mondosapore

Will the truth ever be told?

According to the "official story," the truth has been told in the unfolding saga of the Brunello brouhaha. 

I quote extensively from Vinowire, the joint just-the-facts-ma'am project of Jeremy Parzen and Franco Ziliani:

Montalcino producers are not suspected of using Apulian wine in the production of Brunello, said the Siena prosecutor’s office on Friday.

... Siena prosecutor Nino Calabrese issued the following statement Friday to WineNews.it.

“I am abstemious,” said Calabrese. “I do not read newspapers. I prefer literature and I do not issue statements to the press.... There is no truth, however, to what has been reported by certain members of the media [Ziliani] regarding the use of wines from the region of Apulia in the production of Brunello.”

According the the website, the statement was issued exclusively to WineNews.it.

First of all, Nino sounds like a pompous ass.  Secondly, he sounds like a mighty disingenuous one.  I'd go so far as to say "bullshit artist," which is itself a gentler way of saying "liar", but you know my sense of propriety.

As I and several commenters on mondosapore have already remarked, it's a time-honored practice to goose the wines of cooler and, more to the point, smaller and more prestigious regions with juice from the sunny south.  The shocking thing about this scandal seems to be the large percentage of producers who have been engaging in it in Brunelloland.  A Sienese sommelier that I know through blogging has told given me a long list of big names of the likely suspects, and one of the Frescobaldis was recently arrested for this very transgression. 

I was chatting over wine at Blue Ribbon Bar last evening -- a terrific little place at the corner of Carmine and Downing Streets in the West Village -- with none other than Dr. Parzen himself.  We traded some off-the-record tales of those parts, and he professed his astonishment that no one else in the States was reporting on it or at least discussing it.  Even the Italian papers, no models of journalistic adventurousness, are starting to bring more to light.  It does look like it's going to have legs, this story. 

By the way, Jeremy and I had some delicious snacks and several glasses of Thierry Puzelat's Pineau D'Aunis.  Lovely juice imported by Louis/Dressner.

The meanings of spoof

I got an anonymous email from an Aussie today in which I was informed that "spoof" (same vowel as toosh) has a naughty meaning Down Under. Appropriate, wot?

In these parts its meaning has nothing to do with emitted male semen.  It means "make fun of" or "satirize".  It is also a noun.

Or it's an abbreviation for "spoofilated," signifying wine that has been, disons-nous, tricked out as something it really is not.  Hence something fake and not of the highest quality or expression of its grapes, territory, etc.

All sniggering may now cease.

Blog fatigue?

Recently I have heard more than one wine blogger complain that he/she was tired of keeping up with a blog.  It's hard to dream up new topics, and simply reviewing wines becomes a bit boring for most of us.  You could take a long list of adjectives and of fruits and flavorings and scramble them up and there you have your review, or so it can seem.

One well-known blogger I met the other day told me that he was getting sick of the level of discourse on a lot of the blogs and on the message boards, forums, etc.  "It keeps going down."  No civility, no rationality.  I guess this is what happens when you watch cable news and listen to talk radio all the time. 

The sheer amount of time and effort to keep a blog going is also a downer for people.  A wine producer in Italy told me she was thinking about starting a blog, news about her zone and doings at the winery -- the usual inside look at the life of a vigneron.  "How much time do you spend on your blog?" she asked.  I told her about 20 hours a week.  Even more when my meds are off and I can't budge from my chair.

That did it.  No blog coming out of that winery, even if the lady's son did all the work of putting it together.  They all have far too much to do.

I can't blame them for their decision.  But what do you think about the fatigue that so many wine bloggers seem to be facing now?  What are the real causes, do you think?  And what are the antidotes?

Please weigh in.  I think a lot of us would be eager to hear your thoughts.

Penance for Alice

I awoke this afternoon to a firestorm of email abuse.  Friends and strangers alike upbraided me -- yes, upbraided me -- for kidding around at Alice Feiring's expense in yesterday's post.  In my "alternative history of modern wine" I posited a what-if scenario in which everything that characterizes wine today, especially the highly touted stuff that costs a fortune, is turned upside down.  Instead of Parker's being the Emperor of Wine I made an unnamed but obviously-Alice Alice the Wine Czarina.  I framed it all with the opening line and closing line of 1984.  All in good satirical fun.  I even pulled my punches so as not to paint her as a sort of Mark Squires in skirt.  Given the outcry, I shouldn't have bothered. 

The cover of Alice's soon-to-be-released book.  Order now at a toasty oaky discount from a spoofilated web retailer.  Note the correct title.  And the Heloise type face.

I thought it was funny.  I really did.  I thought people would appreciate the dystopian view of both the alternative world and our own actual one.  Seems I was wrong.

While I deleted the emails without glancing at them, I did make the mistake of taking a call from a mutual friend (of Alice's and mine).  He was furious.  This is where I really got upbraided.  Plus chided, chastised and generally ripped a new one. 

