During each of my visits to Italy, winemakers generously offer to give me wine to bring home to Texas. It’s always a bit of a Sophie’s choice: with so many great wines up for grabs, which wine to pack in my bag, which is otherwise filled with books? During each stay, I always chose just […]
One of the great things about the nights I work the floor at Sotto in Los Angeles (where I author the wine list) is the wines that collectors share with me (Sotto charges $18 for corkage). And as much as I was digging the Cos 2008 Nero di Lupo last night (100% Nero d’Avola by […]
and I mean that quite literally… At last night’s sold-out Paolo Bea dinner at Catalan in Houston (with more than 50 lucky souls in attendance), Giampiero Bea shared a photo of his six-month-old son Paolo using his mobile device. However natural the wines, when the winemaker is on the road, away from his newborn, technology […]
Above: grapes harvested in August 2015 at Ca’ del Bosco, another one of Franciacorta’s “big three” and another winery experimenting with organic farming practices. Producing 4.2 million bottles of wine a year, Guido Berlucchi is Franciacorta’s largest and oldest winery. It’s a powerhouse estate that produces a wide array of wines, ranging from under $15 […]
Super fun day yesterday at ViniVeri in Cerea where I tasted, caught up with lots of winemakers, and co-presented a Barbacarlo vertical with Sandro Sangiorgi, one of Italy’s leading tasters and one of the most revered intellectuals working in wine writing today (as Martin Short once said to me when I was playing guitar at […]
Ever since wine maven and merchant Jamie Wolff of Chambers St. Wines poured the 1996 not so long ago in Manhattan, Lino Maga’s Barbacarlo — the legendary monopole from Oltrepò Pavese — has been the toast of the New York wine scene cognoscenti. Jamie’s (and New York’s) recent discovery has been a best-kept secret among […]
Above: my now bi-weekly Sykpe sessions with Giampiero Bea — the president of the ViniVeri Consortium of natural winemakers — include a little family time. Our girls are really curious about him and they are starting to get interested in Italian and the fact that their mommy and daddy often speak in Italian. Just when […]
Giampiero Bea, president of the ViniVeri Consortium, asked me to give him a hand getting the word out this year. And I am glad to do it. Hope to see you there (I’ll be there on Saturday, April 9). Click the image below for full-size flier.
Click here for the fair information and details. Over the last month, I’ve been Skyping frequently with Vini Veri founder and natural wine advocate Giampiero Bea (above). I’ve always been a fan of his and his wines, wines that Tracie P and I enjoy together with gusto. But our chats have given us a chance […]
Above: “Decameron” by Waterhouse (1916). The countryside outside the city of Fiesole served as diegetic backdrop in Boccaccio’s Decameron. Fiesole lies in the hills above Florence. If you’ve visited my blog before, you probably have already tasted Coenobium, a wine raised by Cistercian sisters in the Province of Viterbo and vinified by natural winemaker and […]
Do Bianchi 