Like the legend of the phoenix / All ends with beginnings.

Single-vineyard designate Barolo and steak tacos piled high with spicy guacamole and pico de gallo…

I almost feel guilty writing the above sentence and I apologize in advance to the Borgogno winery.

Night before last, Tracie was craving steak. And so I picked up a couple of New York strips (yes, we eat those in Texas, although rib-eye is our state’s official cut) and some fingerling potatoes.

And since a bottle of 2012 Barolo Liste had fallen out of a Slow Wine van as it left the building a few weeks ago (one of the perks of my gig with the Italy-American Chamber of Commerce), we figured it would be a fun way to kick off a quiet evening at home (dinner was followed by a screening of the new Star Wars episode.

The wine and pan-fired steaks were delicious. We drank half the bottle, knowing all the while that we would enjoy a glass of this superb single-vineyard expression of Nebbiolo for the next two, three, and even four nights (one of the wonders of large-cask aged Barolo).

Yesterday evening (night two), I diced the leftover steak for tacos. After the ziplock bagged meat has sat in the fridge over night, I love the way it becomes desiccated and tender. And I relish its aroma and texture once its been reheated — a teenage San Diego memory of late-night burritos de carne asada (a midnight run to Roberto’s, anyone?).

One of the many great things about living in Texas is that there is ready availability of freshly made guacamole and pico de gallo. After I gently heated the flour tortillas stuffed with beef, already sprinkled generously with shredded cheese, I generously add a dollop of each of the toppings.

By the time we sat down for dinner, the wine had evolved dramatically from the night before and its fruit was really beginning to show. But everything about this subversive — transgressive, I should say — pairing was wrong: the citrus and heat of the toppings were antithetical to the wine. Fortunately for me, the superb acidity in this old-school-style wine seemed to giddily rise to the occasion. It was one of the most satisfying meals of the month (so far… it ain’t over yet!).

What a great wine and — if I do say so myself — what a great pairing despite its unorthodox nature. It just all came together in an unexpected way.

Opening and pairing any bottle of wine is always a gamble, a roll of the dice. And last night Lady Luck seemed to smile on me.

In other news…

I recently discovered this excellent integrated Google map to the Barolo crus on Antonio Galloni’s Vinous portal. It has a wonderful overlay that guides the user through the implicit hierarchy of the single-vineyard designations (Liste, for example, is in the second-to-best tier (“outstanding”). You don’t need to be a subscriber to access (I love Vinous, btw, and highly recommend doing the subscription).

Buon weekend a tutti! Have a great weekend, ya’ll!

From the department of “it’s hard to be Slow when you’re traveling twice the speed of sound”…

The world of Italian wine moves so fast these days that we often forget that the mosaic of Italy’s vinous treasure is as endless as it is wondrous.

I was reminded of this eternal truth last week at the Slow Wine Guide tasting in San Francisco when I tasted a wine from an estate that I’d never heard of before: the Sosol family’s Il Carpino farm in Collio (Friuli).

The wines were stunning, especially the Tocai (above). And I was thrilled to see that they label called it Tocai and not Friulano. That’s actually not surprising. In 2007 a ruling from the EU made it illegal to write Tocai on wines that were sold outside Italy (the decision was the result of Hungary’s complaint Italian Tocai created market confusion with Hungarian Tokaj). But as long as the wines are sold with Italy’s borders, it’s legal to label it Tocai (and the Sosol family openly calls it Tocai on their website).

Some years ago, one of the great pioneers of Friuli’s macerated wine movement, Radikon, began labeling their Tocai as Jakot, a hypercorrective anagram of Tocai (the j in Jakot is a reflection of the vowel’s quantity — long vs. short, in Latin grammar [yes, j is actually a vowel] — and the k is a sensational rendering of the c; both hypercorrections allude to Latin rendering of the Hungarian Cyrillic).

The sardonic workaround reflected Italian growers’ frustration at being forced to rename some thing they view as part of their (agri)cultural heritage.

I’ve never seen Il Carpino in the U.S. and I have no idea who imports or is looking at importing them. But whoever it is, they’ll be taking my money soon! Run don’t walk for these wines.

Another highlight for me at the tasting last week was Pievalta’s 2012 Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Riserva San Paolo. I used to do some writing for the Barone Pizzini group, which includes the Pievalta estate. That’s BP COO Silvano Brescianini in the photo above. I’ve followed the wines since the earliest vintages and I really believe this year’s release and next year’s, from the 2013 harvest, are really going to put the little-biodynamic-estate-that-could on the map for good. Great wines.

