Above: the scene yesterday at the Houston Zoo, where my two daughters — ages 4 and 5 — especially enjoyed the elephants, lemurs, and cotton candy. We were lucky to find a parking place!

On Thursday, the following email found its way to my inbox:

For reasons they decided not to reveal (other than “in the wake of Hurricane Harvey”… what a tone-deaf word choice!), fine wine importer Kobrand’s powers-that-be have decided at the last minute to change the location of their touring Italian tasting, scheduled for Tuesday, September 19, from Houston to Ft. Worth.

Honestly, I had been looking forward to the tasting and looking forward to writing about it on my blog and the Houston Press food and wine blog. But thanks to the “wake of Hurricane Harvey” (I still can’t get over how insensitively their marketing department’s email was worded), it will be a missed opportunity for all concerned.

Here’s an update on the Houston wine community “in the wake of Hurricane Harvey”:

– both of my favorite wine bars in Houston were open the day after the storm;
– both of my favorite wine shops were open the day after the storm;
– the Houston-area Italian restaurant where I write the wine list was closed for only one day during the storm;
– every restaurateur member of the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce was open by the last day of the storm, except for one, which opened the next day.

Although the first day of school had been postponed for two weeks, my daughter started kindergarten this morning. Yesterday, I took my daughters to the zoo and we were lucky to find a parking place (that’s how crowded it was).

The USPS delivered mail to our house the day after the storm.

City of Houston Solid Waste Management Department picked up our trash and recycling two days after the storm (our regular day for pick-up; there was no disruption in service).

Houston’s airports reopened the day after the storm. I flew to California and back for work last week, with no disruption or delay.

Kobrand, I hope you “Have a wonderful day!” in Ft. Worth. (You can tell that Kobrand managers have a truly top-notch marketing machine working for them, all the way down to the authors of their heartless copy).

Houston is by no means fully recovered. It will take years, some say up to 10, to get the fourth-largest city in America back to its pre-Harvey bustle.

But I can assure you that the wine and restaurant community has rebounded swiftly and seamlessly.

Just think of all the meals that the winemakers and brand ambassadors would have enjoyed in Houston-area fine dining destinations. Just think of the tabs they would have paid and the tips they would have left. But, no, in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, all of that support will go to Ft. Worth, where they surely need it most.

Have a wonderful day, Kobrand! Don’t worry about us down here in Houston. We’re doing just fine.

I just had to share the following post by my client Stefano Cinelli Colombini owner and winemaker at Fattoria dei Barbi, which includes an estate in Maremma (I translated it yesterday for the winery’s blog).

The 2017 harvest at Fattoria dei Barbi in Scansano: In the three glasses in the photo above from left, you can see Merlot (1), Ciliegiolo and Alicante (2), and Cabernet (3). The berries have crunchy brown seeds, wild color, and high levels of polyphenols.

Notice anything strange?

Nothing at all, except… The grapes in the first two glasses were picked 20 days earlier than usual and the grapes in the last glass were picked 40 days earlier.

How can the grapes be so ripe?

Beats me. But they are totally ripe.

I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.

But the flavors are great and there is no trace of bell pepper or jam.

This harvest will make for excellent wines even though, theoretically, none of this should be possible.

Everything about this year is strange. The woods seem like they’re dying but the vines continue to produce vegetation.

Click here for the complete post, including more observations on the changing climatic conditions in Italy and Stefano’s concerns.

His thoughts were echoed by winemaker Marilena Barbera, who commented (on Stefano’s Facebook version of the post): “I really don’t understand this vintage. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to figure it out.”

Across the internets, I’m seeing Italian winemakers scratching their heads as they try to wrap their minds around the 2017 harvest and the 2017 vegetative cycle in general. There have been so many “extreme weather events” this year: unusually warm temperatures in late winter, late spring frosts, intense summer heatwave…

When a grape grower is picking his Cabernet 40 days earlier than usual (and the grapes are excellent quality, which is nothing to complain about), there’s something really strange going on. But, then again, nothing about 2017 has seemed normal…

From Puglia to Friuli to Piedmont to Tuscany and beyond… many of my friends have begun sending me photos of the grapes they are harvesting.

Those are Chardonnay grapes in Franciacorta (Lombardy) harvested this week at the Vezzoli winery.

The 2017 is a vintage that will be remembered — without a doubt — as an extremely challenging one.

Warm temperatures came early in February and March, causing unusually early budding. Then in April, over the course of one week, two frosts struck northern and central Italy, capriciously devastating some growers and miraculously sparing others.

Summer rainfall helped some farmers but disadvantaged others when precipitation came in the form of “extreme weather events,” as we have come to call them in the era of climate change.

And who could avoid news this summer of the heat wave that affected European citizens of all stripes and further accelerated a vegetative cycle (that was already ahead of schedule thanks to the early budding in the late winter)?

From what I can gauge (between images that reach my inbox and photos I see on social media), most white growers are well underway with their picking. And many are resigned to lower yields this year.

It’s still too early to predict what will happen over the next few weeks for the red varieties. I’ll be following along…

Thank you, Solouva (my close friends and clients), for the image!