Category Archives: de rebus italicis

Anarchist Wine

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Above: “The Earth Trembles… Authentic Wines and Winemakers, Peri-Urban Farmers, and Autonomous Gastronomy,” an alternative wine and food conference held late last month at the historic “centro sociale” Leoncavallo in Milan. Themes included “self-certification” and “source pricing.” Note the symbolism in the battle between spears and shopping carts.

Is there anything more romantic than the Grand Tour of Italy? Piazza San Marco, the canals and vedutista paintings of Venice? The Uffizi galleries and the Basilica di Santa Maria in Fiore of Florence (although I am partial to the Fra Angelico frescoes in the convent at San Marco and the Laurentian library)? The Vatican, the Coliseum, the Borghese Gardens, the Spanish Steps of Rome? And, of course, who can forget that little trattoria where you had the “best meal of your life”?

Dig a little deeper and you may discover an Italy beyond its famous hospitality and its ancient, medieval, Renaissance, and Risorgimento treasures.

Since the early post-war era, Italy has also been the backdrop of ideological, political, and economic strife that has often expressed itself in extreme and — sometimes — violent manifestations. From the gun-slinging “lead years” of the 1970s (which culminated in the Aldo Moro kidnapping and assassination) to a legacy of organized crime that stretches from the southernmost tip of Sicily to the Dolomite Alps, from the indiscretions and excesses of the historic Christian Democrat and Socialist parties to the “continuous struggle” of the only politically relevant Communist Party outside of the ex-Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China, from the “economic miracle” of the 1960s to a current-day negative birthrate and the 30- and 40-somethings who still live at home because of economic hardship in one of the western world’s most prosperous countries… Italy continues to represent one of Europe’s greatest paradoxes.

While we often read about Italy’s “trasformismo” (transformism) governmental system, its ever-changing coalitions, and colorful politicans, we rarely hear about the country’s underground movements of autonomi, off-the-grid individuals who seek to live their lives unfettered by Italy’s unbridled consumerism and bourgeois values.

Late last month, one such group of “autonomous” farmers and winemakers held a food and wine conference entitled La Terra Trema (The Earth Trembles) at Milan’s historic Leoncavallo, a centro sociale commandeered in the 1970s by “autonomous” citizens who demanded better social services for the community. All kinds of conferences and rock concerts are held there and the venue — I know from personal experience — is hemp-friendly. (I found this article on “anarchist” culture in modern-day Italy.)

I’ve taken the liberty of translating the following passage from the manifesto posted on La Terra Trema’s website:

“La Terra Trema [The Earth Trembles] tells the story of gastronomy conceived as cultural action: the act of cooking as the practical fulfillment of free, commonly shared knowledge and not the instrument of the restaurant industry’s technicist, professional insinuations. It is in the kitchen (including and above all in everyday cooking) that we may discern a thousand traces of the ages: the contamination and nomadism of food and people, economic and social shifts, changes in the land, alienations, the qualities and rhythms of our work, and the countless deviations/depravations of mass-media flavors.” (N.B.: my translation reflects the rigid pseudo-Marxist style of the original.)

Among the themes discussed at the conference, supporters of “self-certification” proposed that every winemaker, “beyond that which is prescribed by law…, has the right and duty indicate the origin of the raw materials, their classification, and the methods of transformation, conservation, and packaging.”

Producers, they argue, should not be bound by appellation laws and the restrictions of market hegemony. There is more than a grain of truth to the notion that small producers’ market access is limited by Italy’s often bureaucratically and politically driven DOC (appellation) system and the market’s inherent tendency to favor mass-marketed wines.

Another theme was “prezzo sorgente” or “source pricing”: proponents argue that consumers have the right to buy wine at the producer’s price.

I didn’t attend the conference. My account is drawn from the conference website and other bloggers’ previews, like this one by Franco Ziliani, who fairly and even-handedly points out some of the organizers’ shortcomings and linguistic foibles,* and reviews, like this one by kNOw Future Inc., who doesn’t address the conference’s ideological implications at all (last year, however, the same blogger wrote this succinct description of the “Critical Wine” movement in Italy).

But I applaud the organizers’ spirit: it’s important, I believe, to remember that wine — like any commodity — will always be politicized and ideologized. In our increasingly globalized world, we need voices who zealously oppose the complacently embraced hegemony of mass-marketed wines.

* Ziliani points out rightly the weakness of conference’s English subtitle, “Critical Wine,” borrowed from the “Terra e libertà/Critical wine” (Land and Liberty/Critical Wine) movement co-founded a few years ago by the great Italian food and wine writer Luigi Veronelli.

“You’ll have to have them all pulled out…

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…after the Savoy Truffle.”

Above: this 26-ounce truffle fetched a whopping $208,000.

George Harrison’s song “Savoy Truffle” has nothing to do with Piedmont truffles. In fact, it was inspired by a box of chocolates:

“Savoy Truffle is a funny one written whilst hanging out with Eric Clapton in the sixties,” wrote Harrison. “At that time he had a lot of cavities in his teeth and needed dental work. He always had a toothache but he ate a lot of chocolates—he couldn’t resist them and once he saw a box he had to eat them all.”

