Category Archives: de oenographia

Italy day 2: desperately seeking Sangiovese

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Above: in my book, penne should be rigate di rigore (obligatorily ridged as opposed to smooth). Otherwise, the pasta doesn’t absorb the sauce properly. Yesterday at Il Poggione in Sant’Angelo in Colle (Montalcino), we were served penne from Gragnano dressed with a rich ragù.

Yesterday, My Life Italian wrote a post about that “epiphany” wine where it all got started. Wine, she wrote, is a “stained-glass window to the world, a way to touch another culture… a way to travel that is much more visceral than vicarious.” The post got me thinking about my own “epiphany” wine.

Above: lunch began with classic Tuscan antipasti — prosciutto toscano, salame, chicken liver and spleen crostini, and a slice of saltless Tuscan bread drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil.

It was nearly twenty years ago that I first came to Montalcino, to stay in my friend and composer Michael Convertino’s apartment in Bagno Vignoni, a small village in the south of the township, where a Roman hot springs bath still dominates the main piazza. I became friends with Riccardo Marcucci and his brothers Leonardo and Andrea. Riccardo ran the wine program at his family’s hotel and he took it upon himself to teach me about Tuscany’s grand winemaking traditions. It sounds unbelievable now but every night we opened bottles of Sassicaia, Solaia, Ornellaia, Tignanello, Pergole Torte, and every other Bordeaux-inspired wine under the Tuscan sun. The year was 1989, the Super Tuscan craze had not yet begun in the U.S., and the wines didn’t command the prices they do today.

Above: next came stewed wild boar and beans. Not very photogenic but delicious.

But my “stained-glass window” wine was the wine their father Augusto used to make. 100% Sangiovese vinified in a natural style (natural yeasts and no temperature control) and aged in large old oak casks. I’ll never forget the night (it was 1994 by then) that my then band was invited to dine at Augusto’s home on the hill above the village. We ate fried wild boar liver (from road-kill boar that Augusto had collected and frozen), drank Sangiovese, smoked and told jokes late into the night. Augusto couldn’t understand a word we were saying but he laughed and clowned with us all through the evening. We played a show the next night in the town piazza.

Above: the stars of lunch were a 1997 Brunello di Montalcino Riserva and an 18-month pecorino. What a fantastic pairing. We tasted the ’97 side-by-side with the 2003. Both vintages were warmer than usual in Montalcino. The 2003 is still very tight and will need many years in bottle to come around. The ’97 was showing beautifully. It will be great to come back to the ’03 in 5-10 years or so.

The same way a junkie seeks forever to recreate that same first high… I’ve been looking for the flavors and aromas of Augusto’s Sangiovese since that day.

Epilogue: in May, Eric le Rouge and I had a chance to taste Il Poggione going back to the 1970s. I’ll do a post on our tasting when I get back Stateside.

Montalcino: the next step? Angelo Gaja weighs in.

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Above: that’s my good friend Robin Stark (center right) tasting with legendary Piedmontese winemaker Angelo Gaja on one of her wine-themed bike trips in Piedmont. Our mutual friend Terry Hughes over at Mondosapore likes to call me Zelig but Robin makes me look like Forrest Gump!

Legendary winemaker Angelo Gaja made news today when he published an open letter calling for changes in Brunello appellation regulations that would allow for the use of grapes other than Sangiovese. I have translated an excerpt at VinoWire.

As I get ready for my trip to Germany and Montalcino, I wish I had time to translate the entire letter, which is already creating waves in the blogosphere. But I’ve been busy working on the production of our record, getting ready for my trip (see below), and taking some time out to stop and smell the roses (yellow roses, in this case).

Angelo Gaja is one of the most charismatic and interesting figures in the world of Italian wine — and the world of wine period. I’ve met and tasted with him on a few occasions, including once at the winery. The Gaja winery is a unique experience, an objet d’art in and unto itself, where modern sculpture and architecture live side-by-side with the wine. Years ago, Gaja caused a controversy when he proposed that the Barolo and Barbaresco appellations be changed to allow for the use of international grape varieties. And after he was unsuccessful in his bid to revise the appellations, he declassified his site-designated wines. No one knows exactly what he puts in them but they are among Italy’s most collected — if not the most collected. A long-time proponent of barriqued Nebbiolo, Gaja makes wines that even the most fervent detractors of new oak aging will gladly drink. I’ve tasted Gaja back to 1971 and have to say that his wines are simply exquisite. He also produces high-end wines in Montalcino and Bolgheri.

Here’s a interesting passage that I translated but didn’t include in the post at VinoWire.

