Above: Just look at the beautiful copper color of that wine! Wine’s visual beauty is one of the great pleasures of oenophilia.

These days, my days are INSANE. With only three or four weeks left in our pregnancy, Tracie P needs as much down time as possible and I’m picking up as much slack as possible.

I’m up every morning by 4:30 a.m. and in bed every night by 10 p.m.

And with more clients than ever and two Texas clients who are opening new restaurants in the fall, every moment not devoted to shopping, cooking, cleaning, changing a diaper, or playing with our sweet Georgia P is devoted to writing, writing, writing — creating media for our clients.

So last night, after I closed up shop at 6 p.m. (the conclusion of a workday that began at 5 a.m.), fed Georgia P the dinner I’d already prepared in the late afternoon (whole wheat quesadillas stuffed with refried beans and sautéed zucchine deglazed in white wine), cleaned her up and gave her her bath and got her ready for bed, tidied up her toys and made dinner (spaghetti with zucchine cooked with garlic, chili flakes, and white wine), a glass of friend Giampolo Venica’s Pinot Grigio tasted mighty good.

Above: Giampaolo visited with us here in Austin earlier this year when he came to town to pour his wines. I’m so thrilled that Venica is available again in Texas.

His wines are so beautiful, so focused and so fresh, so true to their appellation but so uniquely his… And his gorgeous ramato (copper-colored) Pinot Grigio has a gently note of salinity that reminds me of the Eocene seabed subsoils of his family’s estate, where apple orchards lie adjacent to vineyards, kissed by the Adriatic breeze and sheltered by the magnificent Alps.

But what makes this wine even more special to me is how much I admire Giampaolo, his convictions and his ethos, his love of literature and his social conscience. Even though we only see each other a few times a year (mostly at wine-related events), we share each other’s lives through social media and email. And for a brief moment yesterday evening, Giampaolo came into our home and shared his support through a refreshing glass of his delicious Pinot Grigio.

Thanks, Giampaolo, for the wine and for the friendship…

Solo nella tradizione è il mio amore.

Above: One of the most beautiful wines at our lunch was the 1970 Barbaresco Pora by Produttori del Barbaresco.

Tom Petty once asked Roy Orbinson if he ever wrote down his music as he was songwriting.

The answer was no.

“If I don’t remember it,” he responded, “no one else will.”

Sometimes, I feel the same way about wine tasting: note-taking can be cumbersome when you’re tasting and enjoying fine wine. And after all, when the wines are truly great, you won’t forget them.

Above: I was expecting the 70 Pora to be light in body but it was fresh and vibrant. What a wine! I’ll never forget it.

But the science and art of tasting notes are vital to the wine world we inhabit. And few can rival the ability, insight, experience, and acumen of Ken Vastola.

Please check out his superb notes from our recent (mostly) Nebbiolo tasting and luncheon at Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria in NYC.

His site is one of my number-one resources for vintage and label notes and he is a rabbi in my wine world.

There are a handful of white wines from Friuli that I like to call my “guilty pleasure” bottles: high-end, international-styled expressions of bacca bianca viticulture from some of the region’s most manicured and pedigreed estates.

I’m talking about labels like Vie de Romans, Jermann, Miani… These producers often deliver bottles that step outside the parameters of strictly traditional Friulian winemaking, leaning toward a richer and more opulent style.

After dinner on Friday night at Tony’s in Houston (where I curate the restaurant group’s media), I’m adding a new winemaker to that list: Vignai da Duline.

I have known and followed these wines and I love their more traditional labels.

But this gently maloed Chardonnay blew me away with its depth and stunning balance of minerality and fruit.

It was so thrilling that our party of six ordered a second bottle.

The wine’s not cheap (importer David of AI Selections told me this morning that srp is $50) but worth every penny.

The wine was an ideal pairing for the Laughing Bird Shrimp topped with red-mullet (Sicilian) bottarga, one of the delightful “fusion” dishes that my friend Tony has been featuring on his tasting menu.

But the dish I can’t stop thinking about three days later was the Valdostana, stuffed with Fontina and Prosciutto di San Daniele. The veal melted in my mouth…

I love the way that Tony uses the Italian culinary canon as a paradigm. He constricts his chef de cuisine, the extraordinarily talented Grant Gordon, within Italian tradition. But then he hands him the keys to a Maserati loaded with the best materia prima available.

This dish was transcendent… Paired with a Monsecco 2006 Gattinara, a new addition to the Rosenthal book…