A number of people posted comments on social media or wrote me offline after I posted the above photo a few days ago, taken in Montello (Veneto).

One note came from Michele Fino, professor of food law and policy at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo (Piedmont), whom I met for the first time this weekend in Asolo (I enjoyed talking with him immensely; more on that later).

“Did you know,” he wrote on my Facebook, “that according to Local traditions, wild strawberries are edible if the fruit [faces down] at the soil [while] the ones that [face up toward] the sun aren’t?”

His concern was echoed in a more stern warning by Los Angeles-based Italian wine professional Diego Meraviglia, who noted: “Careful, that ain’t a wild strawberry. That’s a ‘fragola matta’ [crazy strawberry]. It’s toxic… duchesnea indica… The difference is in the shape and the fact it has no yellowish seeds on the skin but those tiny protrusions. The red is bright and it grows upwards (wild strawberries grow downwards).”

Diego grew up in the Italian Alps, he wrote, where both wild strawberries and “mock strawberries,” like this one, are common.

As it turns out, the berry I photographed wasn’t a wild strawberry (fragaria vesca) but a false strawberry that was purportedly brought to Italy from China around 1800.

The FDA does not consider them toxic although they can cause allergic reactions.

The good news is that I didn’t eat it!

By all accounts, while it’s not poisonous, it’s not pleasant on the palate.

Posting in a hurry from Brescia this morning as I prepare to head out for tastings and vineyard visits in Franciacorta…

I’m sad to not be with Tracie P and our girls today.

But knowing that I’d be traveling this week, we celebrated our Mother’s Day last Sunday with red roses chosen by Georgia P, a new purse, lox breakfast, and some silly cards.

Tracie P’s such a beautiful lady, inside and out. And it’s been one of life’s most wonderful experiences watching her become a mother and nurturing our girls.

Whether soothing a tummy ache with three-o-clock-in-the-morning snuggles or simmering chicken into a savory stock that she’ll use to stew the girls’ favorite lentils, lest they digest an unwholesome broth, Tracie P makes their world and mine brim with love, affection, and gentle care.

Happy Mother’s Day, Tracie P! We love you!

When I first got on that plane from San Diego and took you to dinner back in the late summer of 2008, I couldn’t have imagined the joy that you would bring into my life by bringing our girls into this world.

A great day of winery visits, tastings, and seminars today between Asolo and Montello.

That’s a wild strawberry, above, that I found this morning on our hike in Montello.

And this was the fantastic spring risotto served to us for lunch at the Ca’ Recantina, a wonderful tiny, hilltop guest house in Asolo township.

It took a little while for this bottle to come around last night, but, holy crap, it was utterly beautiful.

Francesco, one of my best friends in Italy, has been soon generous in digging deep into his cellar for these older bottles by the legendary winemaker Giorgio Grai (a good friend of his).

And aside from one corked bottle (out of roughly eight or so, but who’s keeping count?), these wines from the 1980s and early 90s always deliver spectacular aromas and flavor.

I learned last night, btw, that Giorgio — in his mid 80s — is planning to launch yet a new label. That’s all I can say about it but it will be thrilling, I’m sure, to taste his new project.

Thank you again, Francesco! So lovely to see you and Marina and to share a wonderful meal and conversation last night in Siena.

Today, I’m in Asolo and tomorrow I’ll be tasting the debut bottlings of Asolo Prosecco DOCG Extra Brut (which means less than 6 grams residual sugar).

Of the three townships that make Prosecco DOCG (Asolo, Conegliano, and Valdobbiadene), Asolo is the only one that produces Extra Brut (a new category to be presented for the first time tomorrow).

Stay tuned…

The adventure begins…

Last night found me at dinner in Radda in Chianti at the Zonin family’s Castello d’Albola estate.

As I head out today for winery visits, I don’t have time this morning to explain why or how I got here. But I will reveal all in good time.

In the meantime, I just had to share a few photos of Chef Eugenio Boer’s extraordinary food. The Zonins had brought him down to Tuscany from his restaurant, L’Essenza in Milan, especially for the occasion.

That’s his spring vegetables, above.

Eugenio insisted that we eat this venison crudo with our hands. Delicious… Note how they served the dish on alberese, a stone that plays an important role in Chianti’s soils.

Eugenio (above) is Italian-Dutch and his work reflects both culinary traditions. I was totally blown away by the creativity and wholesomeness his food.

A preview of a post to come: that’s Monty Waldin (left), who literally grilled professor Denis Dubourdieu during our tasting.

Stay tuned…

Above: as much as I love what I do for a living and the fact that my work takes me to Italy on a regular basis, this is where I’d rather be (image snapped yesterday in Houston at Fire Truck Park, one of our favorite weekend destinations).

Man, my itinerary for the next few weeks is insane!

Chianti, Maremma, Montalcino, Siena, Asolo, Franciacorta, Barolo, Montefalco, Ascoli Piceno, Pisa…

Of the course of the next fourteen days, I will be sleeping nearly every night in a different bed.

Traveling to Italy for work — even when you work in the wine trade — is not as glamorous as it may sound.