    In the 1960s, there were less than 60 hectares of vineyards planted to Sangiovese earmarked for the production of Brunello di Montalcino. There were roughly twenty producers, and no more than 150,000 bottles were produced [every year]. In the same period, there were 500 hecatres planted to Nebbiolo in Barolo, 115 producers/bottlers, and 3,000,000 bottles of Barolo produced annually. While Barolo did not have a leading figure, Brunello di Montalcino already had Biondi Santi: its founding father, an artisan who over time had raised the flag of quality high and he had also raised the price of his aristocratic, rare, and precious Brunello, available only to the few who could afford it.

    And then came Banfi…

He doesn’t take issue with Banfi but he reveals how the expansion of Sangiovese vineyards, spearheaded by Banfi, led to many “large” producers (as he puts it) planting Sangiovese in growing site that don’t have the right soil and climate conditions to grow superior Sangiovese. This phenomenon, he says, is what led to the current controversy there. It’s important to note that Banfi’s expansion and extremely successful marketing of Brunello made the appellation a house-hold name in the U.S. I remember the first time I saw a bottle of Brunello at the supermarket in La Jolla in the early 1990s: it was Banfi.

I wish I had time to translate the entire letter but you can read it in Italian here.

Germany, get ready for Nous Non Plus

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Above: Nous Non Plus’ new release “Ménagerie” will be available on Aeronaut Records sometime in November. Stay tuned…

I haven’t even finished posting about my April trip to Europe and here I am about to depart for Germany, where I’ll be performing with NNP (that’s short for Nous Non Plus) at Viadrina University (near Berlin) on Saturday night. We’re doing a show as part of the Green Party’s “Green European Summer 2008 Bridging the Gaps” festival (scroll down to Saturday August 30 for show info). If you happen to be in or around Berlin on Saturday, please come on down (the show is free and you can always email me to let me know you’re coming since I’ll have my blackberry with me).

On Monday, September 1, I head down to Montalcino where I’ll be tasting and talking to winemakers, trying to find out what’s happening “on the ground,” so to speak.

So please stay tuned!

Reports of August 15 hail in Montalcino confirmed

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At least one grower has confirmed reports of an August 15 hail storm in Montalcino. I’m sad to report that the 2008 harvest was damaged (up to 35%, according to the post) but I am glad to see that someone in Montalcino is bringing much-needed transparency to the appellation. Franco was the first to post about the storm, which occurred last Friday, and until now, no one had stepped forward to confirm or deny the report.

Brooklyn Guy in da house at Bahia

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Jon and Jayne brought 2006 Sinskey Vin Gris for our dinner with Brooklyn Guy and Brooklyn Lady in La Jolla.

When Brooklyn Guy and Brooklyn Lady sat down with me over ceviche tostadas, camaronillas (deep-fried corn tortillas stuffed with shrimp), grilled mahi mahi and battered and fried pollock tacos the other night at Bahia Don Bravo the other night in Bird Rock (La Jolla), we mused about the fact that even though we’d never met, we feel like we know each other well from reading each other’s blogs and getting to know each other’s palates. As it turns out, Brooklyn Lady is from San Diego and went to high school in La Jolla like me (she at Bishops, me at La Jolla High). I was geeked to meet Brooklyn Guy (the masked man of our bloggy blog world), as were Jon and Jayne, Robin, and my wino buddy John Yelenosky. We’re all fans of his blog and we had gathered a pretty cool collection of wines for the occasion.

The Rully was showing exceedingly well and its lightness was great with the fish tacos.

Highlights were the 2006 Sinskey Vin Gris (brought by Jon and Jayne), a killer 2005 Rully Premier Cru Les Cloux by Jacqueson (Yelenosky), a smoking 2000 Dessilani Ghemme Riserva (my contribution, drank so friggin’ well, if I do say so myself), and not to be outdone, Brooklyn Guy showed up with a bottle of 1996 Fleury, one of his favorite grower champagnes — simply off-the-charts good.

I ventured back into the kitchen and poured Dora a glass of the 96 Fleury.

Brooklyn Guy, Brooklyn Lady, and I actually had a pretty heavy talk about life, relationships, and marriage. He and I had never met in person but he’s been a very generous friend, often sending me notes of encouragement and moral support when he could sense unease in my life through reading my blog. It’s one of the most amazing things about blogging: by sharing our thoughts and palates, we somehow form meaningful bonds, woven (thanks to the dynamic medium) into the human fabric of experience in an entirely new way. You might think that friendships born of blogging would be superficial, but as it turns out those ties often reveal themselves to be more significant than those forged in other spheres of our lives.

