Above: grapes harvested in August 2015 at Ca’ del Bosco, another one of Franciacorta’s “big three” and another winery experimenting with organic farming practices.

Producing 4.2 million bottles of wine a year, Guido Berlucchi is Franciacorta’s largest and oldest winery.

It’s a powerhouse estate that produces a wide array of wines, ranging from under $15 a bottle to around $65 (according to WineSearcher.com results retrieved today).

And with Berlucchi’s ongoing conversion to organic farming and certification process, Franciacorta has crossed an extraordinary threshold: today, more than 50 percent of the appellation is organically farmed.

There’s even talk that Franciacorta could become Italy’s first 100 percent organic appellation.

Today, I posted an interview with Berlucchi CEO and enologist Arturo Ziliani on Franciacorta Real Story, a blog I author for the Franciacorta consortium. In the post, he discusses the genesis of the conversion and its significance in Franciacorta’s bigger picture, including the likelihood that it will become 100 percent organic.

Over the last two months, I’ve had the opportunity to meet with two of Italy’s natural wine pioneers and founders of its leading natural wine fairs: Giampiero Bea of ViniVeri and Angiolino Maule of VinNatur.

In our interactions, each made analogous remarks about the arc of the natural wine movement in Italy: in the 90s, they were considered fringe; in the 00s, they were called crazy; and today, the mainstream has begun to embrace their call for chemical-free agriculture in Italy and across the world.

Both of them pointed to the ViVit and the VinitalyBio pavilions at the behemoth Vinitaly, Italy’s annual wine industry trade fair held in Verona, as examples of this. The fact that “big” Italian wine has included a natural wine ghetto (the former) and an organic wine ghetto (the latter) represents a substantive break from convention and a milestone in their mission to raise awareness of natural and chemical-free viticulture.

And both of them pointed to the fact that every day it seems that another large winemaker or winery group announces its conversion — whether complete or partial — to organic and more environmentally friendly (and human friendly) farming.

Will the relevance of natural wine be negated as more and more mainstream wineries embrace the tenets of natural and organic wine?

Perhaps. But it doesn’t matter because ultimately, having reached for the stars, they will have delivered the earth.

That fact that the “powers-that-be” in Franciacorta are looking at becoming Italy’s first 100 percent organic appellation is surely a step in the right direction.

Click here for the interview with Arturo Ziliani of Guido Berlucchi.

The sun rose over Slovenia’s Brda hills yesterday morning as I enjoyed a daybreak walk on the Italian side of the border before heading back to Texas (check out the video below and be sure to turn up the volume to hear the sound of the day’s first church bells in the distance).

After spending nine days as a wine and food sherpa on my friend Adam Japko’s Design and Wine Tour between Venice, Verona, and Cormons (Friuli), I was eager to get back to my family and to the place I’ve called home for the last eight years.

On the first leg of my journey homeward from Venice to Newark, I read Manny Fernandez’s compelling New York Times piece on “What Makes Texas Texas” (published on Saturday).

Everything he writes about the Lone Star State is true, of course.

Both native Californians, he and I are faces of the “new” Texas.

And I share his wonderment at Texan nativism and exceptionalism.

And like him, I still can’t wrap my mind around our politicians’ often bizarre and hateful attitudes. While some of the topoi of Manny’s piece are the usual common places that non-Texans love to chide us for, our political class wholeheartedly deserves our (and your) scorn and even ridicule in my view.

But I also think that Manny has missed some of the fundamental things that make Texans Texans.

I’m thinking of Texans’ seemingly innate politeness (despite their political views).

I’m thinking of Texans’ love of gastronomic tradition. It’s so much more than Tex Mex, people! I’m thinking of Uncle Tim’s gumbo but I’m also thinking of Tony’s tortellini.

I’m thinking of Texans’ musical legacy. Just think of how many famous performers and songwriters Texas has produced — and not just country music stars!

I’m thinking of the humanity that I’ve found her in people stopping on the freeway to help me push my overheated car to the side of the road outside of Waco not long after I arrived.

I’m thinking of my father-in-law, Reverend Randy Branch, a Methodist pastor whose political views are diametrically opposed to mine but who embraces me at every one of our family get-togethers and tells me that he loves me.

