Tag Archives: Alfonso Cevola

The Italian DOC/G system does (and doesn’t) matter

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Photos by Tracie B.

A number of folks have posted recently about the Italian appellation system, bemoaning the fact that there is no “official” comprehensive list of DOCs and DOCGs. Back in NYC, my friend and colleague James Taylor posted at the VinoNYC blog: “as is the case with most things governmental in Italy, the system for classifying its wines can be apparently simple but deceptively complex, and can oftentimes cause a headache.” (In case you are not familiar with the Italian appellation system, see the note following this post below.)

Out here in Texas, Italian Wine Guy recently updated his list of DOCGs. His is the most comprehensive list that I know of. (Considering how much Italian wine he “touches,” as he likes to put it, as the Italian wine director for behemoth distributor Glazer’s, you’d think the Italian government would give this dude a medal. He certainly deserves one.)

It’s remarkable to think that neither the Italian government nor its Trade Commission, nor the Agriculture Ministry, nor the Italian Wine Union publish an online, comprehensive, definitive, exhaustive, up-to-date list.

But does a list really matter? Especially now?

IWG notes that while some might wonder why such a list is really necessary, it is important “because sommeliers studying for their tests want and need this information [and] anyway, it is kind of fun trying to figure a way through the labyrinth of Italian wines on that (or any) level.”

The point about sommeliers studying for their exams is a valid one: as Franco and I reported the other day at VinoWire, none of the three finalists in the recent AIS sommelier competition recognized a Langhe Bianco DOC (and one of its producers is no less than the Bishop of Barbaresco, Angelo Gaja!). Needless to say, the award was conferred to one of the contestants despite this glaring lacuna. The fact of the matter is that in the U.S. we perceive these regulations in an entirely different perspective — one that reveals our pseudo-Protestant and quasi-Progressivist tendencies and predilections for precision and accuracy.

One of our (American) misconceptions about the Italian appellation system is that it was designed to protect the consumer. In fact, as Teobaldo Cappellano pointed out in last year’s Brunello Debate, the DOC/DOCG system was created to protect “the territory,” i.e., the production zone and the people who live there and make wine.

On August 1, 2009, the DOC and DOCG system was essentially put to rest by newly implemented EU Common Market Organization reforms. August 1 was the deadline for the creation of wine appellations by EU member states and from that day forward, the power to create appellations passed from member states to the EU. The deadline created a mad rush to create new DOCs and DOCGs in Italy. Beginning with the current vintage, all wines produced in the EU will be labeled as Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and Protected Geographical Indication (PGI). The new designations will recognize and allow labeling using the members states’s current appellation classifications. But from now on, no new DOCs or DOCGs will be permitted.

It’s important to note that the DOCG does denote a higher standard of production practices: generally, lower yields, longer aging, and a second tasting of the wine by local chambers of commerce (after bottling but before release), thus conferring the “G” for garantita (guaranteed). But even though the DOCG classification has been used historically as a more-or-less deceptive marketing tool (like this pay-to-play press release on the just-under-the-wire new Matelica DOCG), it does not necessarily denote higher quality. Think, for example, of Quintarelli’s 1999 Rosso del Bepi Veneto IGT, his declassified Amarone. A few years ago, when I called him to ask him about this wine, Giuseppe Quntarelli told me that he thought it was a great wine and wanted to release it but he felt it wasn’t a “true Amarone” and so he declassified it. (Yes, I hate to break the news to you, Bob Chadderdon, you’re not the only person in the U.S. allowed to speak to Quintarelli. He complimented me, btw, for my Paduan cadence!)

The rush to create new appellations (and in particular, new DOCGs), has created a great deal of confusion and in some cases commotion. I’ll post more on the subject later this week: self-proclaimed xenophobe, racist, and separatist agriculture minister Luca Zaia truly stirred the pot with the creation of a Prosecco DOCG. Stay tuned…

*****

Currently, the Italian appellation system has three basic classifications for fine wine: DOCG, DOC, and IGT.