It’s a small world after all…

Lifeguards and tattoos, classic beachtown culture at Bahia Don Bravo in sleepy La Jolla. Roberto and Salvador have been really cool about me bringing my own wine to Bahia but we really outdid ourselves this time: I mean, come on, 1996 Fleury at Bahia???!!! Awesome… They both tasted with us, as did Dora.

Georgian wine on my mind (or Back in the USSR)

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Above: a Russian tank in Prague in 1968 (photo by Josef Koudelka). Over the weekend, The New York Times reported that French President Nicolas Sarkozy managed to convince the Russians to withdraw their tanks from Georgia. This morning, the title of the top story is “Russia, Pledging to Leave Georgia, Tightens Its Grip.”

This week’s images of Russian tanks rolling toward Tbilisi brought to mind the photograph above. I was just a toddler during the Prague Spring of 1968. The thought of a Russia-occupied Georgia is a chilling one that evokes another ominous moment in Czechoslovakia and Europe’s history, 1938.

On a day like today, it seems a feckless act to write about wine but as I’ve been thinking about Georgia, it occurred to me that I have tasted Georgian wines on a number of occasions and that Georgia is largely considered one of the cradles of western viticulture. When I lived in New York, I knew a lot of Russian folks. When I was their guest or they mine, a bottle of generally sweet Georgian wine often made an appearance the table. The wines were never very good but they were always served with memorable pride and pleasure. Jamie Goode wrote this short but informative post about Georgian wine a few years ago and the Wikipedia entry is useful as well.

Georgia and Georgian wine are on my mind.

George W. is also on my mind. He’s been mountain-biking in Crawford, Texas over the weekend. There’s a paradoxical saying in Italian: non ho parole, in other words, I have no words.

No peace, no peace I find
Just an old sweet song

Worth reading: “Monty Waldin lets off steam about Brunellopoli”

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Monty Waldin’s recent and extraordinary post at the Jancis Robinson subscription site has been making the rounds among wine bloggers: my partner over at VinoWire, Franco Ziliani, wrote to Jancis who graciously gave us permission to repost it here. Monty’s insights as a winemaker living in Montalcino are fascinating and he pulls no punches in this piece. A must-read for anyone who’s trying to wrap her/his head around the greed that led to the controversy now known as Brunellopoli or Brunellogate.

Thank you, Franco, for making that happen!

A virtual conversation: I am such a fan of Franco Ziliani’s blog Vino al vino that one day I wrote him and said, “why don’t we start an English-language blog devoted to the world of Italian wine where I can translate posts from your blog?” Three months later — without Franco and I ever meeting in person — we launched VinoWire, a blog devoted exclusively to the world of Italian wine. Franco is one of Italy’s top wine writers and — without a doubt — its most polemical. He reminds me of Italian literary figure Giuseppe Baretti (left), one of the great writers of the Italian Enlightenment: in the same spirit as Baretti’s critical journal La frusta letteraria or The Literary Whip, Franco’s excellent blog combines erudition, wine and travel writing, and an expertly critical approach to the field — where, too often, so-called wine writers are too timid to call a spade a spade. The title of Franco’s blog, vino al vino, comes from the Italian expression, pane al pane, vino al vino or call bread “bread”, call wine “wine”, in other words, say it like it is.

Per Bacco! The virtual sommelier

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Last night found Mr. Bianchi on the floor of Jaynes Gastropub in San Diego, where I’ve been working as a sommelier on Friday and Saturday nights (we’ve been having a lot of fun with the wine program down there). During service, I received a text from a college friend, Beth, who was dining at Perbacco* in San Francisco with her boyfriend (they live in Santa Barbara): “What wine should we order?” I slipped into the back office, went online, and within moments was viewing the wine list. I’ve never dined at Perbacco, but I have to say I was impressed with the carta dei vini, both for its breadth and the reasonable prices. There were a number of excellent options. Massolino 1998 Barolo Rionda (left, photographed by Beth using her phone), I wrote back, “have the sommelier taste it for you and then have her/him decant it.” It was a romantic getaway for them and they wanted to drink something memorable. At 10:50, she texted me back: “Loved it!” 1998 is one of those “sleeper” vintages, often overshadowed by 97 (overrated but very good), 96 (one of the greatest in recent memory for Langa, still too tight for their palates), and 99 (also a classic Langa vintage). 98s can drink really well right now and so I knew with a little aeration Beth and her beau would dig it (and I wanted the onus of tasting the wine to lie on a sommelier since she is a wine lover, not a pro). Gauging from their list, I’m sure that the somms at Perbacco are top-flight folks. But wouldn’t it be cool if everyone could text a “virtual sommelier” from their table and get a personalized wine recommendation? Hhhhmmm…

*Perbacco! or per Bacco! is a euphemistic blasphemy, for Bacchus’ [sake]!, akin to our for goodness’ sake! It’s used to express surprise or wonderment. Vietti makes a Langhe Nebbiolo called Perbacco. It’s a declassified Barolo, winemaker Luca Currado told me. He uses it as a “loss leader,” a wine that he can sell at a lower price point to turn people on to his brand. The 2004 was insanely good and the 05 — on the list at Jaynes — is also showing really well right and represents one of the best values on any wine list.

