This obituary appeared originally on the Taste of Italy trade fair and festival website. The gathering, the largest devoted exclusively to Italian wine and food products, will take place in Houston on March 14. Please visit the site for details.

Fabio Picchi, whose legendary restaurant Cibreo in Florence reshaped the way the world viewed Tuscan cuisine, died last week. According to La Nazione, he was 68 and had been battling a long-term illness.

Named after the classic Tuscan dish cibreo — a sauce made with chicken combs, wattles, and livers — the restaurant has been a gathering place for the Italian and international glitterati since its opening in 1979. The celebrities, intellectuals, and culinary luminaries came as much for the food as the verve and artistry of the larger-than-life chef, author of numerous cookbooks and even a historical novel.

Picchi’s passion for theater would lead him to open the Circolo Teatro del Sale, the “Theater of Salt” dining club in Florence in 2003. Since that time, the venue has combined theater, high-concept cafeteria dining, and retail sales of chilometro zero (“zero kilometer” or farm-to-table) food products, a category that Picchi championed throughout his career.

He was part of the new wave of the enlightened culinary icons who emerged in the late 1970s and early 80s. But he always stood apart from the crowded field of “back to the land” chefs thanks to his artistic flair and literary leanings.

Beyond his revitalization of cibreo, a recipe with noble origins that had been relegated to the dust bin of forgotten rustic recipes, his notable dishes included panzanella croccante (a crunchy version of the typically pliable Tuscan classic) and myriad iterations of baccalà (salt cod).

Many American food lovers will remember his appearance last year in a video from Stanley Tucci’s “Searching for Italy” food and travel documentary on CNN. In this short clip, Picchi explains how the quality of the sea salt is key to a great bistecca fiorentina and he reveals that he adds olive branches and leaves to the coals to give the beef greater flavor.

Picchi was active on his Facebook until just a few weeks ago, garnering thousands of likes with each post. His passing has deeply saddened the local and international communities of Italian food lovers.

His son Giulio will continue to run his celebrated restaurant, write the editors of La Nazione.

Image via the Fabio Picchi public figure Facebook page. 

*****

In 2005, a friend’s Florentine brother-in-law took me for the first time to the Teatro del Sale. I had eaten at Cibreo on more than one occasion and I loved it for the food, for the richly cultural and thoughtful presentation of the dishes, and for the countless Italian and international celebrities you would spot there. But the Teatro was on another level in terms of its combination of classic Italian folk and political theater with a dining program that evoked the workers’ cafeterias of the inter-war era. I never met Picchi but did glimpse him once during one of my many visits to the Teatro, one of my happiest places where I always found a drinking buddy to share the chef’s wonderful box wine. Italy and the world have lost a culinary icon.

A guy walks into a bottega in Oakland and says: “Is the owner from Piedmont?”

“He’s not from Piedmont, he’s from Italy,” answers a server.

“He’s not from Piedmont? But all the dishes are piemontesi!” the guy protests.

“Aaaaahhhh! pee-EH-mohn-TEH-zeh! Yes, now I get it,” says the server. “Yes, he is from Piemonte.”

No, it’s not some schtick from Abbott and Costello.

That’s actually what happened when I stumbled upon the wonderful Belotti Ristorante e Bottega on College Ave. in Rockridge. He thought I was referring to the group’s “Piedmont Ave. Bottega.” Owner Michele Belotti is from Piedmont, Italy.

The vitello tonnato, my favorite Piedmontese dish, was excellent.

A guy walks into a wine bar in San Francisco and says: “Do you have anything white and oxidative?”

My first glass of wine at the superb Birba was a Montbourgeau, followed by a delicious Terre de Bréze Saumur Blanc from Château de Chaintres (I believe this Rosenthal property releases this wine under a sub-label, Exmuros).

I was blown away by the level of wine culture at this place. My server nailed both wines he chose for me and the apps/shared plates were a cicheti-lover’s dream.

Early evening found me at Che Fico Alimentari, the downstairs join at the recently reopened Che Fico.

My former Slow Wine colleague Deborah Parker Wong joined me for burrata and perfectly sliced prosciutto. It was great to catch up with her and hear about all the success she’s had with the first print edition published since we launched the first U.S.-focused Slow Wine guide. The project couldn’t be in better or more talented hands.

