Above: no, I won’t be pouring Chianti Classico on Wednesday in Boston. But we will have a great time nonetheless!

Please come out and taste with me on Wednesday in Boston (details below).

And for those who would like to hear my talk, please come on the early side. About 15 minutes into the tasting, I’ll give a 10-15 talk on Franciacorta and why it is such a unique expression of classic-method wines today. If you can’t make it at the beginning, come when convenient.

Looking forward to tasting with you and thanks for your support! It should be a really fun evening and a great group of people (it always is).

FRANCIACORTA REAL STORY TASTING

with Jeremy Parzen
Franciacorta trade ambassador
for the U.S.

Wednesday, March 16
6:00-8:00 p.m.
The Wine Bottega
Boston, MA

no registration required

The Wine Bottega
341 Hanover St.
Boston MA 02113
(617) 227-6607
Google map

So much groovy wine being poured in Houston right now, including this 2006 Solea, a Chardonnay and Nebbiolo blend from one of my favorite Langa producers, Roagna.

It was recommended to me by Thomas Moësse, my friend and one of Houston’s leading Italian wine pros. He runs a fantastic program over at Divino Italian Restaurant and Wine Bar (one of my favorite places to hang with Cousin Marty, who joined me last night).

Angelo Gaja has famously talked about Italy’s immense potential as a producer of white wine. And, of course, he became an Italian white wine pioneer when he planted Chardonnay Treiso township (Barbaresco) in 1979.

According to Roagna’s website, Chardonnay was planted in the Pira cru in the southern part of Castiglione Falletto township in the mid-1980s — so not long after Gaja planted his.

The Roagna family acquired the vineyard in 1989 and it would appear — gauging from an image on the Solea fact sheet page — that the first vintage of this wine released by the estate was 1988.

The Chardonnay rows, writes the winery on the site, are at the bottom of the southeastern-facing slope, which is otherwise planted to Nebbiolo.

The first thing that impressed me about this wine was its gorgeous freshness. Not a note of oxidation here despite being a 10-year-old wine.

Come-hither aromas of white fruit gave way to a blend of succulent white and stone fruit in the mouth.

WineSearcher shows 2012 as the current release for this wine. And I don’t know where Thomas hooked up the 2006.

But, hey, I’m not asking questions! I’m just digging these happy days of not traveling and reconnecting with my city.

White wines blow away…

A million magic crystals, painted pure and white
A multi-million dollars, almost overnight
Twice as sweet as sugar, twice as bitter as salt
And if you get hooked, baby, it’s nobody else’s fault, so don’t do it!

Sex in a glass, dick wagger’s wine, and an acidity lover’s wet dream.

These are three questionable phrases that I recently (and wisely?) elided from blog posts I was writing.

Well, “sex in a glass” actually made the cut and into the post. The other two were intended for a post I wrote today for the Houston Press about a new and progressive wine list in the most unlikely of places here in Houston (a log cabin, go figure!).

Aaaaa… just another day in the life of an average punter wine blogger for hire, folks!

Moving on to more serious subjects, I wanted to share a recipe for the dish above, which elicited a lot of queries on social media last night.

Basically, it’s an aglio, olio, e peperoncino to which I added a handful of freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley. We didn’t have any long noodles in the house last night and so I used the unconventional (sacrilegious?) fusilli instead.

Recipe:

Over low heat, gently sauté 2-3 cloves of garlic, a half of a handful of freshly and finely chopped flat-leaf parsley, and a generous sprinkling of chili flakes in extra-virgin olive oil.

Remove from heat and serve.

Another recent social media post (above) also drew a lot of questions.

The wine was the Domaine Luccy/Lucy Margaux 2013 Sauvignon Blanc Wildman Blanc from Australia (below), which had found its way to Camerata, my number-one hangout in Houston and the place where all the wine tradefolk congregate.

Camerata owner and wine director David Keck recommended it when I asked for something slightly oxidative but not too radical on a dreary and rainy night here in the Bayou City.

As David predicted, my buddy Nathan Smith (another one of city’s leading wine pros) and I were blown away by its vibrant fruit character in the wine.

Very cool wine, very cool story.

If you’ve made it this far into my post today, I thank you! And if you live in Boston, please come taste Franciacorta with me next Wednesday, March 16 at Wine Bottega in the North End.