Above: a recent performance of our ABCs that I furtively captured using my iPhone. Georgia P’s intonation and understanding of rhythm are really starting to come along and Lila Jane is getting more and more interested in the keyboard (she’s the one playing the clams!).

Days begin early for me on the road because I have to create and manage all of the day’s content (for all of my clients in Italy and stateside), before I leave my hotel each day. And the rest of the each day is filled with travel – taste – spit – photograph – repeat…

Not that I’m complaining: as I gear up to leave today from Houston, I know that there are many wonderful experiences, wines, and meals in my near future.

And I’m especially looking forward to the Asolo Prosecco and Verdicchio tastings, as well as my time in Langa (where I’ll have some downtime with friends).

In other Italian travel news…

New York-based Italian wine blogger Susannah Gold has been posting some great info on Milan on her blog Avvinare.

You may remember a post from a few weeks ago when I reminded Italian wine tradepeople that “Italy is so much more than just wine.”

Susannah lived and worked for many years in Milan and I’ve been loving her posts devoted to the city and the World’s Fair — EXPO Milano — which opened last week.

Check it out here and see you on the other side! Thanks for being here…

Above: I really loved the Bibbiano entry-tier Chianti Classico, which I tasted for the first time at the Gambero Rosso Road Show tasting in Mexico City. This is my kind of Chianti… superbly grown Sangiovese with a touch of Colorino, vinified in cement. Utterly delicious.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote famously in verse and in essays about Italy’s disenfranchised youth.

As the much of the country basked in the “economic miracle” that emerged nearly two decades after the Second World War, many southerners were left behind by the country’s newfound prosperity.

In his unforgettable poem “Il PCI ai giovani” (“The Italian Communist Party [belongs] to youth”), published in the wake of the 1968 Battle of Valle Giulia, he wrote of the “police, children of the poor.” These were the economically challenged young people of southern Italy who escaped their depressed regions by joining Italy’s paramilitary police force, the Carabinieri.

I was reminded of this poem and Pasolini’s myriad essays on the widening economic inequality in 1960s and 1970s Italy by something that a young Italian wine professional said to me in Mexico City last week.

Originally from Abruzzo, he has an import company there and works primarily with Italian estates.

When I asked him if he liked living in Mexico, he looked at me squarely.

L’Italia non fa impresa, he said flatly, Italy doesn’t do business. In other words, there isn’t a business-friendly culture in Italy that allows motivated young people like him (he was in his early thirties, I gauged) to embrace an entrepreneurial spirit.

Mexico — not a country that many would count among the world’s most prosperous — is a better place for him to do business, it seems.

Above: another wine I really loved was the Baglio di Pianetto entry-tier Nero d’Avola. The winemaker told me that the consulting enologist is Marco Bernabei, the son of the legendary Franco Bernabei. It’s made from organically farmed fruit and is vinified in temperature controlled stainless steel. “It’s actually a very simply made wine,” he said. And its transparency and focus were delicious and refreshing on the palate. A great by-the-glass.

After he left my stand, I turned to the Tuscan winemaker pouring next to me and we talked about the bleak job horizon for young people today in Italy, where there is a nearly 50 percent unemployment rate for people under 25.

Grape growing and agriculture in general are one of Italy’s greatest resources and exports. Yet the country’s current economic stagnation and its burdensome and behemoth bureaucracy leave little room for economic mobility for the new generation of wine professionals there — like my new friend from Abruzzo.

Everywhere you turn in Italy, wine appreciation is less and less popular among young people and the wine trade is increasingly sustained and supported not by domestic consumption but by exports.

It struck me that day in Mexico City that the wines are the children of the poor. They must abandon their birthright and travel far from their villages to sustain themselves — just like the young man from Abruzzo.

Sadly — tragically, really — this is the reality faced by a legion of young wine professionals in Italy today.

Thanks for reading…

As I prepare to leave next week for my May trip to Italy, I wanted to share details on a couple of tastings and events that I’m really looking forward to attending.

The first is the Asolo and Montello consortium tasting on Sunday May 10 in the historic center of Asolo.

Unfortunately, the Consortium hasn’t published any more details than the image above. But as far as I know, you can just show up and taste without registering.

Even today, many U.S. wine professionals are aware that Asolo — one of my favorite places in Italy — is part of the Prosecco DOCG. They don’t make as much wine there as they do in Valdobbiadene, Conegliano, and the valley floor of Treviso province. But they make some of the best expressions of Glera imho. The wines tend to be saltier than their cousins to the east and that’s the way I like it.

I’ll post more details as they become available.

The first ever TerroirMarche event on May 16-17 in Ascoli Piceno is going to be a game-changer.

Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi and Verdicchio di Matelica are among the most promising appellations in Italy right now.

Italian wine writers have been raving about Verdicchio and its much deserved place among the great whites of the world.

The only thing that’s been lacking has been proper visibility of the wines and the people who make them.

And the newly formed TerroirMarche group is working to change that.

I’ll be in Ascoli Piceno as an observer and taster and I’m looking forward to the five seminars, one of which will be lead by Walter Speller among other Italian wine luminaries.

Hope to see you there!