Above: “Harvest in Cinque Terre 2013,” photo by reader Renzo Carmine.
I was thrilled to see this 2013 Vintage Report by Bruce Sanderson and Alison Napjus this moring on the Wine Spectator blog.
You don’t need to be a subscriber to read it and I highly recommend it to you.
Alison and Bruce, grazie!
Above: “You could hardly say ‘I was speech writer’ for Bobby Kennedy,” says cousin Marty (in the photo, right), “but I did work on his [presidential] campaign” and travel with him. Marty, who was just beginning his career as a political activist in the late 1960s, was with Kennedy in Indianapolis the night that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed. As a young campaign staffer, he did “advance work” and wrote the opening lines of Kennedy’s stump speeches.
It’s such a trip for me to live in Texas.
On one hand, it’s here that I’ve found the fulfillment of my life’s path. It’s where I found Tracie P and where we’ve started a family together. It’s also a place where I’ve met so many wonderful people, folks who know how to love life and to love one another, above and beyond political or ideological differences.
It’s also a place where conservative political and ideological attitudes run hot and taut. There are many people here — there’s no way around it — whose ire for our president and his policies knows no bound. As much as “decency” is core to Texans’ characteristic politeness, political dialog here often trumps respect for others and their beliefs.
An excellent op-ed in last Sunday’s New York Times looked back at the hateful attitudes that prevailed in Dallas fifty years ago when President John F. Kennedy was shot there.
While Dallas has changed radically since then, there’s no denying that today many Texans bar no holds when expressing their vitriol for our current president. Sadly, such spitefulness echoes what was happening in Dallas in 1963 when JFK was killed.
Oltrepò Pavese is one of Italy’s most underappreciated, undervalued, and underestimated appellations.
Last night, Houston wine professional Nathan Smith, who runs the wine program at one of the city’s most popular pizza and “enoteca” spots, Dolce Vita, turned me on to this vineyard-designated Riesling by Paolo Verdi (the son of Bruno).
Honestly, I didn’t know that he made a Riesling: I’ve tasted the reds, of course, and they are benchmarks for the area.
But I was surprised when Nathan pulled out this Riesling: it just had so much depth and nuance, and as it warmed up, its classic varietal notes began to emerge together with super-focused, lip-smacking minerality.
Fantastic wine… Thank you, Nathan! I’m really looking forward to following along as you revamp the wine list there.
Above: Frank Cornelissen — considered by many to be one of the world’s most radical Natural winemakers — visited Austin yesterday (image via On the Wine Trail in Italy).
Work obligations (and hungry mouths to feed) prevented me from attending Etna winemaker Frank Cornelissen’s trade tasting yesterday at Bufalina, one of our favorite restaurants in Austin, Texas.
I was disappointed to miss him but thrilled to see that he came to Texas, where the wine scene is finally beginning to attract marquee names from the indy wine world like Frank (just a few weeks ago Yves Cuilleron was here; for both growers, it was a first time in Texas).
Here’s Alfonso’s excellent post on the tasting…
Buona lettura, yall!
Above: My friend and client Luca Ferraro (left, with Montello and Colli Asolani consortium president Franco Dalla Rosa) was indoctrinated last week into the brotherhood of Montello and Colli Asolani wines. Watching the video of the ceremony and admiring its solemnity and ritualistic grab, I couldn’t help but be moved by these hillside growers’ passion for their wines and traditions. Here’s a link for the video on his blog.
“Seventy million bottles are made in the [Prosecco] DOCG each year, compared with around 230 million in the DOC region,” wrote Rosie Davenport last week in offlicense news, a wine trade publication that covers the wine and spirits retail industry in Britain.
“With such vast differences in production between the DOC and DOCG tiers, it’s easy to see why the UK and other markets have been flooded with products of varying quality. And despite its staggering success, there are concerns that poorly made, volume-grabbing wines, coupled with the kind of kamikaze pricing that drove cava’s reputation to the bargain basement, could put the brakes on a category currently proving it can outpace much of the competition on shelf.”
