Tracie and I will be leaving tomorrow for the Boulder Burgundy Festival where I’ll be doing my yearly gig as the event’s official blogger. This year, festival founder and owner of the Boulder Wine Merchant, Brett Zimmerman, has also asked me to moderate a panel of super sommeliers on “Rethinking the Négociant.” I’m super geeked about that and just feeling blessed to have such great work these days.

On Sunday morning, I’ll kiss Tracie goodbye as she heads back to Houston and I’ll travel to Aquila in Abruzzo where I’ll be leading a seminar on the region’s wines for a group of top wine pros. This trip came about at the last minute when a trip to NYC next week got postponed. I’ve been developing the seminar for a few years now and I’m excited to spend a few days with colleagues tasting and talking about the compelling wines that are made there. We’ll be in Chieti as well. Seafood and Cerasuolo, anyone?

Then it’s back to Houston where I’ll be conducting a seminar on Piedmont Collectibles with a local partner on Monday, October 30. See the link to register. The last event was so much fun and such a great group of folks. As fried as I’m going to be, I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve always found Nebbiolo to be an excellent remedy for jet lag!

I’ll only be at home with the girls for a few days when I leave for Hong Kong on Halloween. I’ll be pouring and speaking at James Suckling’s Great Wines of Italy event on Friday, November 2. If you happen to be in the neighborhood, please stop by!

After that, it’s on to Dallas for a seminar at the Taste of Italy festival there and then back to Italy to teach…

My schedule is so intense these days that it reminds me of being on the road with the band back in the day.

Wish me luck and wish me speed and thank you to everyone for their support and solidarity. I feel truly blessed to do what I do for a living. Thanks for being here.

I spent Sunday morning watching “Pourquoi Israël,” Claude Lanzmann’s 1972 achingly beautiful documentary about migration to the country during the hope-filled years that followed the Six-Day War in 1967.

It reminded me of what Israel meant to Jews before the Hamas attacks that began last week: a locus amoenus that offered safety and security despite the horrors of the past and the terrors of the future.

Those idealisms were shattered with the advent of “Israel’s 9/11,” as many Israelis have called it.

To my comrades who have chastised me for my support for Israel, please give me and people like me a moment to feel our grief for those who have died and continue to suffer — Israeli and Palestinian.

Please try to wrap your mind and heart around the fact that many of the Jews that have died in recent days looked like me. They talked and prayed like me. They lived and loved like me. Many of them grew up as my neighbors in urban Chicago where I was born and suburban California where I grew up.

Please know that I am fully aware of the plight of the Palestinian people and their oppression at the hands of my fellow Jews.

Please remember that the “original sin” of the post-1948-Arab-Israeli-War era doesn’t paint all Jews of the same stripe. Most of us weren’t even born when Palestinians were expelled from their homeland. Many of us have continued and will continue to speak out against subjugation and advocate for peace and dignity.

Please keep in mind that we are well aware of what is about to transpire in Gaza and the inhumanities that will be revealed.

But please, please, please also just let us be human beings who mourn the loss of life and hope.

May G-d bless all those who are suffering and continue to suffer in Israel and Gaza. Let us all pray for peace.

A friend offered to give me a gun last night.

I’ve never owned a gun. Never wanted to own a gun. Have always tried to avoid guns.

Once, back when I was a teenager and my father was living in Arizona, one of his friends shamed me into using a rifle to kill a rattlesnake we discovered while on a hiking trip. It was one of the worst experiences of my adolescence.

It was the last time I handled a gun.

Tracie and I share a personal aversion to guns. We are avid supporters of anti-gun groups.

Yet, last night, a friend wrote me to share his family’s solidarity with ours and in case I felt the need, he’d be happy to give me a weapon.

He’s not just any friend. He’s one of the best people I know in Houston, someone who literally puts his life on the line for his community every day. He knows a lot about firearms. It’s part of what he does for a living.

It felt good to know that someone like him is looking out for us. He shared his wishes that our friends and family be safe.

But then the thought hit me: do I need to get a gun? Is my family in danger?

Is it in more danger than it was when Hamas attacked Israel?

The world is a different place than it was a week ago. Today, schools in capitals across the world are closing for fear of violence against families like ours.

The Hamas Charter quotes the Prophet:

The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.

Chilling words to any Jew, anywhere in the world — including Houston.

Our family’s heartfelt thanks go out to all our friends who have called to share their solidarity. Their words mean more to us than they can know.

Let’s all pray for peace.

For years, San Diego and Long Beach wine friends have been raving to me about Michael’s on Naples, the top destination — by all accounts — for fine wine lovers there.

Last night, I finally made it there and wow, what an awesome restaurant and wine program!

That’s wine director and general manager Massimo Aronne, above.

His list includes a solid offering of California (folks here, as elsewhere in the state, like to drink domestic, after all). The prices were so reasonable that I was tempted to do a bottle of Kistler, one of my guilty pleasures.

But I was with Italians and we were going all Italian last night. And Massimo’s Italian program is one of the best in the country in my experience.

There’s plenty of top Tuscany and Piedmont for you to dive into. But the thing that blew me away was the breadth of “Italian wine people” wine.