Guest blackberry blogger: David Lynch at 3,251 meters a.s.l.

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Yo JP
Check out these canederli, consumed at 3251 m atop “piz boa” high above Corvara!
A presto
DL

If anyone would appreciate the attached photo of truly ridiculously good AA porcini, it’d be you — last night we had these bitches every which way!!!!

Canederli (knödel in German) are bread dumplings, typically stuffed with speck, traditionally served in South Tyrol.

Fungi porcini (Boletus edulis) or swine mushrooms are so-called because in antiquity they were not prized as they are today.

David Lynch is one of our country’s top sommeliers and wine writers and just one of the nicest (and funniest) folks I know in this dog-eat-dog business. His intro to Italian wine seminar is one of the most popular at the Aspen Food & Wine Classic. Check out this preview of David’s new book, The Wine Snob’s Dictionary (Random House, October 2008). Whatever David is pouring, hey, I’m drinking…

Par condicio: Pian delle Vigne 2003 sample sampled

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Par condicio is a Latin expression used historically by the Italian legislature and subsequently by the Italian media to denote, among other things, “equal [air] time” for Italian political candidates (it’s modeled after the expression par condicio creditorum or as per agreement with creditors).* It’s an Italian political campaign convention much criticized by the hegemonic Forza Italia (Go Italy!) party and its leader Silvio Berlusconi, who happens to own and control a majority stake in Italian national television — private and public. (Silvio made The New York Times today for his prudish — yes, prudish! — attitudes. See below.)

When my buddy Lance invited me to attend an Antinori tasting over at Wine House in West LA, I felt a sense of moral obligation to swirl, sniff, savor, and spit. In particular, I was curious to taste the 2003 Pian delle Vigne, Antinori’s controversial, once-impounded, and now-cleared 2003 Brunello. (See this recent interview with Antinori winemaker Renzo Cotarella here.)

Anyone who reads my blog knows that I am not a fan of modern-style Brunello and frankly, Pian delle Vigne is not a wine that I drink. But in the spirit of “fair and balanced” coverage, I am compelled to report that, judging from the color of the wine and its flavors and aromas, it was 100% Sangiovese (see the bright, clear color of the wine in the photo above). And although it was wooded, it did taste like Brunello: frankly, I found it to be more traditional-leaning than other bottlings of Pian delle Vigne. In all fairness, it’s a very well made wine.

One question remains, however: why were we tasting hand-labeled “samples” of the 2003 Brunello when the wine was presented in the U.S. as early as January 2008 with printed Antinori labels? There are certainly bottles of 2003 Pian delle Vigne in this country — many undoubtedly shipped before the April controversy, when Siena authorities impounded the wine. The wine has since been “cleared” by the Siena magistrate (as has Banfi’s, as of yesterday). So, why the need for “samples”? Food for thought…

Americans continue to adore Antinori’s wines and gauging from the stampede for the Guado al Tasso, Solaia, and Tignanello last night, the Marquis has not suffered from the recent Brunello controversy. It’s remarkable how much wine he makes and in how many regions. I had no idea, for example, that he makes a nice Franciacorta (Montenisa) and I was really impressed by his La Brancesca 2006 Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Santa Pia, traditional in style, for under $40 retail.

In other news…

Separatist Italian agriculture minister Luca Zaia approves bag-in-box packaging for DOC wines. See this report.

In other other news…

Tiepolo’s titties tethered by Italian chieftain in “The Truth Unveiled by Time” tela!!!

In an unusual act of prudish countenance, the Berlusconi government ordered the nipples in Tiepolo’s “The Truth Unveiled by Time” covered. The painting appears in the backdrop of the Italian prime minister’s press conferences. See this report in The New York Times.

* “One of the cardinal principles governing the liquidation of insolvent estates is the equal treatment of creditors—the classical par condicio creditorum. Debtors on the eve of bankruptcy, either of their own volition or under pressure, may accord preferential treatment—by way of payment or security—to certain creditors.”

Source: “bankruptcy.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.