Rivella, barbarian at the gate: the Brunello debate goes mainstream (WARNING: POST CONTAINS POETRY)

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Above: The grapes are ripening about a week late in Montalcino but conditions are excellent, says Alessandro Bindocci (Fabrizio Bindocci’s son) in his blog Montalcino Report. Alessandro has been updating the blog regularly with harvest and weather reports.

Yesterday a friend emailed me this article in Reuters online, “Battle of Brunello exposes row over purity vs blends,” by top wine writer Robert Whitley, my fellow San Diegan. In it he summarized the events that led up to Ezio Rivella’s controversial election as Brunello producers association president and Fabrizio Bindocci’s passionate if unsuccessful bid to stop Rivella’s march of progress. (For a more detailed account of what happened in recent months in Montalcino, you can scroll and leaf through this thread here at Do Bianchi.)

    The controversy over the election has put the spotlight on growing divisions in the wine world as some producers take a more global approach to their craft while others stick to tradition.

    Opponents such as Bindocci are passionate defenders of the status quo and are convinced that the 77-year-old Rivella as the modern face of Brunello could put the soul of Brunello at stake.

Has Montalcino become the frontline in the global battle (“growing divisions of the wine world”) of modernism vs. traditionalism?

In a “why didn’t I think of that” moment, I thoroughly enjoyed Robert’s superb allusion to the great poem “Waiting for the Barbarians” by Greek poet Cavafy wherein he implied that Rivella is a “barbarian at the gate.” It’s probably more a propos than Robert bargained for, especially in the light of the uncanny parallels. Poetry lovers read on…

    What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

    The barbarians are due here today.

    Why isn’t anything happening in the senate?
    Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

    Because the barbarians are coming today.
    What laws can the senators make now?
    Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.

    Why did our emperor get up so early,
    and why is he sitting at the city’s main gate
    on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?

    Because the barbarians are coming today
    and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
    He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
    replete with titles, with imposing names.

    Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
    wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
    Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
    and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
    Why are they carrying elegant canes
    beautifully worked in silver and gold?

    Because the barbarians are coming today
    and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

    Why don’t our distinguished orators come forward as usual
    to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

    Because the barbarians are coming today
    and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

    Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
    (How serious people’s faces have become.)
    Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
    everyone going home so lost in thought?

    Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
    And some who have just returned from the border say
    there are no barbarians any longer.

    And now, what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
    They were, those people, a kind of solution.

And some who have just returned from the border say/there are no barbarians any longer.

I’ll be visiting Montalcino in September and will try to catch up with Fabrizio (a friend) then (although I know he’ll be very busy with the harvest). Who knows? Maybe Rivella will grant me an appointment, too… Stay tuned and thanks for reading!

Sognando Piemonte (Piedmont Dreamin’)

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bricco boschis

Above: We got to drink a bottle of 2005 Barolo Bricco Boschis by Cavallotto last night. Photo by Tracie P.

As Tony Coturri told me the other day (and as Mama Judy mentions when we talk on the phone each week), California is having the coolest summer it’s had in anyone’s memory. Out here in Texas it’s H-O-T hot — not exactly what I would call “Barolo weather.”

But when our friend (and my client) Julio messaged and said he had a bottle of 2005 Barolo Bricco Boschis by Cavallotto that he wanted to share with us, we couldn’t resist.

And, man, what a treasure in this bottle. Here’s Tracie P’s tasting note: “bright cherry acidity with graphite minerality and a balance of earthiness, so balanced and savory and fruity; it just had everything in the right place…”

The wine is young and the curious thing was how generous it was with its fruit right when we opened and decanted it. But by the time we finished the bottle, it had begun to close up.

On a hot Texas summer eve, it made me dream of Piedmont and a few new-to-me destinations I can’t wait to visit when I return. Like the Museo dei Cavatappi, the Corkscrew Musuem in the town of Barolo.

paolo annoni

I was actually scrounging the interwebs for something else (for a consulting job) when I came across Paolo Annoni (above) and his amazing museum, which preserves more than 500 corkscrews from the eighteenth century to the present. As they say in Italian, this type of stuff is pane per i miei denti, literally, bread for my teeth, in other words, I can’t wait to sink my teeth into it.

serralunga

Another destination at the top of my list is the Vinoteca Centro Storico in Serralunga. I literally drooled over my keyboard when I read about it in the excellent blog authored by McDuff, who possesses one of the palates I admire the most.