Just another day in the life of an average punter wine blogger for hire…

I read the news today, o boy…

Dear Mr. Martin,

I hear your voice nearly every single day.

Whenever I load our family into the minivan and bluetooth my iPhone to the stereo, the first track that plays is the audio to the “Abbey Road” mini-documentary from the most recent release of the “Complete Beatles.” It’s the first because it begins with the letter a.

It’s become a ritual for our little girls, ages 4 and 2.

“I was quite surprised when Paul rang me up and said, ‘we’re going to make another record. Would you like to produce it?'”

That’s your first line in the piece.

Little Georgia P and Lila Jane don’t know who you are or why you were so special to their father.

But they know your voice and it only takes a minute or so of listening to the dialog in the documentary before the girls insist that “we listen to Beatles.”

From the first time I heard Paul count off “I Saw Her Standing There” to the countless hours of listening to “Abbey Road” and “The Beatles” (“The White Album”) on my Walkman as a teen; from the time my cello teacher taught me how to play an arrangement from “Eleanor Rigby” when I was 8 years old to the first time a tape engineer pressed record at my first real studio session when I was 19 (yes, I’m old enough to remember 2-inch tape!)… your work profoundly shaped my musical sensibilities and my interest in the recording arts.

Today, in the New York Times, the author of your obituary wrote that your work with the Beatles overshadowed your collaboration with other artists.

Not for me.

To this day, Jeff Beck’s “Blow by Blow” and “Wired” are among my favorite recordings, albums to which I return over and over again in times of emotional and spiritual need.

Once, at a session in LA when I was in my early twenties, I met an engineer who had worked as the tape operator at Abbey Road studio on the “Wired” sessions. To shake his hand, knowing that he was the one who pressed “record” when you said “roll tape,” was electric.

There are countless other unforgettable albums you gave us, each priceless.

We have a small recording studio in our home and our girls are already excited about the recording arts. It will be years before they understand what a “producer” does and before they know who you are.

But they know your voice well. And I’m looking forward to their lifetime of discovering your work and your magic.

Thank you for everything you did for us and everything you gave us. There is no one compares with you.

Roll tape… one, two, three, four…

Your devoted fan,

Jeremy

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 to learn more about each other’s lives and families: our conversations are punctuated by our children’s booboos and laughter as my girls vie for my attention in the early morning and his son flops in his lap, curious about the American on the other end of his father’s afternoon call.

This newfound and cherished intimacy has been the backdrop for a much more serious dialog about the present and future of natural wine.

Now that I’m a dad (with a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old), I have an even greater appreciation of the urgency of his mission. What world will we leave our children when we’re gone? It’s a question I ask myself all the time. And the answers will be as intimate as they are universal.

“Natural wine is not an abstract concept,” he said to me emphatically yesterday before work obligations forced us to end our call.

It is the very real “application of our conscience,” he said as he spoke of his dream of creating a natural wine protocol that will be recognized and embraced as cultural patrimony.

After much back-and-forth and many wonderful and colorful confabulations, he and I have agreed that in coming months, I am going to give him a hand in giving an English-language voice to the ViniVeri fair.

It’s a labor of love and I began today with a nuts-and-bolts post on the dates, hours, and location of the fair, as well as some other useful information.

The boilerplate is accompanied by my translation of Giampiero’s notes on this year’s fair and its themes.

There are a lot of technical issues to be ironed out in terms of the fair’s English-language media presence. We are working on it and in the meantime, I hope that my contribution will facilitate my American colleague’s attendance.

I’ll be spending a day in Cerea with Giampiero this year and we are organizing a TBD event where I will be participating as well. Stay tuned…

The mosaic of Italian food and wine never ceases to surprise, delight, and thrill my senses and sensibilities.

One of my most marvelous discoveries at yesterday’s Taste of Italy trade event in Houston yesterday (where I served as the organizer’s official blogger) was this new expression of traditional balsamic vinegar from Emilia-Romagna, perle nere or black pearls.

Silvia Rossi, who reps the balsamic producer Guerzoni from Modena province, turned me on to these small and flavorless gelatin balls that are infused with aged balsamic.

They’re generally served as condiments to finger foods, she said.

I loved the texture and the gentle burst of flavor. Definitely a “wow” for me and great to taste Guerzoni’s Demeter-certified vinegars.