Speaking of the 2013 harvest, I was also stoked to taste the new release of G.D. Vajra’s Barolo Bricco delle Viole. What a vintage for this wine!

That’s Vajra’s international ambassador Giuseppe (right, in the photo above) with my colleague from Rossoblu in LA (where I write the wine list), Skylar Hughes. I’ve followed these wines for nearly two decades now and I’ve watched Giuseppe grow into his role as the face of the winery over the last eight years since I first met him. It’s been remarkable to see and I know the 2013 vintage is going to be a legacy harvest for him and his family.

There were so many great wines at this year’s event (which had a different lineup in every city). La Mesma, Zidarich, Pino, Amalia… and many more.

Later this week, I’ll post notes from the California wineries who participated and the release of the new Slow Wine Guide to the Wines of California (I’m the coordinating editor of the guide). Stay tuned and thanks for being here.

Lunchtime at a bustling Houston-area Tex-Mex restaurant isn’t exactly the ideal place to taste Barolo.

But that’s where the Josetta Saffirio sales team was on Friday last week when I had a free hour to meet.

The venue was dimly lit and extremely crowded and loud when I sat down with young Marco Serra, the winery’s new “supplier rep,” as we call them in the trade. The aroma of sizzling chicken fajitas and hard-shell tacos filled with unctuous ground beef wafted through the air, adding, layer by layer, to the joint’s patina.

But where there is Nebbiolo to taste, professionals like me and Marco always seem to rise to the occasion.

Despite some challenges growers faced that year, the 2013 harvest in Langa (where Barolo and Barbaresco are made) is expected to be a classic crop, with good acidity and great aging potential. Many of the wines I’ve tasted so far are still “tight,” parsimonious with their fruit, with tannin that continues to eclipse the brighter flavors the wines will ultimately develop over time. But the 2013 Josetta Saffirio Barolo was already showing nicely, with some of the fruit flavor emerging against the winery’s signature earthiness and savory character.

I ascribe the early drinkability in part to fact that the wine had been open all morning. But it’s also owed to the winery’s style. In my experience, its wines tend to land on the approachable side of the modern vs. traditional dialectic. But they also remain faithful to the umami flavors that east-side Barolo (grown in ancient Serravallian — not Helvetian — soils, the latter being the term that too many Barolisti still erroneously use when referring to the pedological classification. (If you don’t believe me, look it up.)

The Saffirio 2013 Barolo may not be a wine for the ages but it will reward the drinker (and perhaps most importantly, the impatient restaurant drinker) with good balance, lovely fruit, classic earthiness, and a more than reasonable price.

Dulcis in fundo, Marco, who is in his first post-grad year in the work force, is an ex-student of mine from the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Piedmont, where he studied “wine writing in the digital era” with me. That’s Marco below (and be sure to check out his blog posts about the trip, his first time ever in the U.S.).

Nothing could fill me with more pride than to know that he is gainfully employed and doing a great job.

And nothing could fill me with more wondrous joy than to think of this young, bright, and talented dude, on his first trip to America to sell wine. It’s the beginning of what will surely be a long and rich adventure in the wine trade.

Marco, thanks for coming to Texas and bringing great wine with you!

This week, my wife Tracie’s 97-year-old grandmother received an anonymous letter defaming her granddaughter and me. The author claimed to have gone to school at the same California university where I received my doctorate. She/he evidently felt compelled to share slanderous, false information about our lives, including our sex lives and our children.

Known affectionately by everyone in our family as “memaw,” my grandmother-in-law was unfazed by the letter. She didn’t even bother reading it, she said, once she realized what it was.

There’s no doubt in any of our minds that this crude and anemic attempt to bully us was inspired by our efforts to repurpose the newly erected Confederate memorial in Orange, Texas where memaw and Tracie’s parents live.

Thats the “Confederate Memorial of the Wind” above. Here’s a Houstonia article, published last week, about our campaign and its origins.

As Tracie’s father, Reverend Randy Branch put it, “someone who would send this to your 97-year-old grandmother can’t be all there.”

I’m not going to reveal the contents of the letter but it’s clear that the author is rabidly homophobic, probably impotent (there are graphic references to dildos and fertility issues), and clearly uneducated.

Why are white supremacists so dumb? The answer begs the question.

Since we began our campaign to repurpose the site (we don’t want to tear it down or demolish it; we want to repurpose it to reflect community values in a city that is nearly 50 percent black), our detractors have threatened to “kick your ass” and to “send snipers” to our next protest.

