Let’s face it: Champagne is the elephant in the room.

Champagne — the wine, the region, the brand, the ethos — is so powerful and so indelibly woven into the fabric of our vinous consciousness that we cannot help but be aware of its presence at the popping of every cork.

I believe this is due in part to the brilliant legacy of marketing by Champagne producers. From Champagne’s widowed matriarch to the Czars of Russia and the court of St. James’ and James Bond, the French virtually wrote the book on how luxury wine can be marketed with thrilling results.

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After Tracie P and I serendipitously discovered this mainland Venice classic earlier this year, Trattoria Nalin meteorically rose to the top of my “favorite restaurants in the world” list. In the fall, on my last trip to Italy for 2013, I managed to break away from work and enjoy a super fun dinner there with my very close and dear friend Steve and Sita (Steve and I were college roomates and we’ve all known each other for more than 25 years).

It was early October and a very special time to be there: the sea animals of the Venetian lagoon had just mated and the crustaceans were teeming with roe, called coral in Italian because of its bright red color. Those are the she crabs, above.

You just pop them into your mouth and bite down: their shells are delicate and the reward inside is as sweet as candy. This was one of the best things I ate all year. (And you can only get them right after the mating period.)

Grilled razor clams… unbelievable… so tender…

Were I to publish the obscenely low price we paid for this Ca’ del Bosco 2008 Dosage Zero, the censors would surely lock me away. It’s my favorite in the Ca’ del Bosco portfolio… so brilliant, so focused, so fresh yet so nuanced in its tannic structure. A favorite wine, paired superbly…

Risotto with prawns. Note the coral that the kitchen used to sprinkle on the rice. Amazing… Did I mention that I love this restaurant?

Borgo del Tiglio 1999 Ronco della Chiesa, easily one of the best wines I drank all year. And again, an obscenely low price.

Old white wine, when it’s great like this, is one of the greatest pleasure on G-d’s earth… I’ll never forget this bottle and was so glad to share it with people whom I care about so deeply.

Nalin’s son told me that he’s sold off a lot of his list but he still has a mini vertical of Borgo del Tiglio. I plan to drink every last bottle. These are game-changing and life-altering wines.

Grilled calamari, with a spritz of fresh lemon juice. No explanation necessary…

Cuttlefish served in its ink with white polenta.

Thank you for letting me share this unforgettable experience with you.

Nalin is SO worth the journey…

More “best meals of 2013 coming up”…

Above: Uncle Tim’s gumbo from a Christmas past. You put the potato salad — made with hard-boiled eggs — right into the bowl.

As I have done every year since I moved to Texas five holiday seasons ago, I’ll be spending Christmas eve on Cow Bayou in Bridge City, East Texas (about 20 minutes up the road from Orange, where Tracie P was born).

Uncle Tim will make his famous gumbo, spiked with his hard-boiled-egg-laced potato salad, Aunt Pam (not really our aunt, but she still kisses me on the lips) will bring fried boudin balls, and I’ll bring a mixed case of wine.

Above: Fried boudin balls, a specialty of Cajun cuisine, uncased boudin (pork and rice sausage, commonly found in Louisiana and East Texas) dredged in flour and cornmeal and fried.

The get-together will include roughly 30 relatives and extended family friends, each with her/his personal beverage preferences (uncle Tim’s is Chivas and diet Sprite).

As for many American families, Christmas isn’t the occasion for breaking out my ten-year-old Nebbiolo or the single-vineyard Burgundy I’ve been saving. No, it’s time for value and crowd pleasers. No meditation wines here, ma’am, just some good ol’ reliable grape wine.

Click here to continue reading my Christmas wine recommendations for the Houston Press…

Above: Ostiones asados, baked Gulf of Mexico oysters, a signature dish at the newly opened Caracol in Houston, where the restaurant scene is literally exploding with new high-concept entries.

Despite Houston’s manic traffic, I managed to drop by the newly opened Caracol last night in time for happy hour.

The restaurant, celeb chef Hugo Ortega’s latest effort, is the most recent in a string of new entries into the city’s vibrant and ceaselessly expanding restaurant scene.

The new “Mexican coastal cuisine” concept opened on Monday, December 16, said general manager and beverage director, Sean Beck, who now runs four major wine programs in town.

