Social media and the internet overflow with heartfelt tributes to Italian philosopher, critic, educator, and wine writer Giampaolo Gravina, who died today.
According to numerous posts by both mainstream and wine-focused media, Giampaolo, 58, passed away in Friuli where he was attending a wine event. A sudden and unexpected health crisis was the cause according to posts on social media.
The red thread that pulses through all of the remembrances is Giampaolo’s gentle yet immensely powerful way of writing and talking about wine. I believe many of my colleagues would agree that his unique approach to wine and wine criticism was a reflection of his personality — brilliant, erudite, wise, reserved, precise, judicious, and beautifully human.
As noted Florentine sommelier and wine writer Andrea Gori put it in a social media post, “Giampaolo, you were the exception.”
Author of numerous books on wine, including well-received tomes on Burgundy and the Italian new wave, he was also a longtime wine critic for L’Espresso, the high-profile news weekly. He also contributed to academic journals with scholarly essays on aesthetics, the focus of his studies at the University of Rome. These included his musings on wine tasting as a cultural and intellectual experience and enterprise.
Giampaolo was also my colleague: we were both professors in the graduate program at the Slow Food University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Piedmont.
I knew and tasted with him many times over the years. He would often tease me that I was his one friend from Texas who wasn’t interested in sports or the Houston Rockets — passions of his.
Please head over to social media to see the tide of posts about his unending warmth and humanity. The world is a dimmer place today without him.
Sit tibi terra levis Ioannes Paule.
Screenshot: Intravino.
