The mosaic of Italian food and wine never ceases to surprise, delight, and thrill my senses and sensibilities.

One of my most marvelous discoveries at yesterday’s Taste of Italy trade event in Houston yesterday (where I served as the organizer’s official blogger) was this new expression of traditional balsamic vinegar from Emilia-Romagna, perle nere or black pearls.

Silvia Rossi, who reps the balsamic producer Guerzoni from Modena province, turned me on to these small and flavorless gelatin balls that are infused with aged balsamic.

They’re generally served as condiments to finger foods, she said.

I loved the texture and the gentle burst of flavor. Definitely a “wow” for me and great to taste Guerzoni’s Demeter-certified vinegars.

A delicious organic Charmat-method Pinot Noir from Oltrepò Pavese was another discovery for me.

I’d never heard of or tasted Castel del Lupo but was wholly impressed by the transparency of fruit and elegance in this wine, poured for me by Federica Doglio whose family owns the estate.

As far as I know, the wine is not available in the U.S. and I wonder if it would land here at a by-the-glass price.

But I loved its freshness and balance.

All in all, my afternoon at the tasting was a lot of fun and it was great to see so many Italian food and wine producers so excited about Houston and the Texas market.

I’ll never forget when I told a close New York wine friend that I would be moving to Texas back in 2008.

“But what will you drink???!!!” she said.

I’m happy to report that my palate is doing just fine.

Buon weekend, yall!

Taste Italian wine, beer, and food products
with me tomorrow in Houston at Taste of Italy.
(last-minute registration welcome)

Taste Franciacorta with me March 16 in Boston at Wine Bottega.

My good friend and winemaker extraordinaire Nico Danesi and my bromance Giovanni Arcari came down from Brescia to Verona to meet me for lunch on my last day in the city for the Amarone vintage debut event in late January.

It was a Saturday and every one of their favorite haunts within the city’s historic Renaissance-era walls was already fully booked.

And so they grabbed us a table at the Trattoria l’Altra Colonna, not to be confused with its sister restaurant Trattoria alla Colonna (colonna means column in Italian; l’altra colonna means the other column; I’m not sure where the name comes from). It lies just outside the city’s inner loop, as it were, and so it’s more of a workaday destination for locals than a hot spot for tourists.

Neither restaurant has a website (I’ve copied and pasted the addresses and telephone numbers below).

Both restaurants are famous for their signature dish, the oversized cotoletta alla milanese like the one in the photo above.

Technically, a true cotoletta alla milanese or Milanese-style [veal] cutlet is made with a bone-in-chop that is beaten, breaded, and fried.

The cotoletta at the two “Colonna” restaurants is actually more similar to the classic Wiener Schnitzel.

But there’s a twist: at both locations, you can add the toppings of your choice, like the “gigantic-size” cutlet topped with sautéed mushrooms and Fontina, above.

Nico’s son got the alla diavola, i.e., devil’s style, topped with spicy salamino, what we in America would call pepperoni, although in Italy it’s generally a lot spicier.

His wife got a cutlet topped with arugula and cherry tomatoes (alla Californiana?).

While most Italian wine trade observers know or know of Nico, few in America do. But many Americans know wines that he has a hand in making, like Ciro Picariello, Pasini, Otella, and many others, not to mention the many Franciacorta wineries he consults with.

And of course, he and Giovanni make their own line of Franciacorta wines, Arcari + Danesi, which are now part of their SoloUva or “made using only grape sugar” line of classic-method wines.

But whenever we get together, he only ever wants to talk to me about movies, music, art, and literature. A voracious reader devoted to myriad genres and an insatiable consumer of pop culture, Nico possesses an intellectual metabolism that often leaves my head spinning (in a good way).

He can quote Wittgenstein and Dylan in the same breath ex tempore (that’s Latin for on a dime) and his knowledge of film is encyclopedic.

He also knows how to get a good reservation on a busy Saturday in Verona. The classic ravioli burro e salvia (ricotta stuffed, tossed in butter and pan-fried sage) were solid as well (below). Useful information, when you need a decent place to eat during Vinitaly.

Trattoria alla Colonna
Largo Pescheria Vecchia 4
37121 Verona VR Italy
+39 045 596718

Trattoria l’Altra Colonna
Via Tezone 1
37122 Verona, Italy
+39 045 591455

Above: the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella visited the Johnson Space Center in Houston earlier this month. He was accompanied by Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti who has trained here (image via the Italian Embassy to the United States website).

