Over the last few weeks, a number of Italian wine folks have written asking me if I’m attending this or that tasting, if I’m available to meet with a visiting winemaker, when I’m coming back to Italy, if I’ll be at Slow Wine…

It’s incredible to think that I haven’t been back to Italy in nearly 12 months. There was a time when I traveled to my spiritual homeland six to nine times a year.

It’s next to unbelievable to think that I haven’t even left Texas since I attended my mother’s funeral in San Diego in November. I used to be on the road two weeks every month, leading seminars and events across the U.S.

I’m both happy and sorry to report that my work in Italian wine is coming to an end.

The number one reason for that is that Tracie’s career is going so well (poo, poo, poo!) that she needs me here to take care of the girls, the dogs, and the house, etc. I made a more than decent living in the wine business for 20+ years. Tracie was a stay-at-home mom for the first decade of the girls’ lives. But now she’s the bread winner and I’ve shifted to supporting her success.

I was fortunate to have such a rewarding arc in Italian wine: when I started out in 1999, the category was just taking off; by the time I left NYC in 2007, fine Italian wine had become a contender.

But wine and food were a detour for me: by working in Italian enogastronomy, I was able to support myself and then later my family. My greatest interest was in Italian culture and history. Wine and food were a means to keep me connected to the land of Petrarch, Pasolini, and Pontormo while bringing home the pancetta, as it were.

I won’t be returning to Europe until this summer when we visit as a family. But we will be tourists — no longer “authorized personnel.” Instead of dragging our daughters to wine country, I’ll be taking them to see the Vatican and the Uffizi (places of my youth!).

I’m not going to stop writing about Italy. But I’m also going to expand my focus to reflect my other interests, like Italian literature and our growing activism here in Texas.

Italia mia, thank you for all you’ve given me. This is no addio. It’s just an arrivederci.

The Italian word for “round up” (as in the raids conducted by ICE in the U.S.) is rastrellamento, literally, a raking up.

For Italians old enough to remember World War II, the term evokes memories of the “Black Shirts,” Mussolini’s paramilitary thugs who seized undesirables, enemies of the state, intellectuals, foreigners, homosexuals, Jews, etc.

For those familiar with history, the scenes broadcast from Minneapolis around the world reverberate with Italians who have studied what happened in their own country in the 1920s and 30s.

It’s no wonder that the Milanese took to the streets to protest the presence of ICE agents at this year’s Winter Olympics. (Yes, the U.S. sent ICE agents to the games; Google it.)

To illustrate what I’m talking about, please have a look at this iconic sequence from the neorealist classic film Rome: Open City.

The movie was made in 1945 using the war-torn streets of Rome as the backdrop and citizen actors as the “face” of the tragedy.

Look closely at the characters in the YouTube clip below and you’ll see the same terror and sorrow that I’ve seen as families are being torn apart by federal officers in our country.

Please join me — and the Italians — in standing up and speaking out against our government’s inhumane, racist policies.