“He was over at my house and I had a box of ‘Good News’ chocolates on the table and wrote the song from the names inside the lid…” (Harrison, George, I, Me, Mine, San Francisco, Chronicle, 2002 [1980], p. 128)

The “Savoy” in the Good News chocolates box probably referred to the famous Savoy Hotel and Restaurant in London, where celebrity chef Auguste Escoffier began cooking in the late nineteenth century. The hotel and restaurant get their name from the Savoy theater, which in turn took its name from the nearby Palace of Savoy, built by Peter Earl of Savoy in the thirteenth century. Since the middle ages, the House of Savoy has been closely linked to Piedmont (where white truffles are hunted) and in the early eighteenth century, nearly all of the region came under control of the House of Savoy. In 1861, Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy became Italy’s first king.

Though George calls the song — based on an affectionate anecdote — “a funny one,” the colorful chocolate-inspired lyrics of “Savoy Truffle” also address the issues of excess and over-indulgence in modern-day society. After all, the singer reminds us, “You’ll have to have them all pulled out after the Savoy Truffle.”

This year’s truffle season in Piedmont hasn’t been great and I’ve heard that many NYC restaurateurs have had to discard their truffles after the tubers arrived in bad shape. I had some white truffles at a Piedmont-themed dinner where I spoke at the end of October. They were pretty good but not phenomenal. Frankly, white truffles never seem to taste the same outside of Piedmont. I wonder how the lucky owners of the above truffle — a group of Hong Kong businessmen — will serve it.

When my friend Steve sent me the link to the story above about the 26-ounce truffle, I thought to myself, “does anyone really need a truffle that big?”

Me? I’d rather keep my teeth.

Above: an early draft of George Harrison’s lyrics for “Savoy Truffle.”

Creme tangerine and Montélimar
A ginger sling with a pineapple heart
A coffee dessert–yes you know it’s good news
But you’ll have to have them all pulled out
After the Savoy truffle.

Cool cherry cream, nice apple tart
I feel your taste all the time we’re apart
Coconut fudge–really blows down those blues
But you’ll have to have them all pulled out
After the Savoy truffle.

You might not feel it now
But when the pain cuts through
You’re gonna know and how
The sweat is going to fill your head
When it becomes too much
You’ll shout aloud.

But you’ll have to have them all pulled out
After the Savoy truffle.

You know that what you eat you are,
But what is sweet now, turns so sour–
We all know Obla-Di-Bla-Da
But can you show me, where you are?

Creme tangerine and Montélimar
A ginger sling with a pineapple heart
A coffee dessert–yes you know its good news
But you’ll have to have them all pulled out
After the Savoy truffle.
Yes, you’ll have to have them all pulled out
After the Savoy truffle.

— “Savoy Truffle,” George Harrison

My Dinner with Piero

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Above: “Orietta Incisa Hunyady with Ribot, after his second victory in the Arc de Triomphe, 1956.” (Sassicaia, the Original Super Tuscan, Firenze, Centro Di, 2000, p. 32)

Piero Incisa della Rocchetta is at once everything you would and would not expect him to be. On the one hand, he is the scion of one of Italy’s most historically significant families, an Italian noble, the face of one of Italy’s most important wines, and one of his country’s leading “cultural ambassadors,” as it were. On the other, he is a thirty-something Italian, extremely hard-working yet very easy-going and personable, self-deprecating and sensitive to the people around him, keenly aware of his station in life yet down-to-earth, funny, and fun to be around. When we sat down for dinner the other night at Babbo, I wasn’t sure if he’d be interested in talking to someone like me — especially in the light of the fact that his family’s wine is the most famous barriqued wine in Italy and that I am an outspoken (however unimportant) critic of the use of new oak in Italy.

I believe we were both surprised by the other: he, to meet an Italophone American who knew so much about other aspects of his family’s history beyond the famous wine; I, to discover a winemaker acutely conscious of the role his family’s wine has played in Italian wine history but also a wine lover who despises the overblown, overly concentrated, and extracted style of some of his would-be peers.

“My grandfather [Mario] planted Cabernet,” Piero told me, “because he grew up drinking wines from Bordeaux and he wanted a wine to pair with the rich French and Piedmontese food he was accustomed to eating.” People always think of his family as being Tuscan, and, of course it is in part, he explained, but the male line comes from Rocchetta Tanaro in Piedmont (historically, Piedmont, once ruled by the house of Savoy, has always been Francophone and Francophile). So it was only natural his grandfather would plant Cabernet and experiment with making a Bordeaux-style wine (Mario Incisa della Rocchetta began to manage the now legendary estate in Tuscany after he married Florentine Clarice della Gherardesca, whose family once ruled the Tuscan coastline).

When we touched upon the thorny issue of new oak, he flatly told me that he can’t stand the jammy, concentrated, highly alcoholic style of most Super Tuscans and he pointed out that only in 2003 did Sassicaia’s alcohol content creep above 13.5%. The figure, he told me, represented the warm vintage and not anything they had done differently in the cellar. We agreed that many of the overblown Super Tuscans are impossible to drink with food and he remarked that Sassicaia was conceived as a wine to be consumed at the table.

