Category Archives: de oenographia

TTB guidelines for Brunello importers

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This morning, my friend, top Italian wine blogger Alfonso Cevola (On the Wine Trail in Italy) sent me a link to the Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Trade bureau’s new guidelines for Brunello importers. According to the circular, importers must now submit a statement from the Italian government “attesting” that the wine meets Italian appellation regulations. It’s not clear how U.S. importers will obtain required documentation for Brunello coming in after June 23 (that’s Monday!).

Check out Alfonso’s insightful, futuristic (post-apocalyptic, really) post on Brunello.

In other news…

My friend Alessandro Bindocci of Il Poggione (one of my favorite Brunello producers) just launched a blog called Montalcino Report “devoted to the vines, wines, people, and life in Montalcino and Sant’Angelo in Colle.”

“History has yet to be written in Bolgheri”

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Above: Winemaker and owner of Le Macchiole Cinzia Merli — producer of one of Italy’s most talked-about wines — at Fraîche in Culver City, CA last night.

Last night found me in one of the most talked-about restaurants in America together with one of Italy’s most talked-about winemakers, Cinzia Merli of Le Macchiole.

Ever since Frank Bruni included Fraîche (Culver City, CA) in his top 10 list of restaurants that “count coast-to-coast,” friends (from the left bank and right) have raved to me about its food. One of the guests at dinner last night told me you need to reserve four months in advance (although another noted, “we didn’t need Frank to tell us how good Fraîche is”).

It’s unlikely that I could ever get a reservation there but Cinzia Merli certainly can: her winery has been touted (pun intended) as the new Super Tuscan supreme and at least one of her bottlings has attained a Midas-touch 100-point score (conferred by the sole arbiter of such accolades). Her high-end, handmade wines retail for upward of $250 these days.

Those of you who read my blog regularly know that I am generally not a fan of Super Tuscans — wines by definition aged in new oak. But who could resist an invitation to dine with Italy’s newly anointed megawatt star at one of the hottest tables in America?

Above: Branzino with escargot tempura at Fraîche. I regret to say that the the restaurant was disappointing. I was expecting simpler, locally driven fare. But escargot tempura? The service was excellent but more than once our table had to send back stemware that smelled like a sewer (I’m not kidding). When you’re pouring $250+ bottles of wine, you’d hope that someone would pay attention. There didn’t seem to be a sommelier on duty that night. The vibe of the restaurant felt like a scene from Altman’s 1993 film “Short Cuts.”

Conversation with Cinzia was truly fascinating and all in attendance were keen to discuss her preference for monovarietal (single-grape variety) wines in an appellation that has historically favored Bordeaux-style blends.

“I believe that monovarietal wines are the greatest expression of Bolgheri’s terroir,” said Cinzia. “In the past, Bolgheri winemakers have felt that blended wines best expressed our terroir. But today the same producers who weren’t so thrilled about my monovarietal wines are now lobbying to change the appellation regulations and allow monovarietal wines [to be classified] as DOC.” (The Bolgheri DOC currently does not permit monovarietal wines.)

“Even though we have very important models for winemaking — Sassicaia and Ornellaia — the history of Bolgheri has yet to be written,” she told us.

Some notes from the dinner…

  • The name of Cinzia’s Paleo (today made from 100% Cabernet Franc) comes from a Tuscan word for tarraxacum, a dandelion that grows wild in Bolgheri. She does not weed her vineyards, thus allowing naturally occurring grasses and weeds to flourish. Tarraxacum was prevalent during the first vintage (1989). Paleo was originally made from a blend of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Sangiovese but became 100% Cabernet Franc with the 2001 harvest.
  • Messorio (her 100% Merlot, the most famous of her wines) is an archaic term for wheat farmer. Before Cinzia’s family planted their land to grapes, wheat was the most important crop grown there.
  • Her 100% Syrah is called Scrio, a Tuscan word for pure: Scrio and Messorio were first produced in 1994 and have always been vinified as monovarietal or “pure” wines.
  • It is believed that Le Macchiole, the name of Cinzia’s estate, comes from the Italian macchia or maquis, the dense scrub or brush that defines the landascape of Maremma (the Tuscan coastline).

    • Of all of her wines, my favorite is the Paleo because the bright acidity of her Cabernet Franc makes it her most food-friendly wine. The 2005 Messorio and the Scrio were opulent, rich with flavor, and they showed great minerality and depth. It will take some time (5-10 years?) for the wood to integrate in these wines but this vintage of Le Macchiole is clearly destined to be a benchmark for Bolgheri in years to come.