As he sputtered at me after I'd answered the phone, I said, "Look, I love Alice.  She's great!  I was in one of my moods, OK, but you know what it's like when you're at Vinitaly.  Gogogogogo.  Everything is very concrete and specific.  You drown in a wine-dark sea of details.  You hunger for perspective.  And I've been reading a lot of SF anthologies of alternative histories and universes.  Plenty perspective.  It's quite stimulating, you know."

"First of all, you don't need perspective because you haven't gone to Vinitaly yet!  So you're full of shit.  Furthermore, how dare you equate her with those wine Nazis at WA, WS and all the rest of them?!  She's a real person with real feelings!  I think you've devastated her, you insensitive moron!"

"Wine Nazis?" I laughed, scarcely believing my ears.  "Are they as dangerous as the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld?  Or just as funny in some pathetic way?"  I let the insensitive moron part go.  Wasn't about to touch that one.

"What did Alice ever do to you to deserve such vile, disrespectful treatment?  She's a good person, and she knows way more about wine than you do, pal.  You aren't good enough to tie her shoes.  In the middle of a pig sty."

I tried to imagine why Alice, of all people, would even be in a pig sty.  I pressed on.  "She is and she does.  I already told you I think she's great too. But, you know, sometimes she can go a little overboard.  A little doctrinaire.  You know what I mean."

A pause.  He said a bit more calmly, "Oh I know.  But that's no reason to calumniate her on your stupid blog.  Think what people who might have wanted to read her book might say now.  'Oh, forget it, she sounds like a bitch.  An egomaniacal little dictatress.'  We already have Hillary Clinton and Bah Bush, for God's sake.  Enough already."

Dictatress!  How I love talking with PhD's.

"Well, one, in all fairness," I replied, "Alice has called herself the Wine Bitch.  That was then but, on the Net, then is always now.  And B, I thought it would be a fun way"  --  note that I never use fun as an adjective unless I'm being sarcastic -- "to gin up a little interest in the book.  The girl needs the money."  In fact I never thought of such a thing when I sat down to spin my 'armless fantasy.  Retrospectively and to save face, however, it seemed like a splendid idea to confess to such big-heartedness.

"You did this as a, as a guerrilla marketing attack?"  His tone suggested that my "guerrilla attack" was the moral equivalent of blowing up housewives at a Baghdad market.  "This is the limit!"

"Well.  Forgive me for trying to help her.  I wanted to leverage whatever I could to make people aware of the publication of Alice's long-awaited book.  Although I know my attempt carries no weight because I wasn't even nominated for a Wine Blog Association award.  But," I added with a nobly martyred tone, "I do what I can in my own inadequate little way." 

Oh God it felt good to be on the offensive again!

"Well...if you did it for Alice Feiring and her new book..."  My friend mulled.  "I'm still pissed at you.  But I suppose your heart was in the right place.  You meant well..."  He wasn't totally convinced.  He wanted to be, though.

"Completely, dude, and no spoofilation." 

I prayed that he wouldn't retort with something like, There's no such thing as NO spoofilation.  But he didn't. 

The Alternative History of Modern Wine

I've always loved those What If stories, like "What if the North had not won the Civil War?"  "What if Hitler had triumphed?"  "What if Attila the Hun had died somewhere in Pannonia before he got to Italy?" 

These are all cliches, and the stories usually wind up with the restoration of our manifest destinies.  You know, the USA and the CSA are reunited in sea-to-sea glory, though nothing is ever mentioned about the status of black people.  American insurgents topple the violent, corrupt, comically incompetent regime of the Nazis, like "Hogan's Heroes" meets Abu Graib.  The Roman Empire soldiers on and Pope Leo is consigned to the dustbin of history; in a few centuries the Romans hit the beach at Miami and the SPQR flag flutters over Boise in a century or so, with everyone speaking some sort of Latin.  (Like Spanish.)

These are obvious and well-hashed story lines for alternative history.  But no one, to my knowledge, has attempted an alternative history for modern wine.  Not that it would alter a thing, but it is a useful exercise in salutary masochism to imagine What if...

Mark Penn and Me: How to Wage Campaign

It sickens me to admit this, but I'm livid that I wasn't nominated in some category -- even one of the technical ones, like Best Graphics -- for the Wine Blog Awards.  I decided to go to an expert market researcher, for what is a pollster but a market researcher with a louche side, and who better than Mark Penn?  In case you didn't know, Mark Penn is the guiding genius behind the Hillary Clinton campaign.  He steered her husband to victory, and he is doubtless steering Mrs. Clinton ("the real vice president") to victory too.

Imagine looking at this every morning.  Like Hillary.  I almost pity her.  Pretty decent comb-over, though.

Imagine my surprise and delight when Mr. Penn consented to see me when he was in New York recently.  I had sent him an email begging for help in launching a campaign to become a nominee -- actually, a sure winner -- in one of the creative categories of next year's WBAs.

As Mr. Penn settled his bulk into the couch that the cleaning lady had just plumped up so expertly, which made Ken groan as if with pain, I offered him top-quality bagels and lox from Tal Bagels across the street.  And Tazza d'Oro coffee fresh off the plane from Rome.  He made snorty sounds as he ate and drank, uttering a vast Aaaahhhh of satisfaction when he was done.  For the first time he seemed aware of his surroundings.  "Nice view you got here." 