A bottle of aged Lugana by Montonale, anyone? It’s one of my favorite Italian wines of all time and Massimo had it on his list at an obscenely low price.

We ended up drinking a bottle of Derthona by Borgogno, also extremely reasonably priced (not far off from retail actually).

The food was Italo-California. The salumi were expertly sliced. The texture and flavor of the lasagne sheets reminded me of my Emilia days, although the creative fillings brought me back to the state of my upbringing (I grew up in San Diego).

The pork chop and ribeye were so flavorful that they had all of us swooning.

I really loved this place and can’t recommend it enough.

And of course, I’m super proud of the fact that Massimo is working with Amistà, the Nizza winery that I rep in the U.S. I love the wines and the people who make them and it’s so awesome to see people like Massimo who have the depth of knowledge in Italian wine to appreciate it.

What a great night! And thank you to Massimo and everyone who took such great care of us. Special thanks to Paolo Cressi of Ethica Wines who set it all up.

On Monday, October 30, I’ll be leading a spectacular Piedmont tasting at the Vinello Wine Club in Houston. We’ll be pouring cru Barolo and Barbaresco among other wines.

October is going to be one hell of a wine month for me!

For folks in West Texas, I’ll be speaking at Taste of Italy El Paso next Thursday (October 12).

And then I’ll be heading to Boulder, Colorado for the Boulder Burgundy Festival (Friday-Sunday, October 20-22). I’ve been the event’s official blogger and media consultant for more than a decade. And this year, the organizers have asked me to be part of a panel on “Rethinking the Négociant.” There are still spots available for the Frasca marquee dinner (not many places left though), the Sunday morning seminar (where I’ll be presenting the panel), and the Grand Tasting (a great event where you can taste a ton of extremely high end wines). See the links to reserve.

Back in Houston, I’ll be leading the second event in the Vinello Wine Club series (Monday, October 30). The theme is “Piedmont Collectibles” (something I know a little about) and we’ll be pouring cru Barolo and Barbaresco among other great wines. Houston folks, please come out for this: The last one was fantastic and it’s a great deal for five wines for $45 per person (tax included). Thanks in advance for the support with this project. It’s a really special one for me and the last get together was truly magical.

And then on Halloween, I head to Hong Kong to pour for my client Amistà, producer of Nizza, at the JamesSuckling.com Great Wines of Italy event (Friday, November 3). I love the owner of the winery, Michele Marsiaj, and I love the wines. It’s been fantastic for me to get to interact with winemaker Luca D’Attoma (I’ll be connecting with Luca in November when I’m in Italy to teach at Slow Food U.).

And don’t forget Taste of Italy at Eataly in Dallas on November 10.

There’s even more, including some Abruzzo dinners I’ll be doing on the coasts later this year, and a couple of educational trips to Abruzzo. But I’m out of breath at this point!

Thanks to everyone who has supported me over the years. It’s great to be enjoying such a wonderful chapter in my career in wine. Thank you. I couldn’t have done it without your solidarity. Now wish me luck and most of all — wish me speed!

During a September 2022 visit to the Anselmi winery in Soave, there was a worker burning weeds in the small parking lot across the street. He had a small blow torch and a canister of propane on his back.

As grower and winemaker Roberto Anselmi accompanied his guest to his Suzuki four-wheeler, which was parked in said lot, he explained that they were experimenting with weed burning because they want to avoid the use of any pesticides or other synthetic products.

Anselmi’s quasi-religious fervor in eliminating chemicals from the world was echoed this month in a press release issued by the family: for the first time ever, they wrote, they will be making wines using disease-resistant hybrid grapes that they have been experimenting with for more than two years.

But the reason they offer might not be what the naked eye expects.

The severe weather events brought on by climate change have made grape growing and winemaking increasingly challenging for Europeans. And there has been much chatter in recent years about how disease-resistant hybrids are one of the paths forward.

But as Anselmi points out, severe weather — prolonged heatwaves and drought, extreme rainfall and hail, etc. — has also caused grape farmers to rely increasingly on synthetic fungicides to protect their vines from disease.

Viticulture represents only three percent of Europe’s total agricultural production, he notes. But roughly 65 percent of fungicides used in European agriculture is employed by winemakers.

Disease-resistant hybrid varieties could reduce that number significantly, he believes.

Although not certified organic, Anselmi has practiced and proselytized chemical-free farming for decades. It’s a major part of his family’s approach to high-quality winemaking.

But as they underline in their statement, they are convinced that disease-resistant hybrid grape varieties are going to be a key element in combating Italy’s growing soil pollution.

The 2023 vintage of their iconic San Vincenzo is being made with three hybrids: Aromera, Riesling Resistente (“Resistant Riesling”), and Souvignier Gris.

I can’t wait to taste it.

Disclosure: the Anselmi statement came across my desk thanks to my client Ethica Wines.

Back in 2010, when wine blogging was trending like Taylor Swift, an Alba-based media company asked me to lead a group of writers to Piedmont. The occasion was “Barbera Meeting,” an early iteration of the big Barbera tasting and dinner they do each year in Nizza.

