One of the begging questions that emerged from a tasting of (mostly) California wines yesterday in Houston was why do people think that kosher wines are inferior to treyf wines?

It just so happens that all the wines poured, by the excellent urban winery Covenant in Berkeley, California, were kosher.

Nearly everyone present had already tasted at least one Covenant wine: each of the tasters were part of a recent judging panel where said winery was a contender. There was no question that the wines in question were high-quality and expressive of the California where they were grown and vinified.

But the conundrum remained. In the perception of most consumers, kosher wines can’t be as good as conventional wines.

I’ll leave the parsing of what makes a wine kosher to the wineries and their minyans (pun intended). But in my experience, it’s the way that kosher wines have been marketed over generations in this country that has cultured the misconception.

Most American-Ashkenazi Jews my age had parents who rarely drank. Our generation, X, of U.S. Jews is arguably the first to become wine lovers. My wine appreciation didn’t begin to develop until after I finished grad school, for example.

Until that point, I believed, like most American wine enthusiasts, that kosher wines were limited to the “contains up to 50 percent grape product” wines that were heavily marketed to us through the ubiquitous — and one might say, insidious — presence of one brand.

But the renewal of interest in viticulture has reshaped wine enthusiasm among middle class Jews just as it has the rest of bourgeois America.

Covenant has been making high-end kosher wines in California and Israel for two decades now. And their popularity in Texas is growing rapidly. (Like so many misconceptions about my adoptive state, there is a widespread, erroneous belief that there aren’t many Jews here. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Just visit the Houston neighborhood where we live!)

The wines were delicious, fresh and food friendly. Unless someone had told you otherwise, they wouldn’t taste Jewish at all.

May everyone have a peaceful Sabbath this weekend! Shabbat shalom, yall!

Above: Montepulciano d’Abruzzo can be used to produce a wide range of styles. On Monday, December 11, at Mama Oakland in Oakland, we’ll be tasting a youthful, fresh Montepluciano, a rich and age-worthy Montepulciano, and, of course, a couple of Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo made from lightly macerated Montepulciano. I hope you can join us! Thank you for your support!

Please join me on Monday, December 11 when I will be presenting a dinner and tasting of Abruzzo wines at Mama Oakland. The event is being hosted by the Consorzio Vini d’Abruzzo, the association of Abruzzo grape growers and winemakers.

The dinner is open to anyone who works in the wine/restaurant/food trade. And it’s free (thank you, Abruzzo consortium!).

If you’d like to attend, simply send me an email at jparzen [at] gmail [dot] com or by clicking here.

The idea is for us to get together, taste a flight of Abruzzo wines paired with great food (menu forthcoming), and spread awareness of the compelling viticulture that’s happening there.

Abruzzo growers are facing mounting climate change challenges. Last year when I visited the region right before harvest, growers were dealing with a prolonged, nearly nine-month drought. This year when I visited following harvest, growers had lost an average of 70 percent and up to 90 percent of their crop because of excessive rainfall and the resulting peronospora issues. See link to learn more.

Abruzzo needs us now more than ever before.

So, please come out and share my table as we raise a glass — many glasses — in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in Abruzzo. Thanks for your support!

The response for our Atlanta dinner on December 4 has been wonderful! It’s currently at capacity with a small waiting list. Thank you, Atlanta! You rock!

You can imagine my surprise when my friends from Brescia (in Lombardy in northern Italy, about an hour and a half east of Milan) called me to tell me a month or so ago that Joe Bastianich had opened a restaurant there.

It’s called Artemis Persian Tapas Bar and as the restaurant’s site says, “è il nuovo progetto di Joe Bastianich con un concept mai visto prima” (“it’s Joe Bastianich’s new project, with a concept never before seen”).

None of my friends have been there yet. But there has been at least one sighting of Joe, an avid guitar player, busking in the streets of the city (I doubt he’s got a tip hat out but in my day, when you played in the street, that’s what it was called). A friend shared a video of him singing and playing Prince’s “Purple Rain,” unaccompanied, with just him on guitar and vocals.