Acronymic articulations and translations:

DOCG: Denominazione d’origine controllata e garantita (Designation of Controlled and Guaranteed Origin)

DOC: Denominazione d’origine controllata (Designation of Controlled Origin)

IGT: Indicazione Geografica Tipica (Typical Geographical Indication)

There are wines still labeled VdT, i.e., Vino da Tavola or table wines but few of them make the Atlantic passage. In other words, few cross that body of water otherwise known as the “great misunderstanding.”

Banfi 2004 Brunello, I cannot tell a lie (and other notes and posts on 04 Brunello)

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Tracie B snapped the above pic of me using my Blackberry the other night, when she came home with an open bottle of Banfi 2004 Brunello di Montalcino in her wine bag (when not otherwise occupied being knock-out gorgeous, Tracie B works as a sale representative for a behemoth mid-west and southeastern U.S. wine and spirits distributor).

The moment of truth had arrived: it was time for me to taste the wine with my dinner of Central Market rotisserie chicken, salad, and potatoes that Tracie B had roasted in her grandmother’s iron skillet.

The wine was clear and bright in the glass and had bright acidity and honest fruit flavor. The tannin, while present, was not out of balance and the wine had a slightly herbaceous note in the finish that might not please lovers of modern-style wines but that I enjoy. If ever there were a wine made with 100% Sangiovese grapes, I would say this were one — tasted covertly or overtly.

According to WineSearcher.com, the average retail price for this wine in the U.S. is $65. I can’t honestly say that I recommend the wine: it’s not a wine that I personally look for at that price point. I did not find this to be a great or original or terroir-driven wine but I will say that it is an honest expression of Sangiovese from Montalcino.

Anyone who reads my blog (or follows news from the world of Italian wine), knows that Banfi has been the subject of much controversy over the last year and a half. But fair is fair and rules are rules and I cannot conceal that I enjoyed the 04 Brunello by Banfi. (Btw, Italian Wine Guy, who is Glazer’s Italian Wine Director, recently posted on 04 Brunello, including a YouTube of Banfi media director Lars Leight speaking on the winery’s current releases at a wine dinner in Dallas.)

Above: Facing south from Il Poggione’s vineyards below Sant’Angelo in Colle, looking toward Mt. Amiata.

Despite the will of some marketers to make us think otherwise, 2004 was not an across-the-board great vintage in Montalcino. In my experience with the wines so far, only those with the best growing sites were able to make great wines in the classic style of Montalcino and wines that really taste like Montalcino.

Btw, in all fairness, it’s important to note that the Banfi vineyards lie — to my knowledge — primarily in the southwest subzone of the appellation, one of the historic growing areas for great Sangiovese. When you drive south from Sant’Angelo in Colle, you see signs for the Banfi vineyards on the right. Earlier this year, my friend Ale over at Montalcino Report posted this excellent series on understanding the terroir of Montalcino using Google Earth. It’s one of the best illustrations of why the wines from that part of the appellation are always among the best, even in difficult years. (Ale’s killer Il Poggione 04 Brunello, which I tasted for the first time at Vinitaly in April, received such glowing praise from one of the world’s greatest wine writers that it caused near pandemonium in the market, prompting wine sales guru Jon Rimmerman to write that it “may be the most offered/reacted to wine I’ve ever witnessed post-Wine Advocate review.”)

Above: Facing north in Il Poggione’s vineyards, looking at the village of Sant’Angelo in Colle (literally, Sant’Angelo “on the hill”).

Franco recently tasted 93 bottlings of 04 Brunello at the offices of The World of Fine Wine in London and wrote of his disappointment with the wines delivered by even some of the top producers. Here are Franco’s top picks and straight-from-the-hip notes, posted at VinoWire.

In other news…

One of the greatest moments of personal fulfillment in my life was when my band NN+’s debut album reached #6 in the college radio charts so I guess that stranger things have happened: a colleague in Italy emailed me last week to let me know that my blog Do Bianchi was ranked #9 in the official (?) list of “top wine blogs.” Who knew?