The housemade rigatoni alla gricia were a showstopper. Of the Roman pasta tetralogy — carbonara, cacio e pepe, amatriciana, and gricia — I believe the latter doesn’t always get the attention it deserves. This dish really hit on all cylinders.

And we learned that Che Fico, despite its robust take-out program, does not sell its housemade pastas as take-away. The chef feels that they don’t travel well, our server gently told us (Deborah wanted to take a plate home to her husband but her pleas went rebuffed).

The wine list was small but classic, balanced with fun. We just had to go for the Borgo del Tiglio Chardonnay, one of my top Friulians. I was always pleased to see that they had Mitja Sirk’s white. Friulanophiles will know what I’m talking about.

Man, it was great to be back in San Francisco and the East Bay.

California’s indoor mask mandate is scheduled to end today, February 16.

People here are still mostly wearing masks, in my anecdotal experience. At nearly every place I visited, even the Emeryville dive bar, Wolfhound, where I stopped in for a beer at the end of my night, I was asked to show my vaccine status. At Birba, nearly all the seating was outside, and there were ubiquitous, gentle reminders to wear your mask while visiting the counter inside.

San Francisco, mon amour…

Please consider giving to this GoFundMe to help a wine industry colleague in need. Ready the story here.

Above: grower and winemaker Fabio Sireci of Feudo Montoni in Sicily. Read this post on the estate by one of my favorite English-language wine writers, Michael Godel.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

As our Thursday night virtual winemaker dinner series at Roma restaurant in Houston continues, I couldn’t be more thrilled to host grower and winemaker Fabio Sireci and cookbook author Melissa Muller of Feudo Montoni this week on our Zoom call.

Not many folks in the U.S. know these extraordinary wines from inland, mountainous Sicily.

While Vittoria and Etna wines have become increasingly popular in the U.S., Fabio, now joined by Melissa, has simply continued to quietly make and release wines that Italian wine insiders have followed for nearly two decades now.

On Thursday evening, we’ll be sending guests home with the Vrucara, his top wine, a single-vineyard 100 percent Nero d’Avola that — in my view — sets the benchmark for the grape variety.

I use to feature it on my list at Sotto in Los Angeles and it was always amazing to watch people’s light up when they first tasted the wine.

The wine alone is worth the cost of admission. $119 sends you home with dinner for two and a bottle of the Vrucara. Trust me, you won’t regret it.

Send me an email at jeremy at romahouston dot com to reserve. The menu isn’t online yet but it will be posted shortly here.

Fabio and Melissa are organic farmers. And that’s a cool thing, no doubt. But it’s the biodiversity of their farm — the polyculture or diversity of crops as opposed to monoculture — that really makes these wines sing and speak of place, as we say in the biz.

The story of how they met could have been plucked from a Coppola epic. But you’ll have to join the call to hear them tell it.

I hope you can be there. Thanks for the support and thanks for loving Italian wine!

Chance Kenda, age 34, a driver for Houston-based wine importer Dionysus, “was shot in the abdomen” yesterday afternoon “following a road rage incident,” according to the City of Houston blog.

He is in stable condition and is expected to recover, said Dionysus owner Doug Skopp.

“He’s been working for Dionysus for nearly four years,” added Doug, “a dedicated professional, very good at what he does. We’re looking forward to his recovery, which could take months.”

Doug has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help with Chance’s medical costs.

Please consider giving or sharing.

The shooting occurred just a day after a 9-year-old Houston girl was shot in a road rage incident.

Above: Dal Zovo, a legacy wine shop in Verona (image via the Dal Zovo website).

In America, there are a number of channels and platforms where aspiring sommeliers and wine shop professionals can access educational resources. But our country lacks educational programs expressly created for and focused solely on wine shop professionals.

In 2017, members of the Italian association of wine shops, Vinarius, launched the national Association of Italian Wine Shop Professionals, known as AEPI (Associazione Enotecari Professionisti Italiani), an organization that fosters education and professional standards for people who own wine shops and work in wine retail.

Last week, the group announced that it has partnered with the Italian agriculture ministry and some of Italy’s leading appellation consortia to create a competition and series of awards for wine shop professionals: the Miglior Enotecario d’Italia awards, including a “best Italian wine shop professional” category.