Above: I really loved the unctuous mouthfeel and rich aromatic character of the Heidi Schröck 2012 Gelber Muskateller. I’m so geeked to see what Sean is going to do with his list.

Sean insisted that I try the oysters (above) and they were delicious. But I would have loved to have sampled the Tacos de Gusano, “sautéed dired maguey worms,” yes, worms, with “guacamole, tortillas, and salsa verde.”

They were out last night but they would have paired well with the the Pol Roger NV Champagne that Sean has on the list for $60 (YES, 60 buckaroos!).

As much as I believe that San Francisco is currently the number-one restaurant destination in the U.S. today, with New York on its heels, Houston — now America’s third-largest city after NYC and LA — is really beginning to adolesce.

Caracol is going to be a winner and a national player, for sure.

Although he’s shuttling between all four of the group’s restaurants these days, Sean is spending most of his time at Caracol. You can keep up with Sean sightings and where he’ll be working on a given night by following his Twitter.

In other news…

Please check out Levi Dalton’s excellent interview with Gaia Gaja for his “I’ll drink to that” podcast. Gaia is very candid with Levi about what’s been changing at the winery over the last decade and as always, Levi surprises me and teaches me something new by means of the questions he poses.

And I LOVED this post by my good friend and homegirl Samantha Sans Dosage, who shares her experiences as a buyer for a major So. Cal. wine shop. The holidays are always intense for anyone who works in the wine trade and I fell out of my breakfast chair this morning reading her descriptions of the often hard-to-palate questions she’s asked.

Above: Classic Soppressa Trevigiana. Primo told me that it came from Christian Zago’s farm down the road.

There are great meals for the food and wine that are served. And there are great meals for the people with whom you share them. Sometimes, stars align and you find yourself seated at the table of those whom you admire most.

For me, once such dinner this year took place in the home of Annalisa and Primo Franco, together with their daughter Silvia, in late September of this year.

I owe so much to Primo.

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My post on Ten Things You Need to Know about Champagne and Sparkling Wine over at the Houston Press today.

Happy holidays, yall!

Above: Glera — previously known as Prosecco — grapes from the 2012 harvest in the Prosecco DOCG (Asolo, Valdobbiadene, Conegliano). In 2009, the creation of the Prosecco DOCG changed the name of the Prosecco grape to Glera.

According to a blog post by the Australian law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth, the Australian trademarks registrar has rejected a European Union bid to make Prosecco an Australian geographical indication (i.e., appellation) and to prohibit the use of Prosecco as a grape name.

The EU had filed the appeal in a bid to force Australian winemakers to use “Glera” as the name of the grape used in wines labeled as “Prosecco.”

The EU legal move was intended to align Australian labeling and marketing regulation with the Prosecco DOCG, which officially renamed the Prosecco grape “Glera” in 2009.

Since the 2009 creation of the DOCG, Veneto and Friuli producers of Prosecco have called their grapes Glera. The new labeling requirements were introduced by the Prosecco Consortium, which believed that the new classification would eliminate market confusion.

Michael Arblaster, the Australian Deputy Registrar of Trademarks, also “refused to exercise his (broad) discretion to direct the Geographical Indications Committee (GIC) to consider the Prosecco GI application.”

He did so based on the following issues, according to the report published by Corrs Chambers Westgarth:

The court’s decision is sure to be seen as a blow to the Prosecco DOCG Consortium’s efforts to reshape the “Prosecco” brand beyond Italy’s borders.

“Italians are often surprised by the fact that we make Prosecco here,” writes the author of a blog published by Austrlian wine importer Trembath and Taylor, “and most of it is pretty good. I’ve had much worse imported Prosecco – Aldi anyone? – than I have had local so it’s hard to argue that Australian Prosecco is damaging the Prosecco ‘brand.’ Rather the opposite in fact. You couldn’t give Prosecco away ten years ago and wineries such as Dal Zotto have done a great job of promoting the category.”

“In Australia, we are seeing a ‘downgrade’ of Prosecco as restaurants and retailers look to increase margin by purchasing cheaper brands of imported Prosecco. Unfortunately, it makes no difference to them, or the drinker, if its DOC or DOCG.”

Above: The Cirelli farm in the Atri township in Teramo province, Abruzzo last week.

