act like he has all the answers (although he has more than most people) and he keeps an openness that allows for sharing of ideas and in return brings about new ideas and possibilities. I’m hoping we keep in touch; there’s a special project we talked about that could be very interesting.

Lucio and Darrell

Darrell Corti, well, every time I go to Sacramento I seem to end up at Darrell’s house. It’s a hard invitation to get, so I don’t know what I have done to deserve the multiple invites, but I make sure to show up when Darrell opens the door. Through a mutual friend, Lucio Gomiero (Mr. Radicchio USA) who considers Darrell a friend and a mentor, we headed over to the house. Darrell was cooking up something, and Lucio had the wines from his Colli Euganie winery, Vignalta, that he wanted me to taste. We had missed each other at Vinitaly and he drove up from Monterey to make sure we didn’t miss each other again. Now that’s dedication. I sure hope someday we get to work together more completely.

Darrell sat us down and class began with a quinary of Sherry. While he worked in the kitchen with his assistant and friend, Ann Vercelli (a lovely woman) Lucio and I worked our way through the wines. Occasionally Darrell would walk in the room and query us about the different wines.

And then it was dinner time. I have to say I am a little intimidated by Darrell, in that I don’t feel as easy to blog or photograph him. I respect his privacy. But he is a special person and the world should know more about this California treasure. He’s a seminal and historical figure for the Golden Age of California wines.

Lucio (R) with Darrel (L) and Andre Tchelistcheff (C) in earlier days

Lucio’s Vignalta wines are intriguing. The name of the region is difficult for Americans (Colli Euganie) to pronounce and the varieties (Cabernet and Merlot) have to compete with the other worldwide producing areas in regards to quality and price. No easy task. The wines are super; nice fresh fruit, not too much wood, a little high in alcohol but well-balanced. Still, it’s a trudge up the hill of success for my friend. Radicchio has been a much easier (and much more profitable) venture.

One short anecdote. As we were leaving and saying our good nights (way after midnight) I was the last one out the door. And living in Texas, we know to close the door to keep the mosquitos from getting inside (or in Darrell’s case, to keep his birds from getting outside). Anyway, as the door closed, I saw Darrell leap to the door, trying to keep it from closing. No luck. We were locked outside. After a few trips around the house and with Lucio trying to get into the garage for a spare set of keys, we despaired a little. Darrell disappeared, leaving us outside alone in the dark cool early summer night in Sacramento. A few minutes later he returned with a spare key he left with a neighbor. And then he bade us to “go home.” All in good humor. Wonderful night with a master of food, wine and everything else.

Friday saw me heading to Southern California to see my 99 year old mom, who lives near Newport Beach. She was ready, as was my sister. They collaborated and cooked me a “comfort meal” and we enjoyed it with a lively Nero D’Avola “Spaccaforno” Eloro DOC from Riofavara. Kermit Lynch brings this wine into the US and they select grapes from the Noto Valley (where I will be in a few weeks). Juicy, acidic, full of pep and nicely balanced, a lovely wine to go with my mom and sister’s chicken and string beans, “Calabrese” style. Nice to come home and have the women in the family cook comfort food and especially fun to have a great wine ( thanks to my Bro-in-Law, Vance) to go with it.

Saturday mom and I went to see my aunt Mary, who is 95. She’s my dad’s sister and the remaining member of the original nuclear family my dad grew up in. I always see her when I come to town; you never know if it will be the last time. This time was especially poignant, as I could tell she missed her husband and the wonderful life they had. She and her husband Lou traveled the world and really lived the perfect 20th century life. I looked at their life and wanted a piece of it, and they, in part, inspired me to go for what I wanted. Now she says she’s ready for the Lord to take her, she just wants to fall asleep and not wake up. Not the vivacious aunt I knew as a kid and a young adult. But after 90+ years, I think she has earned the right to feel the way she wants to.

My mom is another story though. After we left my aunt, we headed down the Pacific Coast Highway for Pizzeria Mozza in Newport Beach. I hadn’t been here for her 99th birthday party last month. She also passed her California Drivers test, only missing two questions, so I promised her we would celebrate. And boy, did we ever (right now she’s napping on the couch as she had a “little bit” of wine).

