The insatiable human curiosity for the origins of place names still baffles me (even though I am as much of a victim of its unyielding grip as the next guy). Chasing the origins can often reveal deeper meaning about the places and the people who inhabit them (and the grapes they grow there). And sometimes, to borrow a phrase from Gertrude Stein, the quest for topographic knowledge simply reveals that a name is a name is a name.

Click here to read my post today for my client Tenuta Carretta on the origin of the toponym Cannubi.

Thanks for reading and buon weekend, yall!

The following is a post I wrote today for the UniSG blog. Trump America’s ban on immigration has already begun to affect the Italian wine trade in the U.S. It’s one of the topics that I’ll be covering in coming weeks and months as the new administration’s immigration and trade policies began to take shape. Thanks for reading.

Above: A section of the wall that separates the United States and Mexico along the Tijuana-San Diego border where I grew up (photo, “Art on the Tijuana Wall,” via Jonathan McIntosh’s Flickr Creative Commons).

Like many Americans today, I’m still trying to wrap my mind around President Trump’s new ban on immigration from seven “majority-Muslim” countries (in case you are not familiar with Executive Order 13769, check out the Wikipedia entry here; I’ll refrain from sharing my own thoughts and feelings on the ban).

Even in the short time that it has been in effect, the impact on the Italian wine trade in the U.S. has been worrisome.

The biggest issue is that there are many foreign-born individuals who work in the Italian wine business in America and many of them come from countries included in the ban.

In one case, a wine director and leading italo-centric sommelier I know has cancelled his plans to attend Vinitaly — the annual Italian wine trade fair held in Verona. He was born in one of the seven countries included in the President’s list. He has a green card and is here legally. And technically, he should be able to re-enter the country (initially, green-card holders were to be denied re-entry but the administration back-pedaled back on that point). Not only is he afraid that things could change unexpectedly and that his status could be threatened without notice (no one had any idea that President Trump was planning such a severe ban so soon in his presidency), but he is also fearful of the scrutiny to which he might be subjected: There are widespread reports that immigration officers are scanning social media posts by migrants entering the U.S…

Click here to continue reading.

Click here to learn more about the Master’s in Wine Culture program at UniSG where I will be teaching three courses this year.

See the February 25-26 tasting event details below…

Franciacorta winemaker Giovanni Arcari (above, left) and I first met back in 2008 in Erbusco in the heart of his appellation. We immediately hit it off and became fast friends. But it wasn’t until I was invited to speak at the European Wine Bloggers Conference in Brescia a few years later that our friendship began to blossom (Brescia is the capital city of Brescia province, which includes the Franciacorta appellation).

Even in those early years of our relationship, we talked about working together. But I was already working with another Franciacorta producer by that point. That partnership was so fruitful that it lead to a two-year campaign that I ran for the Franciacorta consortium.

As our friendship grew deeper and deeper and the years passed, Giovanni and I were disappointed not to be working together. But he always insisted that the appellation came first and he was unabashedly supportive of the program I ran for the bottlers’ association.

In December 2016, after 24 months of blogging, traveling across the U.S. leading tastings, and bringing writers to Franciacorta to raise awareness of this extraordinary appellation and its often spectacular wines, I felt it was finally time to move on. I’ve been thrilled by the results obtained and the full-fledged support that the consortium gave me throughout my tenure there. But it was time to turn the page, as the adage goes.

And where one chapter in life comes to end, another begins: I’m overjoyed to announce that I’m going to be helping out with promoting Giovanni’s wines in the U.S.

Giovanni and I are going to kick things off with two tastings this month:

Jaynes Gastropub
San Diego
Saturday, February 25
details to follow

Sotto
Los Angeles
Sunday, February 26
details to follow

I’ll be posting the details in coming days and sharing on social media. But please save the dates if you’re in Southern California then. Thanks in advance for your support!

There’s so much more of this story to tell: I’ve just taken over Giovanni’s “SoloUvaUSA” English-language blog where I’ll be posting regularly there on our adventures, the wines, and their reception in the U.S.

But I couldn’t publish this post and launch this project without a nod to Giovanni’s better (winemaking) half, Nico Danesi (above, left).

He’s also become a cherished friend over the years and he’s one of the most interesting and intellectually provocative winemakers I’ve ever met (he also commands an encyclopedic knowledge of film and film history, our favorite subjects after Wittgenstein).

He and Giovanni conceived what is known as the SoloUva method, the “just grapes” approach to the production of Franciacorta wines. I’ll be sharing more about the method in upcoming posts on the SoloUvaUSA blog.

Read about the SoloUva method here in the meantime. And check out the song I wrote about it a few years ago here or below.

All we need is grapes! Thanks for your continued and future support. And thanks for believing in me and our crazy dreams.

