One that people who don’t live in the U.S. south don’t realize is that southerners appreciate and expect great cooking more than in any other part of the U.S.

When I flew into Charleston week before last to speak at an event (for the Abruzzo consortium and the Charming Taste of Europe campaign), I went straight to my hotel, one of those corporate affairs where you’re lucky to find a bag of Doritos in the “shoppe.” Super clean and professionally managed lodging but equally anonymous and depressing.

It was around 9:30 but the hotel restaurant was still open. So, I thought, maybe maybe maybe I can get something decent to eat and a beer.

Not wanting to take any chances, I aimed low: a grilled cheese sandwich would do the trick, I thought.

To my surprise, it was probably the best grilled cheese I’ve ever had. The quality of the bread and cheese and the apple peperoncino spread were in a perfect balance of sweet and savory. What a simple but wonderful sandwich! Even the fries: no Sysco here (no offense, Sysco).

I later met the chef and his wife and found that they are proudly running an entirely independent restaurant at the otherwise anodyne hotel.

The next morning, following our seminar, I was blown away by the porchetta (above) prepared by Costa, the restaurant where we held our event.

The crust was crunchy and the pork was melt-in-your-mouth tender.

I was also impressed by the caliber of service and wine professionalism. What a great and wonderful team. Even the servers that day listened intently to my talk and had a ton of comments and questions afterward.

Costa seemed in synchronicity with the overarching quality of food and food service in Charleston. I enjoyed everywhere I ate and drank.

Shout-out and warm thanks also to the amazing Kellie Holmes who put together a wonderful group of pros for our tasting.

People on the coasts disdain us southerners. But they sure love our food when they’re here. Maybe they should take a closer look at where that food culture comes from and they should take the time out to meet and know the people that make it.

Ever since Tracie, the girls, and I moved to Westbury in southwest Houston, we’ve lamented the fact that our neighborhood lacks a wine bar.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if our community had a family-friendly wine- and craft beer-focused venue, ideal serving pizza, where parents and kids could go to enjoy, well, wine, craft beer, and pizza. Sounds like a winning combination, doesn’t it? Burgers would be an added plus.

After we had already put on a few super family-friendly music shows and open mics at one of our favorite local dive bars, I made the following proposition to the owner, Susan Davis and her husband Carlos (both of whom I adore btw): how would you feel about me turning your joint into a family-friendly wine bar for a night?

To my surprise and delight, they said YES!

And so that’s what’s happening!

On Saturday, May 10, 4-6pm, I’ll lead a tasting and will host a retail pop up as folks enjoy house-fired pizzas.

I’m so excited about this and I hope you’ll join me. Details and tickets here. It’s already had a great response. We are all super geeked.

I know it’s going to be a great way to create community and support a beloved local business that already serves as a hub for that community. I hope to see you there!

In other news…

I had to cancel my wine dinner in LA next week (Weds., May 7) because Tracie, the girls, and I have too much going on in Houston. The dinner is still on and will be super fun regardless. I’m so sorry to miss it.

But I’m counting my too many blessings to count this morning after boarding a plane back to Houston from beautiful South Carolina.

It’s been a great week, with tastings and wonderful people in Austin, New Orleans, and Charleston.

I can’t wait to get home to Tracie and the girls. We have concerts and auditions this weekend and Tra’s parents are coming in tonight to celebrate Jane’s birthday. I’ll make steak and baked potatoes and we’ll open a good bottle of wine.

Buon weekend a tutti. Thanks for being here.

Looking back on the last two decades of my career, it’s crazy to think about how much I owe to being in the right place at the right time.

One of those moments was hanging out with Cory Cartwright at Terroir in San Francisco in the first decade of this century. It was there that he and a band of likewise forward-looking cats were forging a new wine language.

Many industry folks will remember those years. Those pre-social media days marked the advent of “natural” wine and the explosion of the eno-blogosphere.

Cory and I met because we started reading each others’ blog. He was one of the most prolific writers of the early blogging days as he deciphered the new (old) wines that were finally reaching our shores.

When he and I reconnected yesterday in New Orleans at wonderful The Tell Me Bar, we reminisced about what a magical and exciting time it was. We were part of a burgeoning and swiftly expanding enoical dialectic. Those were the years of the new wine and the new wine language.

Hanging out at his popular spot in the city’s warehouse district, I was inspired by his business partner Uznea Bauer’s approach and interaction with their guests. Her voice is so genuine and her chops so spot on. Gone are the pretension and the one-up-personship that have plagued our industry for too long. Is this the authenticity that we have been hoping and waiting for? I believe it is. Spending time in their joint, wine felt like pure unadulterated pleasure unbound from the superciliousness of pseudo-connoisseurship. Man, it was good.

But as much as I was looking to the future last night at their bar in New Orleans, I couldn’t help but order a wine from the past. I remember drinking wines like that, so many years ago, with Tracie by my side, on my way to one of the best gigs of my life. It was the legendary night of Guillaume and the baseball bat at Terroir!

Uznea and Cory, thank you for putting together our Abruzzo event yesterday. It was off the charts!

Uznea, I quite literally couldn’t have done it without you. And it was such a treat to get to work by your side!

Cory, dude, how will I ever forget those years and how exciting it was to be part of a movement that would change the wine world forever and for better. Thank you for everything — then and now.

