di mamma ce n’è una sola…

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Judy’s grandchildren Abner (Micah and Marguerite’s older boy) and Amalia (Tad and Diane’s youngest) took a break from Judy’s birthday celebration for very important discussions.

There’s a saying in Italian, di mamma ce n’è una sola…, there’s only one mother, in other words, you only have one mother… A few weeks ago, the Parzen family celebrated a special birthday for Judy, “our bridge over troubled water…”

Of course, I did a little wine tasting for the party, which was held in the park across from my mom’s building at the La Jolla Cove. This Saumur Rosé Corail, a sparkler made from Cabernet Franc, was the winner in my notes.

Brother Micah with long-time family friend Mr. Regan.

Long-time family friend Dr. Ugoretz and my mom’s colleague from her UCSD days, Mary. Dr. U’s really into wine and he seemed to dig the Truchard Cabernet Sauvignon that I poured him the other night at Jaynes.

Brother Tad, his father-in-law Saul, and the Golds, who live in my mom’s building. Mrs. Gold is my mom’s swimming partner.

Sister-in-law Diane and long-time family friend Theresa, one of my mom’s best friends.

Megan and I grew up together in our old neighborhood. Our families have been friends since we were children.

The weather was fantastic that day and everyone had a great time at the party. La Jolla never seemed more beautiful.

If you ever wonder where I learned how to do “jazz hands”… That’s me and Judy at Jaynes earlier this year celebrating my birthday.

Happy birthday, mom! Here’s a lil’ YouTubication for you…

A Higher Authority (Brunello needs one)

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Above: I watched a live “streaming,” as they say in Italian, of the heated Brunello debate today in Siena. That’s moderator and anthropology prof Dino Cutolo (left), Franco (center), and Teobaldo Cappellano, producer of one my favorite Barolos.

Sparks flew and and tempers flared at the Brunello debate today in Siena. Fascist, capitalist pig Ezio Rivella and his crony and brown-noser Vittorio Fiore faced off with the forces of good: Franco Ziliani and Teobaldo Cappellano. I’ll post my observations and thoughts about the debate soon (I have other pressing issues to attend to today) but you can read my cut-and-dry report at VinoWire.

Does it show that I’m pissed?

The arrogance of Rivella was only rivaled by the colorful remarks by Fiore that “it is not as if we need to make Kosher wine. Israelis make Kosher wines but there are Jews who will pay 200 or 300 Euros for those wines. We don’t need to be so stringent in our winemaking,” he said.

I think that Brunello needs a higher authority. Remember the ad below?

The great Brunello debate and please keep Austin weird

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Above: sopecitos at Fonda San Miguel, one of the many excellent Mexican restaurants in Austin, Texas.

Just a quick reminder: Franco and Ezio Rivella will face off tomorrow in the great Brunello debate in Siena, 3 p.m. local time. You can watch the debate live at http://www.vinarius.it/. I’ll be watching, of course, and will most certainly post about it here and at VinoWire. Franco will be presenting the case for Brunello di Montalcino to remain 100% Sangiovese while Rivella will argue that appellation regulations should be changed, allowing for other grapes to be used as well.

Above: Dale Watson did an awesome show at the Broken Spoke the other night in Austin.

In other news…

Tracie B. and me did us some more honky-tonkin in Austin this week. I’ve really been impressed by how Austin still has many family-owned and run music venues and restaurants. Especially coming from Southern California, where the landscape is dominated by fast food chains and strip malls, I’m happy to know that there is an America where folks are still keeping it real. Keep Austin Weird is a grass-roots movement that promotes general “weirdness,” as they put it.

I’ve been enjoying some of that weirdness and I really dug Dale Watson’s version of Pop a Top the other night at the Broken Spoke (my second-favorite honky tonk after Ginny’s Little Longhorn).

Pop a top again
I just got time for one more round
Sit em up my friends
Then I’ll be gone
Then you can let some other fool sit down

I’d like for you’d to listen to a joke I heard today
From a woman who said she was through and calmly walked away
I’d tried to smile and did a while it felt so outta place
Did you ever hear of a clown with tears drops streamming down his face.

Pop a top again
I think I’ll have another round
Sit em up my friend
Then I’ll be gone and you can let some other fool sit down.

Home for me is misery and here I am wasting time
Cause a row of fools on a row of stools is not what’s on my mind
But then you see her leaving me it’s not what I perfer
So it’s either here just drinking beer or at home remembering her.