Barbera was the focus but the firm also organized some visits to other clients of theirs. One of those was Cogno in Barolo.

I’ve always liked Valter Fissore’s wines a lot (2005 Barolo Ravera anyone?). But the star of the tasting that day was a nine-year-old 2001 Anas-Cëtta (Nascetta). We were all really impressed with how beautifully this wine had aged.

So, when I got back to the States, I bought a case of the 2010 and put it in my cellar in San Diego. Over the years, we drank and enjoyed the wines immensely. But I saved one bottle for longer-term aging.

Last weekend, when Tra, the girls, and I were in La Jolla for my mom’s 90th birthday celebration, she and I opened the last bottle from our cellar after everyone went to bed.

It was astounding! It had a little bit of funk when first opened, but then it immediately blew off as the wine started showing tireless and extremely fresh white and stone fruit, with just a slight note of nuttiness and delicate oxidation (barely any). We were simply floored by this wine.

A pretty good investment for $25, no?

Chapeau bas, Valter! I’m so glad you turned us on to this extraordinary wine.

One of the ways that I keep the lights on here at Do Bianchi is through my retail and wholesale wines program in California.

It’s something that I started many years ago, took a break from, and then relaunched last year.

For this year’s (first) fall offering, I’m featuring two extremely compelling wines that I’ve been working with this year.

Starting late last year, I started consulting with a newish/oldish winery in Piedmont, Amistà, producer of Nizza — 100 percent Barbera from the most coveted subzone for the variety.

The winemaker is Luca D’Attoma, one of Italy’s top enologists and a passionate advocate for organic and biodynamic farming.

The farm is owned by my client and great friend Michele Marsiaj. He’s spared no expense in officially converting the farm to organic (certification will come next year although the vineyards have been farmed using organic practices literally for decades; biodynamic certification is on the horizon as well).

This is Luca’s first wine in Piedmont and he’s shooting for the stars. The 2019 Amistà Nizza is his first release for the winery and while I’m confident that it will age gracefully for the next 20 years or so, it’s drinking super beautifully right now, with elegant red and black fruit notes, wonderful freshness, and impressive depth and complexity.

I really love this wine and the people who make it. I’m pleased to be offering it this week at a competitive price.

The second wine is the 2019 Chianti Classico by Vecchie Terre di Montefili in Panzano in Chianti.

A lot of you will remember that I featured the 2018 last year.

This is another wine that I’ve been really excited about. It’s organically and biodynamically farmed by a young woman, Serena Gusmeri, who’s been making waves with the reviews she’s been getting from the top mastheads.

This is 100 percent Sangiovese from the highest altitude farm in Chianti Classico’s unique “biodistrict,” one of Italy’s first entirely organic communes. It’s still young, with a richness buoyed by the wine’s nuanced black fruit flavors and mouth watering acidity.

The soils are all alberese limestone and galestro clay, the classics of Chianti Classico. It’s a very special property and one of the new old school wines that we’ve been loving on our table.

Both wines are available with a 10 percent discount if purchased as part of mixed six pack and with a 15 percent discount with a solid six pack.

I also have all kinds of fun wines — Prosecco, whites, rosé, and other reds. I even have a few bottles of wonderful Champagne. Just let me know what you need and I’ll put together a proposal for you.

Prices below include tax (but not shipping/handling).

Available only in California. Wines will ship early next week. For San Diego residents, I can deliver the Amistà Nizza in the original wooden case (super cool) for solid six pack orders.

Thanks so much for your support and please just let me know what you need and I’ll do my best to make it happen.

These are great wines and I’m super stoked to share them with you.

Amistà 2019 Nizza $58
Vecchie Terre di Montefili 2019 Chianti Classic $33

Please email me at jparzen [at] gmail [dot] com and I’ll send you a proposal right away.

Most Italian-focused wine professionals in the U.S. face a sticky linguistic challenge: how to distinguish between the classic expression of an appellation and a vineyard-designated or riserva category.

And it’s not an issue confined solely to purely anglophone wine pros. Italian speakers often get tripped up by the tongue-tying conundrum.

For many, the knee-jerk reaction in such cases is to call the classic wine normale or normal.

Here’s how the Oxford English Dictionary defines normal:

“Constituting or conforming to a type or standard; regular, usual, typical; ordinary, conventional.”

I’m using Barbaresco as an example but this problem stretches across a broad swath of wines where single-vineyard and riserva designations are commonly used.

The moment you call the wine “normal,” it’s as if you are saying that it’s “ordinary” or “conventional.” Think of how many classic wines for which this couldn’t be farther from the truth!

And depending on who you talk to, many Nebbiolo growers, for example, will tell you that classic, blended expressions of their wines are often the ones they hold to be most representative of their appellations. It’s only in recent memory that single-vineyard and riserva designations have proliferated. This trend, in my view, is more driven by the market than the production.

There are also plenty of winemakers who decide not to use a designation, even though they could. Should those wines be penalized because their producers chose not to give them a fancy label?

My recommendation and my practice is to call non-vineyard and non-riserva designate wines “classic.”

And let’s not even talk about the people who call the classic expressions “regular.”

Wine isn’t gasoline, is it?