Check out his post for details. Just the thought of grower Champagne and carne cruda is enough to make the mimetic desire kick in (at 9 a.m. in the morning, I can literally feel my saliva glands working as I type). Auerbach anyone?

aaaaaaaa… Sognando Piemonte…

“Rock is no longer a dirty word in Austin”: The Armadillo at 40

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Above: “On August 7, 1970, a new music venue opened at 525 1/2 Barton Springs Road in Austin. The city would never be the same. The Armadillo World Headquarters.” (“The Armadillo at 40,” KUT.org).

An article published by TIME Magzine on September 9, 1974, entitled “Groover’s Paradise,” recently came to my attention. Here’s the opening paragraph:

    Back in the good old days in Austin, Texas, say 1970, a guy could risk trouble for deriding country-and-western music, or merely hollering the words “rock ‘n’ roll.” This was, after all, the ancestral home of Texas Swing, where the Light Crust Doughboys had helped elect a flour salesman, W. Lee O’Danile, Governor in 1938. Even such talented native Texas as Singers Janis Joplin and Johnny Winter, blues rockers both, had been forced to head as far away from Austin as possible to make the big time.

That was just four years after the Armadillo World Headquarters opened in the Texas state capital, about a ten-minute drive from where Tracie P and I live now.

This week, KUT.org, the University of Texas at Austin radio station is playing every artist that ever played at the ‘Dillo (as it is affectionately known). And I’m here to tell you, people, that I’m glued to my radio, whether in the car or at home working on my computer.

You can find the stream by visiting KUT.org (9 a.m. – 3 p.m. local time).

My highlights for today were Jerry Jeff Walker’s version of “Mr. Bojangles” and his “London Homesick Blues” (and for guitar geeks out there, Eric Johnson’s early band The Electromagnets).

The title of the TIME Magazine article is culled from one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite Cosmic Cowboys, Doug Sahm, and it ends with a quote from him:

    The Armadillo is filled each night night with a curious amalgam of teenagers, aging hippe women in gingham, braless coeds, and booted goat ropers swigging Pearl beer and swinging Stetsons in time to the music. Doug Sahm, a 32-year-old fugitive of San Franciso psychedelia, who sings there regularly, says that “leaving Austin now is like climbing off a spaceship from a magic place.” As he put it in a song, the whole town is a groover’s paradise.

O, man, I can almost smell the doobage wafting up Lamar Blvd.!

Frittata di pasta porn (and recipes)

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After I made Spaghetti al Pomodoro the other night for dinner (in this case bucatini), Tracie P used the leftover noodles to make a Neapolitan-style Frittata di Pasta. The dish was so stunning, visually and otherwise sensorially, that I was compelled to document it. After all, this is my “web log” after all, isn’t it? Enjoy… and thanks for reading!

frittata di pasta

Spaghetti al Pomodoro

As my good friend Renato dal Piva taught me (when I used to play in his clubs in the Bellunese), you should be able to get the tomato sauce simmering by the time the water boils. By the time the pasta is done cooking, the sauce will be ready.

Finely chop ¼ medium size white or yellow onion and sautée with a handful of flat-leaf parsley together and one lightly crushed garlic clove in extra-virgin olive oil. When the onion becomes translucent , add 1½ cup puréed, crushed, or whole canned cherry tomato (if using whole Roma tomatoes, crush the tomatoes using a spatula). Add ¼ cup room-temperature white wine. Season with kosher salt, pepper, and crushed chili flakes. Simmer until the pasta is not quite cooked through (about 1-2 minutes under the suggested cooking time).

frittata di pasta

In the meantime, bring a large pot of water to boil. After it begins to boil, season with a generous handful of kosher salt. Cook the spaghetti until not quite cooked through (as above). About 3 minutes before the pasta is done, add ½ ladleful of its cooking water to the sauce. When the pasta done, fold the noodles into the sauce and toss over low heat. Serve hot, drizzled with a drop or two of extra-virgin olive oil and with freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano on the side (ironically, I prefer not to sprinkle with the cheese, despite my northern tastes, while Tracie P, with her southern tastes, opts for cheese).

