Our two-week trip to Italy 2013 ended, dulcis in fundo, with one of the best meals of our stay: classic Venetian seafood lunch in Venice terra firma.
Tracie P and I are so blessed that our livelihood and our family life align so seamlessly and so happily.
Here’s a preview, below, of what we ate yesterday in Mira (paired with Kante 2008 Sauvignon Blanc). I’ll tell all tomorrow…
Heading back to Texas today…
Posting in a hurry again this morning as we prepare to head up to Milan on our last day here in Italy.
But I just had a share a taste of the 1983 Selvapiana Riserva poured for me at the winery’s stand yesterday at the fair.
I must have tasted 60-70 wines yesterday… but I didn’t spit this one.
So vibrant, so bright, so unbelievably fresh. Stunning wine… The best wine I’ve tasted in 2013…
We head back to Texas tomorrow. I’ll see you on the other side!
Posting in a hurry as I rush to drive back down to Verona today for my last day at the Italian wine fairs.
It’s remarkable to think about how many wines I’ve tasted over the last two days… with one more day to go.
Here are some highlights from Vinitaly and Vini Veri, in no particular order or hierarchy.
Era ‘l giorno ch’al sol si scoloraro
per la pietà del suo Fattore i rai
It was the day the sun’s ray had turned pale
with pity for the suffering of his Maker
(Rerum vulgarium fragmenta 3, translation by Mark Musa)
I couldn’t help but be reminded of these lines by Petrarch yesterday when I heard the news that Franco Biondi Santi had passed away.
(See this translation of a statement issued by the Brunello bottlers association, including notes from Consortium President Fabrizio Bindocci. It was Fabrizio’s son Alessandro who shared the news with me when I sat down to taste with him in the Tuscany pavilion at Vinitaly.)
Just like the Good Friday that Petrarch recalls in his songbook, it was as if the rays of the sun had grown pale over the wine fair yesterday, as winemakers and fair-goers whispered to one another in hushed tones, did you hear the news that Biondi Santi died?
I never met Franco Biondi Santi in person but I did interview him once by phone.
Of all the winemakers I’ve ever had the chance to interact with, he was perhaps the one most free from the chains of megalomania and most guided by intellect and passionate focus.
A few weeks after our conversation, I received a package sent from the winery. It didn’t contain samples or a vanity folio.
Instead, he had sent an autographed academic offprint of his most recent research on the DNA of his prized Brunello. I still have it, filed in my library next to signed offprints from the many professors of philology and paleography who aided me throughout my academic career.
According to media reports today, he was ninety-one years at the age of his passing.
While his involvement in the winemaking at the legendary Tenuta il Greppo was probably very limited in recent years, his legacy as the caretaker of Brunello’s origins, steadfast defender of its integrity, and producer of one of the world’s greatest wines cannot be underestimated.
Since the Brunello inquest of 2008, the appellation has been dogged by a series of regrettable and often avoidable controversies. (Most recently, one of its most high-profile producers sparred publicly with the Brunello bottlers association in an ugly display of hubris.)
With Biondi Santi’s passing, Montalcino loses an unimpeachable patriarch, whose stewardship and leadership will be missed as sorely as his impeccable style and humanity.
I took the photo above at the Biondi Santi stand yesterday in the Tuscan pavilion in Vinitaly.
Today, the shadow cast by his passing will surely dim the glitz of the trade fair as it reminds us that the Italian wine world continues to navigate and negotiate uncharted waters.
O lovers of Brunello, do no send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee…
I am very sad to report that franco biondi santi has passed away. I just arrived at my appointment with alessandro bindocci who shared this sad news. An era has ended. More on this asap.
Friends might writhe with envy if they knew how much I paid yesterday for a three-bottle lot of 1999 (classic) Barbaresco Giacosa white label.
I bought the bottles at a restaurant here in Proseccoland after I spied them on the list.
As the wine opened up, an initial brightness gave way to darker fruit and bigger tannin. The first bottle, we all agreed, although vibrant and fresh, showed more maturity, while the second had many years ahead of it. The sommelier had assured me that he bought his allocation on release and that it had remained cellared impeccably since. I was surprised by the bottle variation and thrilled, as always, by the wine.
Super fun to be here with my band and our families.
That’s the main dining room at the villa.
The only winery visit I’ve made this week was to Gregoletto, one of the oldest producers of commercial Prosecco.
That’s Luigi Gregoletto, above, now in his mid-80s.
Amazing to hear him talk about a time when Prosecco was only planted where wheat and other grain wouldn’t grow (now planted on every square inch of the the lucrative vineyard real estate of Proseccoland).
Also incredible to hear him recall the 1950s when he traveled the Veneto in his little Bianchina, selling his wine door-to-door.
More… much more to come…
Great lunch today at Gigetto in Miane (Proseccoland, province of Treviso), amazing wine cellar, and great conversation with sommelier Roberto Pieri.
The pappardelle sat atop a light “white” ragù and where garnished with asparagus.
Luciano Benetton was sitting at the table next to us.
She’s our little butternut squash…
Do Bianchi 