Above: an image from Oliviero Toscani’s 1989 United Colors of Benetton campaign (via the Benetton corporate website).

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a nationally observed holiday in the U.S.

The commemoration has different meanings for different people. For me personally, it’s a day to reflect on love and hate, mercy and accountability, healing and division, what came before us and what lies ahead… We’ve come a long way but we sure have a long way to go. That’s the way I see it.

There couldn’t be a better day to stand up for and stand by what I believe in my heart and what I have written here on my blog, Do Bianchi — a diary of my life, my family, my work, and my thoughts.

Last week, I began receiving a tide of messages from wine trade colleagues informing me that a California-based importer of Italian wines had repeatedly made reference to me as “the asshole blogger” and “blogger stronzo” who has led a “conspiracy” against a Friulian winemaker (blogger stronzo means literally turd blogger in Italian, the equivalent of asshole blogger). The importer in question is now importing the Friulian winemaker’s wines.

I’m not going to post any links here to the importer’s blog or social media. And I’ve been told that he has subsequently removed the references to me.

But in case you’re wondering about the Friulian winemaker and in case you missed the firestorm that followed, here’s the 2013 post that provides the backstory. In the comment thread, you’ll find that the winemaker in question is very open about his political views and ideology. I’ll leave it at that.

One of my California-based wine trade colleagues wrote a Facebook post about the importer’s visit to his shop.

“I see a young colleague is importing said winemaker’s wines to the States again,” he writes in conclusion, “and he’s bitching via social media that those who ‘boycotted’ the wines are ‘assholes.’ I’m a big boy and am OK with my status as an asshole, but only ask that you refer to me as Dottore Asshole.”

Like my colleague, I don’t mind being called an “asshole blogger” when the epithet is used against me because of something I believe in and have written about here on my blog.

Amen. So be it. If being an asshole means standing up for and standing by what I believe to be right, then feel free to call me an asshole. I can live with that. I couldn’t and can’t live with not standing up for and standing by what I believe in.

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!

Sincerely,

Dottor Asshole

Please join me next Thursday, January 21, for a tasting of 11 Franciacorta wines.

FRANCIACORTA REAL STORY TASTING
Thursday, January 21
6-8 p.m.
Wolfe’s Wine Shoppe
124 Miracle Mile
Miami, FL 33134
305-445-4567
Google map

Your songs taught me how to play guitar and how to be okay even though I was different. I never would have made it through high school without you. We will miss you, Starman. Thank you for all you gave us.

I am buzzed to announce the first Franciacorta Real Story tasting of 2016, which will take place in Miami on Thursday, January 21. Click here for details. And honestly, Miami is a market where I don’t have a lot of contacts so if anyone can give me a hand in spreading the news, there’s a bottle of Franciacorta in it for you! Thanks and please join me if you can!

It may seem glamorous and super fun to be on the road with a bunch of coolio wine writers in Italy. In fact, it means very early mornings and late evenings for me keeping up with all my work back home.

Having said that, this trip has been a lot of fun and it’s a truly simpatico group of folks with whom I’m glad to spend some one-on-one time.

Yesterday, my friend and client Paolo Cantele (who sponsored the trip) treated us to a private dinner at his family’s winery. Those are burrata-stuffed ravioli, above, topped with baby shrimp and broccoli raab. Unbelievably good. They prompted a lively discussion of the tabu of mixing seafood and dairy. I can’t reveal the name of the chef because Paolo doesn’t want to risk offending other local chefs. But man, he just friggin’ killed it last night.

Below is a snap of the homemade orecchiette with meatballs we had for lunch as we tasted through the wines at the winery (yes, they traditionally serve pasta with meatballs here in Puglia).

They were made by a famous local pastmaker aptly called L’orecchietta. I can’t share the website because it’s been hacked by an online prostitution page.

It was a game-changing dish, for reals.

I now have literally 10 minutes to shit, shower, and shave (as we used to say in my rock ‘n’ roll touring days) before heading downstairs to meet the group. We’re touring vineyards and Pierce’s Disease-affected olive groves today.

More to come… stay tuned!

Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.
Song of Solomon 2:15

In his predictions for “The Wine Stories That Will Shape 2016” published by PUNCH a few weeks ago, Jon Bonné included Italy… but only as an afterthought.

Actually, Italy is an after-afterthought in his view of the international vinous landscape.

“Greece,” he wrote in the last paragraph, “after years of being patted on the head, will rise from its economic muddle to become a serious contender to Spain and Italy.”

That’s all the space he devoted to one of the world’s largest producers of fine wine.

In the light of Italy’s uninteresting status in the global enonarrative, you might think that it’s time for all of us Italian wine bloggers to hang it up and call it a day.

But respectfully, I beg to differ with Mr. Bonné.

And my appetite for compelling Italian wine stories has already been whetted in 2016 by Mr. Cevola’s post yesterday, “What Will the Next Ten Years Hold for Italian Wine in America?” Whether you’re an Italian wine lover here in the U.S. or an Italian winemaker, I highly recommend it to you.

But the story that sticks in my mind this morning as I prepare to board a flight for Rome (my first trip of many this year) doesn’t have anything to do with indigenous or exogenous grape varieties, organic and biodynamic grape growing, or the world’s expanding and unquenchable thirst for Italian bubbles.

No, it has to do with the birth of a child in Verdicchio country (one of the coolest undiscovered categories in Italian wine today in my view).

In November of last year, a child was born to our dear friends Silvia and Alessandro in Maiolati Spontini (Ancona province in the Marches or Marche as the region is known in Italian).

Even in a time when consumption of wine is declining rapidly in Italy; a time when 70 per cent of Italian wine is exported and it’s virtually impossible to survive as a winemaker unless you are selling most of your products in foreign markets; a time when Italy’s economic and cultural challenges are so great that the nation seems locked in an unshakable malaise; a time when the country’s negative birthrate continues to dip even lower…

Even in these trying times for Italian winemakers, there are those among them who look to the future with hope in their hearts and minds.

In the Marches, when a child is born, family friends fasten decorations like the swan above to the parents’ house. They won’t remove them until the newborn’s family invites them all over for a celebratory meal. It’s a local tradition, as Silvia explained in an email she sent me a few weeks ago.

Biodynamic farmers, Silvia and Alessandro grow grapes for wine and olives for oil without the use of chemicals or additives. They advocate for wholesome living and sustainable consumption. They count their carbon footprints down to the weight of the bottles they ship their wines in.

They’re confident that there is a future in what they are doing.

And from where I stand, there couldn’t be a more compelling story than their newborn son Cesare and the tender grapes they grow.

Happy 2016, everyone! Thanks for being here. I’m leaving today for Rome and then heading to Salento with a group of some of my favorite writers. I’ll see you on the other side… Stay tuned for more and new boring stories from Italian wine country.

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy new year!

Let’s hope it’s a good one. See you on the other side…

Above: winemaker Gian Paolo Isabella of Podere Il Saliceto in Modena province in June of 2015 when Chef Steve Samson and I visited and tasted with him. His Lambrusco is one of the wines I recommended in an Los Angeles Times piece published this weekend. A super nice guy, he used to be a professional kickboxer. He developed an interest in wine, he told me, touring the world for his sport. I liked the wines a lot.

One of the gifts tucked in my Christmas stocking this year was a Los Angeles Times feature on my good friend Steve Samson, chef and owner of Sotto in Los Angeles where I serve as wine director: “Chef Steve Samson shares a New Year’s Eve tradition: tortellini” by the paper’s restaurant critic and wine writer S. Irene Virbila.

Tortellini is a classic New Year’s dish in Bologna (in the region of Emilia-Romagna) where Steve spent summers as a kid.

The article is paired with my Lambrusco recommendations: “Looking to drink something a bit different this New Year’s? Pour a fizzy Lambrusco.”

Chef Steve is planning to open an Emilia-themed restaurant and Lambrusco garden later this year to be called RossoBlu. I will be authoring the wine list there as well.

He and I visited the region in June of this year for some “research and development” (read: some mighty eating and drinking).

I’ve spent a lot of time in Emilia over the years and I still have a lot of really close friends there. It was such a thrill for me to see the piece in the Times.

Tanti auguri di buon anno! Happy new year, everyone!