Sassicaia is a misunderstood wine, he said, especially in the United States. “Most Americans consider 1985 and 1997 [in which warm temperatures prevailed] to be among of the greatest vintages for Sassicaia,” he told me. “But years like ’88 and ’98 really brought out the delicate bouquet in the wine.” In fact, he revealed, his grandfather hoped to achieve superior bouquet and not the forward fruit that other Super Tuscans have become so famous for.

Piero’s eyes lit up when I asked him about Ribot, his family’s legendary race horse, trained on their estates in Piedmont and Tuscany, arguably the most famous race horse in history. “Most people don’t realize,” he said, “that winemaking is just one small part of what my family does.” During the 1950s, when a still war-torn Italy was trying to put itself back together (literally and figuratively), Ribot and his triumphs were a point of pride that all Italians could share.

Piero divulged that trainer Federico Tesio never thought that Ribot would be a winner. “He didn’t believe that Ribot was handsome enough,” he said. It was his grandmother, Clarice, who knew that the stallion would be a champion.

Just as Ribot bolstered Italian pride at a very delicate moment in the country’s history, Sassicaia laid the groundwork for the current Italian wine renaissance by showing the international community that Italy could produce world-class wines. In 1968, when it was first released commercially, Americans thought of Italy as a land of straw-flask and fizzy quaffing wines. Today, Italian wines have nearly eclipsed French dominance in the American market. I can’t say that I am big fan of Sassicaia (those of you who read my blog know I prefer the indigenous grapes of Italy and that I don’t like barriqued wine). But my little brush with history that evening revealed that the people who make it care deeply about their wine… and their country.

Italian Lessons

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Above: the upstairs bar at Accademia di [sic] Vino. “Talk to my agent before you take another one,” snapped the bartender after I snapped this pic. “Don’t quit your day job,” I thought to myself.

It is my steadfast conviction that food and wine professionals have a responsibility to divulge and disseminate correct information. Just as practitioners of medicine take the Hippocratic oath, practitioners of the culinary arts enter into a social contract with restaurant-goers, a Gastereic vow, if you will, whereby they swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth (to borrow from Brillat-Savarin’s tenth muse, Gasterea).*

And while none of us are perfect and we all make mistakes (myself included), egregious transgressions of this unspoken pact are committed freely on a nearly daily basis by insouciant restaurant owners, chefs, sommeliers, maîtres d’hotel, and waiters.

The Accademia di [sic] Vino in Manhattan seems to bill itself as a would-be “Italian Wine Academy” (at least that’s what I’ve read in The New York Times. I can’t seem to find the academy’s website). Evidently, they offer wine classes and seminars there and the space itself is dressed as a classroom: the walls of this beautiful restaurant are adorned with wine-related images and their Italian translations and there are chalkboards in the bar and the dining rooms with explanations of the Italian appellation laws etc.

There’s only one problem (two, actually): the name of the restaurant. In Italian you don’t write/say “accademia di vino.” You correctly write/say “accademia del vino.”

And it gets worse. Last night, when I sat down for a glass of wine with a colleague in the downstairs bar, I was handed a wine list that read: “vini a bicchiere.” I hate to be a stickler but… in Italian you correctly write/say “vini al bicchiere” (“wines by the glass”).**

It reminds me of a joke from the 1999 parodic mafia movie, Mickey Blue Eyes, where Hugh Grant’s character points out to his fiancée that her father’s restaurant is called “The La Trattoria,” or “The the trattoria.”

Although our hosts were exceedingly gracious (and the overwhelmingly gorgeous space was jam-packed with patrons), I’m sorry to report that the diced prosciutto on our grilled, “seasonal” pumpkin pizza was so hard I thought I was biting into stone.

The wines-by-the-glass list offered a wide range of price points and I had a glass of Inzolia by Valle dell’Acate and my friend a glass of Pinot Bianco by Hofstätter and the pours were generous, I must say.

The Accademia had been on my list of new places to try for a while. But when I got off the 6 train at Hunter College and walked down to 3rd Ave. and 64th St., I just couldn’t believe my eyes when my gaze fell upon the restaurant’s marquee: ACCADEMIA DI VINO.

Ask me “what’s in a name?” and I will tell you that a “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.”***

But “Accademia di Vino”? Give me a break.

—

Notes:

* Brillat-Savarin’s “tenth muse,” Gasterea, first appeared in 1825 with the publication of his Physiologie du Goût, ou Méditations de Gastronomie Transcendante (The Physiology of Taste; Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy):

“Gasterea is the Tenth Muse; the delights of taste are her domain.

The whole world would be hers if she wishes to claim it; for the world is nothing without life, and all that lives takes nourishment.

Her chief delight is to linger on hillsides where the vine grows, or the fragrant orange-tree in groves where the truffle comes to perfection, and in regions abounding in game and fruit.

When she deigns to show herself, she appears in the guise of a young girl; round her waist is a flame-coloured girdle; her hair is black, her eyes sky-blue, and her figure full of grace; as beautiful as Venus, she is also extremely pretty.

She rarely shows herself to mortals.”