Thanks, everyone, for taking the time to read Do Bianchi. The blog has been such a rewarding experience for me and it means so much to me that there are people out there who enjoy it.

The origins of Zibibbo (closer reading part 2)

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pant1

Photos of Pantelleria by Alfonso Cevola.

In response to my post on Sir Robert the other day, both Charles (friend, mentor, venerated palate, and husband to Italian cookery authority Michele Scicolone) and Tracie B (my soon-to-be better and definitely better looking half) asked about the origins of the grape name Zibibbo.

In 1605, Sir Robert writes of white Tuscan grape “Zibibbo,” which is “dried for Lent.” It is highly likely that he is referring to the Tuscan tradition of Vin Santo. One of the unique things about Vin Santo, beyond the winemaker’s intentional oxidation of the wine, is that it often undergoes a second fermentation in the spring when temperatures begin to rise and my hunch is that the reference to Lent has something to do with vinification practices (but that’s another story for another post).

Today, we know Zibibbo as the white Moscato used to make the famed wine of Sicily, Passito di Pantelleria. But in antiquity, the word meant simply “dried grape,” from the Arabic zabib, akin to the Egyptian zibib. As it turns out, it was only recently that the term began to denote specifically the grapes used for the famous wine of Pantelleria. It’s not clear which variety Sir Robert is referring to but he’s clearing referring to a dried grape wine (especially in the light of his reference to Lent).

pant2

When I was a grad student, my dissertation adviser used to call me the segugio, the blood hound or sleuth: this morning I did some snooping around and found and translated the following passage by one of Italy’s greatest philologists, Alberto Varvaro, professor at the University of Naples (o what a joy to be reunited, finally, with my library!). I love what professor Varvaro has to say in his conclusion, i.e., that part of the reason why we’ve come to know Moscato d’Alessandria as Zibibbo is because Palermitan shopkeepers adopted the term as a designation of higher quality in order to charge higher prices.* I also love Varvaro’s Sicilian style and humor in describing this linguistic phenomenon — all the while in a highly erudite and scientific context. Varvaro was born in Palermo in 1934 and is one of Italy’s leading experts in dialectology.

    Everyone knows Zibibbo, the excellent white table grape variety, grown for the most part in Pantelleria (hence the name)… Many are quick to say that this has always been its name and that the connection between the name, meaning, and referent-object has ancient and undisputed origins.** But this is not the case: the Arabic zabib, which with all likelihood gave the name to our grape, was a dried grape and was probably the meaning of the term when it began to be used in Sicily (according to [anthropologist] Alberto Cirese, its meaning remained unchanged in outlying areas and as far away as Central Italy). Even if this were not true, there is no disputing the fact that dictionaries in the 1700s and 1800s unhesitatingly define the term zibbibbu as a red grape and therefore, there is no doubt that the word’s meaning has changed only recently. Lastly, it is worth noting that the grape’s history in Pantelleria is proof of this recent change. Apart from its past history, it is useful to consider the present state of things: as if to play a trick on Linnaeus [the father of modern taxonomy] and surely motivated by profit and self-promotion, most of the shopkeepers in Palermo make a clear-cut distinction between zibbibbu and uva: if you use the word uva [i.e., grape] when you ask for zibibbo, the shopkeepers will correct you, perhaps because they suspect you wish to pay less. Thus, we have a case in which the solidarity of the name, meaning, and referent object has been broken in relation to a change in the referent-object as well as in relation to the linguistic articulation of the meaning.

pantelleria3

If I keep up this scholarly Sicilian sleuthing, ya’ll might have to start calling me Dr. Montalbano!

Thanks for reading…

* In Grape Varieties of Italy, Calò, Scienza, and Costacurta list these synonyms for Zibibbo: Zibibbo Bianco, Moscatellone, Moscato di Pantelleria, Salamonica, Salamanna, Seralamanna, Moscato di Alessandria [Muscat d’Alexandrie, Muscat from Alexandria, a reference to its Egyptian origins], Muscat [in French].