For the tomato sauce, our favorite brand is La Valle, in particular its cherry tomatoes (pomodorini). We also like Muir tomatoes from California and Progresso is good, too. The important thing is to find tomatoes to which nothing but salt has been added (Del Monte, Hunt’s etc. will all work fine). In summer months when fresh basil is available, omit the flat-leaf parsley and add torn basil leaves after the tomato sauce has begun to simmer.)

For the pasta, we used La Valle bucatini that Alfonso had brought us from Jimmy’s Food Market in Dallas. As far as commercial, easy-to-find brands are concerned, Tracie P likes DeCecco (her southern tastes), while I like Barilla (my northern tastes).

frittata di pasta

Frittata di Pasta

Beat two eggs with a handful of freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano, add the beaten eggs to the leftover pasta in a mixing bowl, and toss gently. Cover the bottom of a small pan with extra-virgin olive (about 2 tablespoons depending on the size of the pan) and heat over medium-flame. As soon as the oil begins to smoke, add the pasta and cover. Cook for 2-3 minutes and then reduce heat to low. Cook for 20 minutes and flip (to flip, quickly remove cover and then recover with a ceramic plate; hold the plate in place, swiftly turn the frying pan over and then slide the frittata back in the pan). Cook for another ten minutes and serve hot.

Once cooled, wrap the frittata in plastic wrap and conserve in the fridge. It will be great, sliced on bread or re-warmed. With the quantities above, Tracie P and I obtain 3 meals!

Buon appetito, ya’ll!

Bellissima: an Italian cinema great has left us

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Comrade H brought the news to my attention over the weekend.

Italian screenwriter Suso Cecchi d’Amico left this world last Saturday. Here’s the obituary in The New York Times. And see this post by ANSA.

She contributed to some of the greatest movies of all times and she did so in at a time when few women worked as writers in the Italian film industry.

The number of classic films on which she collaborated are too many to list here but you know her work the way you remember your Sunday prayers: Bicycle Thieves, Miracle in Milan, Rome Open City, Big Deal on Madonna Street, The Leopard, and the list goes on and on, nearly every one of them a sine qua non of the twentieth century.

One film that you may not remember, but one of my all-time favorites, was her first film with Visconti, Bellissima, the story of an over zealous stage mother in Rome (played by Anna Magnani) who is driven out of desperate poverty to make her daughter a star. It’s a comic-tragedy that simultaneously makes us laugh and cry as we sit on the edge of our chairs rooting for the girl, knowing all the while that poverty has driven the mother to forget that true riches lie not in wealth but humanity. Watch this scene where Maddalena (Magnani) quarrels with her husband Spartaco (played by Walter Chiari). I’m not sure but I imagine that Cecchi wrote this sequence. One thing I know for certain: even if you don’t speak Italian, it will move you to tears…

Man, they don’t write ’em like that anymore, do they, Comrade H?

Picking grapes with Tony Coturri in Texas

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Above: The cowboy hat that Melvin Croaker gave me isn’t just for show. I can probably do more damage at computer keyboard than I can with pruning shears in the vineyards but this singing cowboy managed to fill a crate or two with Blanc du Bois in the Texas sun yesterday.

There are many mysteries in this big ol’ world and many of them leave me scratching my head. But one of the ones I find the hardest to fathom is why every single wine professional in central Texas doesn’t head down to Comal County to get a glimpse of natural winemaker Tony Coturri, who arrives promptly each year to harvest grapes and make wine with maverick winemaker Lewis Dickson of La Cruz de Comal winery. (For a recent and truly wonderful interview with Tony, please see this excellent post by my friend and blogging colleague and fellow Californian-Texan Amy Atwood. And for a profile of Lewis and his wines, please see this post I did for the 32 Days of Natural Wine.)

Above: No, that’s not Billy Gibbons, it’s Tony on “the Gator.”

It was a thrill for me and Tracie P to get to “rub shoulders” with Tony in the vineyards and the thought of getting to hang with him even got us out of bed on a Sunday morning at the crack of dawn (can you believe that?). Harvest of Lewis’s Blanc du Bois grapes began yesterday at daybreak in Comal County on the southern side of Canyon Lake (about an hour and half from our place in Austin).

cruz de comal

Above: Tony and Lewis destemming the Blanc du Bois harvest. From the quality and quantity of grapes, it appears that Cruz de Comal will have one of its best vintages of Blanc du Bois, which is used to make the winery’s Pétard Blanc, one of my favorites and white with remarkable aging potential.