Joe is a major television star in Italy and he’s even had his own line of McDonald’s sandwiches there. I’ve heard that he spends a great deal of time in Milan these days.

Why open a restaurant in Brescia? I have no idea. What I do know that Brescia has a even more vibrant nightlife than it did before the lockdowns in 2020. Because of my deep ties to the city, forged over the many years I’ve been hanging out there, I’ve seen its transformation from an industrial and university town to a top tourist destination. Especially over the last two years, its historic center and incredible campus of Roman ruins (the largest outside of Rome) have become a favorite destination for European tourists. I don’t see a ton of Americans there. But I imagine that’s beginning to change as well.

It used to be that the Brescia food scene was populated by old school trattorias and the occasional (and exceptionally delicious) hamburger and beer joint. Today, there are tons of sushi and poke restaurants, a handful of American-themed casual eateries, and even an extremely popular Indian restaurant. The city’s population has also diversified quite a bit since I started spending time there in 2011. It’s really magical. They even have a left-leaning mayor, my friend Laura Castelletti. That’s unusual for Lombardy where most tend to the hard right. They call it the “Stalingrad” of Italy!

Check it out next time your in Italy.

That’s the city’s famous Piazza della Loggia in the image below, snapped just last week.

Man, what a trip to Italy! An evening in Brescia, four days of teaching in Piedmont, a night in Lucca, and a Saturday night and Sunday lunch coda in Reggio Emilia. A lot of travel and not a ton of sleep. But some great meals for sure.

I didn’t actually eat the tortellini in the image above (I had had tortellini in brodo the night before). But I just had to share this dish, ordered by my friends’ teenage daughter. She put a glass of Lambrusco in the broth like the old folks used to do back when I was a student here.

That was Sunday lunch at Locanda dei Pontieri along the banks of the Po River in Guastalla (Reggio Emilia).

This griddle-fired coppa was another highlight at Pontieri. Super fun place and highly recommended. Make sure to take a stroll along the river.

Stewed rabbit at Tre Spade in Correggio (Reggio Emilia). Forget Bottura! Eat here! Everything was off-the-charts delicious but the rabbit was a 2023 standout for me. Those are pickled onions in the sauce. This was so good. I’m literally salivating as I write this (sorry for TMI!). Paired with Lini 910 Lambrusco Metodo Classico. It couldn’t have been more perfect.

I found this never-before-tasted Prosecco Col Fondo in the most unlikely of places. Excellent. Note the Lalique stemware.

There’s really nothing quite as good as a plate of Tuscan beans, is there? Paired with a popping Ciliegiolo at Da Giulio in Lucca. This one of those big, classic osterias, with great food. Another solid recommendation (especially for a city with a lot of more touristy dining options).
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According to a post published today by leading Italian wine blogger and publisher Filippo Larganà, Italian wine pioneer Michele Chiarlo has died at age 88.

Owner of the Michele Chiarlo estate in Asti province, he was one of the early Piedmont growers to ship Moscato d’Asti and Barbera d’Asti to the U.S. A generation of American wine professionals and wine lovers tasted these categories for the first time thanks to his family. He was also an acclaimed producer of Barolo.

See Filippo’s obituary here on his Sapori del Piemonte blog (one of Asti’s “papers of record”).

I had the opportunity to taste with Michele on a number of occasions. Most of those were formal settings. He was always affable, approachable, and always eager to engage with anyone who wanted to talk about the family’s wines.

My favorite anecdote about him comes via his son Stefano Chiarlo, who’s become a friend over the years.

We were presenting a flight of Moscato d’Asti in Dallas one day, just last year, when he remembered how his father sent a pallet of their Moscato d’Asti to one of the top Italian importers at the time. It was back before Italian wine had become a hot commodity in our country.

Said importer told him that he didn’t like Moscato d’Asti. He didn’t know what to do with it, he protested. Michele told the importer that he could have the wine as his gift. If he sold it, great. If not, he could do whatever he wanted with it.

The importer quickly sold the entire lot and was soon asking for more. It was the type of gamble only someone like Michele Chiarlo could have pulled off. And the rest is history. Today, Moscato d’Asti is one of Italy’s best-selling wines.

