Concerts in Proseccoland April 5 & 6

The biggest news is that my old American cover band is reuniting for a few shows in Proseccoland on Friday and Saturday, April 5 and 6, the days leading up to Vinitaly.

Back in the early 1990s when I was in my 20s, my good friend, roomate, and bandmate Shawn Amos (above center) and I fronted a cover band that toured the Veneto artisanal and unpasteurized beer circuit for three summers.

I don’t have all of the details but shows will take place in Cison di Valmarino (a stone’s throw from Valdobbiadene) at the Villa Marcello Marinelli and the old Birreria in Pedavena.

Check out Shawn’s site. He’s a pretty interesting dude.

More details soon but these will be SUPER fun shows and the band is smoking…

Pouring wine at Sotto in Los Angeles
and Jaynes Gastropub in San Diego
Thursday March 14 and Friday March 15

Thursday, March 14, I’ll be at Sotto in LA (where I co-curate the wine program) for the launch of our new spring list.

Friday, March 15, I’ll be pouring a flight of wines Italian and otherwise at Jaynes Gastropub and later in the evening, our San Diego-based band The Grapes (above) will be doing a set on the back patio.

Sunset magazine just named the Jaynes Burger the “best in San Diego.” That’s what I’ll be having, paired with a glass of Cantele Salice Salentino.

Wine Dinners in Houston & Austin
March 19 and 20

I’m very geeked about the White Wine and Seafood dinner where I’m speaking at Ciao Bello in Houston on Tuesday, March 19.

Chef Bobby Matos has been doing amazing things with his menu there and we have a super groovy flight of white and orange wine lined up.

And on Wednesday, March 20, I’ll be presenting winemaker Tracey Brandt of Donkey & Goat at a dinner featuring her wines at Vino Vino.

Please come out and taste and rock out with me!

When I tasted with Produttori del Barbaresco export/sales director Aldo Vacca last year at Vinitaly, he showed the cooperative winery’s “new” label.

“Every year our importer asks for us a ‘new’ product for the market,” he told me with his signature sheepish grin.

“We didn’t really have anything new and so we decided to rename our Moccagatta cru using the dialect[al] name for the vineyard, Muncagota.”

Same wine, different name, just as great (in my book)… and the latest entry in the Italian Grape Name and Appellation Pronunciation Project.

Thanks for speaking Italian [grapes]!

Above: One of my favorite Italian winemakers, Giampaolo Venica, visited us last week in Austin, Texas. He met Georgia P for the first time.

Familial vicissitudes quieted things down here on the blog last week. And today, I feel compelled to return to recent events in Italy that — I believe — have had and will have a profound effect on Italian wines and the people who grow and produce them.

Here’s the NY Times thread of coverage on last week’s elections in Italy, which resulted in a rebuke of the German-backed austerity measures set forth by technocrat (and now politically ruined) Monti and a political gridlock, a sort of Mexican standoff, between center-left Bersani (a relic from Italy’s communist era), center-right Berlusconi (charlatan in chief), and self-defined revolutionary Grillo (a comedian turned political activist although not a candidate himself).

If you follow current events, you know — and don’t need me to tell you — that Italy is on a precipice. And as its third-largest economy, it’s carrying the Eurozone on its back.

On Tuesday of last week, after the election results had been filed, I spoke to an old friend of mine in Padua, a few years older than me and a professional musician who supports his family on his concert income and production fees.

“I’m thinking about moving to Eastern Europe,” he told me when we spoke (for reasons that had nothing to do with wine), noting that emerging markets like Poland offer considerably lower taxes and greater employment opportunities.

The thought of a middle-aged jazz musician from Italy moving to Poland! It would have been hard to imagine such a thing even five years ago (let alone last week).

Above: Giampaolo and I shared a bottle of 2006 Cappellano Barolo Otin Fiorin from Mark Sayre’s list. The wine was remarkably bright and very fresh. Although very youthful, it was going through a moment of grace and shared its fruit and its soul with us.

Tuesday evening, when we were visited here in Austin by our good friend Giampaolo Venica (whom I respect as much for his winemaking as I do for his personal ethos), our conversation was dominated by the dire situation faced by young Italians, who have very few prospects in terms of employment or economic mobility.

“What good is a university degree,” asked Giampaolo who is in his mid-thirties, “when there are no jobs to be had?” (Italy hit record unemployment rates in January according to news reports; that figure will only climb as uncertainty and gridlock fears persist.)

Italian wine is not made in a vacuum. It’s not a shiny, straw-flasked package intended to evoke the dolce far niente, Coppola-fueled stereotype that most Americans love to embrace.

All too often, wine bloggers in the U.S. — Italophile and otherwise — focus purely on the false romance of Italian wine. Few speak Italian and an even smaller number follow the news from Italy and/or Italian wine blogs.

In my view, there is a generational tragedy unfolding in Italy, affecting Italians young and old, including those who make the wines that we — at least I — love so very much.

Wine, like all things we eat and drink, is a product of agriculture and human culture. And like the people that produce it, wine is intrinsically and unavoidably ideological and ethical in nature. It is after all, to borrow a phrase, human, all too human.

No, I have no tasting note for you today, no star anise or gooseberry.

Just an invitation to remember that there are people behind every wine that we drink. And today, I think it’s worthwhile to take time out to remember that our fellows in Italy are facing some really tough choices to come before elections are held again (probably in a year’s time).

Thanks for reading…

Of all the Italian appellations, Barolo is among the easiest to pronounce.

But when Giovanni and I visited the home of Maria Teresa Mascarello and David Berry Green (“l’inglese”) in November of last year, I couldn’t resist asking her to pose for my video camera.

Above: Leftist salame is served in the Mascarello home.

Hers is the latest (but not the last) entry in the seemingly never-ending Italian Grape Name & Pronunciation Project.

Please feel free to embed the videos in your own blog if you like. That’s what they’re here for! :) Another friendly public service announcement from a dude whose family really digs Italian wine.

When I was in LA last month, I had the great pleasure of getting to taste and chat with Daniela Mastroberardino (above), who also kindly contributed two entries to the Italian Grape Name and Appellation Pronunciation Project.

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…

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… :)