Just to had to share these images of steaks that Giovanni picked up at his local butcher in Brescia yesterday for our supper.

Arianna grilled them to perfection.

Just look at the marbling in the top photo!

Brescia province has always been famous for the quality of its beef and its beef markets. Last night’s dinner of steak, salad, and Franciacorta was extraordinary.

Thank you, Giovanni and Arianna! You ROCK!

I don’t have time to write up my notes from yesterday’s Franciacorta vs. Champagne tasting.

Honestly, I thought the whole thing was a really dumb idea but it turned out to be really interesting.

The Intravino dudes had gathered a smart group of top Italian writers and tasters and I was stoked to get to taste and interact with them. Notes to come…

In the meantime, please check out my Houston Press preview of the IPOB tasting that will take place in Houston on Monday of next week.

It’s the first time that Jasmine, Raj, and co. are presenting the wines in the U.S. beyond San Francisco and New York. Kinda a big deal for the Bayou City.

And lastly, in case you’re wondering, yes, I’m still standing.

Some years, I do an “easier” fair. But this year, between my clients, my gig with the Franciacorta consortium, and the wines that I want to taste for my own betterment, I’ve had a pretty intense fair.

Two more days to go. Wish me speed and thanks for being here!

Thank you to everyone who came out for yesterday’s Franciacorta Crawl. That was rad.

And thank you brother Nathan for the photo below…

I’ll be in Verona today, tasting wine — mostly Franciacorta — at Vinitaly, the annual Italian wine trade fair.

So why is there a photo of my cousin Ben Rosenberg holding a bunch of smoked meats wrapped in butcher paper above?

I took that photo of my cousin in Lockhart, Texas, where we were enjoying a longstanding Lone Star tradition: the “‘Cue Crawl,” in other words, a [Texas] barbecue crawl.

Lockhart is known as the [Texas] barbecue capital of the world and smoked meat lovers regularly gather there to eat at all three of its mainstay smokehouses on the same day, one after another. We were at Kreuz Market, for the record, when I snapped that image.

Today, the focus of our study won’t be gelatinous marbled brisket but rather Chardonnay and Pinot Noir as they are expressed in Franciacorta, the classic method wine from Brescia province, Italy.

We’ll start at the Franciacorta Consortium stand in the Franciacorta pavilion (see details below) and we’ll work our way through as many producers stands as possible.

Hope to see you there! And just like a ‘cue crawl back in Texas, ANY and ALL are welcome.

Franciacorta Crawl
with Franciacorta, the Real Story
Monday, March 23, 1:30 p.m.
Franciacorta Consortium Stand
PalaExpo B/C16 (Vinitaly)

Everyone is welcome to join: Our goal is to taste as much Franciacorta as possible as we “crawl” through the Franciacorta pavilion at Vinitaly. We’ll start at the Franciacorta Consortium stand and work our way down the line…

NO REGISTRATION NECESSARY.
PLEASE JUST SHOW UP AND JOIN US.

Buona degustazione a tutti!
Enjoy the tasting, everyone!

Please don’t forget: everyone is welcome to join me Monday, March 23, at 1:30 p.m. at the Franciacorta Consortium Stand at Vinitaly (PalaExpo B/C16) for a “Franciacorta Crawl.”

Just wanted to share a couple of photos from Team Do Bianchi’s day yesterday at Vini Veri, the natural wine fair held each year in Cerea (Verona province).

That’s Antonio di Gruttola (above), winemaker at Cantine Giardino (Avellino province, Campania), one of our favorite wines to pour at Sotto in Los Angeles (where I co-author the wine list with colleague and friend Christine Veys).

That’s Christine (below, left) with importer Giovanni Pagano, a friend to Sotto and a natural wine lover whose devotion and palate I admire greatly.

Team Do Bianchi — Christine, Christopher Barnes, Giovanni Arcari, Nathan Smith, and I — had a truly delightful day at the fair.

I was reminded that as important as it is to taste as much as possible at the wine fairs, half of the equation is just being there.

We’re about to head out for our first day of Vinitaly in Verona. Wish us luck and wish us speed… and if you want to say a prayer for a parking place, we’ll take what we can get!