From the Galleria in Milan to the Galleria in Houston… I’m excited to share the news that I’m authoring a new blog for the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce Texas, which has its headquarters here in my adoptive hometown.

When the Chamber’s administration approached me a few weeks ago about giving them a hand in getting the word out about their Taste of Italy Houston event (this Thursday, March 3), I pitched the idea of an Italian culture blog to them and they loved it.

And so we have now officially launched the IACC (Italy-America Chamber of Commerce) Texas blog, ItalyTexas.org, a virtual space where I’m going to be able to explore my curiosity and share my knowledge of Italian history, language, literature, art, cinema, music, and gastronomy beyond my interest in Italian wine.

This nascent project is just beginning to take shape but I am eagerly looking forward to the next 12 months of blogging about Italian culture at large.

From aerospace to energy, there is a vibrant Italian business community in Houston. Just this month, the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella visited the Johnson Space Center (above).

The Italy-America Chamber organized his meetings with business leaders in the Italian community here.

If you’re based in Houston or in Texas, I hope you can join us for the all-day event on Thursday.

It’s a fantastic opportunity to meet and taste with producers of authentic Italian food products like traditional balsamic vinegar and Parmigiano Reggiano and to taste artisanal Italian beer and even Franciacorta.

Wine and restaurant professionals are encouraged to come and all are welcome (as is last-minute registration).

In the few weeks that the blog has been active, I’ve devoted the content exclusively to the Italian food products that will be featured at Thursday’s event.

But as soon as the dust settles, I’ll be expanding coverage to the many aspects of Italian culture that continue to fascinate me.

As they say in Italian, it’s pane per i miei denti…, bread I can sink my teeth into…

Thanks for reading and please stay tuned…

Yesterday evening, after the girls helped me cook the tomato sauce (from chopping the shallots and crushing the garlic to deglazing with Garganega and stirring as the cherry tomatoes simmered), the four of us sat down at the dinner table and Georgia P asked me, “daddy, how do you say ‘family’ in Italian?”

We’ve been learning a lot of new words in Italian over the last few weeks and it’s not unusual for Georgia to ask me how to say words she’s curious about in Italian.

But as far as linguistic inquiry goes, this was a special one.

Both girls are doing great and Lila Jane is going through a language explosion.

She and I did a session in studio A at Baby P studios yesterday afternoon.

And before their bedtime, Tracie P had a special request for a couple of rounds of “ready, set, go!” (below).

Buona domenica, everyone, as they say in Italian.

Enjoy a restful and peaceful Sunday before the work week begins again tomorrow.

American wine writer and natural wine advocate Alice Feiring (above) will chair a new “natural wine” competition this year at Vinitaly, the annual Italian wine industry fair held in Verona.

Wines submitted to the “Free Wine, Wine Without Walls” competition will be judged by Feiring and a panel selected by her, including Pietro Vergano (wine buyer, Ristorante Consorzio, Turin), Diego Sorba (wine buyer, Tabarro, Parma), and Pascaline Lepeltier (Master Sommelier and wine director, Rouge Tomate, New York).

According to a press release issued by Vinitaly organizer Veronafiere, the wines will not be scored. Instead, they will be judged according to criteria that include “evolution in the glass, emotional impact, and transparency.”

The competition “is open to all wines conforming to the definition in the OIV International Code, entered by producers located in any country.”

And while Veronafiere concedes that there is no “legal definition” of “natural wine” in Europe, it specifies the following restrictions for submission.

“Wines presented for the Free Wine event must have the following characteristics, under penalty of exclusion from the event: sulphite quantity of no more than 20 mg/l; [and they] must not be the result of practices such as micro-oxygenation, the use of concentrators, reverse osmosis, thermo-vinification, malolactic fermentation block [or] vineyard irrigation.”

For information on submission in English, click here; for information in Italian, click here.

The deadline for submission is March 25, 2016.

The judging will take place on April 1 and the winners will be announced on April 10 in Verona at the fair.

The award is “a way to bring the conversation about what wine is — not only natural — to a much larger audience,” wrote Feiring on her blog this week.

“The fact that [Vinitaly] embraced this category is ground-breaking. Frankly, it is a big deal and is bound to shake up the status quo.”

But the competition could prove to be controversial in a country like Italy where authorities have fined retailers for advertising wines as “natural.”

“Do the competition organizers know that the verbiage ‘natural wine’ is a borderline issue for the Anti-Adulteration unit of the Carabinieri [Italy’s paramilitary police force]?” wrote Antonio Tomacelli on the popular Italian wine blog Intravino. “What will happen in wine shops when investigators discover bottles with tags [that say] ‘5-star natural wines’ or something similar?”