Our family’s condolences go out to his sons Stefano and Alberto Chiarlo and to the entire Chiarlo family.

Sit tibi terra levis Michael.

Above: 90+-year-old Barbera vines in a vineyard owned by my client Amistà in the Nizza DOCG; photographed yesterday.

It’s a question and a topos that comes up often in winespeak: what are old vines and why are they important in winemaking?

While there doesn’t seem to be a broadly-embraced consensus on what constitutes “old vines,” most industry observers seem to agree that vines that are 50 years in age or older can definitely be referred to as “old vines.”

Nearly all winemakers and wine trade members concur that old vines make for higher quality wines. Old vines, the conventional wisdom goes, have less “vigor” than younger plants. As a result, they tend to focus their energy on a fewer number of clusters. Those bunches will have richer flavors and aromas, even though their yield — the volume of fruit they produce — will generally be smaller than for younger plants.

Many top producers reserve fruit from their oldest plants for their best wines.

Extremely old vines, like the ones in the image above, are also prized by winemakers because they can often be “ungrafted,” what Europeans sometimes call piè franco, meaning literally free standing.

Toward the end of the 19th century and in the early years of the 20th, many European vineyards were affected by phylloxera, a nearly microscopic insect that feeds on the roots and leaves of the plants. The only known cure for phylloxera is to graft the plants with rootstock from phylloxera-resistant plants. The know-how and phylloxera-resistant rootstock that was used to save the European wine industry came from the U.S.

In the case of the vines in the image, they were planted in the third decade of the last century and for reasons unknown were naturally resistant to phylloxera. They never needed to be grafted with American rootstock.

Ungrafted, piè franco vines are highly prized because they represent a continuity with the pre-phylloxera era.

In my experience, wines made from old vines like the Nizza produced by Amistà, can be highly more compelling than their younger-vine siblings.

Can you really taste the difference in wines that come from piè franco plants? I don’t believe that you can. But the romance of drinking a wine from a vine that was planted before my grandparents were born does have a certain appeal.

Above: the Nicodemi farm in Colline Teramane. Last year when I visited Abruzzo right before harvest, growers were dealing with a prolonged, nearly nine-month drought. This year when I visited following harvest, growers had lost an average of 70 percent and up to 90 percent of their crop because of excessive rainfall and the resulting peronospora issues. See link to learn more.

Bay Area and Atlanta wine professionals: Abruzzo needs you! And I need you, too!

On Monday, December 4, 2023, I will be leading a guided tasting of Abruzzo wines and dinner at Antica Posta in Atlanta; and then on Monday, December 11 at Mama Oakland. Both events are being hosted by the Consorzio Vini d’Abruzzo, the association of Abruzzo grape growers and winemakers.

The dinner is open to anyone who works in the wine or restaurant trade. And it’s free (thank you, Abruzzo consortium!).

If you’d like to attend, simply send me an email at jparzen [at] gmail [dot] com or by clicking here.

The idea is for us to get together, taste a flight of Abruzzo wines paired with great food (menus forthcoming), and spread awareness of the compelling viticulture that’s happening there.

I just got back in late October from leading a group of wine pros to the region and I know that all of my colleagues will agree: the work that Abruzzo growers are doing right now is immensely inspiring and the wines can be astounding.

Cocciopesto-aged Trebbiano d’Abruzzo, anyone?

I’d love to meet and get to taste with you. Please feel free to share this with any trade member you think would enjoy and appreciate it. Any and all are welcome!

Thank you for your support.

It may just be one of those dumb internet factoids. But according to one internet search, the only major city farther away from Houston than Hong Kong is Perth, Australia.

It’s another way of saying that on my trip last week delivered me literally to the antipodes.

For many of my fellow Houstonians, traveling to Hong Kong for work, pleasure, or family is a workaday journey.

But for me, there was nothing quotidian about it. It wasn’t just my first trip to China but my first trip to Asia as well.

Here are some of the highlights from my unforgettable experience.

That’s a selfie, above, that I took at Victoria Peak, highly recommended.

Late night street food.
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