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.

Oltrepò Pavese: it means beyond the Po [river] in Pavia [province]. It’s a DOCG and a DOC in southern Lombardy in the foothills of the northern Apennines where you have a confluence of altitude, and sandy, clay-rich, and limestone-rich soils, ideal for growing Pinot Noir, the appellation’s flagship grape.

To get a sense of the topography there, check out the Google map satellite view screenshot below.

Created in 2007, the DOCG is devoted to classic-method wines, made primarily with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The DOC, established in 1970, covers a broad range of still wines made from grapes including Barbera, Croatina, Uva Rara, and Vespolina. I’ve also tasted some stunning Riesling from the DOC.

Houston, the city where my family and I have lived for nearly four years, has a unique relationship with Oltrepò Pavese. The stretch of the Po River Valley between Pavia and Piacenza (Emilia-Romagna) is home to much of Italy’s oil and gas industry. As a result, there are a lot of Italians from those provinces living here. After the decline in oil prices began to take shape in 2008, many of them sought out other careers. Some of them turned to wine. It was only natural that they would work with wines from their home region.

Three years ago, a former oil and gas executive organized an ad hoc consortium of Oltrepò Pavese to participate in the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce Taste of Italy Festival (I started to consult with the chamber that year). I had never seen so many Oltrepò Pavese wines in one American tasting before. It was remarkable.

Last night I tasted the Travaglino 2012 Montecérésino rosé brut (four grams residual sugar) with the estate’s current generation, Cristina Cerri, a Bocconi business school grad who’s now returned to the family fold to focus on its wine exports.

What a fantastic wine, what a great value, and what a great expression of Italian-grown Pinot Noir! I loved the rich fruit character of the wine, its freshness (aged on its lees for 24 months, disgorged May 2017), and its balance. Where Franciacorta struggles to deliver this level of quality at a by-the-glass price, the Travaglino delivers and then some.

I was also blown away by the winery’s top still Pinot Noir. It lands beyond a by-the-glass price but the transparency of its electric fruit makes it an extreme value. I really loved it.

The crazy thing is that these wines are only available in the U.S. in Texas. Cristina’s currently trying to expand the winery’s U.S. reach. She has her work cut out for her and a long, long way to go.

Until she gets there, we Texans have the exclusive and our wine community is all the richer for it. Who would have ever thunk it? Pinot Noir from the Po River Valley: Italy’s Texas tea!

Late last week, I headed down to Clear Lake about 30 minutes south of Houston where I ate lunch at the recently opened Pappas Delta Blues Smokehouse with Houston Chronicle bbq columnist J.C. Reid. He and I were tasting that day with the new venue’s resident smoker to determine which smoked meats he wanted to present at our THE ULTIMATE WINE PAIRING: TEXAS BBQ AND LAMBRUSCO seminar and tasting on Monday, March 5 (at the Slow Wine/Taste of Italy festival at the Hilton Post Oak).

I have to say: I was totally blown away by how good the food was there.

That’s the pork belly, above.

BBQ has evolved rapidly since I moved to Texas 10 years ago. When I first got here, people didn’t line up at 6 a.m. to get a slice of highly allocated bbq. And Instagram — believe it or not — was still two years away!

Today the profane has become the sacred: what was once a folksy DIY Texas tradition has now become the realm of hipsters, a brand new “extreme sport” of cooking and consumption.

In my view, Pappas Delta Blues Smokehouse is the next generation of Texas bbq. It’s a genuine restaurant, with a menu that includes entries beyond bbq and all the amenities of a fine dining spot (waitstaff, full bar, hefty beer selection, kid menu etc.). It even has a wine list! Although it’s not the first to have a wine program, I had never seen such a thoughtful selection, including a Lambrusco, my favorite wine to pair with smoked meats (and the subject of our March 5 seminar).

Is this the future of Texas bbq? If so, we’re in pretty good hands…

Click the following link THE ULTIMATE WINE PAIRING: TEXAS BBQ AND LAMBRUSCO to register for our seminar and tasting on Monday, March 5 (at the Slow Wine/Taste of Italy festival at the Hilton Post Oak).

Above: for nearly 30 years, Brian Larky has created opportunities for Italian wine in the U.S. by building markets where there were none (image via Brian’s Facebook).

“A lot of times,” said Steve Jobs in a now famous 1998 Business Week article, “people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

I was reminded of his prescient observation a few years ago when I met with Anselmo Chiarli of the Cleto Chiarli winery at Vinitaly, the annual Italian wine trade fair in Verona.

“When Brian [Larky of Dalla Terra Imports] told me he wanted to bring our Lambrusco di Sorbara into the U.S.,” Anselmo remembered as we tasted together at the gathering, “I thought he was crazy. But he insisted.”

The rest is history. Today, Cleto Chiarli Lambrusco di Sorbara Vecchia Modena is one of the best-selling niche wines across the country.

One (hu)man’s Sorbara is another’s surprise. When Brian first brought Cleto Chiarli’s Sorbara to the U.S. in 2011, few American wine professionals even knew what it was. They knew the Lambrusco category but generally shunned it because of its association with down market and “misery” market wines. Cleto Chiarli had a presence in the U.S. previously but no one had ever brought in the Sorbara.

It only took a few short years for sommeliers to get hip to it: its beautiful bright color, its fresh fruit flavor, its low alcohol, and the old school “vintage” packaging were a nearly instant hit among the wine cognoscenti. I’ll never forget a Master Sommelier in Austin who poured it for me with great pride in 2015. A few year earlier, Lambrusco di Sorbara would have hardly been on his radar.

It was a wine that Americans didn’t know they wanted — until Brian created the market for it. Brian’s intuition was spot on and today the wine serves as a gateway for other products from the winery and from Brian’s Dalla Terra importing business.

“Creating a market for your brand” is the theme of a panel that Brian and I will be leading for Taste of Italy exhibitors on Sunday, March 4 in Houston. Unfortunately, the discussion is open only to Italian producers visiting for the fair.

But you can taste Cleto Chiarli Lambrusco with Brian and me the next day, Monday, March 5 at our “ULTIMATE WINE PAIRING: TEXAS BBQ AND LAMBRUSCO” seminar and tasting in at the Hilton Post Oak. It’s a great opportunity to interact with Brian — an Italian wine industry legend — and to taste these awesome wines.

I hope to see you there! Ping me if you need media passes.