Just had to share this short video from the other night: the beginnings of a pied de cuve (literally, the “tank base”), a fermentation starter that will be used to provoke fermentation in the production of a classic method wine (in this case, Franciacorta, of course).

I shot it after dinner at the Arici winery in Gussago in Brescia province.

When it rains it pours.

I’ve only been in Italy for a few days but I already have so much to tell. And the frenetic, chaotic windup to the fairs has already begun.

Team Do Bianchi is about to head out from Brescia for Cerea, where we’ll be tasting at the Vini Veri fair.

But in the meantime, all I can think about is the wild asparagus (above) that we were served at a wonderful home-cooked dinner in Franciacorta last night.

It’s one of those foraged delicacies that come around only once a year.

How to describe their delicate flavor? They taste like spring…

Another highlight last night was meeting the acting priest of Gussago village, a young fellow.

“Enough with your Latinorum!” I wanted to tell him (I’ll buy a bottle of Franciacorta for the first person who can name the novel that inspires my joke).

I didn’t, of course. But it was fun to meet him and trade notes about religion. He was super nice.

Thank you again, Arici family, for hosting us. The tagliatelle tossed in salmon and cream, the spit-roast rabbit, the zero dosage Chardonnay… everything was fantastic.

But those wild asparagus? Unforgettable.

I learned of Roberto Conterno’s purchase of the historic Barolo cru Arione via Kerin O’Keefe when I met her at a dinner in her honor hosted by Chambers St. Wines owner Jamie Wolff a few weeks ago at Maialino in NYC.

After reading one too many sensationalist reports on the transaction (and their xenophobic subtext), I called the various parties and set the record straight for WineSearcher this week.

Here’s my post.

Just landed in Brescia… Man, I’m fried and I miss my girls terribly. But I’m glad to be in a place where everyone knows my name.

Let the games begin!

are you going to the airport?

are you going to fly to the moon on the plane, daddy?

I miss them so much already. I might as well be flying to the moon…

See you on the other side…

Above: Ben (center) and I interviewed Chef Vittorio Fusari (left) in October of last year at his Dispensa Pani e Vini in Franciacorta, one of my favorite restaurants in the world.

It all began in September 2008. I was on my way to Italy for a business trip as I was just beginning to launch my new marketing consulting company. And Ben, who lives in New York City, wanted to get out of town for a few weeks.

We were both single at the time. And so we went on our own personal Sideways.

It was an amazing trip, with some incredible producer visits and meals. And by the end, Ben, who is a journalist and filmmaker, suggested that we return someday to Italy to make a short movie.

In October of last year, six years after that fateful and unforgettable trip, we set out for Italy again but this time with Ben’s camera (check out Ben’s most recent full-length feature film, “Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters,” here; Ben is a longtime producer and journalist for NPR and he teaches journalism at Columbia, among other things).

It was on the same 2008 trip that I met Giovanni Arcari for the first time. Since then, he’s become one of my best friends and he’s the reason that Brescia and Franciacorta have become my home-away-from-home when I travel to Italy.

I love the wines and I cherish the friendships I have made there. And so, it was only natural that Ben and I would make our first film together on Franciacorta.

Looking back on it now, I realize that when we started out on the project, we imagined that the growers would be the ones to tell the story of Franciacorta. But in the end, it was the chefs who really captured the spirit of the place.

I hope that you enjoy our short film as much we enjoyed making it. Buona visione! And thanks for watching.

If the Tuscan regional council approves the current plan for territorial oversight in a vote today, winemakers there could face a ban on new plantings and construction.

In the words of Stefano Cinelli Colombini who has lobbied aggressively against the proposed restrictions, “it would be a disaster…”

I wrote about it for WineSearcher.com.

Please note that the Intravino-Franciacorta Consortium blind tasting on Monday, March 23 (11 a.m.) at Vinitaly is by invite only. I apologize for any confusion.

For anyone who would like to taste with me in the Franciacorta pavilion on Monday, please meet me at 1:30 p.m. at the Franciacorta Consortium stand (location: PalaExpo B/C16). From 1:30-4:30 p.m. (more or less), I’ll be tasting with as many producers as I can. You are welcome to join!

Please send me an email or message me via social media to let me know you’ll be joining. We already have a super groovy group of bloggers who have contacted me. And I’ll be interpreting for those who don’t speak Italian (when necessary).