    My feelings about oak and the history of barrique aging in Italy continue to evolve: hopefully, my path will cross once again with Cinzia and I will get the chance to taste these powerful wines when they have had a chance to evolve.

    Nous Non Plus in LA, SF, Germany, and revelations from Montalcino

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    Above: Nous Non Plus performed this spring in Slovenia. That’s me stage left (on the right). Click here to read an interview with the band published in this week’s H Magazine.

    Nous Non Plus will be performing this week in Los Angeles (Friday night) and San Francisco (Saturday noon, free show). Click on cities for info. We also learned that we will be performing at a Green Party event in Frankfurt an der Oder (about an hour outside Berlin) on Saturday, August 30.

    In other news…

    Il Sole 24 Ore reported yesterday that it was the discovery of ghost vineyards that led to the current controversy in Brunello. According to the story, winemakers were releasing more wine than their vineyards could produce. The current investigation began not because the Italian treasury department suspected winemakers of adulteration but rather because wineries allegedly over-reported surface area “under vine” or “planted to grape,” as they say in the wine world. It’s possible that the wineries were reporting false information because they were applying for bank loans using their vineyards as collateral.

    Click here to read about it in VinoWire.

    Il Sole 24 Ore (literally, “The Sun 24 Hours [a Day]” or “Sun Around the Clock”) is Italy’s most highly regarded business newspaper. It’s Italy’s counterpart to The Wall Street Journal.

    Colorado Day 6: Aspen, under the big top

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    Thanks everyone for checking in this week. When I get back to California, I’ll post on some of the tastings I attended. In the meantime, here are some images from opening day at the 2008 Aspen Food & Wine Classic…

    The first session of tasting seminars at the Aspen Food & Wine Classic

    Under the big top: a view of one of the main tents at the festival.

    Martin Foradori (owner Hofstätter) and New York restaurateur Danny Meyer share a laugh after Danny led tasters in a chorus of “Alto Adige” to the tune of Mel Brook’s “High Anxiety.”

    Ran into Ed McCarthy and Mary Mulligan, the first couple of the U.S. food and wine scene.

    Celeb sommelier Richard Betts wanted me to try his new Mojito at the bar at the storied Little Nell hotel.

    Drank 1996 Jacquesson for lunch.

    My friend Aldo Sohm — the best sommelier in the world — poured me some great Rieslings.

    1988 Massolino Vigna Rionda Barolo was fantastic. Note the clear, brick color of the wine, a standout for me on this trip.

    Evening found me in the home of collector. The views in Aspen are amazing.

    Colorado Day 5: Aspen Celeb Watch! (or my new career as paparazzo)

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    paparazzo (1961), the name of the character Paparazzo, a society photographer in F. Fellini’s film La Dolce Vita (1960).

    The selection of the name Paparazzo (which occurs as a surname in Italy) for the character in Fellini’s film has been variously explained. According to Fellini himself, the name was taken from an opera libretto; the comment is also attributed to him that the word “suggests a buzzing insect, hovering, darting, stinging”. It is also used as the name of a character by G. Gissing in By the Ionian Sea (1909), which appeared in Italian translation in 1957 and has been cited as an inspiration by E. Flaiano, who contributed to the film’s scenario. (For further possible expressive connotations of the name, it has also been noted that in the Italian dialect of Abruzzi, where Flaiano came from, paparazzo occurs as a word for a clam, which could be taken as suggesting a metaphor for the opening and closing of a camera lens; the Italian suffix -azzo).

    — Oxford English Dictionary, online edition

    Sommelier Carlos “Charlie” Arturaola and celeb Chef José Andrés at the “must be seen at” Wines of Spain party.

    Chef Andrés made a pork sausage paella for the overflowing crowd at the party, held this year in a private home (chef Andrés was assisted by chef Terri Cutrino).

    Culinary legend Jacques Pepin looked fabulous as always at the Food & Wine Classic welcome party. How do the French do it?

    Celeb Chef Tom Colicchio kept a lid on it as he did an interview.

    Importer Bartholomew Broadbent and tele producer Josie Peltz (the better half of celeb sommelier and wine writer David Lynch).

    American Express head honcho Ed Kelly and my buddy Ray Isle, Deputy Wine Editor at Food & Wine, on the other side of the velvet rope.

    Restaurateur and wine world star Brian Duncan and winemaker Danilo Drocco lunched in town yesterday.

    Life isn’t treating this paparazzo so bad: I drank a 1990 Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande at a private dinner last night.

    Which red wine? And cool Italian-related stuff to do in NYC.

