Tag Archives: Hyundai

The endless summer comes to an end

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And so the endless summer came to an end… A special thanks to all my friends and the bloggers and fans who came out to see us play on Thursday in San Francisco, Friday in San Jose, and Saturday in Los Angeles at Spaceland. The date at Spaceland on Saturday marked the last show in a string of performances supporting our current release Ménagerie. I can’t tell you how much it meant to me to see everyone in Paris, New York, and California — especially Talina who flew in from Houston to see us in LA and Jon and John who drove up from San Diego with a magnum of Produttori del Barbaresco 2003 in tow.

Thanks also to Aeronaut Records and our manager John Mastro for putting the tour together and our publicist Brooke Black at Big Hassle for her support.

And an extra special thanks to my super fine lady, Tracie B, for sharing the music with me and making me truly feel like the luckiest guy in the world this weekend.

I love playing music and playing music will always be part of my life but now it’s time for the San Diego Kid to swing that 6-pack of wine across his back and hit the road again with his trusty horse Dinamite.

Mosaic Wine Group (the company I work for), Tracie B, and I will be headed to back to California this week for the Kermit Lynch tasting in San Francisco. Stay tuned…

Call me crazy: white clam pizza and Nebbiolo

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From the “life could be worse” department…

Above: Call me crazy but I paired cherry stone clam pizza and Nebbiolo the other day at Nonna in Dallas. It was delicious. The fruit in the 2005 Produttori del Barbaresco is showing beautifully right now and shows no signs of wanting to close up.

The San Diego Kid (that’s me, your resident wine cowboy) found himself in Dallas the other day, dusty and tired after a day of showing wine, with a six-pack of wine still slung around his back, his trusty companion Dinamite (the Silver Hyundai) beaten but not broken, and a bottle half-full of 2005 Produttori del Barbaresco still to be drunk. So he moseyed on over to the nearest saloon and parked his chaparreras at the bar at Nonna, where owner Julian Barsotti insisted he have the white pizza with cherry stone clams.

Above: Rock star owner and chef Julian Barsotti of Nonna makes some of the best pizza in Texas. He spent a season in Naples where he studied at the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana.

Julian opens the cherry stone clams first, reserves the juices, and then slowly wilts Vidalia onions with their juice and some cream until the onions literally melt and the cream and clam juice reduce to a thick sauce which he seasons with a mix of finely chopped herbs. Before firing the pizza in a wood-fired oven, he dresses the pizza with the clams, sauce, and a sprinkle of Parmigiano Reggiano. I’m still a big fan of his Margherita but the white clam pizza was the best I’ve ever had this side of New Haven, Connecticut.

The pairing was as decadent as it was delicious. In Italy, I still pair my pizza with beer (as tradition dictates) but here in the Wild West, crazy things can happen.

In other news…

I couldn’t be there this year (but I was last year): the first couple of Italian-American food and wine Michele and Charles Scicolone hosted their second “bygone wines” dinner in New York. Check out Eric’s post here.

In other other news…

Today (April 25) is Liberation Day in Italy, commemorating the partisans’s triumph over fascist and Nazi rule in 1945 (Milan and Turin were liberated on this day).

Showdown with the Best Sommelier in Town

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Round these parts, they call me the San Diego Kid. You see, I’m a cowboy… a wine cowboy, and I ride a silver Hyundai with a six pack slung across my back. It’s a tough job keeping the mean dusty streets of these towns safe for Italian wine. But someone’s got to do it.

Last night, me and my lady Tracie B were at the hoe down when Mark Sayre showed up. Some say he’s the “best sommelier in town” and I knew the moment of Nebbiolo truth had arrived.

He drew a 1999 Pajé by Roagna and said “reach for it, mister!” Me? I reached in my holster for my trusty Produttori del Barbaresco… Luckily for me, I happened to have the 2001 Pora on me. Bullets began to fly and charcuterie was served…