** Referent or referent-object is a term used in linguistics to denote “The entity referred to or signified by a word or expression; a thing or person alluded to” (OED). In this case, Varvaro is using a classic triangular model of linguistics, articulating the word itself (the name or signifier), its meaning (the signified), and the actual object to which it refers.

Lacan, Petrarch, Nietzsche, Fiorano, and hieroglyphic wine

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Above: I love this image of the 1994 Malvasia by Fiorano, snapped by Tracie B in her apartment the other day. It’s a quasi-film-noir take on a hard-to-wrap-your-mind-around wine. One of the things that intrigues us about wine is its mystery: who made it and how and why? A glass of wine can be like Lacan’s hieroglyphs in the dessert.

Twentieth-century linguist, semiotician, and father of late-blooming French psychoanalysis Jacques Lacan famously asked his readers to consider how they would react in the following situation (perhaps a great premise for an ersatz reality show?):

    Suppose that in the desert you find a stone covered with hieroglyphics. You do not doubt for a moment that, behind them, there was a subject who wrote them. But it is an error to believe that each signifier is addressed to you — this is proved by the fact you cannot understand any of it. On the other hand, you define them as signifiers, by the fact that you are sure that each of the signifiers is related to each of the others.

(This passage is often cited in explaining Lacan’s theory of the “precedence of the signifier,” in other words, the notion that the word or symbol or sign always exists before meaning does.)

In some ways, protohumanist Francis Petrarch said the same thing when he wrote that as a young man, he could read Roman orator Cicero’s writing and he was enchanted by the words, their sounds, and their elegance, even though he could not (yet) understand what they meant.

Above: Tracie B’s contribution to our dinner Saturday at Italian Wine Guy’s was her excellent carbonara. It paired stunningly with the vibrant 92 Fiorano Semillon. Carbonara is another example of a trace of the past that has lost its meaning. No one knows for sure the origins of the dish or they etymon of its name.

As with literature and writing (even writing on the wall), we sometimes assign meaning to things not because we know the meaning intended by their authors or creators but because we simply come into contact with them. Nietzsche wrote about this in The Twilight of the Idols as “the error of imaginary causes,” as in dreams, when, for example, external stimulus (like a canon shot, as Nietzsche put it, or perhaps the song playing on a radio alarm clock) enters our subconscious:

    The ideas engendered by a certain condition have been misunderstood as the cause of that condition. We do just the same thing, in fact, when we are awake.

What do any of these things have to do with one another, beyond me stringing together a seemingly arbitrarily compiled handlist of philosophical and epistemological musings?

Every wine wine we approach and draw to our lips is a mystery, a riddle of the Sphinx. Every glass of wine is Lacan’s desert hieroglyph, Petrarch’s Cicero, and Nietzsche’s waking dream — ay, there’s the rub… And so were the three bottles of Fiorano white that Tracie B and I opened with Italian Wine Guy over the weekend as our birthday gift to him (and a thank you for all that he’s done for both of us, professionally and personally, over the last two years).

Above: Deciphering Fiorano through the prism of Italian Wine Guy aka Alfonso’s superb stemware, paired with his take on petto di pollo alla milanese. Photo by Tracie B.

A great deal has been written about the fascinating wines of Fiorano (Eric’s 2004 article was the first piece about these wines in English) but I think that Eric put it best when he called them “bygone wines”: they are wines that will never be made again. In part because wine is no longer produced in that fashion on the Fiorano estate (outside Rome) and in part because today, few if any would ever consider making white wines intended for such prolonged barrel aging. They are a trace of another time and era in winemaking. They are “classic” inasmuch as they will never be made again. They are a mystery, a conundrum that keeps us thinking. We know they exist and have existed (and we will know that even after we have drunk them all). We know someone made them but we will probably never know what he meant by them.

All we do know for certain is that they’re delicious.