Giovanni and Nico, I love you guys! Giovanni, see you soon in the U.S.!

I have to admit that I felt a little bit giddy yesterday when my UniSG colleague Lydia Itoi pointed out the sprawling Facebook campus to me (Lydia and I will be co-teaching an English-language seminar later this year in the University of Gastronomic Sciences Master’s in Food Culture program in Piedmont).

She, her husband, and I had just met for lunch in the Town & Country Village mall, a stone’s throw from the Stanford campus and the new home for Ceri Smith’s Biondivino wine shop (opened last month).

I first met Ceri nine years ago not long after she had opened her first shop in San Francisco’s Russian Hill neighborhood. Since that time, Ceri and her small but immensely influential wine store have become a flash point in the Italian wine renaissance in the U.S.

Name a top Italian winemaker and it’s more than likely that she or he has presented her or his wines at Biondivino. Having one’s wine appear on Ceri’s shelves has become an unabashed point of pride for the Italians tapped by her shop’s Midas finger.

As a lover and advocate of Italian wine, I am thrilled to see her expanding her brand to Silicon Valley where some of the brightest people on earth are trying to figure out what’s going to come next in a crazy mixed-up world increasingly shaped by the unstoppable march of progress.

Ceri’s been one of the world’s greatest advocates of wines produced without and despite technology. It’s no small irony that her shop lies in the shadow of Stanford University, one of the world’s centers for technologic advancement.

Maybe her tastes will inspire them to figure out why uninoculated Sangiovese tastes better (at least to some of us) than the inoculated kind. Or maybe they’ll just mindlessly lap up the delicious offerings that line her walls like grape clusters on a double-Guyot-trained vine.

Either way, Ceri’s expanding university of great Italian wines is sure to make the world a better place.

Congratulations to Ceri and business partner Shelley Ryan for the launch of the new shop!

What a great night and dinner at A16 yesterday!

Between the Cantine del Notaio dinner/tasting and Benanti dinner/tasting, there was a WHOLE lot of great wine being poured. I LOVED the rosé from Aglianico that the folks from Cantine del Notaio poured my table (above).

And I loved what manager Patti Robison told me: “It’s the battle of the volcanoes,” she said giddily, referring to the volcanic soils of Mt. Vulture (Notaio) and Mt. Etna (Benanti).

I’ve never had a bad meal at A16 but last night’s dinner was really outta sight, especially the acqua pazza seafood medley, which went great with the rosé. Those are the pumpkin gnocchi below, also delicious and light on the palate.

How many years has A16 been open? I’ve never seen it anything less than completely packed and I’ve never seen the staff skip a beat — ever. What a great place… and it just keeps getting better.

Thank you, Shelley and Patti, for everything you do for Italian wine. Last night was just super!

Posting in a hurry this morning as I board a flight from LAX to Oakland. I’m heading to the Bay Area to attend the Slow Wine tasting there today and to catch up with my SF wine peeps.

That’s a shot (above) of the facade at RossoBlu, the new downtown LA restaurant where I’ll be co-authoring the wine list this spring. The list will be pan-Italian with a focus on Lambrusco and Italian sparkling. So psyched for that.

It was really exciting to tour the new space yesterday and see the progress they’ve made on the buildout. Things are on a fast-track now as we are preparing for a March launch of the restaurant.

That’s a shot of downtown LA (below) that I took from the second floor of the building where a high-profile film production company is going to build an screening room and small studio. Cool, right?

Chef Steve, it’s so exciting to be part of this project and dream of yours. How many years have we been talking about this? 20+? Thanks for making me part of it.

In other news…

I finally had the chance to break bread with one of my Italian wine heroes, importer and arbiter of Italian wines Brian Larky (below, left), founder and owner of Dalla Terra. We shared a great dinner last night with chef Steve at Sotto (Steve’s ode to southern Italian cookery where I wrote the original wine list and where I still consult on the wine program, now in its sixth year).

Brian is a pioneer and a visionary of Italian wine in the U.S. and he’s also one of the coolest people I’ve ever met in the trade. A “real human being,” a mensch as we say in Jewish. In a business where there are so many egomaniacal jerks (sad but true), it’s so great to meet someone of his stature and station and learn what a wonderful, warm and lovely person he is.

Brian, thank you for coming to meet us at Sotto last night and the spectacular wines you shared (Selvapiana 1990! Holy cow!). And thank you for everything that you have done and do for Italian wine. I’m so glad we all made time for that and can’t wait for the next glass we share…

Now it’s time to get my but on another plane! Wish me speed.

When I moved to Texas more than eight years ago, I never would have imagined that Houston would become a hub for the fine wine trade. But less than a decade later, the city has established itself as one of our country’s top destinations for fine wine events.