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    An article on the front page of Wednesday’s New York Times reported that “New Hints Seen That Red Wine May Slow Aging.” According to the article, pharmaceutical companies are investing unspeakable amounts of money to try to recreate the health-enhancing properties of red wine in the hopes of discovering a would-be fountain of youth.

    Europeans have long believed that red wine is part of a healthy diet and life and that red wine can help people to live longer (I remember a 90+ year-old lady I knew in Pieve di Cadore in the Dolomites who poured a glass of red wine in her soup every day; she claimed that it was the secret to her longevity and the quality of her life and lucidity at such an advanced age).

    But which red wine are we talking about? Certainly not high-alcohol, concentrated wines, out-of-balance, with fruit created by technology, so viscous you could use them to oil up your Harley Davidson.

    No, those aren’t the red wines that the old folk drink. It’s unfortunate when headlines like that appear because they don’t contextualize the health-enhancing properties of wine (red or white): wine is healthy when it is drunk in moderation as part of a healthy diet and a healthy lifestyle.

    Time for me to stop pontificating now…

    I did, however, like Eric’s article on Burgundy.

    In other news…

    Blow-by-blow, day-by-day, minute-by-minute, mano-a-mano, tête-à-tête, vis-à-vis coverage of my Aspen trip begins on Monday. So stay tuned…

    In other other news…

    Here are some cool Italian-related things going on in Manhattan in June.

    My friend Keith de Lellis, collector extraordinaire of vintage Italian photography, is exhibiting a show entitled “La Strada,” featuring 1950s original black and white prints of street life in Italy. Years ago, I helped Keith research his buying trips to Italy and I was fascinated by the people we met, the stories they told, and the out-of-the-way places Keith travels to find this amazing photography (the prints aren’t cheap, btw). Between the second world war and Italy’s economic miracle in the 1960s, photography became an inexpensive and popular hobby there and even amateur photographers seemed capable of creating neorealist works of art. All of Keith’s prints date back to the 1950s and when you seem them in person, the quality of the paper and the printing techniques give the photos an ineffable aura (think Walter Benjamin’s aura, à la “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”).

    Through June 14.

    Keith de Lellis Gallery
    1045 Madison Ave at 80th St.
    (212) 327-1482

    Another friend of mine, Caterina Bertolotto, has just mounted a show of her couture, “Dresses of Transportation,” at the Italian American Museum. Born in Piedmont, Caterina is one of the most colorful New Yorkers I’ve ever met, a true original, an artist, whose entire life — and it’s not an exaggeration to say this — is a work of art. She’s also the author of an Italian language instruction manual and a great Italian instructor. She has taught at the New School and also teaches privately.

    Through June 30.

    Italian American Museum
    28 W 44th St between 5th and 6th
    (212) 642-2020

    Slovenia Day 2: forbidden mussels, winemaker not required

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    The name and location of the tavern where Nous Non Plus ate dinner on April 9, 2008 cannot be revealed: suffice it to say that the band’s metallic-gray van somehow found its way to a small village in the hills of Brda.

    On the menu that night: a tide of scampi (Nephrops norvegicus, Norwegian lobster, adored by Céline Dijon aka Verena Wiesendanger, left) and forbidden date mussels (Lithophaga lithophaga, a long and narrow rock-boring mussel that uses an acidic secretion to chisel its way into the reefs of the northern Adriatic). The fishing of date mussels, I’m sorry to say, has been prohibited in Europe since 1992 because the reef has to be broken in order to extract the mollusk (in Italy, the sale of date mussels was outlawed in 1998). But in Slovenia (an EU country, btw), it seems delicacy trumps delinquency (I’ve heard that they’re easy to find in Apulia and other parts of Adriatic Italy as well).

    Above: the delicious date mussels were cooked in white wine and garlic. They didn’t serve Aleš’ wine but the house Ribolla (Rebula) made for an excellent pairing.

    Above: The scampi seemed to dance on this mixed seafood platter. Céline goes crazy for scampi. I’ve never seen her eat so much!

    Earlier in the day (and frankly, the day didn’t start so early since we had stayed up all night long playing Beatles songs camp-fire style after NNP played two sets at the winery), Aleš had fulfilled his promise to explain the secret behind Movia’s Lunar, a wine he makes — as I discovered — from the free-run juice of unpressed, whole bunches of Ribolla using a unique system for carbonic maceration. He calls it Lunar because he follows the cycle of the moon for its production.

    “Before man made a job for himself as a winemaker,” said Aleš, “the grape made the wine itself.” The grape berry “has a natural valve at its top,” he explained. When a grape drops to the ground, the naturally occurring yeasts on its skin migrate into the pulp and begin to ferment its juice. The valve at the top of the berry, “lets the carbon dioxide out without letting any oxygen in.”

