Nine years ago today Tracie and I were wed.

Nine years gone, we are still broke and struggling but we have each other and our girls.

And that’s all we need.

Happy anniversary, Tracie P… I don’t who, what, or how I would be if you weren’t the love of my life… I love you yesterday, today, and forever…

Here are some songs I’ve written for her over the years.

The photo above is one of my favorites, taken on a chilly night in New York City in the greenroom at the Mercury Lounge where my band played to a packed house later in the evening. Bollinger was in our plastic cups. It was February 2009 not long after we had begun dating.

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When our party was seated the other night in Misi’s impossibly crowded dining room in Williamsburg, another impossibly popular Italian restaurant came to mind — one that had its heyday 20 years earlier.

Back in 1998, a culinary shot was heard around the world when then Times food critic Ruth Reichl mentioned something about goose-liver ravioli and veal calf’s head in a now watershed review of the then brand new Washington Sq. enoteca with a bisyllabic name.

The chef who built his culinary legacy on that venue has now been sent out to pasture in a field of well-deserved obscurity and obsolescence. And we should hardly waste our breath to mention his name here.

But that restaurant, which still churns on, marked a turning point in the Italian food and wine renaissance in New York and — ergo — in the world.

Extreme (as in extreme sports) was the signature of said restaurant when it first opened. Its dishes were purposely meant to challenge and flout passé attitudes about Italian cuisine. The food was good and at times brilliant. But the ambition of the ambitious food is what I remember mostly from those early years (a later visit included “tagliatelle with jalapeño pesto”).

Like that restaurant in its own time, Misi is the hardest-reservation-to-crack restaurant of the moment. And like that restaurant of twenty years ago, Misi is marked by the electric energy that you feel from the moment you enter: it’s hard to put your finger on it, but when a restaurant has that special something (that extra gear in the motor, as the Italians say), you can just feel it. And man, our party of four could taste it that night.

Misi’s cuisine is much more reflective of how people in Italy actually eat today in restaurants and at home. Mostly vegetarian friendly appetizers and pasta. That’s (nearly) it. The night we were there there was only one second course, a fiorentina, the night’s special.

It struck me how Chef Missy Robbins’ cooking is more authentically Italian than nearly any place else I’ve eaten in the U.S. over the last few years.

And that’s the key to her success, I believe: Chef Missy manages to wow you and your palate without ambition, without challenging you to like it. And at the same time, her food was never workaday. It tasted like genuine and wholesome passion, not high-minded concept, was driving the menu and dishes.

I bet her already landmark restaurant is going to be remembered for its wonderfully measured tone and not just for the see-and-be-see scene that has sprung up around her cooking. I loved it, through and through.

Here’s what we ate that night. My recommendation? Run don’t walk!

The must-have whipped ricotta crostini

The broad bean appetizer was classic Tuscan in every way. Very simple and thoroughly delicious.

This was the best salad I’ve eaten in a restaurant in months. And I eat a lot of salad when dining out. I know it may sound silly to be so excited about a salad but this was over-the-top good.

I believe the anolini were a special. I really liked this dish, especially for the texture and rich flavor of the pasta.

Pasta with herbs and breadcrumbs. This dish is SO Italian, the kind of thing that you eat at home or at your favorite restaurant.

Olive oil ice cream, another must-have when dining at Misi.

Above: wine writer Michael Alberty (left), Oregon editor of the 2019 Slow Wine Guide to the Wines of California and Oregon, and Slow Wine editor-in-chief Giancarlo Gariglio.

Click here for Slow Wine Guide 2019 Tour Dates.

Click here to follow the guide online.

With more than 50 estates added to this year’s California guide and 50 estates appearing in the debut edition of the Oregon guide, the 2019 Slow Wine guide covers more ground than ever before. And the entire guide will be published online this year (free access). My colleagues in Italy have already begun to publish this year’s winery profiles here.

The following is my introduction to the new edition, including notes on our team of editors and contributors.

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The Slow Wine Guide to the Wines of California and Oregon 2019 is the fruit of a team of highly talented and dedicated tasters, wine writers, and editors. Without their “boots on the ground” during the summer and fall of 2018, the greatly expanded book simply wouldn’t have been possible. And its spirit is infused by their passion and devotion to their work.

Thanks to their efforts, the number of California wineries in this year’s guide has expanded greatly and is nearly double with respect to last year’s.

And for the first time, we are publishing profiles of 50 Oregon wineries.

From the outset, our editor-in-chief Giancarlo Gariglio never intended the guides, whether for California or Oregon, to be perceived as “exhaustive” or “comprehensive.” In fact, the project will only continue to grow and evolve over the years. And we are really pleased with the results of this year’s survey of the Californian viticultural landscape, with more than 50 new wineries added.