My friend Jonie Karapetian (aka Italian Wine Geek ) alerted the GM and sommelier of Mozza that we were coming. Unfortunately, they weren’t working the lunch shift. But that didn’t slow us up one bit. A trio of appetizers and a couple of light main courses, a fantastic bottle of Vermentino from Liguria, and California on a Saturday afternoon doesn’t get much better than that.

Full bellies, we ambled to the shopping center to find an Apple store to sign mom up for IPad classes. But we drank a little too much wine to walk around a mall looking for the place, so we headed home and took a nap (or at least, I did). When I awoke, mom was making dinner, a vegetarian feast of rapini, fresh garbanzos and eggplant. Another home cooked, comfort meal!

So yes, you have all had to sit though my “vanity” post, those of you who are still here. Hey, it’s been a big week and there’s more to come in the next few weeks.

On June 15th I’m off to France and Bordeaux for the Vinexpo show and then from there I’ll be blogging from the wine trail in Sicily. I plan to make a carousel around Sicily starting in Palermo and ending up in Catania. I have several winery visits lined up and look forward to arranging a few more before I get there. Anyone from Etna or Sicily, let this be a reminder that I’ll be in your neighborhood. Who knows what could happen? I’m looking forward to Bordeaux and possibly even more to my wonderful battery re-charge in Sicily.

More to come.

Recently I was in the market for a car. Somehow when I was on the internet, they’d know that I was looking for a car (cookies) and so I would get solicitations to come test drive this or that. I’d even get a few offers via email, but they usually went into the spam file. I tried to figure out why that was, and I quasi-scientifically deduced it was because there were misspellings that triggered either a “bot” or a person for whom English wasn’t their first (or their second) language.

These were for cars, though, not to bail someone out of jail in Indonesia or help a nephew scurry his uncle’s multi-millions out of Nigeria. Just a car. But for some reason, my internet email saw it as a security risk.

I used to do spelling bees as a kid. Studied Latin all through high school. Love words and love spelling them correctly. Now my grammar, that needs work. I can never get the its and the it’s straight. And so on. But place names in Italy, that’s a no-brainer.

Yep, if you haven’t guessed already, this is a bit of a rant. But it’s like a mild infection. It will pass quickly.

Italy has been called many things. And some of the great places in Tuscany, in the South and in the North are destinations for people from all over the world. It’s like California, where I am this week, judging at the California State Fair Wine Competition. Everybody wants to go there (Italy and California) on vacation. Italy is a magnet for the aspirational. And car manufacturers have taken the opportunity to cash in on the Mediterranean Madness that has been sweeping the USA for some time now. Does Italy get a cut from Toyota for their misspelled minivan? Of course not, but who does it really hurt in this day and age of LOL and OMG? Before long, no one is going to know how to spell anything or there will be multiple versions of one word. Just like Olde English and Middle English. Northern Italian and Southern Italian. Language is a sluice gate for feelings, ideas, hopes and boundless energy.

The Italians also do funny things with the English language. They put together disparate words and make a phrase for a T–shirt; things like “Bunny-Cut”, “Exit-Fanfare” and “Loving Peaches.” They make no sense to me, but for years I have seen these nonsense words and take no offense. Misspelling famous cities though, why does that bother me?

Perhaps for the same reason that I cringe when I see fettuccine Alfredo on a menu served with a chicken breast or see spaghetti with marinara cream sauce. Or when the waiter asks me if I want Parmesan cheese on my linguine con vongole. They don’t fall into the context of the authentic Italian experience. Sure, let’s experiment, but the final result should be something better, not a degradation of a classic. And yes, I realize some people spell the city Siena as Sienna. So maybe I will give that one a pass. But it still doesn’t feel right. Anymore than Turin does instead of Torino. At least Ford got that one right. And it is for that reason that I would never buy an automobile with a name that is misspelled. Well, maybe I’d make an exception for a vintage Avanti, ragazzi.