But as anyone who lives in Southeast Texas knows, the Sons of Confederate Veterans (who erected the site) and their supporters are generally a bunch of cowards whose bullying comes in the form of epithets hurled from a passing pickup truck, social media posts, and — now — an anonymous letter.

Given the many phallic references in the missive, I imagine the author is a male. Here’s my message to him: be a man and come meet me face to face, man to man, and human to human at our next protest on Saturday, April 7. No threat or smear campaign is going to stop me or us. So be a man, be a human being, and show your face and real colors.

Are you man enough? No, I didn’t think so. That’s the kind of sheep you are, isn’t it? The fact that you send anonymous “poison pen” letters to our memaw is clear indication that we are getting through to you and making you uncomfortable. That’s exactly what we want. Get ready for more, pilgrim. And in the meantime, shame on you.

Click here for April 7 protest details and please like our cause on Facebook and signup for our email newsletter.

From the department of “if it sounds country, well, then, it is” (Kris Kristofferson)…

When Slow Wine editor-in-chief Giancarlo Gariglio asked me if there was something he shouldn’t miss on the touring team’s drive from New Orleans to Houston, I told him to drive straight through to my adoptive city where I knew he and the group of traveling Slows would enjoy dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in the city, Caracol. They did btw.

It was only the next day that I learned that they had stopped for lunch in a town not far from where my wife Tracie grew up on the Louisiana border: Vidor. It’s pronounced VAY-dohr, not to be confused with Vidor in Treviso province, pronounced vee-DOHR and home to a Slow Wine Prosecco producer.

Evidently, Giancarlo’s GPS had informed him of an accident on Interstate 10 and so he took their van off the freeway at the first exit, which just happened to be Vidor.

There are actually a lot of very good places to eat along the highway between Lake Charles (Louisiana) and the Golden Triangle, which includes Orange, Vidor, and Beaumont. My favorite is Steam Boat Bill’s. But there are a ton of little holes-in-the-wall places like Paul’s.

Vidor isn’t exactly known for its welcoming spirit. And I wasn’t surprised when I read this Facebook review, posted yesterday and still published on the Paul’s page (despite the fact that it doesn’t adhere to Facebook community standards). It’s probably because Paul doesn’t check his Facebook much. Or may be he does.

Giancarlo and his team enjoyed the fried shrimp and frogs’ legs. And they said everyone was really nice to them (despite their broken English).

One thing is certain: they definitely happened upon some truly “slow” food in the corner of Texas that Tracie and I call home. They made it to Houston that day without incident and we had a fantastic turn-out for the Taste of Italy and Slow Wine fair on Monday.

Last night, their team flew from Texas to San Francisco where we’ll be hosting the last event of the tour here today in the city. I’ll be there from 1 p.m. until closing time (and those of you have ever had a drink with me in SF know where I will be after the tasting).

Here’s the info. I hope to see you there!

Thanks, Giancarlo, for bringing Slow Wine to Vidor, Houston, and San Francisco. America is a big, big place, full of many culinary wonders (including the bbq we ate on Monday night). I’m glad that you discovered another one of them in Southeast Texas.

Top image via the Paul’s Seafood Facebook.

What a thrill for me to share the stage last night here in Houston with Italian wine industry great Brian Larky (foreground), US Foods Corporate Chef Joe Vargyas, and my good friend J.C. Reid, Houston Chronicle food columnist and bbq expert.

Together, we led a discussion for 50+ Italian food and wine professionals on “how to create demand for your products where there is none.”

Today, the guests from last night will be presenting their products at the Taste of Italy/Slow Wine fair. And I’ll be leading three seminars for consumers and trade members: top Piedmont wines, Lambrusco and bbq pairing, and traditional balsamic vinegars from Reggio Emilia and Modena.

But the highlight of today’s event for me will be the fact that we have brought the Slow Wine Guide grand tasting to Houston for the first time. As the newest member of the guide’s editorial team, I couldn’t be more proud that we are presenting the 2018 edition in my adoptive city.

We’re expecting more than 500 attendees today (fingers crossed!).

My heartfelt thanks go out to Italy-America Chamber of Commerce Texas director Alessia Paolicchi and deputy director Maurizio Gamberucci for believing in me and making this all possible.

More thanks, equally heartfelt, to chamber organizers Christina Truong, Sherri Segari, Federica Bove, and Alessandra Salvatori for the countless hours and indefatigable team spirit that have gone into every last details of our execution.