Brillat-Savarin, Jean-Anthelme, The Physiology of Taste, translated by Anne Drayton, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, Penguin, 1994 (1970), p. 287.

** del and al are articulated prepositions, di + il and a + il, respectively. The usage of articulated prepositions is always tough for students of Italian (I remember well from my days teaching Italian language at UCLA). In many cases, usage is idiomatic. In the instances cited above, however, the definite article is necessary because the terms vino and bicchiere refer to wine and stemware as general concepts.

*** Gertrude Stein, Sacred Emily, 1913.

Nelle botti piccole: good wine in small barrels?

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Since Thursday, when Eric Asimov mentioned my blog in his, I’ve received countless emails and some interesting comments, including the following from winemaker and wine educator Eric Lecours, who wrote me from Burgundy (where he is working with Étienne Grivot at Domaine Grivot):

The catastrophe is in two wines in Italy: Brunello di M[ontalcino in Tuscany] and Barbera in Piemonte. With Brunello the trend seems irreversible, huge, fat and sweet. The Barbera though is heart-breaking. Probably the most versatile grape on the planet, the quality versions are drowned in oak. It reminds me of California SB [Sauvignon Blanc], anything above $10 a bottle has to be rich and oaked. Good for Sancerre I guess.

To paraphrase Neal Rosenthal: it’s worse than maquillage; you can take that off. Once you put this stuff on, you can never take it off. It touches the very soul.

Clearly, the question of new oak and Italy plays on the heartstrings of many. As much as I pine for the wines I tasted in the late 1980s and early 90s, before the use of barrique became so widespread in Italy, I was thrilled to see that there is a growing movement of wine lovers, enthusiasts, and winemakers (like Eric) who share my view that new oak masks the varietal characteristics of Italian grapes. I hope that Italian winemakers will take note.

Reflecting on the modern vs. traditional and new oak vs. botti dialectic, I remembered the Italian proverb nelle botti piccole sta il vino buono, literally, “there’s good wine in small barrels,” or figuratively, “good things come in small packages.”

The saying refers not to small, new French oak barrels (barriques) but rather to the Italian caratello or carrato, a small and sometimes elongated barrel used to store wine (possibly from the Latin carrus or “cart”; others believe the term derived from the Greek keration, a diminutive of kèras, or “horn,” because of the barrel’s shape). As early as the sixteenth century, small barrels were used in Italy to make sweet wines like Vin Santo and Sagrantino (the latter was not made as a dry wine until the 1970s) and there is evidence that small barrels were also used during the 1500s in a winemaking technique now called the governo method, whereby a small amount of sweet, dried-grape wine is added to dry wine (and in some cases, a second fermentation takes place).

caratelli.jpg

Above: caratelli used to make Vin Santo.

Perhaps a more appropriate translation of the proverb would read: “coveted, sweet wine comes in small barrels.”

A propos wine in small packages, last night found me at Park Blue in midtown, a wine bar that specializes in half bottles, with roughly 150 different labels in its cellar (Per Se is the only restaurant in NYC, the owner told me, that has more half bottles on its list). Even though half bottles are not good for aging wine, they can be fun: especially at a place like Park Blue, with so many to choose from, the lower price point allows you to enjoy different wines in one sitting.

Among other wines, I was eager to try the 2001 Barolo by Massolino. I had never seen a Massolino Barolo in 375ml format and had yet to taste that vintage. I have tasted the 1996 and 97 on numerous occasions and I’ve always felt that Massolino was an excellent wine at an excellent price, a classic expression of the appellation. The wine was much “hotter” (higher in alcohol content) than the wines I had tasted previously and it didn’t taste as earthy as I remember for previous vintages.* It would appear that Massolino has abandoned its traditional style. On the other hand, Antonio Galloni just gave its flagship wine, the Barolo Rionda, a glowing review in The Wine Advocate, a publication that favors “modern” style wines. Am I wrong to begrudge Massolino when the winery seems to have achieved a new level of success with its current winemaking style? To borrow a phrase from François Villon, I miss the wines of yesteryear (as per my note below, I intend to retaste the wine and post new tasting notes).

Click here to read about my tasting with Franco Massolino.

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Above: half bottles at Park Blue.

The service at Park Blue was uneven but our server did know the wine list very well. The small plates were just okay but the cheese selection was great. The atmosphere there (music, lighting, and seating) is very relaxing and I’m glad to have discovered a wine bar, with an interesting list, that stays open late in midtown.

In other news, my good friend Charlie George and his family were evacuated from their home in Rancho Santa Fe, California (not far from where I grew up). They’re all safe but, at the moment, he doesn’t know if his house survived the fire. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for him.

I see your hair is burning.
Hills are filled with fire.
If they say I never loved you
You know they are a liar.

— Jim Morrison

*When I tasted the wine, I perceived notes of new oak but when I inquired, the importer assured me that winemaker Franco Massolino does not age this wine (from Serralunga) in new oak. I’m going to make a point of tasting again (this time in 750ml format) and will post new tasting notes. It’s possible that the wine was tainted by some bacteria in the botti in which it was aged. In any event, I will retaste the wine and post a new tasting note.

