Earlier this week, a lively conversation with a group of west coast wine buyers proffered an anecdote for the viticultural ages.

A guest, recounted a young and gifted sommelier, had asked them to pour an organic wine for the table. Being the consummate wine professional that they were, they presented said guest with an organic wine. With wine in glass, said guest then offered the following consideration.

“This wine doesn’t taste organic,” they said to the sommelier with an unconcealed note of disappointment and distaste.

What was the sommelier to say? The customer is always right, as the Hippocratic oath of hospitality goes.

Is “organic” a character, a nature that can be described through sensorial observation? Even the most ardent organic enthusiasts would be hard-pressed to make the argument that it can.

No one disputes that organic farming can deliver wines of high quality. It’s equally true that conventionally farmed wines can achieve the same level of quality. It’s also worth noting that the broader organic movement has prompted many wine growers to incorporate organic practices in their approach to viticulture, sometimes with spectacular results.

But a divide as wide as the Atlantic Ocean spans the perceptions of well-intentioned consumers, the winemakers who grow and transform the grapes, and the service professionals who serve to bridge the gap between producer and consumer.

The seductive power of the “organic” brand has also led countless unscrupulous bottlers to claim wines are organically farmed when in fact they are not.

I’ve heard many prominent grape growers say that truly organic wines are a myth. It’s impossible to avoid the residue of chemically based farming, they point out. Some have even argued that without the larger scale conventional farming by big wine (which restrains the spread of vine disease), small-scale organic farming wouldn’t be possible.

There are so many arguments to be made for and against the way we perceive organic wines. Ultimately, the sommelier found a wine that the guest approved of. But the great rift between the sacred (organic) and the profane (conventional) does no other service than to prop up our vanity.

The Benazzoli sisters’ website doesn’t have an “about” page.

In its stead, enonauts will find a “Made by Women” page that tells their story and their unique approach to viticulture in all its expressions. (For those conversant in the patois of internetspeak, n.b. the slug “womens dreams.”)

On a chilly, drizzly, overcast day last October, a visit to the Benazzoli estate delivered me and my buddy Giovanni a stone’s throw from Lake Garda in the Bardolino DOC.

There, we tasted through a buoyant, energetic flight of wines that Claudia and Gilia grow, raise, and bottle themselves.

The premature loss of their father led them to take over this family-owned estate, which also includes rows in the Monte hamlet of Sant’Ambrogio di Valpolicella.

A stroll through the vineyards that lie adjacent to the tasting room and winery revealed the classic morainic soils (above) that give these wines their signature lift and liveliness.

Claudia, who received us that day, recounted how challenging it was to manage the winery after the loss of their father, emotionally but also professionally since the girls had hardly completed their studies.

But it was challenge they felt compelled to accept, in part to honor their father’s legacy as a renowned Bardolino and Valpolicella farmer.

As traditional and classically delicious the wines are (bright, vibrant, transparent fruit and restrained alcohol were the common denominators), the women’s approach to marketing their products couldn’t be more creative — and brilliant.

Those are two of the labels they’ve created for their wines, above and below, the Chiaretto and Bardolino, respectively, both blends of Corvina (roughly 80 percent) and Rondinella.

I highly encourage you to check out their super cool website where you immediately get a sense of the intellectual depth behind their winemaking.

What’s not to love about everything they do?

I currently have a small allocation of Benazzoli wines available through my California distribution and retail business. DM if you need some.

Every bottle of wine is a gamble.

Even when a bottle has been shipped and stored correctly, there are so many variables that can affect the fitness and quality of the wine.

There is always the issue of corks, corkiness, and premature oxidation. But there are even other factors that come into play. Even in the case of Produttori del Barbaresco, what some would call a highly reliable producer of collectible wines, what grower in the cooperative raised the grapes that went into a given blended bottle? Was it from their best rows high on the slope or from fruit at the bottom? There are infinite elements that can shape a wine’s future, even when it is stored in temperature- and humidity-controlled conditions.

But man, when it all comes together, the disappointments of the patient collector are all offset by a stunning wine that everyone at the dinner table will remember.

That’s what happened last night when we opened a bottle of 2007 Produttori del Barbaresco classic (blended) Barbaresco with friends who came over for dinner.

The wine was from an allocation of Produttori del Barbaresco I bought when Tracie and I got married in 2010. It had remained in my wine locker in San Diego since that time.

Honestly, I was afraid that my investment wasn’t going to pay off: last year, I opened a few 2007s and they were in good shape and good to drink. But the fruit was “closed,” “shut down,” as we say in the trade. I was worried that the ideal moment to drink these had passed.

But the above bottle fired on all cylinders and more yesterday. On the nose, the wine was extremely fresh, with hints of the berry fruit that would arrive on the palate. In the mouth, the vibrant acidity conveyed brilliant, glorious fruit flavors with just enough earth to balance the juicy, ripe flavor.

It was utterly delicious and worth every second that we have waited for it.