Pop a top again
I think I’ll have another round
Sit em up my friend
Then I’ll be gone and you can let some other fool sit down
Pop a top again.

What to serve with home-smoked ribs in Austin TX? Produttori del Barbaresco, what else?

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Above: what else would I pair with home-smoked ribs? 2004 Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco (classico), of course. I’ve tasted this wine a number of times since I first tasted it in NYC at a Vias portfolio tasting with Alfonso, Alice, and winemaker Aldo Vacca early last year. Over the last few months, it’s been in what I call a “state of grace”: a period of sensational drinkability before it shuts down again for the long-term. The bottle we opened on Sunday night in Austin showed signs of tightening up again but was delicious nonetheless.

Italian wine bloggers — me, Tracie B., Alfonso, and Wolfgang — converged on Austin last weekend for the Austin City Limits music festival and some general honky-tonking.

My festival highlight was Erykah Badu: man, that lady is one bad-assed mother… (and I mean that on multiple levels: played an amazing show, rocked a great percussion solo on with her digi trigger, and how many months pregnant is she?). We watched her set with my friend, roomate, and licensing agent Michael Nieves. He and I raised a beer to toast the phat placement he did for our song Fille Atomique on Gossip Girl on Monday.

Alfonso, Tracie B., and I were the guests at the home of Misti and Nathan, Tracie B.’s good friends. Nathan smoked pork ribs — one rack with a spicy rub, one with a bbq sauce finish, and one plain. He began smoking them in the morning, keeping them at about 200° F. all day long, using chips from old whiskey barrels (Franco would agree with me that this would be an excellent use for barriques! Nathan said, however, he prefers pecan). Misti made steamed corn with jalapeño rounds and a great potato salad (with olive oil instead of mayonnaise). Lena and Dean were there, too. Nathan’s a pretty mean guitar player and so we traded some riffs and played Beatles and Bruce Springsteen into the night (on the ladies’ request).

Above: what do Italian wine bloggers drink when they get together? Mexican beer, of course! Wolfgang and Alfonso at Güero’s Taco Bar in Austin. I wasn’t sure about getting fish tacos in a land-locked taco joint so I went with the roast pork, which was very good, but the sides were just so-so. The salsa bar was excellent if meager and I love the way they serve the beer with small, old-school glasses, like the ones you find in Mexico.

Above: Tracie B. at Ginny’s Little Longhorn, my new all-time favorite honky tonk. The night we were there, the caliber of the playing just made me want to go sell my geetar at a pawn shop. Tracie B. moved back to Austin earlier this year from Ischia where she wrote her fantastic blog, My Life Italian, about Italian food and wine and the life of a Texana in Campania, Italy. She’s a little shy on camera but, man, that girl’s got the prettiest eyes this Italian wine blogger’s ever seen!

*****

Post scriptum

Strappo and Marco: we missed you at the Italian wine blogger summit, Austin, 2008 edition.

Fine Wine’s Franciacorta tasting notes

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Above: my POV when I tasted recently with Franco at Ca’ del Bosco in Franciacorta.

“Tom Stevenson believes that Italy’s grandest sparkling wines are getting better and better,” write the editors of Fine Wine, “a conviction strengthened by a recent tasting shared with Margaret Rand and Franco Ziliani.” My friend and partner in VinoWire, Franco Ziliani joined two of Britain’s top wine writers earlier this year to taste through a wide range of Franciacorta producers.

The editors of the magazine were kind enough to share a PDF of this article, which includes tasting notes from their remarkable tasting. Click here to view.

Feeling fat and stinky (and that’s a good thing)

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Above: fat and stinky. I can’t say where it came from or who shared it with me (since it’s illegal in this country), but this Ami du Chambertin was fantastic yesterday evening at my buddy’s place. This week I’m feeling just like that cheese.

When I first moved to NYC and got a job as a magazine editor, one of the graphics guys was a Russian. Slava was his name, very talented dude and a good friend. Every time he’d see me laugh or smile, he’d say, “Jeremy, suck a lime.” In other words, stop smiling because unless you don’t something bad will surely happen.

Well, I’m throwing caution to the wind because it’s been a good week and I’m feeling fat and stinky like that cheese.

Found out yesterday that Nous Non Plus’ Fille Atomique (from …Nous Non Plus self-titled) will be featured on the show Gossip Girl on Monday (8 p.m. Pacific, check your local listings).

Our new album, Ménagerie, is being printed as I write this and will be out in January.