The goal is “to bolster personal and collective growth,” said AEPI president Francesco Bonfio in a statement issued last week (disclosure: Francesco is a good friend of mine).

The competition is open to professionals, including owners and employees, who work in wine shops, wine bars, restaurants, and all public-facing services that offer retail wine sales (in Italy, where wine professionals scratch their heads at the thought of our anachronistic and repressive “three-tier system,” retail sales have always been allowed at “on premise” venues).

The competition also includes an award for “best Italian wine shop professional abroad.” The category is open to Italians working beyond the country’s borders, said Francesco in a WhatsApp message yesterday.

The following consortia are underwriters of the competition and others are expected to join: Vini Alto Adige, Colli Orientali del Friuli, Tutela Vini Colli Euganei, Vini Cirò, Tutela Vini Valpolicella, Vini del Trentino, IGT Toscana, DOC delle Venezie, Enoteca Regionale del Barolo, Vino Chianti Classico, Brunello di Montalcino, and the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne. Semi-finalists will be invited to those appellations for hands-on educational programs created especially for those who work in retail wine sales.

Visit the Miglior Enotecario d’Italia website here. The portal is now open for applications through the end of February.

Blame it on the Nebbiolo.

Over the course of my 13+ years in Texas, Dale Robertson, the longtime Houston Chronicle wine writer and legendary Houston sports writer, became a good friend and well, um, drinking buddy.

And now I’m proud to share the news that he and I have a new podcast: Sporty Wine Guy.

As Dale recounts in the first episode, he first became interested in fine wine while covering the Tour de France.

Later, a visit to Houston by a top Italian winemaker, a Barolo producer, turned him on to the quality and breadth of Italian wine.

It was around that time, in 2007, that he started writing a regular wine column for the Houston Chronicle.

Not only is he one of the nicest people I know in wine writing. He’s also one of the most interesting storytellers in our field. Over the course of his time at the Chronicle, he’s met and tasted with some of the most famous winemakers in the world, from Napa to Barolo to Bordeaux and beyond.

He and I had been mulling over the idea of a podcast for some time when 2020 derailed our plans.

Now that we’re feeling comfortable about gathering again, it seemed the perfect time to launch this project. And I’ve had a lot of fun recording and producing the shows.

Thanks for listening: check it out here. Stay tuned for more!

Above, right: Gianni Maccari, winemaker and grower at Ridolfi in Montalcino, with his vineyard management team.

“From 1st January to 31st May [2017]” wrote my friend Laura Gray, a grower and winemaker in Montalcino, “we had just 126 ml of rainfall (for comparison in 2015 we received 292 mm… The summer was punishingly hot and dry, the only positive being that these conditions also mean zero issues or intervention for mildew. Deciduous trees lost their leaves months ahead of time; oaks were orange-tipped, cereal crops harvested early and the land was parched.”

For observers of the Italian wine trade, it’s hard to forget about the immense challenges of the 2017 vegetative cycle, especially in Tuscany where a devastating late-spring frost was followed by — to use Laura’s word — a “punishingly hot and dry” summer.

As the 2017 Brunello begins to make its way through the U.S. market, I’ve already tasted a couple of wines that have really impressed me with their finesse and freshness — not what many where expecting.

One of those wines was the 2017 Brunello di Montalcino made by Gianni Maccari at Ridolfi. Gianni, in my view, is one of the most exciting winemakers on the ground there right now. And the wines I’ve tasted, back to the 2015 vintage, have been nothing short of stunning, the 2017 included.

Gianni’s wines are imported to the U.S. by my client Ethica Wines. Today, on their blog, I published my translation of his notes on the 2017 vintage and the techniques he used to mitigate the severe weather conditions.

Check it out here.

Gianni’s notes remind me of what another Montalcino great, Piero Talenti, purportedly once said: There are no “bad” vintages. There are just vintages when we make less wine.

This just in: I just got word from my friend Raffaella Guidi Federzoni, a Montalcino insider, that the special New York edition of Benvenuto Brunello is going to take place February 23-24 (although with limited participants). I can’t find an official registration link or any info on the event. But it is supposedly happening.

Photo via the Ridolfi Facebook.