Our Oregon team, guided by the leading expert on Oregon wine today, Michael Alberty, debuts with 50 estates. It’s our hope and goal to expand that number with the 2020 edition as well.

With decades of experience in fine wine writing and solid roots in the Oregon wine community, Michael was the natural choice to lead our Oregon panel of tasters. From the Willamette Valley tour he organized for Giancarlo, to the panel tasting he put together and the team of field contributors he assembled, he’s made the inaugural Oregon guide a unique and benchmark entry in the state’s wine media coverage. His profound knowledge of Oregon wine country is difficult to rival and it was wonderful — and wonderful fun — to watch him dive into the project with his signature verve and gusto. His groovy energy was reflected in the winemakers’ embrace of our undertaking.

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Anyone who’s ever been to visit the historic Poderi Colla estate in Piedmont’s Langhe Hills will tell you the same story.

As we were tasting the wines with Tino Colla and enjoying a delicious luncheon of classic homemade Piedmont dishes, there was an older man sitting quietly outside the farmhouse. He didn’t utter a word beyond “buongiorno” and so we just assumed he was a retired farm hand or a beloved uncle. Only later did we learn that he was the legendary Beppe Colla…

This week, the world of Italian wine mourns the loss of one of its greatest pioneers, Beppe Colla, who — together with Nebbiolo icons like Bartolo Mascarello and Bruno Giacosa — reshaped the legacy of Piedmont viticulture in the 20th century. Few beyond Langa’s inner circle of cognoscenti were aware of his immense and immeasurable contribution to Barolo and Barbaresco’s rise as two of the world’s greatest appellations. But the soft-spoken hero of Piedmont viticulture left an indelible mark on the world of fine wine — in and beyond Italy.

The following passage appeared in his obituary, published this week by the Italian daily La Stampa (translation mine):

The Langhe Hills bid adieu to Beppe Colla, a visionary and innovator among grape growers, one of the few winemakers you could call a “patriarch.”

He was 88 years old and he would have celebrated his 70th vintage this year.

After finishing his degree at the Umberto I school of Enology, he was asked to become the director of what was the biggest Alba-area winery at the time: Bonardi. He was just 19 years old.

In 1956 he purchased another historic Alba property, Prunotto, which he sold to the Antinori family in 1990 when he and his brother Tino founded the Poderi Colla winery. Located in Bricco del Drago in San Rocco Seno d’Elvia hamlet, their estate also includes important vineyards in Roncaglie (Barbaresco) and Bussia di Monforte (Barolo).

I highly recommend watching the excellent video in this post by Intravino (with English subtitles).

And be sure not to miss this insuperable 2005 post by my friend and blogger colleague Craig Camp, who writes (ubi major minor cessat):

For over fifty years Beppe Colla has made wine in the Langhe and has seen the transition of this zone from a region on the edge of disaster to the home of some of the worlds most expensive and sought after wines. From his first vintage in 1948 ( a disastrous vintage) and his just completed 56th vintage in 2004 (which looks to be an excellent vintage) he has seen it all and possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of every aspect of the climate and vineyards of the Langhe zone and has personally experienced every vintage of the modern era of Barolo and Barbaresco. It is this incredible range of experience that he brings to winemaking at Poderi Colla.

My 2016 tasting at Poderi Colla was one of the most inspiring winery visits of my career.

Thanks to generous Italian collectors, I’ve also had the chance to drink some of Beppe Colla’s pre-Antinori Prunotto bottlings stretching back to the 1970s, some of the most compelling expressions of Nebbiolo I’ve ever tasted.

Sit tibi terra levis Iosephe.

Image via Intravino.

After we posted our GoFundMe to raise an MLK billboard over the newly erected Confederate memorial in Orange, Texas where Tracie grew up, it caused quite an uproar (more than 200 comments, a lot of them negative and abrasive, many of them positive and supportive). We must be doing something right.

We are just a few hundred dollars away from our goal.

Please help us by donating or sharing on social media.

Here’s the link.

And thank you to everyone who has already donated and/or shared. This really means the world to us — literally. It’s the world that we inhabit and it’s the world where we are raising our children.

To quote Dr. King, “there comes a time when silence is betrayal.” That’s the line that will appear with our billboard, which will run starting next week and through most of African American History Month. It seems only fitting. The Sons of Confederate Veterans raised their monument, which includes the “Confederate Flag,” on MLK Dr. in Orange. Our billboard will look down on the memorial from across the road.

You can see the billboard here. It will be the second that we’ve raised.

Here’s a note on the painting above. It resides in the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. It was painted in 1865. The following is a transcription of the label that appears with the work.

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Constant Mayer [artist]
American, born France, 1832-1911

“Recognition: North and South”
1865

In “Recognition: North and South,” a wounded Confederate soldier has just discovered the body of his dead Union brother, whom he cradles. The landscape echoes the contrast of life and death represented by the two figures, with a lush, green forest appearing behind the Confederate soldier and a decaying tree stump hovering above the mortally wounded brother.

