See her videos for Fiano di Avellino and Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio Rosso below (I have a handful of new videos to post and will do so this week).
It was great to meet her and taste through the flight of wines that her sales reps had brought to Sotto (where I co-curate the wine list). I thought the Coda di Volpe showed beautifully.
We also talked about her brother Lucio, who passed away recently — unexpectedly and tragically at age 45.
Not only had Lucio been the president of the powerful Unione Italiana Vini (Italian Wines Union) from 2010-2012, he was also the most visible and de facto ambassador of Campanian wine at home in Italy and abroad.
She told that she has already assumed his role as the Terredora brand’s representative abroad and that we’ll be seeing a lot more of her in the U.S.
I thoroughly enjoyed our time together and found her to be a delightful lady and I’m so glad that she plans to honor the legacy of her brother by continuing in his footsteps. I can’t think of a better way to honor his legacy.
Thanks for speaking Italian (grapes)! Lots more to come this week…
Pepaw, a name that people use for grandfather in the south, was a foreign word to me until I met Tracie P nearly five years ago now.
When I first met pepaw and memaw at Thanksgiving 2008 (pepaw was 88 years old at the time), they must have been as nervous as I was, knowing that Tracie P and I were on a path that would most likely lead us to starting a family together (which we did).
I’ll never forget how memaw gave me a hug that day, even though we’d never met.
“We’re a hugging family, Jeremy,” she said. “Just give me a hug.”
As foreign as I must have seemed to pepaw, who grew up in East Texas and only ever left his home to fight serve in the navy army (on a personnel transport ship) in the second world war, he always treated me like one of the family. He always had a smile and a firm handshake when we saw each other.
Tracie P and I are thrilled to share the news that Georgia P is going to have a little sister!
We found out yesterday afternoon when we visited our ob/gyn.
And we’re happy to report that both mommy and Baby P 2013 are doing great, hitting their milestones right on the mark as we gear up for her arrival in July.
Thank you for letting us share our joy with you! We are so happy… :)
The exit polls (here and here) that I’ve been watching show Berlusconi (center right) trailing Bersani (center left) by less than half of a point.
It’s been frightening to watch my Italian friends’ and colleagues’ reactions on Facebook, a mixture of horror and disgust.
The major news outlets are saying it’s too close to call. The only true winner is the maverick entertainer Beppe Grillo (who probably took votes away from Bersani).
Monti is the clear loser.
There’s still hope that we won’t awake tomorrow to discover that Berlusconi has once again been elected prime minister.
The only thing worse that I can imagine is Nebbiolo aged in barrique…
From the department of “problems come and go but the sunshine seems to stay”…
You can’t imagine my joy when an old friend from New York, Kevin Russell, wrote me a few weeks ago to let me know that the company he works for, Vine Collective, is importing the wines of Dario Prinčič.
I’m a huge fan of the wines and try to taste them every time I go to Italy (here are some posts on the wines).
As far as I know, the wines had never been available in the U.S. before. Back in 2008, when I asked Dario if he planned to sell the American market, he said that his Japanese importer was already buying up his entire export allocation. I’m not sure why that’s changed but I’m entirely geeked to know that I’ll be able to find them in our country’s more liberal wine markets.
The wines are not available in Texas and, as you know if you follow my blog at the Houston Press, it’s illegal for New York retailers to ship wines to end users in the state where I live.
So Kevin kindly offered to ship me a few sample bottles (along with a few other labels that I’ll review in coming weeks).
I’d never tasted Dario’s Ribolla Gialla and I was thrilled to discover how light in body it was and how low in alcohol (12.5%).
As much as I am fan of the other Oslavia (Oslavje) producers of skin-contact wine, I’ve found that the wines can been intensely tannic and often too muscular in their youth.
This wine was moderately tannic but its lightness and its balance of astringent flavors and ripe stone fruit seemed to capture my mood and the vibrations I was feeling. It made me think of the Gil-Scott Heron song, “A Lovely Day.”
