Category Archives: de oenographia

The many “inos” of New York, a visit to Maialino (New York Stories II)

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Above: I loved the fried artichokes at Danny Meyer’s Maialino.

It’s amazing to think that restaurant maven Jason Denton opened his Italian sandwich shop ‘Ino back in 1998 — the same year that Batali-Bastianich launched Babbo. Strolling around the West Village last week, I spotted two new (at least to me) “inos”: Gottino and Corsino.

It occurred to me that the Molto Mario paradigm is like al-Qaeda: it’s not just a working method or brand anymore; it’s a concept. And the rash of “inos” that have appeared across the City in the last fourteen years are akin to the self-appointed “cells” of the Jihad (perhaps modeled more after Lupa and Otto than his earlier successes).

I’m embarrassed to say that I still hadn’t been to Maialino (which opened in 2010), Danny Meyer’s Rome-inspired “ino”. And when Alice and I arrived there at 8 p.m. on Friday, the place was slamming packed.

I was geeked to reconnect with my good friend Nicolas, who works there. And we ended up having a nosh at the bar (including the awesome fried artichokes, above).

Nicolas treated us to a delicious bottle of Perella, one of Bruno De Conciliis’s expressions of Fiano. And I was psyched to see 2006 Produttori di Carema by the glass (!) and a truly courageous selection for the Pinot Grigio by the glass: Vie di Romans Pinot Grigio Dessimis — a vineyard designated, skin-contact, tannic expression of lees-aged Pinot Grigio. That’s a pretty gutsy choice for someone expecting Santa Margherita…

I tasted a 1997 Dessimis a few years ago in Friuli and was blown away by the elegance and power of the wine. And although I thought the 2009 offered at Maialino isn’t fully developed (the wood still resided atop the wine), I loved the fact that the wine director Liz Nicholson (whom I haven’t met) is prompting her guests to question the Pinot Grigio status quo in our nation.

OBut no matter how hard courageous and well informed wine directors like Liz try, you still can’t take the “ino” out of Pinot Grigio…

Up next: New York Stories III, Alice and I pay a visit to the “Wine Seer” uptown and “everything is beautiful at the ballet”…

We’re going to miss Lou on Vine

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From the department of “Where do I begin? To tell the story of how great a love can be?”…

Above: Tracie P with Lou Amdur at a Kermit Lynch tasting back in May 2009 in San Francisco. Tracie and I had just been engaged.

It’s hard to explain the intrinsic role that Lou Amdur has played in our lives.

Lou and his Lou on Vine have been the backdrop for some of the most special moments of the last three years. It was the first place I took Tracie P (then B) when she visited me in California for the first time. It’s where I met Comrade Howard for the first time. It’s where Anthony and I would go nearly every week when I was living in Los Angeles. The first time I went there it was for a book reading by Alice.

Across the nation, from the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times, the wine world is reeling from the news that Lou is closing his amazing wine bar.

So many great wines tasted there. So many thrilling wine tales recounted. So many wine personages encountered.

But none greater than Lou, who could always — always! — surprise you with what he was pouring, a rare grape variety he was excited about, a biodynamic Pecorino that really turned him on…

I really liked this elegiac post by Cory (and recommend it). It reminded me of how Lou brought so many of us together — despite the vitriol that so often surfaces on the Natural wine scene.

He was our rabbi and Lou was his synagogue — a συναγωγή, a bringing together, etymologically speaking.

Where do I begin?
To tell the story of how great a love can be
The sweet love story that is older than the sea
The simple truth about the love he brings to me…

Gaglioppo, so many great wines making it to the U.S.

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As thrilling as Etna is right now on the U.S. wine scene, the Southern Italian wine and grape that I am the most excited about are Cirò and Gaglioppo.

When I was in Los Angeles week before last to spend some time at Sotto, a New York-based importer tasted me on (as we say in the biz) the wines of Scala in Cirò (Calabria) — a winery I’d never heard of.

