It’s been a long and rewarding trip to Italy but I’m glad it’s coming to end. I’ve been away from home and Tracie P for way too long and I can’t wait to get home.
As much fun as I’ve had here in Brescia for the European Wine Bloggers Conference, the nearly unbearable homesickness and lonesomeness of being on the road have been assuaged by my amazing friend, Giovanni Arcari — winemaker, champion of the small grape grower, activist, blogger, and a force of life that (happily) cannot be stopped.
Few know that it’s thanks in great part to Giovanni that the conference was hosted here in Brescia, his hometown. It was Giovanni who approached vice president of Brescia’s council for city projects, the delightful Laura Castelletti (who also heads the city’s opposition party, a lapsed socialist), and convinced her that this would be a great opportunity for Brescia and the wines of the province.
But I think that Giovanni brought the conference here just so that he and I could spend a few precious evenings together, listening to music, talking about wine, and laughing as hard as men can laugh when men drink good wine together.
The other night Giovanni and I shared a bottle of one of my favorite Franciacorta producers, Gatti, over dinner at a wonderful restaurant called Novecento (filled with 20th-century nostalgia) next to the Teatro Grandein Brescia.
I sure am glad to be heading home the day after tomorrow… but, man, I’m going to miss Giovanni…
There’ a lot of grooving stuff happening here in Brescia at the European Wine Bloggers Conference but yesterday’s show stopper was lion-hearted author George Taber’s keynote address where he told the group of 216 wine bloggers: “In my view, the wine writing establishment — Robert Parker and so forth — has sold out.”
He was answering a question posed by Evan Dawson (below, left, with my fellow Texas Katie Myers) who had asked George to address ways that a journalist can distance himself from his subject and maintain her/his objectivity.
“By and large,” George said in his talk on storytelling this morning, “the Robert Parkers and Wine Spectators do nothing else but cheerlead.”
Wow… no regrets, coyote… there it is, right there, for all to see… and the declaration was made by an authority on wine and wine writing whose gravitas would be challenged by few…
Organizers Ryan and Gabriella Opaz and Robert McIntosh (above, from left) have done a super job here in Brescia. There’s seamless, high-speed WiFi throughout the Museum, Church, and Monastery of Santa Giulia where the conference is being held (in Italy! unbelievable!), things are running nearly ontime (also remarkable for Italy), and there’s a great energy and sense of collegiality that makes everyone feel welcomed and happy to be here.
What a thrill to be here at the European Wine Bloggers Conference in Brescia! So amazing to meet so many wonderful folks whom I’ve know only virtually…
I snapped the above photo this morning when I took part in a panel in which each member “defended” one of the media that go into wine blogging. My assignment was “the written word.”
Pane per i miei denti!
This year’s theme is “story telling” and tomorrow I’ll be part of a round table on “stories that haven’t been told.”
As I type this I’m sitting next to Wink Lorch (!) and listening to George Taber give the keynote speech. Fantastico!
I don’t have time to write up my notes from a marvelous visit to the village of Carema, Piedmont yesterday but quickly threw together this slideshow. Pergola-trained Nebbiolo carved into the mountain… amazing!
Special thanks to friend and colleague Maurizio Gily who organized and led the trip and to Viviano Gassino, president of the Cantina dei Produttori Nebbiolo di Carema, who gave us a tour of the winery and led a vertical tasting stretching back to 1987.
Friends and colleagues have opened some stunning wines for me on this trip to Italy (and I’ll have much to report in coming weeks). But one of the most thrilling so far was this 1968 Vin Santo by Fanetti, one of my favorite producers of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.
In the U.S., we tend to think of Vin Santo as cloying dessert wine, meant for drinking immediately and sopping cantucci, the Tuscan cookies.
But the real Vin Santo is intended for long-term aging that allows its zinging acidity, nuanced balance of overripe stone fruit, and nutty and caramel flavors to emerge.