And how does this all relate to the wine trail in Italy? You thought I’d never ask? Simply, what many of us are trying to do is find a clearer way to explain something that can be very complex. Try deconstructing Cannubi, where the government says there are 19 producers who use the name Cannubi on their label, 15 hectares total. So far I have come up with 18 producers (and 2 vineyard owners-Scarzello and Fontana Michelina) and 25.35 hectares. (?) and five of those I still haven’t figured out what they own. So, yes for me, simplifying the complex in order to explain it and bring more people into the Italian wine fold is an obsession. But dumbing it down isn’t.

As for the car, it turned out I bought a German car. They never misspell anything. I just wish they would have left a case of Riesling in the trunk. Buying a car can be very exsiccating.

That said, I have two more days of judging and a special night tonight in Sacramento, so I think the Riesling can wait.

written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy
Photos from Italian TV

Recently I was in the market for a car. Somehow when I was on the internet, they’d know that I was looking for a car (cookies) and so I would get solicitations to come test drive this or that. I’d even get a few offers via email, but they usually went into the spam file. I tried to figure out why that was, and I quasi-scientifically deduced it was because there were misspellings that triggered either a “bot” or a person for whom English wasn’t their first (or their second) language.

These were for cars, though, not to bail someone out of jail in Indonesia or help a nephew scurry his uncle’s multi-millions out of Nigeria. Just a car. But for some reason, my internet email saw it as a security risk.

I used to do spelling bees as a kid. Studied Latin all through high school. Love words and love spelling them correctly. Now my grammar, that needs work. I can never get the its and the it’s straight. And so on. But place names in Italy, that’s a no-brainer.

Yep, if you haven’t guessed already, this is a bit of a rant. But it’s like a mild infection. It will pass quickly.

Italy has been called many things. And some of the great places in Tuscany, in the South and in the North are destinations for people from all over the world. It’s like California, where I am this week, judging at the California State Fair Wine Competition. Everybody wants to go there (Italy and California) on vacation. Italy is a magnet for the aspirational. And car manufacturers have taken the opportunity to cash in on the Mediterranean Madness that has been sweeping the USA for some time now. Does Italy get a cut from Toyota for their misspelled minivan? Of course not, but who does it really hurt in this day and age of LOL and OMG? Before long, no one is going to know how to spell anything or there will be multiple versions of one word. Just like Olde English and Middle English. Northern Italian and Southern Italian. Language is a sluice gate for feelings, ideas, hopes and boundless energy.

The Italians also do funny things with the English language. They put together disparate words and make a phrase for a T–shirt; things like “Bunny-Cut”, “Exit-Fanfare” and “Loving Peaches.” They make no sense to me, but for years I have seen these nonsense words and take no offense. Misspelling famous cities though, why does that bother me?

Perhaps for the same reason that I cringe when I see fettuccine Alfredo on a menu served with a chicken breast or see spaghetti with marinara cream sauce. Or when the waiter asks me if I want Parmesan cheese on my linguine con vongole. They don’t fall into the context of the authentic Italian experience. Sure, let’s experiment, but the final result should be something better, not a degradation of a classic. And yes, I realize some people spell the city Siena as Sienna. So maybe I will give that one a pass. But it still doesn’t feel right. Anymore than Turin does instead of Torino. At least Ford got that one right. And it is for that reason that I would never buy an automobile with a name that is misspelled. Well, maybe I’d make an exception for a vintage Avanti, ragazzi.

And how does this all relate to the wine trail in Italy? You thought I’d never ask? Simply, what many of us are trying to do is find a clearer way to explain something that can be very complex. Try deconstructing Cannubi, where the government says there are 19 producers who use the name Cannubi on their label, 15 hectares total. So far I have come up with 18 producers (and 2 vineyard owners-Scarzello and Fontana Michelina) and 25.35 hectares. (?) and five of those I still haven’t figured out what they own. So, yes for my, simplifying the complex in order to explain it and bring more people into the Italian wine fold is an obsession. But dumbing it down isn’t.

As for the car, it turned out I bought a German car. They never misspell anything. I just wish they would have left a case of Riesling in the trunk. Buying a car can be very exsiccating.

That said, I have two more days of judging and a special night tonight in Sacramento, so I think the Riesling can wait.

written by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy
Photos from Italian TV