She wrote the book on chicken fried steak

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From the “life could be worse” department…

jeremy parzen

Above: Despite Tom G’s admonitions, I went ahead and ate the Chicken Fried Steak on Sunday. After all, it’s not every day that you get to eat CFS made by the woman who wrote the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink entry on CFS and it’s not every day that you get to pair it with Chateau Clerc-Milon 1990 (Pauillac, 5th growth). Thanks, Kim and Alfonso! Photo by Alfonso Cevola.

Sunday found me and Tracie B in the home of IWG where his SO (significant other), the lovely and immensely talented food writer Kim Pierce, shared a meal of chicken fried steak and yellow summer squash casserole (by Kim) and mashed potatoes (by Tracie B) with us. Food critic Leslie Brenner, her husband, and their son were also in attendance. Her son showed me how to play the intro to Aerosmith’s “Dream On” on guitar and Kim graciously shared the text of her entry in the Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink. Enjoy!

"Chicken Fried Steak"

By Kim Pierce

Chicken fried steak most likely developed as a way to make a tough cut of beef more palatable: The first step in preparation is pounding a cutlet to tenderize it. Then, mimicking the technique for Southern fried chicken, it is either dredged in flour or dipped in batter before being fried in hot oil in a cast-iron skillet. A cream, or milk, gravy made from the drippings is spooned on top.

Above: “Chicken fried steak most likely developed as a way to make a tough cut of beef more palatable” and is prepared by dredging cube steak in flour and then frying it. My good friend Jon Erickson and I both call our dads “cube steak”: they’re of the generation too young to have fought in the Second World War but old enough to remember it and as a result, they’re obsessed with WWII folklore and factoids. My dad was 12 when it ended (he turned 76 yesterday) and the one time he ate at Jaynes Gastropub (owned by Jon and his wife Jayne), he said it was good but that he preferred “cube steak” — a classic entrée for his generation. Photo by Tracie B.

There are several theories about chicken fried steak’s origins. One holds that it developed in cattle country — Texas and the Midwest — before beef was as tender as it is today. Another holds that it descended from Wienerschnitzel, courtesy of the Germans who settled in Central Texas starting in the 1830s. Recipes resembling chicken fried steak are not uncommon in historical cookbooks. In The Kentucky Housewife (1839), a recipe for frying beef steaks starts with cutlets from the tough chuck and rump. It instructs the cook to “beat them tender, but do not break them or beat them into rags.” The cutlets are then dredged in flour and fried in “boiling lard.” Instructions for making a cream gravy follow.

Above: I’ve seen other versions of chicken fried steak where the meat is soaked in milk and is breaded before frying. Kim’s version, simply dredged in flour, was superbly tender — thanks to how well the meat was tenderized and the frying temperature (I believe). Photo by Tracie B.

Whatever its origins, chicken fried steak was well established in home kitchens by 1932, when a reader submitted a menu featuring “Chicken Fried Steak With Cream Gravy” to The Dallas Morning News. In 1936, the year of the Texas centennial, the same newspaper reported that the president of the Dallas Restaurant Men’s Association had received cards and letters from out-of-towners praising his and other restaurants: “To them a chicken-fried steak, smothered in brown, creamy gravy is the tops in foods.” The first known recipe that refers to Chicken Fried Steak by name appears in the Household Searchlight Recipe Book (1949), published in Topeka, Kansas. Country fried steak and chicken fried steak are sometimes used interchangeably.

Above: Chicken fried steak and nearly-twenty-year-old 5th growth Bordeaux for lunch. Life could be worse.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bryan, Mrs. Lettice. The Kentucky Housewife. Cincinnati: Shepard & Stearns, 1839.

Gee, Denise. “Dueling Steaks.” In Cornbread Nation 1: The Best of Southern Food Writing, edited by John Egerton for the Southern Foodways Alliance. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. “GERMANS,” http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/BB/dibgi.html

Household Searchlight Recipe Book. Topeka, Kansas, 1949.

“Today’s Menu and Recipe.” The Dallas Morning News, November 8, 1932.

“Waiters in Dallas Restaurants Easily Spot Visitors to Fair By Differences in Their Ways.” The Dallas Morning News, August 10, 1936.