My friend and client Luca Ferraro (above) brought the article to my attention this morning. Luca, who makes Prosecco in Asolo, is one of the many small-production hillside growers who produce premium bottles of Prosecco. Over the last four years, he — like his counterparts in Valdobbiadene and Conegliano, have watched growers in the flatlands of the Piave river plains expand their Prosecco production to record levels.
When the Prosecco DOCG was created in 2009, it was intended to protect growers and bottlers in the historic hillside growing areas. With their steep slopes, maritime ventilation, and Morainic subsoils, they deliver the highest quality Prosecco. The rationale — and I remember distinctly discussing this with a top grower in 2009 — was that the DOCG would help the consumer to distinguish the best products from the mediocre wines grown in the flatlands where farm crops were once grown and have now all but disappeared.
But anecdotally (as evidenced by the interviews with leading British retailers), it seems that consumers are being drawn to the lower-priced labels they find in the super market, more often than not produced outside the DOCG and also labeled as Prosecco thanks to the sweeping DOC created when the DOCG went into effect (the DOC, btw, also allows Friulian growers to label their wine as Prosecco).
On my recent visit to Valdobbiadene, I spoke with one of the appellation’s top growers about this very issue. And he literally hung his head and said that the situation is dismal.
The Prosecco DOCG consortium hasn’t done much to help the situation either. When I met earlier this year in Houston with consortium president Giancarlo Vettorello, I asked him to describe the association’s mission. When he answered that its mission was to disseminate information about the higher quality of the DOCG, I then asked him what English-language media the consortium planned to use to achieve its mission. He said that none were currently in place.
As we head into the holiday season, when sparkling wine sales see their biggest numbers, fine wine retailers on both sides of the Atlantic will surely be watching the pricing and availability of Prosecco DOC wine at super market chains.
Was the Prosecco DOCG a mistake?
Above: William Weaver is remembered by many for his superb translations of popular writers like Eco and Calvino. But to many Italian literature cognoscenti, his masterworks are his renderings of experimental works by Carlo Emilio Gadda and Pier Paolo Pasolini (image via Barnes & Noble).
It was with great sadness that I read the news this morning (published over the weekend in the New York Times) that the greatest Italian translator of our generation William Weaver has passed at age 90.
I never had the opportunity to meet him but his work had a huge influence on my career as a translator and my intellectual life (and two of his students were mentors of mine).
Many American college graduates and literary buffs will remember him for his superb translations of popular writers like Eco and Calvino.
But his masterworks are his renderings of experimental works from the twentieth century by authors like Pier Paolo Pasolini and Carlo Emilio Gadda.
Weaver brilliantly translated the title of Pasolini’s 1956 Ragazzi di vita — a novel written in urban Roman dialect — as A Violent Life. The title alone (ragazzi di vita — which, slavishly, means the boys of life — is a colloquial expression that denotes street hustlers) marked a new era for Italian translation and translators. As in this case, he often abandoned accuracy for the verve and ethos of the original. And this bold approach set a new tone and a new benchmark for the generation of translators who would follow in his footsteps.
When I frequented literary circles during my New York years, Weaver’s name was invoked by translators from all fields — poetry, prose, French, Spanish, etc. He was a Virgil for many of us. And he taught us — in theory and practice — that the fact that translation can never be perfect does not stop translation from being great.
If you are so inclined, please read this essay (very short but indicative of Weaver’s work) which he published as an introduction to his translation of Gadda’s Acquainted with Grief (again, another brilliant rendering of a challenging title).
He was il miglior fabbro (the best smith [of the mother tongue])…
Above: Harvest at cult grower and Cannonau producer Giovanni Montisci in Sardinia late October. Photo courtesy of Renzo, a reader.
Assoenologi, the Italian association of enotechnicians, released their final evaluation of the 2013 vintage this week.
The report came to my attention today via Luciano Pignataro’s excellent wine blog.
According to the report, Italy’s “bizarre” weather did not have a negative effect on the quality and quantity of the vintage.
“A bizarre climatic progression but not negative,” write the authors of the report. “After a very mild fall (among the warmest in the last 25 years), the winter began with a sharp drop in temperatures, which were lower than average. Throughout Italy, January, February, and March were characterized by high rainfall with greater levels than the seasonal average. The amount of rain- and snowfall during this period were the highest in the last 50 years.”