Both the Cirò Classico (above) and the Cirò Riserva (below) wowed me with their freshness, focus, and balance of earth, fruit, and acidity. Gorgeous, thrilling wines, imho…

Currently, Gaglioppo is relatively unknown in the U.S., despite the ever growing interest in indigenous grape varieties (I tasted a Piave Raboso the other night in San Antonio, btw!).

But tasting these wines, I begin to understand the high praise that writers of another era like Mario Soldati and Norman Douglas reserved for the caliber of winemaking there.

“The wine of Cirò,” wrote Douglas, “is purest nectar.”

I’m with Alfonso when he sings Mama, don’t let your (Gaglioppo) babies grow up to be Cabernets…

My chat @IsleWine @EatingOurWords @HoustonPress

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Photo via Grub Street.

Beyond writing about wines under $25, my mission as wine writer at the Houston Press is to offer coverage of fine wine in Houston and Texas.

So what could be better than an interview with my friend Ray Isle, Houston native, who’s on his way to Texas next month for the Austin Food & Wine Festival?

You can read the interview here.

And here are his thoughts on Italian wine (topic of one his seminars) that didn’t make it into the Houston Press post:

    Cesanese was a discovery for me not too long ago (particularly the wines from Damiano Ciolli, who’s a very talented young guy). In fact, in general Central Italy fascinates me — it seems like it’s been a little bit bypassed, attention-wise. Marco Carpineti’s wine in the Lazio are great; a lot of Abruzzese wines are terrific (I think La Valentina’s Binomio bottling is a standout); and there’s been a crazy wave of good Lambrusco coming in, which has been a godsend for dinner parties, as far as I’m concerned. But what’s great about Italy overall at the moment is it seems as though you can’t go to an importer tasting and not run across a producer you’ve never heard of before who’s doing something ambitious and interesting.

Ray is such a cool guy… I’ve promised him a night of honkytonking while he’s out here. Ginny’s Little Long Horn Saloon, anyone?

What I do for a living…

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Folks often ask me just what it is that I do for a living…

After receiving my doctorate in Italian (UCLA, 1997) and getting my start in the wine writing business as the chief wine writer for La Cucina Italiana (1998-2000, New York), I began working as a freelance copywriter for New York-based importers of Italian wine and spirits.

What started as a print-media monthly newsletter for Fratelli [Fernet] Branca (in New York) quickly grew into a business that provided content to importers like Terlato Wines International and Kobrand. Continue reading →

Lou Iacucci: Many mourn a friend who was a friend of Italian wine…

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In the wake of yesterday’s post and remembrances of the great Italian wine maven Lou Iacucci, a number of people who knew him wrote to me or commented here on the blog.

Of all the remembrances, I was perhaps most deeply moved by what my friend Francesco Bonfio, president of the Italian associations of wine shops, wrote, paraphrasing a quote uttered by Lou: “I do not want to drink italian wines that taste like French wines and I do not want to pay for Italian wines at French prices.” (Francesco attributes the quote to an interview in Wine Spectator, which I’ll have to track down.)

Amen, I say…

Alfonso sent a scan of an obituary published shortly after Lou’s passing in Civiltà del Bere (vol. 12, ,2 April-June 1988), “Lou Iacucci succeeded in introducing thousands of people to Italian wines.” I’ve uploaded them (2 pages) as PDFs and you can download using the links below.

One of the profile’s subtitles reads: “Many mourn a friend who was a friend of Italian wine.” Italian wine insiders will recognize many of the names of Lou’s peers and colleagues quoted in the article.

Page 1
Page 2

Tracie P’s new blog, heading @SottoLA, and Give Greece a Chance

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In case you hadn’t already seen it, Tracie P has a new blog called Sugarpie where “mommy maximus” reflects on what it’s like to be a first-time mother and our experiences as new parents. I’m so glad that she’s blogging again and that she’s been applying her irresistible humor to the ups and downs of parenting… I love her and Georgia P so much and her humor, spirit, and beauty are an antidote to the often overwhelming challenges of being a first-time parent.

In other news…

On Friday and Saturday nights, I’ll be working the floor at Sotto in Los Angeles where we’ll be launching our new wine list for 2012. There are a lot of the old favorites on the new carta dei vini but there are also a bunch of new lots as well, like the Cornelissen Munjebel Bianco.