Birthday-anniversary week part I: 99 Giacosa Barbaresco Santo Stefano

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NEWS FLASH This just in: we’ve posted the list of wines we’ll be pouring at the first-ever San Diego Natural Wine Summit on August 9 at Jaynes Gastropub. On Weds. and Thurs. next week, I am the guest sommelier at Jaynes. Please come out to see me and taste together if you’re in town!

Above: My favorite way to enjoy great Nebbiolo is with cheese. At Central Market, a block from my apartment, I found Robiola, Toma, and Castelmagno (each from Piedmont) and a Val d’Aosta Fontina. The Castelmagno hadn’t been handled properly but the others were good, especially the Robiola. It’s remarkable to think that these moldy creations find their way to central Texas.

Tuesday night’s birthday celebration centered around a gift of 1999 Giacosa Barbaresco Santo Stefano (white label) that my true love gave to me for the occasion. She saw me eyeing the bottle a few weeks ago in a San Antonio fine wine shop. I hate to give away one of our best-kept secrets down here in Texas but, as Italian Wine Guy noted the other day, there are lots of shops here and in the Midwest where wine connoisseurs have collected great European wines without the inflated New York, Los Angeles, and Napa/Sonoma/San Francisco prices (I actually know a great place in San Diego, too, but I’m going to keep that best-kept secret to myself!). At this particular retailer in San Antonio, you can find a lot of older Nebbiolo at prices only marked up slightly from the release price (like a 2001 Faset by Castello di Verduno, one of my favorite producers, picked up for a song). The other element that makes things interesting is that few — if any — of these shops put their inventory online (in part because — and I don’t mean this in a disparaging way — they are Luddites when it comes to anything intraweb-related and in part because anachronistic blue laws prevent/impede them from selling their products online or via email). As a result, the inventories are not picked over by internet surfers: you have to visit the store in situ to peruse the wines.

The day that Tracie B and I happened to visit the store in question, everything in the store was 20% off (in fact, the owner gives 20% off on the entire stock every Friday and Saturday). I’m not saying this to attenuate the value of the wonderful gift she gave me but let’s just say — moral of the story — that we didn’t have to break the bank to enjoy a truly extraordinary bottle of wine.

Tracie B made me a blueberry pie with fresh blueberries for my birthday, a tradition started a long time ago by mama Parzen.

I have always detested the Mao Squires/Parker disciples who squeal and scream that opening a bottle like this is “infanticide.” That’s just hogwash. It’s always interesting to open great Nebbiolo and see where it is in its evolution and it’s ridiculous to think that we all have to be like them and drink wine in freezing wine bunkers (the way they do, hence their blue blood) and wait for every single bottle to be at its peak when we drink it. This 10-year-old beauty (made in a vintage when Giacosa didn’t make a Santo Stefano reserve) was stunning. It was one of those wines that left both of us speechless, with gorgeous fruit and earthy flavors. (Btw, Ken Vastola authors an excellent registry of the wines of Giacosa here).

It’s been such a special week for me and for me and Tracie B — with all the well wishes and congratulations. Thank you, everyone, from the bottom of my heart…

@Trace B thanks for sharing such an incredible bottle of wine for my birthday. I already felt like the luckiest guy in the world… :-)

On deck: Part II, 1991 Nicolas Joly Coulée de Serrant… amazing wine and a crazy story of how we got it… stay tuned…

Accattone and old Italian Cabernet

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Above: The label on Gasparini’s Capo di Stato (Head of State) depicts Charles de Gaulle as Alexander the Great. The original owner of the estate, Count Loredan Gasparini, was the descendant of a Venetian patrician and doge. Imperialist leanings with your Cabernet, anyone? I used to drive through Venegazzù in the Trevisan hills where this wine is made nearly every week on my way to play gigs when I was a student in Italy in the early 90s.