    So, when Aleš decided he wanted to make a wine with no intervention whatsoever, he used the grape as a model: he designed a barrel with a hole proportionate to the size of the aperture at the top of a grape berry. To plug the hole, he created a spring-loaded cap that releases the CO2 when pressure builds within the vessel without allowing any oxygen to enter. In essence, he built a large grape berry. He fills the “berry” with whole bunches of grapes and then seals it and lets nature do her work.

    Above: Aleš always decants Lunar because it is unfiltered and contains a great deal of sediment.

    He then concocted an elaborate system of tubes that allow him to draw off the wine without letting it come into contact with oxygen. But he also had to calculate “where” the wine would be in the barrel, since some of the solids fall to the bottom during fermentation while the skins float to the top. In a diagram he showed me, the “layer” of wine lies somewhere in the middle of the vessel. The wine is siphoned off into a larger stainless steel vessel from which he can then bottle the unfiltered wine.

    Lunar isn’t cheap but it is one of those life-changing wines. When you taste it for the first time, you immediately experience its purity and integrity (and by integrity, I mean the etymological sense of the word, its wholeness, its untouchedness, from the Latin in- + tangere, to touch). Later in the trip, Aleš dubbed NNP the first “bio-dynamic” band: it was great to see my bandmates get turned on and tuned in to natural wine.

    Required reading…

    There’s a great article about Slovenian wine and Movia in the current issue of Fine Wine by
    Bruce Schoenfeld    . (Scroll down to the bottom of the page where you can download a PDF’d version.)

    I’ve become a fan of Bruce’ writing. I recently came across this passage in a piece he wrote in praise of a Patagonian Pinot Noir (which, he pointed out, doesn’t try to imitate Burgundy):

    “I’m not sure why, but I hold Pinot Noir to a higher standard than I do other grapes. I come across far too many Pinots made in slavish imitation of Burgundy. These wines aren’t bad, just uninteresting. I mean, I love the Beatles’ ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,’ but I don’t ever need to hear Elton John sing his version again.”

    I couldn’t agree more: I love Elton John but his version of LSD just doesn’t do it for me nearly the same way the Beatles’ does.

    Slovenia Day 1: Movia (my barrique epiphany)

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    Just added…

    Taste and chat at Jaynes: Thursday I’ll be pouring wine all night at Jaynes Gastropub in University Hts. (San Diego). Please stop by. Hopefully Chef Daniel will be serving his Alaskan halibut special…

    Above: Aleš Kristančič draws off a barrel sample of his 2005 Pinot Noir. Note the size of the barrels. Aleš ages his wine exclusively in barrique.

    My once immovable feelings about barrique (small, new oak barrels — French or Slavonian — used for aging wine) began to change last year when I read this article by Eric Asimov. With Socratic nuance, Eric pointed out that “Oaky may be bad, but oak is good.” Later that month, in response to a post I did on Luigi Veronelli and Italy’s historic relationship to new oak aging of wine, Eric authored a post in which he cast the use of barrique in judicious perspective. (If the wine blogosphere were a Renaissance court, Eric would be its wise and just prince: he brings an even-handed tone to a world prone to rants and extreme points of view. He was recently nominated for the Veronelli Prize for “best food and wine writing in a foreign language.”)

    When my band Nous Non Plus arrived at the Movia winery in Brda, Slovenia on Monday, April 7, 2008, where we played a private party that evening, I had an epiphany of sorts: I discovered — to my surprise — that my friend Aleš Kristančič, whose wines I love and have enjoyed on many occasions, ages all of his wines in barrique.

    Frankly, I was blown away. My friend and collaborator Franco Ziliani (known for his tell-like-it-is style) often points out that rules are rules: I have to confess that I had never detected oakyness in Aleš’ wines and Aleš gave me a proper schooling in situ as to how new oak can be used with the context of radically natural and undeniably biodynamic wines like his own. Ignoscetis mihi: as Franco says, if you taste something blind and you like it, you have to admit it.

    Above: Aleš rocks out with his Soviet-era Tajfun bass (see headstock below). He played bass in the Yugoslav military band. Aleš became a fan of Nous Non Plus after he saw our Mobitel commercial and he invited the band to play a gig at his winery and later that week in Ljubljana.

    “Oak is like the sheets of a bed,” said Aleš using a politically incorrect but apt simile, “when you break up with a girlfriend, you need to throw away the sheets and put new ones on the bed.” In his view, the yeasts and bacteria that grow on old oak barrels (and in particular, large oak barrels) can give unwanted flavors to the wine (other winemakers would argue that those flavors are elements in terroir expression).