Luigi Veronelli as Poseidon and a Trident Made of New Oak

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Those who know me and read my blog are well aware of my distaste for “barriqued” wines, wines aged in small new oak barrels. And while there’s nothing worse to my palate than a barriqued Nebbiolo (a grape always ruined by barriques in my opinion), there are many wines — I must concede — where the use of barriques is a positive element.

Some of the famous reds of Burgundy, for example, benefit from barrique aging (oak, when used judiciously, allows gentle oxidation through the pores of the wood). Eric Asimov was 100% correct to point out, as he did in last week’s The New York Times, that “Oaky may be bad, but oak is good.” (Click here to read what Eric had to say about this post.)

When it comes to Italian wines, however, there is no doubt in my mind that Italy’s three greatest grapes — Nebbiolo, Aglianico, and Sangiovese — show much better when aged exclusively in large old oak traditional barrels, botti [BOHT-tee]. The question of barrique in Italy is a thorny one and generally inspires heated debate among Italian wine connoisseurs, lovers, and enthusiasts. Some of us begrudge Italian winemakers for abandoning traditional winemaking techniques. Many point to the popularity of the Californian winemaking style (which favors barrique aging) as their source for inspiration (and marketability), others cast their stones at Parker, The Wine Spectator, et alia, deriding them for favoring barriqued wines.

I recently came accross an original edition of Catalogo dei vini d’Italia (Catalog of the Wines of Italy, 1983), one of the first great modern encyclopedias of Italian wine, edited by the beloved Luigi Veronelli (1926-2004), enogastronome, publisher, and one of the architects of Italy’s current food and wine renaissance (it’s not its first, btw). I was stunned by what I read in the preface and the characters who appeared there. I believe the passage below (translation mine) to be an important document of the history and development of barrique in Italy. Read on and you might be surprised.

Veronelli writes in the preface:

    In 1982, just over a year ago, I made a trip to California for the purpose of “study” with Mario Schiopetto, Giacomo Bologna, and Maurizio Zanella – three names mandatory for those who love wine. We left on Friday May 20 and we returned June 6. As far as wine tasting was concerned, the trip was a pleasurable yet painful Way of the Cross. At every tasting (and I mean every one and there were many), we looked at each other in disbelief.

    It’s not easy to express the flood of emotion that engulfed us. We were bewildered by a reality very different from that we had imagined. We were surprised by the excellence of nearly every wine poured for us. We were embarrassed by the fact that we had to rein in and conceal our shared enthusiasm (in part, I must admit, in order to defend our own “interests”). But, above all, we were enraged: why did Italian winemaking lack (and where would it find) such young, bright, informed, and commercially minded enotechnicians with university degrees in enology?

    I had to force myself not to lash out and offend. But I did tell the three winemakers that they must take note (and documented my declaration by putting it to paper): “If we do not immediately change course, we will be ousted – in another ten years or less – from the fine wine market.”

    How should we change? The answer is sure to be long and is of extreme importance. I call upon all well-intentioned persons to partake in this dialogue. But I will limit my response by laying forth certain “provisions” that must not be delayed: first, serious study of enology; second, meticulous varietal selection (both in the selection of clones and their uses on a subzone by subzone basis); third, yields need to be cut in half; fourth, eradication of vines grown in the lowlands (excluding, it goes without saying, the so-called grave [gravelly or pebbly] plains and a few other suitable plains); fifth, vinification in barriques (small oak barrels). [boldface mine]

    Another result of the trip was a “moral conversation” – which I published in L’Espresso – between an enotheic [wine-worshiping] journalist and Piero Selvaggio, owner of Valentino restaurant in Los Angeles.

    “After my stay in California and my visits to vineyards and cellars, thanks to you Piero, I would like to be not enotheic but rather Ennosigaios [“Earth Shaker,” byname of Poseidon, Gr., enosis “shaker,” gaïos “land”]. If I had Poseidon’s trident, I’d shake the earth.”* [boldface mine]

    “Don’t be silly: I receive excellent wines even from Italy.”

    “But they are too few: our history stretches back 2,000 years and these [Californians] have already outpaced us in ten short years. It goes without saying: I’m furious. If I had my way, I’d drown all those guilty of this crime, the authorities and the enotechnicians.”

    “Isn’t there a saying in the Veneto, Veronelli? Co l’acqua toca ‘l cul tutti impara a nodàr [“When the water touches one’s ass, one learns to swim.”] We [Italians] will learn to swim.”

    “If I had my way, I’d drown them all in their wines. They taste worse than water.”

    How is it possible – I ask referring back to the first and last “provisions” above – that after all these years our enotechnicians don’t know about the use of barriques? [boldface mine]

(Catalogo dei vini d’Italia, ed. Luigi Veronelli, Milan, Mondadori, 1983, pp. 8-9, translation mine.)