In case you don’t already know Tony, he’s a leading Californian grape grower and winemaker and a pioneer of natural winemaking in the Golden State… AND he makes killer wines. I love what he said to Amy in the interview she did:

    The basic principles and procedures of my winemaking haven’t changed over the years. I have remained a believer in natural, and traditional and additive free winemaking. If anything, refining the natural process has been the change. As my understanding of the development of all aspects the vineyards through the use of organic and biodynamic practices deepens I realize that I’m not so much a “winemaker’ but a custodian of grapes. The wine is made in the vineyard. My job is to take care of it. The magic is in the vineyard not the winery.

O mamma, you’re speaking my language!

cruz de comal

Above: A little grape porn for ya’ll.

Tracie P and I are both a little sore from picking those grapes yesterday but we’re no worse for the wear. And what a good night sleep you get after a day of working in the vineyards in the sunshine and fresh air! Man, I can’t wait to taste that wine…

I’d rather trust a man who works with his hands,
He looks at you once, you know he understands,
Don’t need any shield,
When you’re out in the field.

—Peter Gabriel (can anyone name the tune? Thor, I’m counting on you!)

Rock the Gulf Benefit at the Shuck Shack Austin

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Can you think of a better place in Austin to hold a Rock the Gulf benefit than the Shuck Shack? This tasty little seafood joint is at the top of our list for summer outdoor Gulf Coast-style dining. You see, for all of ya’ll who ain’t never been down to the south too much, Gulf Coast dining spots dot the highways and cities of the Lone Star State from Orange on the Lusiana border (where Tracie P grew up) to Austin, the cradle of the west. All of these businesses, many of them locally owned liked the Shuck Shack, have been affected by the oil spill disaster.

The Shuck Shack is one of Tracie P’s accounts (and one of her favs, I may add) and she helped to rustle up donations for this exceedingly well organized (I must add) event held last night on the south side of Austin. That’s owner Katherine Fertitta and manager Bill Garcia.

Fried catfish, Texas caviar, biscuit, and corn on the cob. Uh huh…

I couldn’t resist the “Bloody Shame.” Tracie P had a “Tar Ball Lemonade” (with muddled blueberries playing the starring role).

The music (I also must say) was excellent, but, then again, that happens nightly in Austin (how do you like my Texas swagger?). Tracie P even won a donated raffle prize! How about that???!!! An Eddy Summer Sausage basket that will be greatly enjoyed this estive season Chez Parzenella!

To find out about how you can help, check out the Gulf Restoration Network.

PRODUTTORI TIME

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Both Tracie P and I had a tough week this week. Let me just put it this way, people: sometimes work is a bitch.

And so last night, when work was done, we decided to treat ourselves to an evening of dueling DJs (Tracie P took it over the top with MJ’s “Wanna Be Starting Something”), kitchen-dance-floor grooving, Polaroid self-portraits, and a bottle of 2005 Barbaresco by what is probably our favorite winery of all time in history: Produttori del Barbaresco.

The wine was bright, tannic but generously nimble in sharing its lip-smacking wild berry fruit and succulently muddy flavors. We paired with gruyère and crackers, we dedicated songs to each other, we danced around the dining room table, and we forgot all of the worries of our world. It was PRODUTTORI TIME.

Tracie P and I aren’t the only ones obsessed with Produttori del Barbaresco: one of the wine bloggers we enjoy and respect the most, Cory (and one of the funnest and nicest people to hang and taste with, above), wrote about Produttori del Barbaresco in his wrap-up to the 32 Days of Natural Wine, in a piece I highly recommend to you.

Like last year, Cory had to deal with plenty of משוגעת from folks who didn’t agree with this or that and other bullshit.* But, man, this dude deserves a medal. He’s the nicest sweetest and brightest guy and his hypertextual project, 31 32 Days of Natural Wine, represents a truly fascinating study in semiotics, not to mention an encyclopedia in fieri of natural wine around the world. Wine writing is by its very nature an affliction otherwise known as synaethesia — humankind’s overwhelming and at times unbearable urge to capture in words the literally ineffable, ephemeral, and ethereal experience of tasting wine. With his unique project, Cory has warped the boundaries of wine blogging in an exhilarantly meaningful way.