And thanks, also from my heart, to Slow Wine editor-in-chief Giancarlo Gariglio who recognized the value in bringing Slow Wine to our city, the fourth largest in America, its most diverse, and home to one of the most vibrant and dynamic wine communities in the nation.

Today, months and months of meticulous planning are coming together as we present one of the biggest food and wine events ever produced here in Texas. And it’s all centered around Italy, the inspiration for my intellectual life and the source of my livelihood.

Thanks to everyone who’s coming out to support us today. I hope we get a chance to taste something great together. I know we will…

Today’s grand tasting at the Hilton Post Oak, featuring both Slow Wine estates and Taste of Italy exhibitors (food and wine), is open to the public, free of charge, from 3-5 p.m. Click here for details.

Man, I was just blown away last night by Vinny Montecuollo’s wine list at Potente in downtown Houston last night. The breadth and range of his 350+ lot Italian program, the aggressive pricing (he’s using the retail-plus-corkage formula), and the balance of modern vs. traditional winemaking represented across the board… This is the type of list that has something for everyone, from the big spender who wants to share a trophy label with her friends to an average punter like me who is completely stoked to find Cantina del Pino 2011 Barbaresco for just $70 (!!!).

Vinny, who’s been on the job with the official title of “wine director” for less than a year, is hosting his first wine dinner there next week (March 6) with Gaia Gaja. The price of admission? A consumer-friendly $200 a head, a great price if Gaja is your bag.

I was also impressed by the food, like the savory squid ink macaron (above), stuffed with salmon mousse and American caviar. The signature spaghetti with black truffles were also spot-on, with high-toned egg flavor in the long noodles, cooked perfectly al dente, and not overwhelmed by the other flavors in the dish. Great stuff.

But the wine that really stole my heart last night was the Colterenzio Müller Thurgau from South Tyrol. Man, this wine had it all: zinging but not overly flashy acidity, gorgeous white flower notes on the nose and rich apple and pear in the mouth.

I also loved the wine’s soulful lack of punt. Yes, a flat-bottom bottle, folks. People who have followed Italian wine long enough know that in another era, the old-school Italians didn’t have punts (think, Quintarelli Ca’ del Merlo and similar). Today, environmentally aware Italians are returning to this bottle format because it requires less glass and energy to make, thus reducing the wine’s overall carbon fart.

Really awesome wine and really cool price at just $38. How friggin’ sweet is that? Wholesome, delicious, authentic… at a price someone like me can afford.

No collusion here…

The one thing I regret about the Slow Wine tasting coming to Houston this year (March 5) is that my colleagues want me to take them out for BBQ on Monday night after the big event. That’s fine with me but they should really be checking out our groovy Italian wine scene here, at places like Potente and its sister Osso-Kristalla, Divino, Camerata (I know, shitty name!), Amalfi, Sud Italia, Vinology… So many great high-end, high-concept restaurants and wine bars that feature wines from the garden of Europe. Hope to see you on Monday at the tasting and seminars!

Click here to register for the Slow Wine tasting in Houston, March 5.

Above: tasters at the Slow Wine Guide tour in Austin, Texas, in 2016. In recent years, the tour has made stops in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin. This year will be its first in Houston.

For the last two years, Italy’s “Slow Wine tour” has come to Texas.

When I first moved to the state in 2008, that would have been nearly unthinkable. At the time, Texas and its three major wine destinations — Houston, Dallas, and Austin — were part of an “emerging” as opposed to “established” market for fine wine. As one prominent Texas-based wine blogger used to put it, Texas was “fly-over country,” a large swath of bourgeois America unworthy of coastal or international attention.

But the financial crisis and the state’s seemingly unstoppable influx of young wine and restaurant migrants changed all of that.

Above: San Francisco is arguably the most popular destination for the tour. At this year’s SF gathering, there will also be a number of California wineries featured in the guide (I’ll be there, too, btw).

I moved to Texas in late 2008 to date and then marry Tracie. But as a middle-aged wine professional, I couldn’t have arrived here at a more opportune moment: in 2008-2009, with the financial crisis at its peak, Texas — the epicenter of the petroleum industry — became known as the state least affected by economic turmoil. The price of oil dipped in early 2009 but it started to rise again swiftly. And Texas’ “business friendly” environment (something, I hate to say it, we owe to the state’s Republican regime), made it appealing to legions of folks who had been laid off in other states.

Thanks to the low cost of living and the robust business community here, Texas became the union’s fastest growing state. I’ll never forget all the mustachioed Brooklynite hipsters who began appearing at our favorite playground and cafeteria in Austin where we were living at the time.