On May 20, 1983, he recounts in the following pages, Veronelli organized a seminar for winemakers and journalists at Palazzo Antinori in Florence: the featured speaker was the “dean” of Californian winemaking, Russian-born and French-trained, André Tchelistcheff, who introduced the use of barrique aging and modern winemaking techniques to Californian winemakers beginning in the late 1930s. In the final passage, he stridently declares that barrique aging is a “sine qua non” for long-lived wines and he notes, such wines will live side-by-side with Italy’s younger wines (and he makes a highly important distinction: wines intended to be consumed young should not be barriqued, while age-worth wines should be). He points to the following Italian winemakers who have already achieved success in their experimention with barrique aging: Incisa della Rocchetta, Antinori, Gaja, Ca’ del Bosco, Maculan, Ronchi di Cialla, Castelluccio, Abbazia di Rosazzo, Castello di Volpaia, and Podere Castellare. It’s interesting to note that he does not include his fellow traveler Giacomo Bologna in this list (since many believe that Bologna, with the famed Bricco dell’Uccellone, was the first to produce a barriqued wine in Piedmont).

In my time, I’ve drunk some great Super Tuscans, wines, which, by definition, have been aged in barriques.** I remember well my early years in Italy (1989-92) when I drank some famous vintages (notably 1985) of Sassicaia, Ornellaia, and Pergole Torte etc., thanks to my friends the Marcucci brothers in Bagno Vignoni near Montalcino. Over the last few years, I’ve also had the chance to taste some of these wines again in NYC — now among Italy’s most collected and coveted. Although I don’t care for these wines, I believe that they paved the way for other Italian wines to make it to this country by showing the world that Italy could produce world-class Bordeaux-style wines. Is barrique so bad? The answer is no: historically, oak can be good when it is used judiciously, with the right grapes. Veronelli certainly saw the future of Italian wine and we certainly shouldn’t begrudge him for that.

Above: the beloved Luigi Veronelli, food and wine writer and historian, publisher, and a guiding light in the Italian renaissance of gastronomy and enology.

* Veronelli uses Nettuno or Neptune, the Latin name for Poseidon, in the original. I’ve translated it as Poseidon because the Greek name is more commonly used in English, especially when accompanied by the deity’s pseudonym, Ennosigaios.

** At least one Italian wine authority, Franco Ziliani, indicates that Nicolas Belfrage coined the term Super Tuscan (to denote fine Tuscan wines classified as vino da tavola or table wines) and was the first to use it in 1985.

Veronelli “subversive” editor and activist (just the facts)

Above: the jacket for one of the few extant exemplars of Pino Bava’s Italian translation of De Sade’s Historiettes, contes, et fabliaux with illustrations by Italian artist Alberto Manfredi, published by Veronelli in 1957. Veronelli was sentenced to prison for obscenity that same year but never served time. The book was one of the last burned publically in Italy (image courtesy of Veronelli Editore, Bergamo).

My October translation of Veronelli’s preface to Catalogo dei vini d’Italia (1983) inspired a few other bloggers, notably Eric and Alan.

Later in the year, when I met my dissertation adviser and sometimes collaborator professor Luigi Ballerini for a holiday drink, he reminded me that he was working at Rizzoli Editor in Milan in 1964 when Rizzoli published Veronelli’s now required-reading Cocktails. Luigi (Ballerini) has many fond memories of the congenial Veronelli, including a dinner hosted by Veronelli at his home in San Siro (Milan) to thank his editorial staff. “It was the first time I tasted Château d’Yquem,” said Luigi (Ballerini), who was 24 years-old at the time of their meeting, “Veronelli held it up to the light and showed us how it turned emerald in color.”

After Veronelli’s passing in 2004, many apocryphal anecdotes regarding his life have been published on the internet. Curious to find out more about his activism and his controversial publishing career, I recently contacted Gian Arturo Rota, president of Veronelli Editore in Bergamo, and submitted the following questions (in italics). I have translated Rota’s answers below.

Beyond being the architect of the Italian food and wine renaissance, Veronelli was also an editor who published poetry and literary works. What were his principle literary interests?

He began in the 1950s publishing works by De Sade, Anatole France, philosophical works (like Giovanni Emanuele Bariè’s concept of neo-trascendentalism) and political works (like Pierre-Joseph Proudhon), and books on gastronomy (like Le ghiottornie di Gabriele d’Annunzio* and Apicius). He also published books on sports.

He published magazines as well: I problemi del socialismo (Problems of Socialism and Il gastronomo (The Gastronome).

Veronelli closed the doors of Veronelli Editore [his publishing company] in the 1960s because he wanted to devote himself exclusively to his work as a journalist and writer. His literary interests? A bit of everything, I would say, with a predilection for classical authors and for eighteenth-century France. He was a highly erudite man.

Veronelli was also politically engaged: what were the defining moments of his political life?

Inasmuch as he actively worked for a political party, his interest in politics didn’t last long. He worked for the Italian Socialist Party when – as he liked to say after the Tangentopoli scandal** – socialists were still serious. Keep in mind that he was a friend of Lelio Basso, one of the party’s founders and one of its most illustrious theoreticians, and a contributer to his magazine I problemi del socialismo.

Veronelli’s “occupation” of the train station at Santo Stefano Belbo and the translation of De Sade: on the internet, there are contradictory, apocryphal accounts. What were the facts?