Above: Among Italian wine insiders, Giovanni Montisci is considered to be one of the top producers of Cannonau working today. Even at around $50 a bottle, the wines are well priced for the quality (there is some available, according to WineSearcher, in California).
Italy will produce “between 47 and 48 million hectoliters of wine, a 6% increase with respect to early forecasts and a 15% increase with respect to 2012.”
The association, which published an earlier report in August of this year, has “some second thoughts regarding quality.”
The vintage is “surely excellent for white wines but there are some questions regarding red wines that were harvested in the first part of October because throughout the entire peninsula, rainfall hindered the end of ripening for certain varieties and caused other varieties to be harvested earlier” than desired.
Italy could be the world’s largest producer of wine this year, write the authors, although Spain could also take that title.
Translations mine.
Above: The new “Gran Chianina” burger at McDonald’s Italy (image via McDonalds.it).
“When will we stop selling off our enogastronomic heritage?” asks my friend and blogging colleague Andrea Gori in a post for the popular Italian wine blog Intravino today.
Andrea, a native Florentine and one of Italy’s leading sommeliers and wine bloggers, is referring to McItaly’s launch of the “Gran Chianina,” a hamburger purportedly made with Chianina beef, the famous Tuscan breed that gave the world the bistecca fiorentina.
Italians are obsessed with hamburgers this year (see this post, one of many devoted to their hamburger mania). I’ve had some great hamburgers with my bromance Giovanni Arcari in Brescia. And my friend Wayne Young, Joe Bastianich’s special ops man, tells me that young Italians love the hamburger at Joe’s new restaurant in Cividale del Friuli.
But McChianina? It touches a raw nerve on both sides of the Atlantic.
For those of you unfamiliar with Chianina cattle, here’s the Wiki entry.
Evidently, McItaly (yes, that’s what it’s called!) is also launching a line of Piedmontese beef burgers.
While the first Italian McDonald’s opened its doors in German-speaking Bolzano in 1985 (according to the Wiki), it was the launch of the McDonald’s at the foot of the Spanish Steps in Rome that inspired the creation of what would become the Slow Food movement.
This legacy has made McDonald’s the symbol of enogastronomic colonization in Italy, a bitter pill to swallow for a country united only by culinary pride and football.
Here’s a video capture of the Gran Chianina spot from Andrea’s YouTube. It’s enough to make you want to heave…
I can only imagine how offensive this is to Andrea. Not only is he one of Italy’s leading wine personalities, he’s also the wine director for his family’s legacy restaurant, Trattoria da Burde, in Florence. It was the model for the Gambero Rosso (Red Lobster) restaurant in Collodi’s Pinocchio.
Above: Dinuguan, pork offal and pork blood braised until melt-in-your-mouth, a classic Filipino dish as prepared by Chef Paul Qui in Austin at Qui.
I just traded emails with our good friend June Rodil who writes from Argentina that her family back in the Philippines is doing fine despite the challenges of cleaning up in the wake of the recent typhoon there.
Tracie P and I were glad to hear that. We’ve been checking in with all of our Filipino friends here in Texas. Some of them still haven’t had word yet from their families. (June, a leading Austin wine professional and the wine director at Qui, happens to be on a wine trip in Argentina.)
June also let me know that Qui — one of our favorite restaurants in Austin — will be donating proceeds from its Filipino dishes (like the Dinuguan, above) to the Philippine Red Cross (its website is updated regularly with news on the situation there).
It’s tough to get a reservation at Qui during Formula 1 week here in Austin. But once things calm down again next week, I’ll take the girls back for my monthly craving of Dinuguan.
Here’s a link to my post on our recent dinner there.
And here, again, is the link to the Philippines Red Cross.
Please keep our Filipino sisters and brothers in your prayers and thoughts…
Above: The 2010 Fiorano Bianco is made mostly from Viognier, which dominates its aromatic profile. I thought the wine was stunning, with great balance, acidity, and nuanced stone fruit flavor. The wines are not yet available in the U.S. but I recently tasted a bottle that had been brought here by Philadelphia-based wine professional Jason Malumed, who had bought them in Rome.
