What a thrill for an intrepid wine blogger to present a super sexy flight of Abruzzo wines together with one of our city’s top sommeliers last night!

That’s Mark Sayre (left), not only the wine director at Milton’s, the hottest Italian in the city right now, but also my first friend in Texas.

Mark was the wine director at the Four Seasons in Austin when I moved there to be with Tracie. The bar at the hotel became our clubhouse and Mark and his colleagues were all rooting for us to make it. When I look back on those magical days, I can’t help but think how differently it could have gone if I didn’t have the support of my friends. Today, 17 years later, I’d say it worked out pretty damn well!

I’ve been working as the Abruzzo consortium U.S. ambassador for more than three years now. But this event didn’t spring from my gig.

It was thanks to Mark and his literally insatiable curiosity which led him to put together a dream flight of these compelling wines. Mark’s never been to the region (I hope to remedy that!). But through his sheer will and deep-dive study, he has become a true scholar of Abruzzo viticulture.

The coolest thing is that his passion for Abruzzo was born out of tasting the wines. No matter how strong your marketing game (and Abruzzo has been upping their game for more than a few years now), if you don’t have quality and personality, your wines are never going to find their way to the hip wine lists.

My family ate dinner at a family event at Milton’s last week and the food and service was fantastic. It was so rewarding for me to return to speak about wines I also feel passionately about.

Last night’s event was sold out as is tonight’s, where I’ll also be presenting. I can’t wait.

Thanks again, Mark, for the nearly two decades of wonderful friendship and for giving the wine world a bright guiding light — driven by intellectual and aesthetic curiosity.

Photos by Pop Ratio.

Arguably the most interesting thing overheard by an intrepid wine blogger at TexSom this year was the following.

Wine sales are down, observed one speaker at a break-out session. But natural wine sales continue to stay steady. We need to start looking at natural wine as a way to answer the current demand for wine.

This was followed by something said wine blogger never thought they would hear uttered by a leading U.S. wine professional, words spoken by someone who runs a high-end wine program in an upscale market.

I don’t mind giving my guests a wine that I find defective if that’s what they want. I now have a natural wine by-the-glass on my list, they said.

Wow. I mean, just wow!

Beyond my own mixed feelings about natural wine, I believe that the wine industry passed up and over a golden opportunity when the category began to take shape in the U.S. in the late 2000s.

Natural wine remains the one partition of the trade that continues to attract younger people.

Just think about it: if I offer my 21-year-old Californian niece a by-the-glass of a natural wine and a glass of conventional wine at the same time, which is she going to lean toward? It’s a no-brainer.

Leaving discussion of what is natural wine? (and what is conventional wine?) aside, wine called “natural” is the only growing part of the business.

But now our community faces an even more daunting issue: tariffs are eliminating the small businesses that brought those wines to the U.S. If U.S. trade policy doesn’t change, it’s conceivable and even probable that many natural wine importers will shutter in the next 12 months. We’ll just have to see who’s still standing after OND — October, November, December, the trimester when 50 percent of all wines sales happen in this country.

Will big wine step up to the challenge? At least one leading one professional — one who people listen to — is calling for change.