This powerful painting captures the sorrow of the Civil War (1861-65), one of the darkest chapters in the history of the United States. Neither man in this work wins, an idea that would have resonated with Americans who, around the time this painting was produced, had endured four years of death and destruction and were searching for meaning in the unprecedented carnage.

Image via the Houston Museum of Fine Arts (public domain).

To be totally honest, Roberto Girelli’s extraordinary white wines had not come to my attention until Decanter called his 2015 single-vineyard Lugana Orestilla a “best white single varietal” in its 2017 world wine awards (I don’t know why they still use the passé varietal but that’s another story). The magazine’s tasting panel gave it a whopping 95 points.

Consternation filled my mind: how could this wine not be on my radar? After all, neighborhing Brescia and Desenzano (where the wine is raised) and Lake Garda have become my stomping ground over the last 10 years (thanks to my great friends in Franciacorta).

It took a lot of cajoling and even some name dropping to get the opportunity to taste the wine last year at Vinitaly, where it is kept — literally — under lock and key. But Do Bianchi always get his wine…

Was it as great as Decanter claimed? After three days of hardcore tasting and schmoozing at Vinitaly, it’s always hard to wrap your mind around anything. In that context, it wasn’t clear to me whether it lived up to the hype, honestly. But despite the haze of the wine fair experience, it left my curiosity tickled, my palate seduced.

The true test came when our family headed to California for summer vacation last year. Six bottles were ordered from a celebrated Costa Mesa wine shop where they were languishing apparently unnoticed. It was the only place in the U.S. where the wine was still available.

And here’s the thing, as our older daughter Georgia likes to say, it landed at my mom’s doorstep in La Jolla at less than $40 a bottle!

The wine was powerful yet lithe, laser-focused yet elegant in its white flower and fruit flavors and intense minerality. Its flavors literally wrapped themselves around your tongue and left you pining for more as you swallowed. This is one hell of a white wine, folks. It didn’t take but a few delicious days for us — mom, Tracie, and our San Diego friends — to drink it all up.

What can I say? I’m now obsessed with this wine and only wish I had the dough to put down cases and cases in my wine cellar.

I finally visited Montonale and tasted with grower and winemaker Roberto Girelli in early December.

That’s a shot of vineyards looking north toward Lake Garda (just on the other side of the camera’s horizon).

As you’ll note, there are grasses growing wild between the rows in the clay- and limestone-rich rocky soils. The vineyards are all planted within a stone’s through of the winery and Roberto’s house.

Like so many northern grape farmers I’ve spoken to over the last five years or so, they have opted for a lutte raisonée approach to viticulture. In other words, they intervene with synthetic products only when absolutely necessary. With such intensely concentrated rainfall and often violent weather events in recent years, Montonale — like so many of its peers — believes it does less harm to the environment and makes better wines by using a rational struggle protocol (excuse the slavish translation; see the link above for the best post on this emerging trend I’ve found so far).

And like a lot of Italian white wine producers I’ve interacted with over the last ten years, they vinify in an entirely reductive environment, using the first pressing of their hand-picked and sorted grapes for their estate wines. Working in the absence of oxygen allows them to retain the fruit’s natural aromas and flavors.

Roberto and his brothers are among an expanding generation of homegrown winemakers who have revived their parents and grandparents viticultural enterprise. It’s a story often told these days: in 1998 the farm was abandoned only to be replanted by Roberto’s generation in the 2000s. Wine lovers — and white wine lovers in particular — are the better for it.

Drink and cellar these wines if you’re fortunate enough find them. You won’t regret it. My only critique, as I told Roberto, is that he should charge more for them!

For more than four years, I’ve been working as a media consultant for the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce Texas (recently ranked the top chamber in North America and eighth in the world).

Our marquee event each year is the Taste of Italy food and wine festival, the largest trade fair devoted exclusively to Italian enogastronomy in the U.S.

Every year, one of Houston’s most beloved sommeliers, Jaime De Leon, coordinates our sommelier team through AweSomm — a wine study and support group for aspiring Advanced and Master Sommeliers here in Houston (above).

Last year, Jaime approached the chamber about creating a “Best Sommelier in Houston” competition to foster wine education in our city and provide resources for wine professionals (including prize money to be used for travel and study).

The first-ever competition will be held at this year’s Taste of Italy festival. Details follow. Please help us get the word out by sharing on social media. Thanks for your support.

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On February 24-25, AweSomm will be hosting the first-ever “Best Sommelier in Houston” competition in association with the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce Texas and its 5th annual Taste of Italy Houston festival and trade show.

To apply, please use the form below.

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