Last night, following meetings and a business dinner in Dallas, I headed over to Italian Wine Guy’s house for a killer bottle of wine and one of my favorite films, Pasolini’s Accattone (1961)

In my view, Cabernet Sauvignon is a terribly misunderstood grape. In the U.S. and Italy people tend to drink it when it’s too young and too tannic (and as a result, too many modern-style winemakers trick it out to make more “drinkable” early on). This nearly 30-year-old beauty was stunning: lively acidity, truly silky tannin, and gorgeous red fruit. I haven’t tasted any recent vintages of Capo di Stato lately but this wine was made before the barrique craze took off in Italy (following Maurizio Zanella’s historic trip to California with Luigi Veronelli).

There was some irony in sipping such an extravagant bottle of wine and watching a film about a Roman small-time pimp, set in the squalor of the outskirts of Rome. Accattone was Pasolini’s first film and it launched his career as a leading and highly controversial filmmaker and intellectual.

In this sequence, Accattone, played by Franco Citti (remember him from The God Father II and III?), has accepted a challenge and bet that he can survive a dive from a bridge into the Tiber after consuming a large meal. The danger, as is perfectly clear to any Italian, is not the dive itself but rather the contact with water immediately after eating. Throughout the film — which is sometimes funny and ultimately very sad — Accattone (The Sponger) is constantly complaining about how hungry he is and devising schemes to get a free meal.

In other news…

Check out Tracie B’s Joly post over at Saignée, part of the 31 Days of Natural Wine series there. I’m at a Starbucks outside Waco right now catching up online. I’ve had a rough couple of days with work and other stuff. But knowing I’m going to see that lovely lady tonight is like sugar in my bitter coffee.

In other other news…

You can download a really cool new Italian DOC and DOCG map here.

My first tornado warning, the mystery of lemon peel and espresso, and air guitar nation

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My yesterday evening took me from one extreme to another to another. I was traveling from an account visit in Grapevine near Dallas, Texas to downtown Dallas for dinner with colleagues when I experienced my first Texas tornado warning. The voice of an NPR announcer on the radio gave way to an ominous and long monotone followed by “we interrupt this broadcast…” No tornado has arrived but man, they don’t joke around when it comes to weather in northern Texas. The lightening I’ve seen elsewhere doesn’t even come close in spectacle to the fulminous displays you witness around these parts.

The next extreme came in the form of dinner with Italian Wine Guy (above, left) and his ride-with for the day, Andrea Lonardi (right), director of winemaking for one of the world’s largest wine conglomerates, Gruppo Italiano Vini. Veneto by birth, Andrea makes wine across peninsular and insular Italy and beyond our conversation on our shared love of the Veneto and its language and traditions, Andrea unraveled a mystery that has plagued me for many years: why is lemon zest served with espresso? When I lived Northern Italy, lemon zest or lemon juice was served with coffee to stimulate regurgitation: when you’re sick to your stomach, you drink coffee with lemon to help you “evacuate.” Evidently, Andrea’s travels have taken him to corners of rural Sicily where two “shots” of espresso — made from old-style manual espresso presses — are served in one demitasse and the passed from one patron to another: the first patron wipes the edge of the demitasse with the lemon zest for hygiene. In Italian, you say chi non beve in compagnia o è un ladro o una spia, literally, he who doesn’t drink in company is a thief or a spy. Sicilian omertà, noted Andrea, applies also to coffee.

The final extreme came in the form of an encounter with the reigning Air Guitar World Champion, Hot Lixx Hulahan (above, left). He, Stryker (center), and my Nous Non Plus bandmate Björn Türoque are on tour for the U.S. Air Guitar Championship and they happened to have a night off in Dallas. So, we caught up over beers at the end of the night before I drove back to Italian Wine Guy’s place (where he lets me crash when I work the market here) in the rain. It was great to see Björn (aka Dan Crane) and his lovely lady Kate.

Life is certainly never boring and I’m always amazed by its richness and extremities.

But I miss Tracie B and I can’t wait to get back to Austin…

Ain’t we glad that we got ’em: good times and Valpolicella

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It really is the best of times and the worst of times. Across the board, wine sales are down, restaurateurs are suffering sharp declines, and many businesses are hanging on by the seats of their pants. In the same breath, I can also say that I feel lucky to have a good job and a happy life here in Texas, where I know I am truly fortunate to have such a wonderful lady in my life and such good people around me — personally, professionally, and virtually (a nod to all the friends whom I know through the blogosphere).