This week I’m finishing the final edits on my behemoth translation of a Guide to Italian Cinema for Princeton U. Press. I’ve been working on this book for a few years now and it’s great to see it come to fruition.

And this weekend I’m headed to Austin, Texas to hang out, relax, and listen to some good music during Austin City Limits. Maybe I’ll even get to dance with a pretty girl… I can just hear Slava saying it, suck a lime…

In other news…

I really like this post today by McDuff: one of the things I like about his blog is the way he balances the human aspect of our business with great tasting notes and informed background. I was just talking to some colleagues about Vajra last night and lo and behold, David posted on the winery today.

Italian Wine Guy is back from Italy and shared with me this updated list of the now 41 Italian DOCGs (a few new ones were added this summer). Alfonso, looking forward to seeing you this weekend in Austin, man!

The virtual sommelier strikes again: Castell’in Villa ’82

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Above: 1982 Castell’in Villa at Dell’Anima in Manhattan.

When people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them: I’m just “keeping the world safe for Italian wine.” A number of my friends have suggested that I use the line as a tagline for Do Bianchi and maybe one day I will.

In the meantime, I recently received an email from John, who lives in San Diego but was headed to Dell’Anima in Manhattan for a special dinner with his wife:

    I recall reading something about a friend of yours emailing a picture of the wine list at a place in San Francisco, and you gave some sage advice. I hope I’m not being presumptuous, but I was wondering if you could take a look at a list and see if anything jumps out at you. We’re back in NYC for one night this Friday (Sept. 19), and are eating at Dell’Anima.

I took a quick look at owner Joe Campanale’s excellent list and there were a number of great options, at different price points. But the wine that really spoke to me, at a palatable price point, was the 1982 Castell’in Villa Chianti Classico.

Today, John writes:

    We had a great dinner at Dell’Anima Friday night. I’ll save the complete report for when we meet in person, but Joe came up to greet us … and then we decided on the Castell’in Villa ’82, which he poured a bit of into our glasses and then decanted. An Amazing Wine Experience! … It evolved beautifully for the whole hour it took to drink.

    I finished The Accidental Conoisseur on the flight back, and it was fun to see Rosenthal’s quotation on p. 210: “Are there any great Chiantis anymore? There’s Castell’in Villa, okay – but practically nothing else.”

That’s what we do over here at Do Bianchi… just keeping the world safe for Italian wine, one wine lover at a time.

Ziliani vs. Rivella: heavyweight title bout live from Siena, Friday October 3

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Above: Franco Ziliani is one of Italy’s most revered and controversial wine writers and his writings have always been an inspiration to me — for their verve, erudition, and the hard-hitting truths he brings to the tasting table (photo by Ben Shapiro).

No, this bout won’t be broadcast from the MGM Hotel in Las Vegas. But it will be streamed via internet from the Aula Magna or Great Hall of the University of Siena on Friday, October 3, 3 p.m. local time: enologist and ex-director of Banfi Ezio Rivella (an outspoken proponent for a change in appellation regulations that would allow for grapes other than Sangiovese to be used in Brunello di Montalcino) and wine writer Franco Ziliani (a steadfast traditionalist and defender of Brunello made from 100% Sangiovese) will face off in an unprecedented debate on the future of Brunello. Other panelists include Teobaldo Cappellano (Barolo producer and founder of Vini Veri) and noted Italian enologist Vittorio Fiore. (The debate will be “streamed” live at www.InToscana.it and www.Vinarius.it.)

Above: no, that’s not the rhino sported by the label of spoofulated Barbaresco. It’s a gravity defying ungulate that hovers above Ca’ del Bosco’s “gravity flow,” whereby the newly harvested grapes travel only by virtue of gravity as they are sorted, destemmed, and transformed into wine. Not only is Ca’ del Bosco a wonder of modern technology, it is also a objet d’art: works of art — ranging from Arnaldo Pomodoro to Igor Mitoraj to Helmut Newton — adorn the grounds and winemaking facility.

During my recent trip to Italy, I had a chance to taste with Franco in one of his favorite appellations, Franciacorta. Ben Shapiro, Giovanni Arcari (a Franciacorta winemaker and consultant), Franco, and I toured and tasted at the amazing technicolor dreamcoat that is the Ca’ del Bosco winery before we retired to dinner and confabulated late into the evening, lingering over Giovanni’s excellent Camossi Franciacorta rosé (would someone please import this wine to the U.S., Strappo?).

Above: a detail of one of the riddling racks in the Ca’ del Bosco cellar. Note the sediment in the neck of the bottle.