So, people, whether Puzelat or Produttori, pour yourself a glass of your favorite wine on this hottest weekend of the year, squeeze your loved ones tight and remind them how much they mean to you, remember that first kiss and the way you felt when those lips touched yours, and remember that very first moment you tasted a wine that made your heart flutter…

* Yiddish meshugas, Esp. in Jewish usage: madness, craziness; nonsense, foolishness; (as a count noun) a foolish idea; a foible, an idiosyncracy (Oxford English Dictionary, online edition).

Jimmie Vaughan’s 1967 Fender Coronado (how friggin’ cool is that?)

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From the “does this town rock or what?” department…

1967 Fender Coronado

Above: Guitar legend Jimmie Vaughan’s 1967 Fender Coronado and Ronnie James’s 1967 Fender Coronado bass. Photo via Hair by Felice.

My friends often hear me say that moving to Austin to be with Tracie P was the smartest thing I’ve ever done. The second smartest thing? Moving to Austin to be with Tracie P.

One of the coolest things about living in this central Texas town is how you can run into a guitar hero at the super market and then see him take the stage that night at Antone’s.

When the super cool lady who cuts my hair showed me the above photo of Jimmie Vaughan’s 1967 Fender Coronado and the matching 1967 Coronado bass that he got his bass player to take on tour with them to support Jimmie’s new album, I BEGGED her to let me put it on my blog (you see, lady in question, Felice, goes steady with Jimmie’s bass player Ronnie James).

And I gotta say, Jimmie’s new album is some pretty, bad-assed smoking music that puts some seriously deep-fried boogie in your butt. So far Tracie P’s favorite track is “Wheel of Fortune,” which features Lou Ann Barton on vox.

We’re going to miss Jimmie’s show next weekend at Antone’s ’cause we’ll be out of town but that’s okay. I know I’ll run into Jimmie at Whole Foods market when we’re back…

If you still had any doubt that Austin is America’s most rockin’ city, check out this photo I snapped yesterday by our favorite hippy-dippy convenience store/gas station.

Buon weekend, ya’ll…

Wine blogs you should and can’t read react to Brunello “rivellation”

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Regretfully, I don’t have a subscription to Jancis Robinson’s subscription-only blog but a friend cut, pasted, and sent me a post on Jancis’s blog by British wine writer Monty Waldin (above), who commented on the Rivellation that “80% of Brunello was not pure Sangiovese.”

    By saying that most pre-2008 Brunello was fraudulently blended, Dott. Rivella implicitly accepts that journalists such as Franco Ziliani, myself and a number of others who have consistently and publicly claimed that all Brunellos were not 100% Brunello, as they should have been, deserve at least some credit – and that we don’t ‘deserve to have our tyres slashed’, as one irate ‘Brunello’ producer told me to my face.

    We didn’t say what we said because we are anti-Brunello. Far from it. We said it because it was obvious to any wine drinker with half a brain that certain wines labelled Brunello did not always look, smell or taste as though they were 100% Brunello (Sangiovese). This was not fair to consumers, but just as importantly it was not fair to those Brunello producers – both big and small – who played by the rules, the vast majority of whom actually succeeded in making red wines with the inherent quality to reinforce the fully justified claim of real Brunello to sit in Italy’s vinous pantheon.

Another interesting pingback came from a truly dynamic wine blogger in Finland, Arto Koskelo (above), who was gracious enough to translate a post in which he reflects on Rivella’s statements (since I, for one, cannot read Finnish!).

    Don’t get me wrong, the wines may very well be excellent. But in the end the most crucial point isn’t the style of the wines nor even their quality but integrity and lack of it. If one exploits the very historical legacy the regions reputation is based on and at the same time sells it short, wine lover finds that if he gives this kind of fashion the thumbs up he ends up with one stinky finger.

Arto’s a 30-something freelance writer and wine blogger and videographer. “As you might know,” he wrote me in an email, “Finland as a Nordic country has traditionally been a beer drinking country, so we are super happy about the small impact we are making on the cultural landscape.”