In today’s New York Times, Eric the Red wrote that Cornelissen’s wines are “unlike almost any others on earth, which people tend to love or hate…” Bring it on!

If you happen to be in LA this weekend, please come and see me and I’ll pour you something great!

And on a more solemn note…

With everything that’s been going on “on the ground” in Greece, it’s been really difficult to find inspiration to write about Greek wine for the Boutari Wines Project this year.

Evidently, my blogging colleague Markus Stolz — author of Elloinos, the world’s top Greek wine blog — has been suffering from the same aporia and he, like me, posted today about the Give Greece a Chance project: it’s a print media PR campaign spearheaded by Greek business leaders who are trying to raise awareness of the human suffering that’s happening there.

I highly recommend this page: it provides some background and some basic information on the grave situation there.

See also what Markus has to say.

Markus lives with his family in Greece and is watching this tragedy unfold firsthand.

“A lot of real human suffering,” he wrote to me today in a tweet. “I like initiatives like the one we both posted about, builds community and leads to change.”

Let’s hope so… And let’s not forget our sisters and brothers in Greece. Una faccia, una razza…

From Defender of Wily Politicians, Serial Killers and Drug Dealers to Texas Winemaker

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On Friday afternoon, I snapped the above photo in the gorgeous Texas Hill Country where I was among the first guests at my friend Lewis Dickson’s new tasting room (on his La Cruz de Comal estate, where he grows Blanc du Bois and Black Spanish).

Here’s my profile of Lewis — criminal defense attorney turned Natural winemaker — over at the Houston Press today.

Arianna Occhipinti & Giorgio Grai walk into a winebar…

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From the department of “public service announcements”…

How’s this for a premise? [hipster Sicilian Natural wine producer] Arianna Occhipinti (above) and [legendary winemaker, master blender, and race car driver] Giorgio Grai walk into a winebar in Siena… The two winemakers represent the antipodes of Italian winemaking in nearly every way (including geographically!). And they are two of the nicest and most intelligent people in Italian wine today.

I probably won’t be getting up at 3 a.m. (10 a.m. Italian time) on March 16 to watch the streaming of a conversation between Arianna, Giorgio, the original Italian celebrity chef Gualtiero Marchesi, Giuseppe Vajra (one of our favorite winemakers), and a few other Italian food and wine luminaries. But I’m hoping that someone will have the good sense to post a YouTube somewhere. The icing on the cake: one of my favorite Italian food bloggers, Stefano Caffarri, curator of Appunti di Gola, will be moderating.

My good friend Francesco Bonfio, president of Vinarius (the association of Italian wine shops) is the organizer.

Here are the details.

In other news…

One of the winemakers I admire the most (for the superb wines he makes and for his honesty and soulfulness), Angiolino Maule has announced the dates of the VinNatur conference and tasting at the Villa Favorita, March 24-26.

Of all the Natural and biodynamic wine fairs in Italy, VinNatur is perhaps the one that thrills me the most and its selection process is the most rigorous. Not only are producers required to practice chemical-free farming, but they are also required to submit soil samples to ascertain whether or not “residual” chemicals are present in their vineyards (resulting from runoff from their neighbors’s vineyards).

In past years, my very close friend and jazz guitar virtuoso Ruggero Robin has performed at the event (he and Angiolino — an accomplished musician in his previous life — are good friends, as well). I don’t know yet if Ruggero will be there but I hope so!

Georgia P’s first Valentine’s @JaynesGastropub

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Georgia P wore her new flower-power headband for her first Valentine’s Day at Jaynes Gastropub last night in San Diego.

Seven-and-a-half-month-old Romy, Jayne and Jon’s daughter, showed her the ropes of her new favorite restaurant.

How adorable is that?

Mommies and daddies enjoyed a SUPERB bottle of 2008 Volnay 1er Cru Caillerets by Pousse d’Or (Landanger), still very tight, but rich with savory and fruit flavor and bright, bright acidity, delicious with the bacon-wrapped filet mignon.