Full disclosure: Alice is a close friend of mine.

Traveling and tasting across the U.S. since the beginning of the year, I’ve been impressed by the number of restaurant wine professionals who have offered me a glass of unconventional Roero Arneis.

In Austin, while visiting my client Vino Vino on Saturday, manager Kelly Voelkel poured me this super groovy “unfiltered” Arneis from Negro.

I was really glad to see this wine in the U.S. because when I visited the winery in 2010, Emanuela Negro talked about the challenges of marketing a wine called “Negro,” their family name, in the U.S.

When I brought that up with Kelly and his team, they said the issue hadn’t even occurred to them.

Already a fan of this historic family and winery in Roero, I loved this wine, its texture and saltiness in the mouth. Evidently, it’s bottled especially for the Piedmont Guy. Bravo, Piedmont guy!

Yesterday, one of the leading wine professionals in Los Angeles, Giuseppe Cossu, tasted us on this skin-contact Arneis from Luca Faccenda.

Wow, what a great wine! I won’t say it’s the “best” Roero I’ve ever tasted because there are so many great ones. But this one spoke to me and my palate in a way that few have over the course of my wine trade days.

Here, in the 2014 expression, the minerality of the wine was truly electric and its flavors layered and complex. I remember tasting the 2013 last year and being equally impressed. Wholly different vintages: the 2013 a more classic harvest; the 2014 an unusually challenging crop but with remarkably surprising results for whites.

The way Luca’s site is set up, you have to click a couple of times to get to the fact sheet. But you’ll make it and it’s worth it for the reward of reading up on how it’s vinified.

I’ve never met Luca but I can see why Giuseppe was so geeked to talk about Luca’s vision for Arneis with depth and aging potential. I’ve tasted a lot of old Arneis, some of it good but none of it truly compelling. This one has the goods imho.

I’m also excited to learn more about Luca’s nascent #SoloRoero group and their mission to raise quality and encourage innovation in the appellation.

Could groovy, crunchy, unfiltered, skin-contact Roero Arneis be the next big thing? From Austin to Los Angeles, it seems to be happening already.

In other news…

Thanks for the many shares and notes about my post this week on Matt Kramer’s Jeremiad on wine education in the U.S. today.

That one was for all those average punters out there like me who are trying to find their way in the professional world of wine today.

Thanks for reading, clicking, and sharing, and thanks for all the DMs and the support.

Taste on… Game on…

I went to a public university that had a scientific bent. As I was one of its less brainy students, I’ll save the school from embarrassment by leaving it nameless.

This memory surfaced as I thought recently about how wine has changed.

In case you’re not getting the reference, the above is a parody of an article by the illustrious, ivory-tower-educated and senior wine writer Matt Kramer, whose recent op-ed for Wine Spectator, entitled “Not a Trivial Pursuit,” has been the subject of lively discussion among wine professionals on social media this weekend.

In Kramer’s Jeremiad, he bemoans the “credentialization” of the wine trade. O the lamentization of wine writing these days!

“It seems that everyone is seeking to be a ‘master’ of this or that,” he observes. “Does wine, of all subjects need such credentializing?” he asks rhetorically.

“Documentaries depicting young, ambitious sommeliers intensely pursuing such a diploma embarrassingly reveal just what a literally trivial pursuit this credentializing really is.”

The “modern demand for a credential,” he writes, “is larger and more substantive than mere careerism… We now insist on a kind of professionalization that has less that has less to do with the benefits of an education and more to do with jumping through hoops held by others in order to acquire a diploma of some kind.”

“Now, you could say that it was ever thus, and you’d have a fair point,” he concedes. “But our current pursuit of credentials creates an undesirable class differentiation for a subject that neither needs nor deserves one.”

O Kramer! Say it ain’t thus!
Continue reading →

From the department of “the hardest working man in the wine blogging business”…

So many groovy opportunities to taste Franciacorta coming up…

On Monday, February 22, I’ll be leading a Franciacorta Real Story seminar and pouring 11 Franciacorta wines at Les Marchands in Santa Barbara.

On Thursday, March 3, I’ll be tasting Franciacorta by Fratelli Berlucchi and Ca’ del Bosco in Houston at the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce “Taste of Italy” festival. The event is free and open to all and it also features scores of Italian food producers. I’ve just started working with the Chamber and am really excited about our year ahead. So please come out to support us on March 3 (more on what I’ll be doing with the Chamber next week).

And on Wednesday, March 16, I’ll be leading a Franciacorta Real Story seminar/tasting at Wine Bottega in Boston, another one of my favorite wine shops in the U.S.