    One important element is the toasting of the oak. Aleš uses only gently toasted oak: “the staves are toasted by the cooper to shape the barrel,” he said, “not to give flavor to the wine.” (Many modern-style winemakers use heavily toasted oak to impart vanilla, chocolate, and tobacco and similar notes to their wines.)

    But, most important, he explained, is the amount of time the wine spends in cask. “Many winemakers want to accelerate the aging process by using new oak for aging,” he said. “I’m not using the oak to soften the tannin. I am using it to oxygenate the wine slowly and gently.” (The pores in the new wood allow small amounts of oxygen to come into contact with the wine.) Where other producers age for 12 or even 18 months, Aleš often ages for up to 5 years in cask before bottling.

    The other important element, he told me, is that he adds no sulfur whatsoever to his wine. “Even fine winemakers add very small amounts of sulfur in order to stabilize the wine more quickly. I don’t need to do that: I let time stabilize my wines. I’m not in a hurry,” Aleš said. The addition of sulfur, he explained, can cause the oak to impart some of its flavor to the wine.

    Alder Yarrow just did a great post on Slovenia and Movia’s current releases over at his excellent blog Vinography.

    I’ll be posting more on my stay and our shows in Slovenia and the wines we tasted and food we ate over the next few weeks. Look for my post on Movia’s Lunar: during my stay, Aleš revealed the secret of this 100% Ribolla Gialla that he makes from the free-run juice of whole bunches. He essentially fills a barrel with the grapes — stems and all — and lets the wine make itself. But there’s a trick to it: Aleš learned it all from a grape…

    Slovenia is not as as developed as neighboring Friuli and its beauty is literally breath-taking. This shot — believe it or not — was taken from the toilet at the Movia guest house.

    The World’s Best Sommelier (and other virtual news)…

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    My friend Aldo Sohm — one of the nicest persons you’ll ever meet in the highly competitive world of wine stewardship — has been named the “best sommelier in the world” by the Worldwide Sommelier Asssociation. You may remember a post I did late last year on him and New York’s Best Kept Secret: the Bar at Le Bernardin.

    Held in Rome this year, the final competition included the following examinations: blind tasting, editing a wine list, pairing, and service. For the service test, a restaurant environment was simulated on a stage, with celebrity chef Gianfranco Vissani, television personality Gioacchino Bonsignore, RAI TV sommelier Adua Villa, and noted food writer Clara Barra as guests at the table.

    Aldo (above, left) won the competition as an “American” sommelier (and indeed, he has worked in New York for many years) but he is actually Austrian. Check out this Washington Post profile from last year and the Herculean effort it takes to compete and become the “world’s best sommelier.”

    In other news…

    Good news from Montalcino: the U.S. government has agreed to postpone its deadline for answers to its request for information regarding the Brunello controversy. Italy’s new minister of agriculture, Luca Zaia, has opened talks with U.S. officials and a U.S. delegation will travel to Rome and Siena for meetings on June 8. You can read all about it at VinoWire.com.

    My friend and collaborator Franco Ziliani and I have both signed the Petition for Authentic and Traditional Brunello and I have translated the petition text here.

    In other other news…

    It hasn’t been officially announced but it seems that my friend Alice Feiring, author of The Battle for Wine and Love or How I Saved the World from Parkerization will be doing a Q&A at Lou on Vine on June 19 in Los Angeles. I’ll be in town then since Nous Non Plus will be performing the next night at Bordello in downtown.

    Hope to see you then!

    Magazine sitings and writings

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    My friend Lawrence Osborne gave me a shout out in the current issue of Men’s Vogue (June/July 2008), in an article about a wine that means a lot to me: Lini Lambrusco. I can’t say that I mind being called “a wine connoisseur and Italian scholar extraordinaire” by the Accidental Connoisseur himself.

    Alicia Lini and I first met in February of 2007 when I traveled to Italy in search of metodo classico or méthode champenoise Lambrusco (i.e., double-fermented in bottle). She and I became good friends and it’s great to see her (with her cover girl looks) and her wines get the attention they deserve.

    I also made an appearance in the Spring issue of Gastronomica with a piece on the history of pasta, Risorgimento Italy, and pasta’s role in the Italian national identity.

    Ed-in-chief Darra Goldstein had asked me to write a review of a CD devoted to pasta-inspired music and she generously let me turn the piece into short essay.

    In case you can’t find a copy of the mag at your local newsstand, I made a PDF (downloadable here).