Just yesterday, I read a report that Italy saw a significant drop in U.S. exports in the first quarter of 2009 and anecdotally, I hear from my Italian wine colleagues, friends, and peers locally and on both coasts that things are tough all around.

Having said that, I believe wholeheartedly that Italian wine represents the greatest value for quality on the market and I was thrilled to see Eric’s article in the Times and subsequent post on Valpolicella and the value it offers the consumer.

As is often the case with Italian wine and regulations governing its production, there seems to be some confusion as to how Valpolicella is labeled — specifically with reference to the term ripasso meaning literally a passing again or refermentation. (The only instance of the term ripassa, with a feminine ending, that I have been able to find is for a Valpolicella produced by Zenato. But this seems to be an anomaly, an affected corruption of the sanctioned term.)

Basically, ripasso denotes the use of “residual grape pomace” in the refermentation or second fermentation of the wine (see below).

Some time back, Italian Wine Guy did this excellent post on three different techniques that can all be classified as ripasso.

Hoping to shed some light on the conundrum of ripasso this morning, I translated the following passage from article 5 of the appellation regulations for Valpolicella DOC.

    The use of residual grape pomace from the production of “Recioto della Valpolicella” and “Amarone della Valpolicella” is allowed in the regoverning [refermenting*] of the wine Valpolicella, in accordance with the ad hoc standards established by the Ministry for Agriculture and Forestry Policy and the territory office of the Central Inspectorate for the Repression of Fraud with respect to the standards of the European Union.

    Controlled Origin Designation (DOC) Valpolicella wines classified as “Valpolicella,” “Valpolicella” classico, “Valpolicella” superiore, “Valpolicella” classico superiore, “Valpolicella” Valpantena, and “Valpolicella” Valpantena superiore can be refermented on residual grape pomace from the production of the wines “Recioto della Valpolicella” and/or “Amarone della Valpolicella.”

    Wines obtained in this manner can utilize the added designation “ripasso.”

    * In Italian the term governo or governare retains its etymological meaning, steering or to steer, from the Greek kubernaô.

I also highly recommend that you read Franco’s Decanter article on Valpolicella and Amarone, downloadable here.

*****

I couldn’t find a good YouTube for this, but you get the idea…

Just lookin’ out of the window.
Watchin’ the asphalt grow.
Thinkin’ how it all looks hand-me-down.
Good Times, yeah, yeah Good Times

Keepin’ your head above water
Makin’ a wave when you can

Temporary lay offs. – Good Times.
Easy credit rip offs. – Good Times.
Ain’t we lucky we got ’em – Good Times.

Above: Actor Jimmie Walker in one of his most famous rolls always brings good times to the heart.

Remember the victims of the Abruzzo earthquake

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The Latins liked to say that nomina sunt consequentia rerum (names are the consequence of things). If ever there were an irony to that saying, it applies in the case of Alessio Occhiocupo, above, 28 years old, a native of Abruzzo, a photo reporter, based in Madagascar where he’s working on a photo essay of life there. His last name, Occhiocupo, literally means dark eye.

I was recently put in touch with Alessio by Stefano Illuminati of the Dino Illuminati winery, one of Abruzzo’s leading wineamakers (I am a big fan of his Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Colline Teramane Zanna Riserva).

Alessio was kind enough to share some photographs of wine country in Abruzzo, like the one below.

My friends Alfonso, Alessandro, and Mosaic Wine Group have remembered Abruzzo by posting about the region today. If you’d like a photo of Abruzzo to post on your blog, please send me an email and I’ll send you some of Alessio’s beautiful photos (I’m working all day today in Dallas so I’ll send out the photos tomorrow).

Please remember Abruzzo and help the victims of the April earthquake there by drinking Abruzzo wines and visiting Abruzzo on your next trip to Italy.