Above: Slow Wine will make its debut appearance in Houston a week from today. The gathering offers Texans a chance to discover scores of wines not yet available in the market.

Of course, when it came to showing and selling fine wine, it was only natural that outsiders focused on Austin, the one “cool” progressive city in Texas in the minds and eyes of many (even though I would argue, as a former Austin resident, that it’s actually one of the most segregated). And it was only natural that Slow Wine, urged by many of the participating Italian wineries to come to Texas, would choose Austin as its first destination in the state.

Last year, I became part of the Slow Wine editorial team as the coordinating editor of the new Slow Wine Guide to the Wines of California (2018). As the newest team member, I lobbied aggressively to bring the tasting to Houston, where Tracie and I have been living with our daughters, ages four and six, for nearly four years now. My advocacy was born partly out of self-interest. But in the year of Bacchus 2018, I wholeheartedly believe that ours is the best city in Texas to host the event:

– Houston is the fourth largest city in America (and soon to be the third largest, surpassing Chicago if projections prove correct).

– Houston is the most diverse city in the U.S. (Don’t believe me? Click the link.)

– Houston is home to one of the most exciting food, wine, and restaurant communities in the country today.

“Houston, where have you been all my (food) life?” wrote leading American food writer Tom Sietsema in 2015. He ranked it fifth among the top ten food cities in the nation.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Houston is one of the most important wine markets in the world today. I couldn’t be more thrilled that my colleagues at Slow Wine decided to come here this year (and they will be treated to an evening of Texas BBQ and Houston jazz after the event).

Please help me show the tour and its winemakers a good time by coming out to taste with us at the Taste of Italy/Slow Wine fair on Monday, March 5 at the Hilton Post Oak 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Click here for event details and registration info (registration encouraged but not required for the grand tasting). The morning Piedmont seminar/tasting is now completely booked but there are still a few spots open for he BBQ/Lambrusco tasting and Balsamic Vinegar seminar in the afternoon.

Thanks for reading…

Special thanks to Alice Feiring for bringing this text to my attention. It comes from a speech that the legendary food and wine writer, editor, publisher, activist, and — yes — anarchist Luigi Veronelli gave in Reggio Emilia in 2004. Translation mine. Click the links below to read about the anarchists and political activists he mentions.

I want to explain to the world why Lambrusco is the only wine of freedom.

I can explain it because I know them all well: Freedom and Freedomésse, Spartacus, Lenin, Emma “the Red,” Solidarity and Solidaritésse, Communisty, Revolutionée. Each and every one of them christened with Lambrusco.

In the people’s social centers, purposely built as an affront to local churches, the bubbly red sauce of grapes grown in Reggio Emilia or Modena streamed downed the faces of those kids. They were the children of socialists and anarchists. Using a spoon in the place of an aspergillum, they would say: “I christen you Freedom.”

Not names inspired by mythology but rather heavy names, strong names laden with meaning: Reclus, Élisée, Jenner,* Louise, Giordano Bruno, Juarès. Names that make you a grown up at birth. “I christen you Equality.”

Fascism made a massacre of them. Like beasts, the fascists even tore up their birth certificates. Communisty was reduced to Nisty.

That sauce came from a living product, rich with aromas of the land. It was effervescent and red, even black in the bottle. The stagnant, stale, still water of the baptismal font paled in comparison. Those little churches looked up to the heavens. Inside, the people’s noses were in the air, their thoughts directed elsewhere. In our social centers, we kept our feet on the ground and we made sure our centers were low and wide. The bigger they were, the more women and men could fit in. Our social centers were their proletarian paradise.

Lambrusco has been around since the dawn of time. Since Romulus and Remus. A wild, uncontrollable, rebel grape. Never easy to handle, it had to be treated with respect. Not just Lambrusco but Lambrusca as well. The anarchist women on Via Santa Croce,** with their lavallières dangling from their necks as sign of emancipation, loved it.

The old anarchists remembered proudly: “I was christened with Lambrusco.”

Just try to find another wine like this, anywhere in the world! A wine that knows how to wash down antifascist tortelli and cappelletti so well. A wine that makes you want to get up from the table and sing. Just try to find one but I’ll be raising a glass of Lambrusco for you.

Luigi Veronelli
Reggio Emilia 2004

* I believe but am not certain that Veronelli uses “Jenner” to refer to Gennaro Rubino.

** The offices of the anarchist newspaper Umanità Nova were located on Via Santa Croce in Milan.