I’m thinking about so many things that make Texans Texans.

And I’m thinking about how I awoke early and jet-lagged this morning.

As I watched the sun rise over Texas, one of our micro-Texans crawled into bed with me and said “I missed you, daddy…”

Thanks for being here. I’ll be back tomorrow with more tales of Italy…

My good friend Adam Japko’s Design and Wine Tour officially came to an end yesterday (although many from the group, including me, are staying on for a couple of days for tasting and touring in Friuli).

After tasting Valentina Cubi’s excellent Valpolicella and Amarone yesterday morning at her estate, we enjoyed one of the best meals of the trip down the road at the superb Enoteca della Valpolicella (above), where the quality of the food was rivaled only by the caliber of the wine service.

The Enoteca’s cellar may very well be the best destination in the appellation for those who want to dig deep into verticals and horizontals of Valpolicella wines.

And the food there… my goodness, the food! Just look at the yellow of that egg below!

But the thing that impressed me the most was the professionalism of the sommelier who waited on us yesterday.

Her service and wine knowledge were impeccable, from her presentation of the bottle to a pour that featured the label before the eyes of each and every guest. And her hospitality — in the true sense of the word — was superlative.

In a dining room where she was pouring Cubi’s wines for a group of roughly 25 persons, I was at the last table to be poured the last bottle of Valpolicella she opened.

Unfortunately, our table’s bottle was corked. And when I brought this to her attention, she didn’t raise a glass of the wine to her nose to assess the wine or my take on the wine.

She took the glass from me and simply said, “I’m so sorry. I’ll open a new bottle right away.”

It occurred to me that, sadly, many sommeliers often question their guests’ ability to determine the fitness of a wine (often in their guests’ presence) and that some even refuse to substitute it.

At yesterday’s seating, even with a wine that needed to be replaced, my dining experience was seamless, all thanks to a wine professional who holds service and hospitality above one-uppersonship or virtuosismo.

I never asked her name nor did she and I ever lower the tenor of our formal interaction, addressing each other throughout with the lei as opposed to the tu.

But, man, her wine service was, imho, the apotheosis of viticultural hospitality. #respect

Not much time to post this morning as I try to catch up with work before heading out for the last day of our Design and Wine Tour.

But I just had to share this photo I snapped yesterday in the vineyards at the Maule winery in Montebello Vicentino, one of my loci amoeni and one of my favorite wines to drink anywhere.

Thanks again to the Maule family for such a great evening.

Looking forward to posting notes from my trip as soon as the dust settles.

It’s with no small amount of urgency that I’m posting today because it was only yesterday that I learned that Italy now requires that U.S. passports be valid for at least six months beyond your planned date of departure from the Schengen area.

This came to my attention because a person who was supposed to join our current Design and Wine Italy Tour was not allowed to board her flight on Friday of last week because her passport would have expired before the required six months from the date of her departure.

Until recently, only three months were required for Italy. I know this because I renewed my passport earlier this year and had been reading up on travel requirements.
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Above: dinner last night at Lino Fritto, my new favorite cicchetteria in Venice.

How did I get here?

I awoke this morning at a 5-star resort/spa/hotel on the Island of the Roses, a 20-minute boat ride from Venice.

Am I a character in Fellini’s “8 1/2”? Or am I simply a wine blogger who happened to be in the right place at the right time?

I’m still not sure… What I do know is that the first three days of my friend Adam Japko’s Design and Wine Tour 2016 have been as exhilarating as they have been aesthetically and sensorially fulfilling.

Dinner downstairs at Caffè Quadri. A wonderfully catered reception at the Palazzo Rocca on the Grand Canal. A Sunday morning in one of the most beautiful villages in Italy (and one of my favorites). Lunch at the marvelous Osteria alla Chiesa with one of my favorite winemakers and clients Bele Casel.

And dulcis in fundo, a spectacular cicchettata (above) last night at Lino Fritto at the Venice fish market with my friend Wayne Young pouring wine for our tour group.

Above: and in the midst of it all, I got to have “do bianchi,” two white wines, with my good friend Wayne Young who works with Joe Bastianich here in Italy.