Few members of the New York fine wine scene — myself included — will forget Eric “the Red” Asimov’s excellent 2004 article “An Italian Prince and His Magic Cellar” for the New York Times.
The piece described the long-lived white wines of Roman prince Alberico Boncompagni Ludovisi and Eric’s visit to his mysterious and magical cellar with its large-format casks covered by foamy mold.
It was such an important moment for Italian wine in New York and the nation. The Italian wine renaissance was just beginning to take shape here and Eric’s essay was one of the first to be devoted exclusively to one of Italy’s great white wines.
In those years, when Friuli was just beginning to emerge as a leading producer of fine white wine and you could still find Verdicchio in a fish-shaped bottle at the super market, most looked to Italy only for reds.
But Eric’s tale — and the subsequent arrival of the wines in the U.S. — spoke loudly to many of us, especially because it took note of Italian whites. Eric was already a champion of Italian wine (he often writes about his passion for the category today) and the story bolstered our belief that Italian wine would be delivered from the dusty obscurity rendered by its 1970s marketing blunders.
Above: The 2006 red, a Bordeaux blend in which Cabernet Franc dominated the tasting profile, was also excellent, with earthy and goudron notes on the nose and vibrant acidity and austere red fruit in the mouth. I’d love to revisit this still youthful wine in another 5-10 years. I can’t thank Jason enough for sharing them with me.
A few weeks ago, Eric wrote about the wines again in an article entitled “Fiorano Wine Estate in Italy Making a Comeback.”
Have a look at his piece for the background on the estate but to sum it up briefly here, it’s an Italian story as classic as it is tragic: after the prince died, some of the historic vineyards became the property of his son-in-law Piero Antinori and the winery, trademark, and other vineyards went to a biological heir, “Alessandrojacopo Boncompagni Ludovisi, a cousin of the prince, who had been living on the property and who had bought several parcels on the estate from the prince.”
Again, see Eric’s piece for background and see also Charles Scicolone’s excellent post on his recent visit with Alessia Antinori (the prince’s granddaughter) who now manages the vineyards and is planning to relaunch the wines under a new Fiorano label.
I had the good fortune to taste the wines made by Alessandrojacopo on my recent trip to the east coast (thank you, again, Jason!). And I thought they were excellent.
They had been purchased at Trimani, the famous wine shop in Rome.
I was told that the owners of Trimani believe that Alessandrojacopo’s wines represent the prince’s true legacy.
Many in the Italian wine trade believe that the prince attempted to destroy his vines before his passing because he feared that Antinori would use them to make a modern-style wine.
It’s probably true (see the translation below) but does it really matter anymore? When the prince — a pioneer of chemical-free farming in Italy — died in 2005, Italian wine was at a crossroads and it appeared that modernism (note the -ism) would prevail over the classic. But today, that trend has been reversed.
The only thing I know for certain is that it makes for a great story.
Here’s my translation of Luigi Veronelli’s 2001 interview with the prince…
Since 1934, when I [Prince Alberico Boncompagni Ludovisi] was sixteen years old, the use of industrially produced chemicals in land management has never seemed wise to me.
The Fiorano estate began to produce wine around 1930 using local grape varieties. In 1946, when I received the property from my father, I judged the wine to be inferior and consulted with Dr. Giuseppe Palieri who was producing wine on the Maccarese estate about 20 kilometers southwest of Rome. Dr. Palieri suggested that I graft Cabernet and Merlot to my vines for the reds, 50% of the one and the other, and Malvasia di Candia and Semillon for the whites. I continued to rely on Dr. Palieri for the rest of his life. Dr. Tancredi Biondi Santi subsequently became my enologist and continued to work with me until his passing.
I pulled out almost all of my vines because of advanced age and poor health and the advanced age of the vines. But I still produce a small amount of wine from Cabernet and Merlot grapes, blended in equal amounts.
My three granddaughters [Albiera, Allegra, and Alessia] have inherited their interest in wine not from me but from their father Piero [Antinori], an eminent producer of fine wine.
Do Bianchi 