Yesterday was such a lovely, cool day here in Austin and after I finished doing the taxes (an unavoidable and tedious chore that I loathe), Georgia P, Tracie P, and I spent the afternoon playing and just doing silly stuff.
After we put Georgia to bed, we opened the bottle of Ribolla and its balance of fruit, savory, sweetness, and tannin made me think of a line from the song that I love so much… the problems come and go/but the sunshine seems to stay…
It’s such a special time in our lives (Tracie P is about twenty weeks) and whenever those shadows dark and gloomy come a-calling, I can hear the vibrations saying, “Hold on, brother, just you be strong”.
The flowers woke up bloomin’
And put on a color show just for me
The shadows dark and gloomy
I told them all to keep the hell away from me
Because I don’t feel like believin’ everything I do gon’ turn out wrong
When vibrations I’m receiving say
“Hold on, brother, just you be strong”
Yes and all I really wanna say
Is that the problems come and go,
But the sunshine seems to stay
Giampaolo Venica and I first met back in September 2010 when I snapped this photo atop the Ronco delle Mele, one of his family’s top growing sites on their estate in Dolegna del Collio (in the province of Gorizia, Friuli).
He’s on his way to Texas as I write this: in anticipation of his visit, we opened a bottle of his family’s 2011 Collio Sauvignon Ronco delle Mele on Friday evening.
At first sip, the wine was so intensely aromatic and muscular that I decided to recork it and give it a night of rest.
By the time we revisited the wine yesterday evening (Tracie P is not drinking these days, of course, but she does always taste), it had come into brilliant focus, its power balanced by luscious white and stone fruit and electric acidity. Tracie P noted that it had this wonderful viscousness, an ethereal mouthfeel that made it one of the most moreish wines I’ve tasted this year, killing me softly…
We’re going to connect with Giampaolo later this week… In the meantime, buona domenica, happy Sunday, yall…
Above: Gamberoni in Castiglioncello, Tuscany, at Nonna Isola.
Few remember that the Gambero Rosso monthly magazine and publishing brand take its name from the “Osteria del Gambero Rosso” or the “Inn of the Red Lobster” in The Adventures of Pinocchio, which originally appeared in the Italian in the early 1880s.
Here’s a transcription of the scene in the book where the Cat and the Fox first take Pinocchio to eat there (from a 1904 English translation):
They walked and walked and walked until they arrived at the Red Lobster Inn, tired to death.
“Let us stop a little here,” said the Fox, “just long enough to get something to eat and rest ourselves. At midnight we can start again and to-morrow morning we shall arrive at the Field of Miracles.”
They entered the Inn and seated themselves at the table, but none of them were hungry. The poor Cat felt very much indisposed and could only thirty-five mullets with tomato sauce and four portions of tripe; and because the trip did not taste just right he called three times for butter and cheese to put on it.
The Fox would willingly have ordered something, but as the doctor had told him to diet, he had to be contented with a nice fresh rabbit dressed with the biglets of chicken. After the rabbit he ordered, as a finish to his meal, some partridges, some pheasants, some frogs, some lizards, and some bird of paradise eggs; and then he did not wish any more. He had such nausea for food, he said, that he could not eat another mouthful.
Pinocchio ate the least of all. He asked for a piece of meat and some bread, but he left everything on his plate. He could think of nothing but the Field of Miracles.
Gambero rosso is also a designation used by Italians for the common American crayfish, the “Gambero Rosso della Louisiana.” Its introduction to Italy in the mid-1800s led to a series of crayfish plagues in Europe.
Collodi was certainly aware of the crayfish calamity of his era and the very name — gambero rosso — surely instilled biblical fear in the minds of his readers.
In the light of this, the choice of gambero rosso for the title of a magazine devoted to Italian gastronomy may seem infelicitous to some.
Above: The Gambero Rosso brand has often been the center of controversy and its editors have often been accused (however informally) of conflict of interest. I’ve written about the brand on many occasions.
Tomorrow, I’ll get back to the business of posting about the wines we’ve been tasting and some of the interesting wine professionals I’ve had the chance to interview recently. Thanks for reading…
Do Bianchi 