A delicious organic Charmat-method Pinot Noir from Oltrepò Pavese was another discovery for me.

I’d never heard of or tasted Castel del Lupo but was wholly impressed by the transparency of fruit and elegance in this wine, poured for me by Federica Doglio whose family owns the estate.

As far as I know, the wine is not available in the U.S. and I wonder if it would land here at a by-the-glass price.

But I loved its freshness and balance.

All in all, my afternoon at the tasting was a lot of fun and it was great to see so many Italian food and wine producers so excited about Houston and the Texas market.

I’ll never forget when I told a close New York wine friend that I would be moving to Texas back in 2008.

“But what will you drink???!!!” she said.

I’m happy to report that my palate is doing just fine.

Buon weekend, yall!

Taste Italian wine, beer, and food products
with me tomorrow in Houston at Taste of Italy.
(last-minute registration welcome)

Taste Franciacorta with me March 16 in Boston at Wine Bottega.

My good friend and winemaker extraordinaire Nico Danesi and my bromance Giovanni Arcari came down from Brescia to Verona to meet me for lunch on my last day in the city for the Amarone vintage debut event in late January.

It was a Saturday and every one of their favorite haunts within the city’s historic Renaissance-era walls was already fully booked.

And so they grabbed us a table at the Trattoria l’Altra Colonna, not to be confused with its sister restaurant Trattoria alla Colonna (colonna means column in Italian; l’altra colonna means the other column; I’m not sure where the name comes from). It lies just outside the city’s inner loop, as it were, and so it’s more of a workaday destination for locals than a hot spot for tourists.

Neither restaurant has a website (I’ve copied and pasted the addresses and telephone numbers below).

Both restaurants are famous for their signature dish, the oversized cotoletta alla milanese like the one in the photo above.

Technically, a true cotoletta alla milanese or Milanese-style [veal] cutlet is made with a bone-in-chop that is beaten, breaded, and fried.

The cotoletta at the two “Colonna” restaurants is actually more similar to the classic Wiener Schnitzel.

But there’s a twist: at both locations, you can add the toppings of your choice, like the “gigantic-size” cutlet topped with sautéed mushrooms and Fontina, above.

Nico’s son got the alla diavola, i.e., devil’s style, topped with spicy salamino, what we in America would call pepperoni, although in Italy it’s generally a lot spicier.

His wife got a cutlet topped with arugula and cherry tomatoes (alla Californiana?).

While most Italian wine trade observers know or know of Nico, few in America do. But many Americans know wines that he has a hand in making, like Ciro Picariello, Pasini, Otella, and many others, not to mention the many Franciacorta wineries he consults with.

And of course, he and Giovanni make their own line of Franciacorta wines, Arcari + Danesi, which are now part of their SoloUva or “made using only grape sugar” line of classic-method wines.

But whenever we get together, he only ever wants to talk to me about movies, music, art, and literature. A voracious reader devoted to myriad genres and an insatiable consumer of pop culture, Nico possesses an intellectual metabolism that often leaves my head spinning (in a good way).

He can quote Wittgenstein and Dylan in the same breath ex tempore (that’s Latin for on a dime) and his knowledge of film is encyclopedic.

He also knows how to get a good reservation on a busy Saturday in Verona. The classic ravioli burro e salvia (ricotta stuffed, tossed in butter and pan-fried sage) were solid as well (below). Useful information, when you need a decent place to eat during Vinitaly.

Trattoria alla Colonna
Largo Pescheria Vecchia 4
37121 Verona VR Italy
+39 045 596718

Trattoria l’Altra Colonna
Via Tezone 1
37122 Verona, Italy
+39 045 591455

Above: the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella visited the Johnson Space Center in Houston earlier this month. He was accompanied by Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti who has trained here (image via the Italian Embassy to the United States website).

From the Galleria in Milan to the Galleria in Houston… I’m excited to share the news that I’m authoring a new blog for the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce Texas, which has its headquarters here in my adoptive hometown.

When the Chamber’s administration approached me a few weeks ago about giving them a hand in getting the word out about their Taste of Italy Houston event (this Thursday, March 3), I pitched the idea of an Italian culture blog to them and they loved it.