September 19, 1980: Veronelli attended a rally in Asti (and not in Santo Stefano Belbo) where grape-growers and winemakers had gathered to discuss the then serious problems faced by Asti’s viticultural community. He had promised that he would speak on behalf of grape-growers only if those politicians responsible – in his view – for the situation would also attend. The politicians did attend and gave their patent answers without assuming any responsibility. The thousands of grape-growers who had gathered in the square begged him to speak. He did. In his harsh speech, he emphasized the fact that the grape-growers needed help and that their rights needed to be defended. Spurred by the crowd’s enthusiasm, the grape-growers took the stage and asked their colleagues to block the streets and occupy the Asti train station. Veronelli encouraged them to do so and he was later accused and convicted for aggravated obstruction of a public thoroughfare. He was granted amnesty four years later [and did not serve time in prison].

Regarding De Sade’s Storie, storielle, e raccontini),*** I know that it was one of the last – if not the last – books burned in a public square in Italy. The court of Varese [a town north of Milan] ordered it burned because the book contained texts and images that had been deemed obscene. Veronelli attended the bonfire and to protest his sentence, he applauded and laughed the entire time. He sentence to jail-time was however commuted and he was never imprisoned.

Notes:

* Gabriele d’Annunzio (1863 – 1938) was one of Italy’s greatest poets, dramatists, and novelists. Known for his insatiable appetites (for food, women, and adventure), he often wrote about his culinary exploits and feats. Ghiottornie (from the Italian ghiotto or “insatiably hungry for”) can be loosely translated as “the oversized appetites” of Gabriele d’Annunzio.

** Tangentopoli or “bribesville,” the widespread political corruption scandal, unraveled by the Italian authorities’ Mani pulite or “clean hands” campaign in 1992.

*** Historiettes, contes, et fabliaux or “Stories, Tales, and Fables,” published in Paris as early as 1800 in Les crimes de l’amour or “Crimes of Love.”

Addendum:

See this informative obituary published in The Independent.

The Lice of Wine Writing Redux

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For propriety’s sake, this post must begin with an errata corrige: my recent post on my dinner with Leslie Sbrocco included an erroneous literary attribution (to Eugenio Montale). In fact, it was twentieth-century Italian novelist Carlo Emilio Gadda who wrote: “Pronouns! They’re the lice of thought. When a thought has lice, it scratches, like everyone who has lice…. and they get in the fingernails, then… you find pronouns, the personal pronouns.”

“Ah! the world of ideas! What a fine world! Ah! this, I, I…,” says Gadda’s autobiographical character Gonzalo in Acquainted with Grief, “among the almond blossoms… then among the pears […] I, I… the foulest of all pronouns!”*

gadda.jpg

Above: Carlo Emilio Gadda, the great twentienth-century Italian novelist. We’ve all been “Acquainted with Grief,” haven’t we?

Over the weekend, in speaking with journalist and wine writer Peter Hellman about all of the upcoming tastings and wine events in NYC, we shared our dismay at the state of wine writing today and what I like to call the “lice of wine writing”: tastings notes so impossibly subjective, so beleaguered by the presence of the “I,” that they are bereft of meaning.

An avid reader of wine writing, Peter pointed out the absurdity in a recent promotional email where two very famous wine publications were quoted about the same wine:

Parker: “The 2003 Cornas La Louvee is a blockbuster. Glorious aromas of flowers, blackberries, roasted meats, espresso roast, and white chocolate flow from this full-bodied, concentrated, modern-styled, impressively-endowed, full-throttle Cornas. Drink it now and over the next 15+ years. 93pts”

Wine Spectator: “Tight and structured, with lots of iron and mineral notes framing the black cherry, plum, briar, tar and olive paste flavors. Long finish sports mouthwatering acidity. Very impressive for Cornas in 2003. Best from 2007 through 2015. 800 cases made. 92pts”

As Peter pointed out rightly, the tasting notes in the two passages are “mutually exclusive.” As I’ve asked many times before, how can a wine really taste like so many different things? And, come on, “mouthwatering acidity”? What the hell does that mean?

He also directed me to the website of Château Palmer where a similar discongruous hypertext emerges. Of all the I-can-taste-and-write-more-descriptors-than-you descriptions that I found there, the only one that showed some sanity was the wise Jancis Robinson, who, it seems to me, always takes a much more objective approach to wine writing and tasting notes, a style much more real and accessible to both the expert and the lay person:

Very, very deep crimson. Very intense and nervy – impressive on the nose – but more obviously big and fruity than the more delicate Ch Margaux… Slightly charred and smoky. Round and fresh and very beguiling. Real lift and only the slightest hint of inkiness on the finish. Bravo! Very fine tannins – very suave and polished with good density while still being Margaux. Very sweet. Hints of modern idiom but very gentle. Super silky texture. Sinewy – but polished sinews!

Hers is a more poetical approach and she avoids the subjective virtuosismo of the Parkers, Wine Spectators, and Tanzers, who just can’t resist the “I taste this, I taste that” one-upmanship** (as Peter pointed out, Tanzer is probably the only person in the world who knows what “Vermont granite” tastes like… Next time I go to Vermont, I’ll be sure to eat some).