Please come out and taste with me if you can!

And Houston wine professionals, please don’t forget that I am hosting a happy hour today from 5-7 p.m. at Camerata for wine blogger extraordinaire Hawk Wakawaka. Rumor has it that some Franciacorta will be poured tonight as well!

Buon weekend, yall!

When Alfonso and I visited in Italy in late January, only a few days had passed since the great Italian film director Ettore Scola had died. It was only natural that his name and his films would come up in conversation over dinner on a very chilly evening in Montalcino. In remembering his 1974 masterpiece, “We All Loved Each Other So Much,” my good friend and high respected Italian wine trade veteran Raffaella spoke about her father’s reaction to the film and how in some ways, he represented a generation of Italians who had lost their sense of idealistic purpose to the consumerism of post-war Italy. They had resisted and fought Fascism and Nazism only to find themselves swallowed up by the cultural hegemony that emerged in years that followed reconstruction. For today’s post, I’ve translated this wonderful and powerful piece by her. This, too, is Italian wine. Buona lettura.

Only twice did I ever see my father cry.

The first time was at my his* mother’s funeral. He barely covered his eyes as he sobbed openly. I was standing behind him, petrified by the outburst and amazed that a fully-grown man could be so overwhelmed by his emotions.

The second time was a few years later. This time, he didn’t lose his composure as he sat in his armchair and cried didn’t really cry. But he sat there motionless in his armchair as if petrified.* He batted his eyes thinking that no one would notice.

I was on the couch and we were watching Ettore Scola’s “We All Loved Each Other So Much.” In case you’ve never seen it, it’s a wonderful and important film.

It’s one of the best movies from the era of classic Italian film. The story and script are seamless. The performances aren’t overacted. And the outwardly banal dialog deftly masks the tragic human condition with ironic, brutal style. It’s an important film because it tells the story of the failures of a generation of Italians in the post-war era.
Continue reading →

Meet Hawk Wakawaka in Houston on Friday, taste Franciacorta in Santa Barbara on Monday, and save-the-date March 3 for Taste of Italy Houston. Click here for details.

It’s funny how the rhythms of the internets work: this week, as I was doing research for a post intended to debunk the often repeated and wholly erroneous Oudart myth, whereby a Frenchman invented modern Barolo, my Italian counterpart Alessandro Morichetti was hard at work on a post in which he offers three fundamental reasons behind the success of Barolo and Barbaresco (in Italian).

I wish I had time to translate Alessandro’s post in its entirety.

I don’t, unfortunately, because it’s one of Ale’s most inspired pieces on the popular Intravino wine blog. But his three main points are as follow…

Unified Italy’s first prime minister Count Camillo Cavour (1810-1861), he writes, was a pillar of historic Italian liberalism and progressivism, not to mention one of the first grape growers in Italy’s modern era to recognize the immense potential of Nebbiolo.

Cavour’s Grinzane estate in the Barolo appellation is still an icon and a cultural epicenter for the wine and for the UNESCO-designated Langhe Hills (where Barolo and Barbaresco are grown and produced).

The Royal School of Enology in Alba, which was founded by King Umberto I (1844-1900), was one of Italy’s first academies for professional grape growers and winemakers and it has forged and shaped generations of Piedmontese wine professionals.

There’s a unique camaraderie and “self-awareness” in the Piedmontese winemaking community, notes Alessandro. They are owed in part to the fact that the school is something that nearly everyone there has in common.

Lastly, he writes, the Ferrero chocolate dynasty brought extreme prosperity to the region and that helped to create the infrastructure and economy needed to build a world-class wine industry.

Michele Ferrero, who died last year at age 89, also inspired a generation of Langa entrepreneurs.

When you ask most outsiders what Langa is famous for, they will say Alba truffles, Nebbiolo, and then possibly, as an afterthought, chocolate (read: Nutella).

But “signor Michele,” as he was known to locals, was Italy’s wealthiest man. Did you know that he invented Tic Tacs? Who knew?

One person that you will not find mentioned in Alessandro’s piece is Louis Oudart, the French grape broker who many erroneously believe was the “inventor” of modern Barolo.

In fact, he wasn’t.

Today, I posted a note on Oudart and recent research that indicates that he wasn’t the person behind Barolo’s modern era .

Check it out here on the Tenuta Carretta blog (my client).

And so I’m sorry to break the news: it wasn’t a Frenchman who made it Barolo and Barbaresco great. It was the Langhetti themselves.

Thanks for reading…