The following letter was sent to me late last week by my friend, grape grower and winemaker Francesco Cirelli, who produces Trebbiano, Cerasuolo, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. I think you’ll find it as moving as I did. And I also think you’ll be interested to see the tendone– (i.e., pergola-) trained vines, however blurry the photos. My translation of his email follows. Thanks for reading.

*****

Ciao Jeremy,

I’ve attached some photos of the snowfall that we had at the end of November.

Fortunately, as far as I know, there was no serious damage in the Atri township.

In the area where I grow grapes, more damage was done by the heavy rainfall that flooded the flats [last week]. The fields had been plowed and were ready to be seeded. At this point, we’ll skip this year’s harvest.

As you can see in the photos of tendone-trained vines, despite the fact that no pre-pruning was done, they did not collapse.

As you already know, certain areas were hit with a different type of snow, a much heavier snow that caused vines to collapse after accumulating on the leaves. It’s a tragedy.

There’s already been a lot of discussion among Abruzzo winemakers and we’ve been trying to decide how we should express our solidarity to our fellow winemakers who have been affected by this tragedy.

I know that some of the more important winemakers have already sent letters to the authorities and I hope that the government will respond by offering financial aid, the only remedy at this point, for the extraordinary damage caused by the storm.

There is no relief for the human damage and pain caused by the storm. That’s the saddest thing.

The government may not be able to help. But we grape growers can help by rolling up our sleeves and helping to clean up the vineyards that have collapsed. That’s the best way we can offer our support and show our compassion.

Francesco Cirelli

Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is one of those appellations that has been eclipsed since the 1970s by big business interests. Like Chianti, it was one of Italy’s grape growing areas that swiftly aligned itself with the corporate agendas of the “me” generation.

Today, there is just a handful of producers who rise above the fray of the négociants: Fanetti, Crociani, Sanguineto, Godiolo, Boscarelli…

They — all of whom make great wines — deserve mention here because another is about to join their ranks: last night I tasted a sample bottle of the Salcheto Rosso di Montepulciano Obvius and I was simply floored by how lip-smacking good it was.

According to the Salcheto site, the wine is made from organic grapes, vinified with ambient (naturally occurring) yeasts, and no sulfur is applied whatsoever.

But who cares???!!!

When I tasted it last night, I felt like I was living the junkie’s dream of that first high. It reminded me of that fateful bottle of Sangiovese that I drank at a friend’s father’s place in Montalcino paired with fried boar’s liver nearly 25 years ago. It was ELECTRIC!

This was the Sangiovese — the real Sangiovese, with classic notes of rich ripe plum and lip-splitting acidity — that I’ve been looking for all these years.

It’s that good… If you taste it and don’t like it, please send it to me.

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Above: Kermit Lynch, left, with our good friend Jayne Battle, owner of Jaynes Gastropub in San Diego with her daughter Romy.

Before I hopped on a plane back to Austin, Texas on Saturday afternoon, I drove north from La Jolla, California to the famous Chino Farms in Rancho Santa Fe (about 30 minutes from where I grew up).

Legacy Bay Area wine merchant Kermit Lynch and slow food revolutionary and restaurateur Alice Waters were celebrating their new books: his, a 25th-anniversary re-issue of Adventures on the Wine Route and hers, a second volume in the series The Art of Simple Food.

Above: Alice Waters did a lot to put Chino Farms on the map. When I was a kid growing in San Diego county, it was a weekend destination for great produce out where the ultra-rich lived (and still do live). See this NY Times article from 1988.

It wasn’t surprising to see the lines of admirers, 40- and 50-persons deep, who had gathered for a frontispiece dedication and autograph. After all, Kermit and Alice, who frequented the same nascent enogastronomic circles back in the day, have arguably done more than anyone else in the U.S. to introduce bourgeois and otherwise uppercrust consumers to the pleasures and health-enhancing properties of the Mediterranean lifestyle.

Above: The produce at Chino Farms is expensive and worth every penny. The high-end restaurant Market, just down the road, sources most of its ingredients from the celebrated fruit and vegetable stand. I highly recommend both.

When you journey to Chino Farms, you drive past an unending landscape of California ranches, exclusive country clubs, and polo stables etc.

Rancho Santa Fe hosts and boasts one of the world’s richest and most conservative communities. Ann Romney, Mitt’s wife, stables her dressage horses there and often shows them at local competitions.

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