When will wine writers come to their senses (pun intended) and realize that these overblown descriptors are the lice of wine writing???!!!

When I read “blackberries, roasted meats, espresso roast, and white chocolate” and “black cherry, plum, briar, tar and olive paste,” I scratch my head and like Gadda’s Gonzalo, I find lice in my fingernails — the lice of wine writing.

—

*Gadda, Carlo Emilio, Acquainted with Grief (original title: La cognizione del dolore), translated from the Italian by William Weaver, Braziller, New York, 1969, p. 86.

For the original Italian, see: ibid., La cognizione del dolore, Einaudi, Torino, 1970 (1963), p. 123.

In the passage, Gonzalo (Gadda) tells his doctor that he doesn’t need anyone but himself for a diagnosis of his ills, anyone but his “I.” Then, all of a sudden, a thought bursts from his mouth:

“Ah! the world of ideas! What a fine world! Ah! this, I, I… among the almond blossoms… then among the pears […] I, I… the foulest of all pronouns!”

The doctor smiled at this outburst; he didn’t understand. Still he seized the chance to direct into more serene channels their words, if not the man’s humor and thoughts.

“And why, for God’s sake? [the doctor asks Gonzalo] What have they done wrong, pronouns? When a person thinks something or other, he still has to say, “‘I think…'”

“Pronouns! [Gonzalo answers] They’re the lice of thought. When a thought has lice, it scratches, like everyone who has lice…. and they get in the fingernails, then… you find pronouns, the personal pronouns.”

**I write anti-chauvanistically “one-upmanship” and not “one-up-personship” because I believe that women have finer noses and palates in wine tasting and that they dispense with the ever-present male bravado that accompanies wine enthusiasm and connoisseurship.

Sharing a meal with a favorite writer.

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Last night found me at Centovini where I was lucky enough to dine with one of my favorite wine writers, Lawrence Osborne, whose excellent 2004 book on wine and taste, The Accidental Connoisseur, offers what is arguably the best explanation of why international tastes for wine are shifting toward the American “modern” palate (which seems to favor extracted, high-alcohol content, “jammy,” fruit-driven wines).

We were also joined by his friend, the truly lovely Elizabeth Spiers, who charmed the table with anecdotes from her career as a gossip-blogger-writer-fashionista. She also offered insight into the career of her friend and colleague Perez Hilton, who had been featured in last week’s NY Times Style Section.

I can’t reveal what we tasted because Lawrence is writing a piece on the flight we shared for one of his regular columns.

While I often attend tastings with noted wine writers, occasionally I get to taste as both professional and fan: I read Lawrence’ book when it came out and was immediately impressed by his quasi-Gramscian approach to the globalization of wine and the — to borrow a Gramscian phrase — cultural hegemony of the modern American palate for wine.*

I was pleased to discover that Lawrence shared an experience as graduate students in Italian (he at Harvard) and that we both enjoy the filmography of Antonioni, to whom we raised a merry glass. Reflecting on the obituary in the NY Times of that morning, we both noted that critics and scholars often forget the abundant humor in Antonioni’s films.

… a truly memorable evening in this city that I’ve come to love.

*N.B.: While I don’t endorse Wikipedia (and often see it as a promulgator of factoids, urban legends, and in some cases outright falsehoods), I liked the entry on Gramsci.

Antonioni’s Ellipse and Eclipse

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Wednesday is the only day of the week that I don’t read the front page of the Times first since Wednesday is the Dining section day.

When I finally got around to unfolding the front page, I felt my heart sink as I read the news of Antonioni’s passing. In my first year post-BA, I studied Antonioni’s films in Padua with film critic and Professor Giorgio Tinazzi. I’ve read Seymour Chatman’s book on Antonioni, The Surface of the World, over and over. And I did meet Antonioni once at UCLA in the 1990s. Pier Maria Pasinetti, Antonioni’s brother-in-law and a collaborator on Le signore senza camelie, was one of my professors at UCLA where I took his 19th Century Italian Lit class (and on many occasions he spoke about his relationship, personal and professional, with the master director). Antonioni was among my favorite subjects to teach when I taught Italian Cinema at UCLA as a grad student.

As we witness Antonioni’s eclispse, I can’t help but think of L’eclisse (or “The Eclispse”), the third installment of the 1960s Trilogy. Many don’t remember that the title — like so many things Antonioni — was intended as a wonderful paronomasia: the Italian eclisse means both “eclipse” and “ellipse” (from the Latin ellipsis in turn from the Greek elleipsis, from the root leipo or lipo, “to be or to go missing”). Today, I’d like to think that Antonioni’s life and work have not been eclipsed but rather that he has given us yet another ellipse that makes us think about the spaces and surfaces of the meaning of our lives.

In The New York Times

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Played with Nous Non Plus last night at the Paris Paris, a disco on the Avenue de l’opéra that features bands a few nights a week. Needless to say we performed our “(I Want to Spend a Night in) Paris,” a song about Paris Hilton, at the Paris Paris in Paris.

Paronomasia aside, I awoke this morning to read about Lini Lambrusco (wines that I love) and see myself quoted in Eric Asimov’s weekly wine column in The New York Times.