Time away from my family is so rough on me. Tracie P and the girls are always on my mind and in my thoughts and heart.

But I’ve found immense humanity and joy over the last few days in the lovely people with whom I’ve been traveling and the friends — new and old — who have helped me organize our visits so far.

Massimiliano, Marco, Federica, Matteo, Luca, Paola, Bojana, Marisa, Francesco B., Wayne, Renato, Giovanni… I am so blessed by your friendship. Thank you from the bottom of my hear for all your help and solidarity.

The trip has only just begun and there will be so many more people to thank and so many more blog posts to write before we are done.

That’s all I have time to post this morning as I head out for another day of tasting etc.

Now more than ever do the notions of “authenticity,” “natural,” and “artisanal” play a role in cultural hegemony and now more than ever do we need to reflect on their epistemological implications.

Tomorrow is the first day of my friend Adam Japko’s Design and Wine Tour Italy 2016.

And we literally open in Venice and next play Verona. Beginning tomorrow I’ll be pouring and speaking about wines and wineries I’ve selected for the trip, first here in Venice and then next week in Verona province and Verona proper.

Until our band of players heads to Valpolicella on Tuesday, our group (me included) will be staying at the JW Marriott Resort and Spa on the Isola delle Rose (Island of the Roses) in the Venetian lagoon. Not too shabby, folks!

Stay tuned and if you’re so inclined, please check out my Instagram for live posts on what and where we’re eating and drinking.

Marco Tinello, my friend and one of the Veneto’s top sommeliers, has been posting stirring images from France this week on his Facebook.

The photo above is from this morning in Champagne (Bar Sur Aube).

The stunning image below was posted yesterday from Chablis, where growers use fires in the vineyard to prevent frost on the vines.

Temperatures have dipped below freezing in France this week.

Yesterday, Champagne house Louis Roederer posted the following note on its Twitter: “Hard to estimate how much frost damages we had last night but seems limited… One more cold night ahead!”

Using the website Wunderground.com, I can see that temperatures also fell in Italy this week.

According to my search results, weather along the Adriatic coast dropped into the low 40s (F.) but not below freezing.

And my client in Montalcino, Stefano Cinelli Colombini, winemaker at Fattoria dei Barbi, reports today that he had to get “a couple of jackets out of mothballs” but there has been no frost or snowfall. Just rain, he wrote this morning.

Especially when it occurs after budding, spring frost can be extremely harmful to vines. Even when the plants are spared immediate damage, it can severely slow the vegetative cycle, which can cause problems down the road. I’ll keep following the story and will post news as it comes in.

Thanks to Marco for the dispatches from France, to Stefano for his update, and to the Italian wine blog Intravino for bringing the Roederer tweet to my attention.

In other news…

It’s a tough job but someone has to do it: I’ll be heading to Bush airport this afternoon to fly to the Veneto where I will be leading a series of tastings and winery visits next week for my good friend Adam Japko’s “Design and Wine Tour.”

I have a lot of great meals and wines in my near future but man, it’s going to be hard to say goodbye to Tracie P, Georgia P, and Lila Jane this afternoon. I miss them already.

Wish me luck and wish me speed. I’ll see you on the other side…

Above: wine writer Stefano Cosma, editor at Vini Buoni d’Italia (center) with Friuli president Debora Serracchiani (right) and Collio consortium president Roberto Princic (left).

What better way to start off a talk about the wines of Collio than an anecdote about a bat mitzvah?

One of the highlights of my Vinitaly this year — the annual Italian wine trade fair in Verona — was a panel and tasting of Collio wines organized by Vinarius, the Italian association of wine shop owners.

Wine writer Stefano Cosma, Vinarius president Andrea Terraneo, and I each shared our thoughts on a superb flight of wines together with a lively group of wine writers and a retailer or two. And Collio consortium president Roberto Princic and Friuli president Debora Serracchiani (!!! she is super cool!) presented the panel.

For my talk, I remembered fondly my duties as sommelier at my niece’s bat mitzvah reception last summer in La Jolla, California (at Temple Beth El). It was a major wedding-sized affair, with a pizza truck and motivators, a disco ball, and nearly 200 guests.