Looking back, 2007 was a vintage that gave us a preview of 2022: a mild winter with relatively little snow and little rainfall and a hot summer that accelerated harvest and cooked some of the fruit on the vine. The overarching quality was excellent but the yields were attenuated.

Last night’s bottle was a wager worth waiting for.

In the Bricco di Nizza, the central subzone of the Nizza DOCG, the soils are identical to those found in La Morra, the largest commune for the production of Barolo. That’s clay-rich soil, above, and limestone, below. Other areas in the DOCG, to the south and north, have sandstone soils, also ideal for Barbera.

It’s only been a few months since I began working with a new client in Nizza Monferrato, Piedmont. But one thing has already become abundantly and glaringly clear.

Wine professionals across the U.S. are still in the dark when it comes to Monferrato’s pyramid appellation system, which was announced in 2010 and launched in 2014.

Ever since Italian and French ampelographers began to proselytize about the virtues of the Barbera grape in the second half of the 19th century, Monferrato and Asti province have been considered the variety’s spiritual homeland.

It was back in 2010, when a group of American bloggers and I attended the “Barbera Meeting” convention in the village of Nizza Monferrato, that the Barbera d’Asti consortium announced the creation of the highest tier in their appellation hierarchy — the Nizza DOCG.

Previously, Barbera was vinified in Asti province as Barbera del Monferrato DOC or Barbera d’Asti DOCG, an appellation that included a “superiore” designation (originally in reference to superior alcohol content) and single-vineyard “cru” designations.

With the launch of the Nizza DOCG four years later, Monferrato now had a super star category.

For generations, Italian wine insiders have recognized the greater depth of Barbera farmed in Monferrato as opposed to Alba, the land of Nebbiolo. And true Barbera connoisseurs knew that within the Barbera d’Asti DOCG, the wines raised in and around the village of Nizza Monferrato were considered the top expressions of Barbera d’Asti.

The soils in Nizza del Monferrato, and in particular, along the central crest known as the Bricco del Nizza, are identical to those found in La Morra, the largest commune for the production of Barolo. And for more than a generation now, growers there have made Nizza-designated wines, which many, myself included, have found to be the most compelling exemplars of Barbera.

With the new DOCG, this de facto category had now been codified.

So why is it, nearly a decade after the launch in 2014, that American wine professionals still don’t know about the new Nizza DOCG?

It’s time for all of us, on both sides of the Atlantic, to stop just saying Barbera and shout out NIZZA!

Say it with me: NEETZ-zah.

Thanks for reading my post today for Amistà, producer of Nizza DOCG.

Last week while in Los Angeles for work, I attended the Gambero Rosso Tre Bicchieri tasting. For those who have never been to one of those events, it’s a huge Italian wine industry schmooze fest. For the most part, it’s all about hugs and high fives and catching up with people who work in our trade.

Among so many other colleagues and friends, I ran into a prominent importer of Italian wine whom I’ve known for years. We’ve eaten dinner together, we’ve been on panels together, and we even share friends beyond the world of wine.

For whatever reason that day, when conviviality should have been the byword, he decided to give me an earful about our lives in Texas. No matter what I told about how we live here, he was determined to instruct me on the evil character of our geography. He even went as far as to insinuate that we live our lives in Texas because we enjoy our segregation.

When I pointed out that my native state, California, is the most segregated place I’ve ever lived, he dismissed my claims as MAGA propaganda.

When I told him that my politics and activism land on the hard left of the spectrum, he countered that he was so far left that I wouldn’t even come close to his political rectitude.

When I asked him to consider all the Black and Brown people who live in Texas — by choice, just like us — he wrote me off as a denialist and revisionist.

Ever since I moved to Texas to be with the woman I love and raise a family with her, people from California and New York have continuously and tirelessly given me shit about being a Texan.

Even my own immediate California family derides me for it. One sister-in-law told me she was “scared” for her sister who moved here. Another asked me “how can you live there with all those awful people?”

This country is never going to find its way out of its moralistic morass until we begin to understand — to comprehend truly — that Texans and all southerners are human beings, too. State boundaries do not represent monolithic ethical, moral, and aesthetic divides. There are all kinds of people in Texas, just as there are all kinds of people in California (including plenty of ultraconservative racists, among others, in my home state).

Stop judging me by my geography. Stop telling me I’m a bad or morally failed person because I live here. The false moral superiority of my ex-friend is a mirror and equally insidious reflection of the ultra-right conservatives he pigeon-holes us with.

That’s a photo of my wife Tracie and our two daughters, Georgia and Lila Jane, above. Tracie was born in Texas. Our girls were born in Texas. I am an adoptive Texan. Yes, we are concerned about our family’s reproductive rights. We are concerned about our voting rights (we were gerrymandered this year, no joke). We are concerned about our right to free speech and gun safety.

But we are also living, breathing human beings who hope, dream, and work for a better world. And we share in those aspirations with our community, including Black, Brown, Asian, and White, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim people among many others.