And so we have now officially launched the IACC (Italy-America Chamber of Commerce) Texas blog, ItalyTexas.org, a virtual space where I’m going to be able to explore my curiosity and share my knowledge of Italian history, language, literature, art, cinema, music, and gastronomy beyond my interest in Italian wine.

This nascent project is just beginning to take shape but I am eagerly looking forward to the next 12 months of blogging about Italian culture at large.

From aerospace to energy, there is a vibrant Italian business community in Houston. Just this month, the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella visited the Johnson Space Center (above).

The Italy-America Chamber organized his meetings with business leaders in the Italian community here.

If you’re based in Houston or in Texas, I hope you can join us for the all-day event on Thursday.

It’s a fantastic opportunity to meet and taste with producers of authentic Italian food products like traditional balsamic vinegar and Parmigiano Reggiano and to taste artisanal Italian beer and even Franciacorta.

Wine and restaurant professionals are encouraged to come and all are welcome (as is last-minute registration).

In the few weeks that the blog has been active, I’ve devoted the content exclusively to the Italian food products that will be featured at Thursday’s event.

But as soon as the dust settles, I’ll be expanding coverage to the many aspects of Italian culture that continue to fascinate me.

As they say in Italian, it’s pane per i miei denti…, bread I can sink my teeth into…

Thanks for reading and please stay tuned…

Yesterday evening, after the girls helped me cook the tomato sauce (from chopping the shallots and crushing the garlic to deglazing with Garganega and stirring as the cherry tomatoes simmered), the four of us sat down at the dinner table and Georgia P asked me, “daddy, how do you say ‘family’ in Italian?”

We’ve been learning a lot of new words in Italian over the last few weeks and it’s not unusual for Georgia to ask me how to say words she’s curious about in Italian.

But as far as linguistic inquiry goes, this was a special one.

Both girls are doing great and Lila Jane is going through a language explosion.

She and I did a session in studio A at Baby P studios yesterday afternoon.

And before their bedtime, Tracie P had a special request for a couple of rounds of “ready, set, go!” (below).

Buona domenica, everyone, as they say in Italian.

Enjoy a restful and peaceful Sunday before the work week begins again tomorrow.

American wine writer and natural wine advocate Alice Feiring (above) will chair a new “natural wine” competition this year at Vinitaly, the annual Italian wine industry fair held in Verona.

Wines submitted to the “Free Wine, Wine Without Walls” competition will be judged by Feiring and a panel selected by her, including Pietro Vergano (wine buyer, Ristorante Consorzio, Turin), Diego Sorba (wine buyer, Tabarro, Parma), and Pascaline Lepeltier (Master Sommelier and wine director, Rouge Tomate, New York).

According to a press release issued by Vinitaly organizer Veronafiere, the wines will not be scored. Instead, they will be judged according to criteria that include “evolution in the glass, emotional impact, and transparency.”

The competition “is open to all wines conforming to the definition in the OIV International Code, entered by producers located in any country.”

And while Veronafiere concedes that there is no “legal definition” of “natural wine” in Europe, it specifies the following restrictions for submission.

“Wines presented for the Free Wine event must have the following characteristics, under penalty of exclusion from the event: sulphite quantity of no more than 20 mg/l; [and they] must not be the result of practices such as micro-oxygenation, the use of concentrators, reverse osmosis, thermo-vinification, malolactic fermentation block [or] vineyard irrigation.”

For information on submission in English, click here; for information in Italian, click here.

The deadline for submission is March 25, 2016.

The judging will take place on April 1 and the winners will be announced on April 10 in Verona at the fair.

The award is “a way to bring the conversation about what wine is — not only natural — to a much larger audience,” wrote Feiring on her blog this week.

“The fact that [Vinitaly] embraced this category is ground-breaking. Frankly, it is a big deal and is bound to shake up the status quo.”

But the competition could prove to be controversial in a country like Italy where authorities have fined retailers for advertising wines as “natural.”

“Do the competition organizers know that the verbiage ‘natural wine’ is a borderline issue for the Anti-Adulteration unit of the Carabinieri [Italy’s paramilitary police force]?” wrote Antonio Tomacelli on the popular Italian wine blog Intravino. “What will happen in wine shops when investigators discover bottles with tags [that say] ‘5-star natural wines’ or something similar?”

Full disclosure: Alice is a close friend of mine.