I’m one lucky son of a bitch. Just happened to walk into the right wine bar at just the right time — then and now.

Love you guys.

The whole idea was inspired by the kinda wild house parties we used to throw at our first home in Houston.

The girls, still in elementary school, were just getting started with their classic music training. We would open our home around 2 p.m. on a weekend day and I would set up a stage and sound system. The kids would do “open mic” performances for a few hours or so and then the adults would “jam out” using my backline (my amps, PA, drum kit, etc.).

Those were some legendary shindigs… and our house got a proper trashing along the way!

Earlier this year, I approached our best neighborhood dive bar, Emmit’s Place, where many members of our very musical and musician-rich community perform regularly. I asked the owners if they would let me take over one Sunday afternoon a month for an open mic featuring local musicians, including kids from the elementary and middle school music magnet programs (where our kids study as well).

The first one was such a success that it even merited a write-up in the Houston Press (our once weekly rag, now digital only).

This Sunday, from 2-6pm, I’ll be returning to Emmit’s Place in southwest Houston where I will be emceeing the open mic and then performing a set with my band, The Bio Dynamic Band featuring Katie White, during the last hour.

This is a family-friendly event, with comfort food (burgers, fries, nachos) and mocktails for the kids (the kids LOVE the mocktails).

I hope you can join me for an afternoon of great music. Some of our community’s leading adult players (some of the best in Texas, btw) have been known to sit in!

Thanks for supporting local music, local musicians, and local independent businesses!

And btw, happy Italian Liberation Day!

Anecdotally, I’m hearing that many E.U. producers are choosing to skip major wine events in the U.S. this year.

A medium-sized importer in the U.S. recently sent me the following note:

The next big threat is the weakening of the dollar vs. the Euro by 13% since January. If it keeps going this way for another six months at the speed it has been devaluing, then it won’t be the tariffs that put us out of business but the weak dollar. When I started importing in 2009 it was $1.53 to €1 and it has been $1.10 or lower for many years now. If it goes back up to even $1.35, I am going to have to significantly raise all of my prices and sales will slowly be strangled.

When you consider that the wine industry was already facing menacing headwinds before the tariffs and the sinking dollar, it becomes clear that the current crisis is existential for many operators. With no end to the tariffs in sight and growing economic uncertainty, the U.S. wine community is going to look starkly different by the end of this year.

In related news, the U.S. Wine Trade Alliance is soliciting comments on how tariffs and the value of the dollar are affecting small businesses:

We need your immediate feedback on how the current trade environment is affecting your business. As the 10% tariff on imported wines continues, and with the real possibility of escalations to 20% or more in the coming months, your voice is critical in helping us convey the stakes to policymakers.

Please take a moment to respond to the following questions:

How is the current 10% tariff impacting your business?
(Consider effects on hiring, investment, expansion plans, sales volumes, pricing, customer relationships, etc.)

If the 10% tariff remains in place long term, what will the ongoing impact be on your operations?
(Feel free to include the currency devaluation.)

In 2.5 months, if EU–U.S. trade negotiations go poorly and tariffs rise to 20% or more, how would your business be affected?
(We’re especially interested in how this would impact your viability, supplier relationships, and workforce.)

Responses can be e-mailed to ESarnor@akingump.com. You may copy me as well. We are compiling member input to share with trade officials and congressional staff in the coming days. If you are able, a response on company letter head would be helpful.

Please send responses by Monday, April 28th. Your feedback is essential to making the case that these tariffs are doing more harm than good to American businesses like yours.

Tariffs, schmariffs, it is the season again…

Please join me this Sunday 4/27 as we rock out Emmit’s Place in southwest Houston where we live. We’ll be doing open mic for kids and adults from 2-4; at 4 local middle schooler jazz outfit Rhytmix will perform (children of some of the top musicians in Houston, some of whom have been known to sit it!); and then at 5 my band, The Bio Dynamic Band featuring Katie White, will do a set.

This is a family-friendly event with comfort food and mocktails, adult beverages for the grownups… something for everyone.

Then on Monday 4/28, I’ll be presenting an Abruzzo seminar, tasting, and lunch in Austin. Click here for details and registration.

On Tuesday 4/29, I’ll be presenting an Abruzzo lunch at The Tell Me Bar in New Orleans, my old friend Cory’s super cool wine bar. I am so geeked about this. It’s free to trade. Please message me to RSVP. So geeked for this!

On Thursday 5/1, I’ll be presenting another Abruzzo seminar, tasting, and lunch in Charleston. Click here for details and registration.

Finally, on Wednesday 5/7, I’m heading back to DTLA for a wine dinner at Rossoblu, my old stomping grounds. I love these events and we run a retail pop-up for guests who would like to purchase the wines after tasting them. Click here for details and registration.

Thank you for the support and solidarity. People in our industry are struggling, with many just hanging on a thread. Please check out this excellent article on the trade blog Seven Fifty: leading importers of family-grown wines from Europe are teetering on an existential tightrope. As one importer said, “we live six months to a year ahead — that’s our present. So the complete lack of ability to plan is crushing us.”

Better get used to drinking Arneis from Napa and grating “Parmesan” from Wisconsin. Nothing wrong with those products. But that’s what we are looking at six months down the road at this point. #ItalianWineStrong #thankyouforyoursupport