The allure of Houston was on display last week when nearly 50 Brunello producers gathered in downtown Houston for Benvenuto Brunello (Welcome Brunello), the annual tasting of their new releases. The event should have been dubbed bentornato Brunello or welcome back Brunello: it was the second time in four years that the organizers brought the traveling show to the Bayou City.

Here’s my coverage of the event today for the Houston Press.

One of the things that struck me about the seminar and tasting was how much great wine is produced in Montalcino and how many estates remain undiscovered by the general wine media and consumers at large.

Wines from estates Paradisone Colle degli Angeli, Sassodisole, and Corte dei Venti were all great discoveries for me (the old-school Sassodisole in particular).

Thank you, Brunello, for coming back to our city. I know that the standing-room-only crowd at the seminar was well worth the trip.

What a great evening with Luca Currado (above) and a superb flight of his wines last night at Tony’s in Houston! (I’m Tony’s media director.)

The 2010 Barbaresco Masseria was definitely one of the highlights of the flight and was already showing an elegant balance of fruit and earth flavors.

The 2013 Barbera d’Alba Scarrone was also drinking great but, man, that wine, from a great vintage, has so many years ahead of it!

I’d never heard Luca tell the story of how he planted those vineyards to the surprise and chagrin of his father. He had the guests in the palm of his hand as he recounted the tale… He’s such a natural when it comes to the art of enological narrative.

But it was the 2012 Barolo Castiglione that really sang in the glass, with full-throated fruit and umami flavors playing against each other in counterpoint. The Barolo Brunate was the greatest wine on the table, for sure. But it’s still a bit penny wise with its fruit.

Both of the Barolo were superb with the roast rack of lamb, a great pairing on a stormy night in my adoptive town.

But the dish that really thrilled the guests (and me) was the pasta tossed with delicata squash, foie gras, and hen-of-the-woods (below). Honestly, when I read the menu I wasn’t sure how that dish was going to come together but it was wonderful to experience how it “mirrored” the flavors in the wines, especially the Barbaresco Masseria.

There’s so much more to tell from last night’s unforgettable dinner but now it’s time to face the end-of-days rain falling over Houston and go taste a bunch of Brunello at the Benvenuto Brunello event, which has returned to our city this year.

Nice work if you can get it…

Above: Italian wine-focused author, journalist, and super cool sommelier and restaurateur David Lynch (left) with Californian winemaker Jim Clendenen (photo by Jasmine Hirsch via David’s Facebook).

This year is already shaping up to be a great one for Italian wine and food in Texas.

Tomorrow night I’m attending a dinner with winemaker Luca Currado at Tony’s in Houston where he will be pouring top wines from Vietti. Super psyched for that. (As of yesterday, there were just a couple of seats available.)

Thursday, I’ll take part in the Benvenuto Brunello seminar and tasting in Houston. I’m so geeked to see this A-list event return to the Bayou City. (I have no idea if registration is still open but I can’t imagine that they will turn people away.)

And on Monday, January 30, I’ll be tasting with my UniSG colleagues at the Slow Wine event in Austin. (I believe registration is still open for this one.)

That’s just January, folks!

Another primetime event that I’m super stoked about is the third-annual Taste of Italy Houston fair, presented by the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce of Texas, on Monday, March 6. The chamber asked me to join their team last year and I’ve been giddily involved in planning this year’s gathering.

The coolest news is that David Lynch (above) will be our featured speaker this year. David’s a friend and one of the people working in Italian wine whom I admire most. We met many years ago when we were both living in New York and he was working on his landmark guide to the wines of Italy, Vino Italiano. At the time, no one knew the history he would make with his brilliant list at Babbo, a program that literally reshaped the future of Italian wine in this country.

David is also one of the most engaging wine speakers I’ve ever encountered. I couldn’t be more thrilled that he’s agreed to moderate a panel at the event.

Some of the other great food and wine personalities who will be speaking at the fair this year: J.C. Reid, who has written extensively about Carbonara for the Houston Chronicle; sommeliers Jaime De Leon and Thomas Moësse (two of the coolest dudes working in wine in Texas today imho); and my good buddy Joseph “Grappa” Kemble, the Italian buyer for Spec’s (one of the biggest retailers in the country). And I’ll be speaking, too…

Click here for a preview of the fair. And click here to pre-register (it’s free to all). More than 60 Italian food and wine producers will be presenting.

When I moved to Texas in December 2008, a close friend from my NYC days was worried for me: “what will you drink?” she said at the time. Between Slow Wine, Benvenuto Brunello, and all the super groovy Italian winemakers who are coming to Texas these days, I’m happy to report that I’m drinking just fine…