As the saying goes, I know you like to think your shit don’t stink, but lean a little bit closer…

Above: producers of Sicilian pistachio cream at last year’s Taste of Italy in Houston.

One of the super cool things about this year’s Taste of Italy trade fair and festival in Houston is that it’s the first time the gathering will include international producers.

I’m super geeked, for example, to taste a flight of Uruguayan wines that will be presented on Monday at the Omni hotel in my adoptive hometown.

I’m also looking forward to the Calabrian gastronomy panel I’ll be moderating with a Calabrian food expert and a Calabrian chef on the morning of the festival.

And of course, who can resist the Italian wines and Texas BBQ seminar that I’ll be leading together with Dale Robertson, wine writer for the Houston Chronicle, and Tom Dobson, the Italian buyer for Spec’s, the behemoth Texan chain of wine retail outlets. Pit master Ara Malekian will be doing the smoking. Every year, he’s one of the most compelling speakers at our gig. And the wines Tom selected are über cool.

Lastly, don’t forget the grand tasting where more than 50 producers, including the Uruguayans, will be presenting their foods and wines.

Click here for all the details and registration links. I hope to see you on Monday in Houston! Thanks for supporting the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce, the organizer, and thanks for loving and drinking Italian wines.

One of the great pleasures of returning to my old stomping grounds in New York City has been reconnecting with my old boss and friend, Nicola Marzovilla, legacy restaurateur and now Chianti Classico grape grower.

But an even greater delight has been that of meeting and spending time with his extraordinary winemaker, the indomitable Serena Gusmeri.

She’s from Brescia, another connection we share. Before working with Nicola at his Vecchie Terre di Montefili estate in Panzano, she had never made a red wine in her life. But now she’s one of the hottest enologists in Tuscany, with astronomic scores from the opinion-making mastheads.

As Nicola likes to say, “I used to hate the critics but now I love them!” (When Nicola met Tracie for the first time many years ago, he told her that she needed to get glasses, just to put this in context.)

I visited Serena and the historic Montefili estate in September of last year, just a few days before the Sangiovese harvest was to begin there. I was blown away by the farm, the highest in Panzano. The village is Italy’s first organic biome: every farmer in the commune now farms there organically.

The property hadn’t been abandoned when Nicola took it over a decade ago. But let’s just say that it hadn’t been “updated.”

Today, Serena works closely with a leading biodynamic consultant to align her farming practices with the soils’ biodiversity. In other words, they survey the flora and soils’ nitrogen levels etc. to understand how best to grow the grapes.

The results have been spectacular.

Last week when I was in town, my client and I dined at Nicola’s new and impossible-to-get-in Manhattan restaurant, Nonna Dora’s Pasta Bar, where he opened his most coveted expression of Sangiovese for us, the 2018 Vigna Vecchia — 100 percent Sangiovese made from vines that are more than 40 years old, raised in galestro and alberese-rich soils. Remember the post I did a few weeks ago, “Chianti 101: galestro and alberese”? The images came from my September visit to the farm.

This wine, still very young in its evolution, is rich in body and texture, with vibrant acidity that keeps its heft in balance. The flavors tend toward the darker fruits and the savory character that you find in the greatest of Sangiovese.

We paired it with Nicola’s mom Dora’s orecchiette with rabbit ragù.

Believe me when I say it: it was great to be back in the city.

Thank you again, Nicola! And great to see the old I Trulli crew!

Even after all these years, I still hadn’t ever made it to Aldo Sohm’s super wine bar in midtown Manhattan. But that lacuna was rectified when I convened there last night with my client and his crew.

When I say that his joint is everything you could dream of in a wine bar, the reason is plain and simple: as soon as our party of four sat down, I asked our server to pick our first bottle and a round of appetizers and before you knew it, our glasses where full and beautiful food appeared before our hungry eyes.

That may seem like a mundane occurrence. But it’s rare, especially these days when staffing is a major challenge for concept wine destinations, that the servers can deliver food and wine happiness with such confidence and élan.

It were as if Aldo Sohm, arguably the top sommelier in New York and undeniably one of the leading wine professionals in the country, had imparted his grace and knowledge to his team through osmosis (not reverse osmosis, I may add for the the wine-hip crowd).

From the moment we handed our coats to the host (it’s cold in NYC this week!) to the last glass of wine we drank and bite of food we ate, Aldo’s team gently and elegantly guided us through the deliciousness of the list and the menu.

I loved the globally creative dishes and the verve of the mise en place. Grilled avocado and white Burgundy were followed by a beautifully stuffed red pepper (“one of chef Eric and Aldo’s favorites”) and a perfectly executed bánh mì paired with Billecart-Salmon rosé (thank you, Francesca and Michele!).

We couldn’t have enjoyed it more and I highly recommend it, especially to theater goers who will surely agree that’s it’s the perfect pre-show destination. The wine list is the best that you’ll find in this part of town for sure. After all, who needs another martini at Sardi’s?

Thank you Aldo and team! What a perfect way to show off the city to a group of jet-lagged Italians!