I had selected a Collio white blend and Nebbiolo from Carema for the red. All things considered, I was sure that the southern California crowd would lean red. My experience in such matters has always been that the average bar or bat mitzvah-goer prefers red over white. But before I could say mazel tov, the caterer told me that she was concerned we were running out of Collio.

According to the latest WineBusiness.com survey of consumer trends, Chardonnay remains the favorite variety among average consumers. And even though Americans still like “fruity red wine” more than any other, more and more white wine drinkers are starting to emerge (at least anecdotally in my experience).

I believe it’s part of a trend that’s owed to the fact that wine awareness has been growing and expanding rapidly in this country for nearly a decade. And we are moving away from the market dominance of red wine.

The focus of our tasting was Ribolla (fresh, youthful Ribolla, not macerated Ribolla), Malvasia, Friulano, and classic white blends.

And while the monovarietal wines were impressive, it was the flight of three 2013 blends that really blew me away. The wines were by three producers I’d never tasted before: Renato Keber, Bracco, and Pascolo.

All were excellent but the Pascolo in particular really wowed me with its freshness, transparency of fruit, and nuanced depth.

One high-profile wine retailer in attendance called the flight a “cannonball.” And he was right on.

WineSearcher.com shows a small amount of R. Keber in New York and a few skus from Bracco in Massachusetts. Nothing comes up for Pascolo.

There is so much fantastic yet undiscovered wine being made in Friuli in general right now. And for a nation ever more thirsty for well-priced nuanced white wine, it would seem that importers have nothing to lose when it comes to sourcing an untapped lake of great whites.

I’ll actually be in Friuli weekend after next and Friulian wines are going to be the focus of a new project that I’ll reveal shortly.

In the meantime, U.S. wine importers: please bring us some more of this groovy stuff!

And thanks to Vinarius and the Collio consortium for including me on the panel. It was a lot of fun and I was thrilled to taste some great and new-to-me wines. Stay tuned for more reports from my tastings at the fairs…

How is your Passover? Today, on the third day of the Passover, we ask not how was your Passover? but how is your Passover?

We don’t Kosher our house for Passover (and we don’t keep Kosher in general) but we do retell the story of the Exodus through our Passover seder on the first night of the festival.

This year, we were joined by my in-laws, Rev. and Mrs. Branch, and my mom, Judy (below).

For our haggadah (the book that you read during the seder), we used this one from Chabad. It was excellent. And I really enjoyed leading the seder for our family.

And our seder meal was extra special thanks to my friend and client, Tony Vallone.

Tony caters some of his clients’ Passover meals and being the mensch that he is, he always sends me home on Erev Pesach (the first night of the Passover) with a complete meal that includes haroset (for the seder plate), homemade gelfite fish (the best!), and Jewish-style braised brisket and vegetables (above).

Not only is Tony’s classic brisket delicious but it also evokes a memory of Jewish cookery in my grandparents day. Today, brisket is an expensive cut of meat. In the era of the great twentieth-century migrations (like that of my great grandparents who came from Russia and Poland in the first decade of the last century), it was an affordable cut that would be patiently transformed into cultural icons like pastrami, corned beef, and even Texas bbq (thanks to the German immigrants who landed in central Texas).

It would be enough to be surrounded by my loving family on Erev Pesach! Dayenu!

But Tony’s Passover meal made our seder extra special this year.

In other news…

Also making this Pesach a sweet one, Boston Globe wine critic Ellen Bhang generously devoted a column to me and my Franciacorta project in Sunday’s paper.

Working with the Franciacorta consortium has been one of the most rewarding campaigns of my career. I love the wines and believe they deserve the attention of the fine community.

Ellen’s article even made my Jewish mother proud!

That’s my mom Judy (below, left) with Tracie P, Georgia P (left) and Lila Jane. The girls had a blast taking her to see the butterflies and dinosaurs this weekend at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

All in all, it will be a wonderful Passover that we’ll never forget.

Had G-d not liberated our people from bondage, had He not given us the Torah, had he not delivered us to Jerusalem… none of us would be here today to enjoy more blessings that I can count. Lest we ever forget…