Despite having been opened for some time (I imagine a few weeks), this wine, shared with me by my brother in rock ‘n’ roll Federico Marconi, was incredibly fresh and bright, and its aromas and flavors had attained a technicolor focus that guided me down a Yellow Brick Road of sensorial depth. Unbelievable…
Later in the day, we visited Vino Nobile producer Godiolo, where I snapped this photo of Grechetto grapes drying for Vin Santo. Note the spot on every berry: the Tuscans call their clone of Grechetto pulce in culo or flea in the ass.
I really dug Godiolo’s wines and will have a full report in coming weeks…
“Montalcino is a land kissed by G-d,” said my friend winemaker Fabrizio Bindocci when I joined him and his son Alessandro yesterday for lunch at Tenuta Il Poggione, one of my favorite Brunello producers.
You really couldn’t argue with Fabrizio’s statement after tasting his 1979 Vino Rosso dai Vigneti di Brunello.
I haven’t had time to write up my notes from the wines we tasted but I will in coming weeks.
In the meantime, I did manage to file an overview of Brunello yesterday for the Houston Press. It includes a photo I took from Il Palazzone where I was visiting with my friends Laura and Marco and their brood: it was so clear on Saturday, you could actually see the Tyrrhenian sea from their winery in the village of Montalcino.
Whereas blogging is all about the immediacy of the medium (literally and figuratively), writing, recording, and releasing an album is a long process whereby the initial inspiration is transformed through a complex and articulated series of steps to final track — composition, demo, recording, overdubs, editing, mixing, mastering, printing, distribution etc.
In January 2011, when I wrote and recorded the first demo of “Freudian Slip,” which became the title track of the new CD, I had just returned from Houston where I had learned that Cousin Marty had been diagnosed with bladder cancer. If you’ve been following along here at my blog, you know the avuncular role he’s played in my life since I moved to Texas nearly three years ago: not only has he embraced me with the warmth of a long-lost and newfound cousin, but he’s also shared with me his gusto for all things enogastronomic.
Growing up a teenager in La Jolla, California, I didn’t have much of a relationship with father Zane, Marty’s first cousin: a classically trained Freudian psychoanalist, Zane was estranged from our family after an inquiry revealed that he’d been having sexual relations with his patients: an egregious and bourgeois transgression that began before I was born and that emerged publicly when I was eleven years old — a family catastrophe that received brutal coverage in the local and national media.
Finding and forging a relationship with Marty was like being given a second chance to have a father, someone who rejoiced in my successes and shared the burdens of my challenges in building a new life here in Texas with Tracie P, whom he adores.
When I found out that Marty was ill, I became depressed and stressed by the anxiety (a bitter twist of fate?) that I would lose this happy relation so shortly after it had been born. Marty had already brought so much joy into my life and thankfully he beat his cancer with flying colors. But at the time, the prognosis was uncertain and I selfishly let my fear express itself in a dark song I called “Freudian Soup” (the title of the earliest version).
When I sent it to my writing partner, Céline Dijon (my good friend and sister I never had, Verena Wiesendanger), she set about writing the lyrics as a dialogue between Zane and the woman who most famously sued him, changing the title to “Freudian Slip,” acte manqué in French.
Today, when I listen to the track, nearly a year later, the cathartic drum fill that opens the song (by Julien Galner of the Paris-based band Château Marmont), chills still run down my spine.
All but the vocals for this track were recorded in my studio in Austin. The arpeggiated harpsichord is the very same one from the original demo.
When he finished mixing the record this summer, Jean-Luc Retard (Dan Crane, the third element in our writing troika, my bandmate and friend since 1998) suggested that we call the album “Freudian Slip.”
Thanks for listening and for reading and thanks for the support… It means the world to me…
Here’s the video for the new single, “J’en Ai Marre (Had Enough)”, a song that Céline and I wrote about bullying:
I’ve been having a blast this year curating the wine list at Sotto, which has just been named “one of the best new restaurants of 2011” by Esquire.
Chef Steve Samson (above) and I became close friends nearly a quarter of a century ago when we were on our junior year abroad in Italy. He and Chef Zach Pollack have been doing great things in the kitchen and the Neapolitan pizza is imho one of the best if not the best in the country.
Do Bianchi 