The highlight, however, was a stunning 1979 Ca’ del Bosco, disgorged à la volée by one of the winery’s technicians in the cellar. Comparing the ’79 to the recent vintages, it is clear that Ca’ del Bosco’s style has remained unchanged since its early years and these superb wines stand apart for their character, personality and terroir expression. Excuse the pun, but that wine was fly! (Brooklynguy would have loved its oxidized nose and intense hazelnut flavors.)

Above: one of the extraordinary Mitoraj sculptures on the grounds of the winery. Ca’ del Bosco does offer guided tours and tastings by appointment. I highly recommend it: the state-of-the-art winemaking facility is among the most impressive I’ve ever seen, much of the technology developed and patented by the winery itself.

Tornando a bomba, as they say in Italian, getting back to matters at hand… I’ll be publishing a report of next Friday’s Ziliani vs. Rivella face-off. Rivella has long championed changes in appellation regulations (in Piedmont and Tuscany) that would allow for liberal blending of international grape varieties. I regret that the current political climate in Italy appears outwardly amenable to such changes. I don’t believe that Franco and Teobaldo are the “last of the Mohicans.” But I do believe this unprecedented public forum represents a defining moment in what has become a national debate in Italy.

Don’t touch that dial…

My dinner with the Weinsteins

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BrunelloWire: light rain today and so no picking.

Strappo reports from Montepulciano: “Still a way from harvest in Montepulciano. But they are about 600 m above sea level here.”

Above: no, that’s not the Weinsteins… that’s Melanie and Noah. Noah and I go way back: we even went to Hebrew School together! Today, he’s a leading German scholar and she a writer of non-fiction, critic, and poet.

No, I didn’t really have dinner with the Weinsteins. But that was the joke the other night when my good friends Melanie Rehak and Noah Isenberg (above) took me to Weinstein, a wonderful traditional German wine bar just off the Helmholtzplatz in their neighborhood, the Prenzlauer Berg, in Berlin (note the über-hip extension “.eu” in the Weintstein URL).

Riesling is a lacuna in my enological formation and so I was in pig heaven, so to speak, between a great flight of Rieslings poured by excellent sommelier Marc Metzdorf and my Wiener Teller (“Viennese platter,” including delicious cured suckling pig among other delicatessen) and Königsberger Klöße (pork and veal — if I’m not mistaken — dumplings).

The star of the evening was the 1995 Dr. Loosen Urziger Würzgarten Riesling Auslese, which Marc pours by the glass. Being the neophyte Riesling-lover that I am, I put myself in Marc’s hands and I was really impressed by the care and devotion he and his colleague, Claudia, showed for these wines. Weinstein’s list is impressive and stretches back to the 1970s, with roughly 250 lots. Good stuff…

On the plane back to LAX from Berlin the next day, I read Noah’s new tome on the film noir classic Detour. It’s a great read and I highly recommend it.

*****

Earlier in the day, Melanie and I paid a visit to the “legendary” food department at KaDeWe, where German cuisine is featured alongside cuisine from all over the world. Melanie’s finishing edits on a book about her experience working in farm-to-table restaurant in Brooklyn. I can’t reveal the name but I’m looking forward to its release sometime next year. Here are some pics from KaDeWe…

I love anything marzipan. The more kitsch, the better.

Cured heaven…

Please don’t feed the eels…

The “American” section was really a joke… an irony in the context of the fantastic traditional German, French, Italian, and Japanese counters. But Melanie and I had fun perusing the candy canes, Pop Tarts and Swiss Miss.

My martini lunch and news from Italy

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Above: chilled beet soup and martinis for lunch yesterday at Lucques in West Hollywood.

My editor at Princeton University Press will kill me: I was supposed to be working on my final edits of my translation of a Guide to the History of Italian Cinema yesterday but I played hooky and met the producer of a Swiss (yes, Swiss) vodka, Xellent, for lunch at the fashionable Lucques in West Hollywood. Maybe she’ll forgive me: after all, the 3-martini lunch used to be a given in the world of east coast publishing!

In other news…

The Siena Farmers Union is meeting tomorrow to discuss potential changes in the Rosso and Brunello di Montalcino appellations. Click here for the story.

Good weather holds in Montalcino for harvest today.

And far-flung Do Bianchi correspondent Italian Wine Guy reports from San Benedetto del Tronto in the Marches:

Harvesting trebbiano today—the much maligned ugni blanc. This AM the fishing boats came in from the sea. Lovely stuff on the adriatic.