"Yes, it is.  There's the building where the crane fell and seven people died.  See?"

"Very nice.  Now, why exactly did you ask me to come over here?  I have a fund-raiser at the Holiday Inn on 57th in an hour."

Mesmerized by the array of crumbs on his lips, I responded rather slowly to his question, which appeared to annoy him. 

"We have another bagel.  More lox."

"Yeah, OK."  All was well.  As Ken went to get the stuff from the kitchen, I began.  "Every year the Wine Blog Awards are given for best blog about wine in several categories.  I've never been nominated, not even for the bullshit categories.  Only one person suggested me this year, and he's like a groupie or something.  Cut to the chase: I fucking want to win SOMETHING in '09.  Help me."

He gave a stertorous sigh.  He folded his hands over his ample belly.  "I took a look at your blog."  Ken set the plate in front of him.  He ate ravenously as he looked me in the eye.  He grunted as if to say, "Get on with it!"

"So?"  I asked tremulously, leaning forward, almost touching his knees with mine.  "Why can't I get arrested for Chrissakes?  I work so hard on it.  I spend hours on it. It's ruining my not-quite civil union!"

"Now, Terence, I took at look at your blog.  I really did."

"And?  And?"

Fraudtime in Brunello Update

See the latest item on Vinowire.  Seems now that 80-90 producers are implicated. 

It's like the Bear Stearns implosion for this vaunted region.  Seems like.  Some are sure that things will be "resolved" all'italiana, ie, hushed up and swept under that lumpy rug.  Maybe IF the EU and German officials don't push very hard on this. Word from someone in Tuscany is that they will.

Alice Feiring's New Book Breathlessly Awaited

That fiery redhead, Alice "No Spoofilation Ever" Feiring, is about to see the publication of her long-awaited and sarcastic expose' of the wacky world of wine.  Ms. Feiring, no stranger to those who hang about portfolio tastings in our fair city, has entitled the book "How I Saved the World from Parkerization but Am Still Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places"  -- no no no, it isn't that exactly, but she should find a nice Gentile and settle down already.

Enough editorial comment from the vile likes of me.

Alice is very well known in the wine-writing demimonde, but if you happen not to know her blog, Veritas in Vino, you need to check it out.  Like Alice, it's feisty and critical and usually on the mark when it comes to bullshit and "spoofilation" (tricking up the juice).  She's impassioned about wine, Barolo representing her "aha!" moment in life, but France and the natural-tending vignerons of that land being her most frequent subject.  Terroir, typicity and truth are her grail.

Here is part of a very nice capsule review by Publisher's Weekly.  Go to Alice's site for the whole thing.

*** In this entertaining oenological salvo, wine blogger and journalist Feiring makes an argument for wine authenticity through adherence to old techniques. She's against what she calls “Big Wine”—viticulture as business and technology... But what sets her sprightly polemic apart is that her argument is pinned to a personal narrative of wine tours through Europe and California. Rounding out the Syrah-and-the-City parallels are several female characters who receive noms de vin like “Honey-Sugar” and the air-kissing “Skinny,” and most entertainingly of all, the author's Carrie-like relationships. Parker looms like Mr. Big over all Feiring's oenological relationships...The author, who already has fans through her blog and other journalism, can count on new ones with this publication. (May) ****

The author has promised me a review copy, which will come out some time in April.  My review will appear here ASAP.  Can't wait to read it.  And I expect to be entertained, hugely.

Vinitaly 2008

Next week at this time I'll be landing at Venice, bleary-eyed through customs and baggage claim, bleary-eyed driving to a B&B in the countryside near Verona.  Not a leg of the trip I'm looking forward to.

Next day -- let the madness begin.

Verona: the past needs to stay pretty

So many pavilions to go to, so many people to talk to, so many wines to taste, so many snarky articles to write...oh, what joy, what rapture, etc.

My dream -- of course this is my dream -- is to bump into the heroine of my fantasy about Count Visone and his counterfeit Brunello, the petite English lady with the alluring glinting glasses, Jancis Robinson.  (Sigh.)  Of course, blogging wretch that I am, I'll actually be hanging with others of my ilk, Jeremy Parzen, Giampero Nadali and Alfonso Cevola. 

One pavilion I didn't go to last year and must get to this: Sardinia. 

I am looking forward to going again to VinNatur, the extremely interesting biodynamic/natural wines fringe event at Villa Favorita near Vicenza. 

Here are a couple of photos from Vinitaly 2007.

And a couple from VinNatur 2007.  (See continuation)

The Counterfeiters

According to Patrick McGovern, author of Ancient Wine, wine has been traded internationally at least since the fourth millennium BC.  (See page 44.)  Centuries earlier many additives were used to flavor wine for a number of reasons: to impart medicinal properties sometimes, for example, but largely to prevent or mask spoilage.  Resin, myrrh, and honey were among a host of ingredients for this purpose. 

As sure as there is trade, there is fraud.  I have found a couple of punishments (London Lancet, 1868) meted out by medieval English magistrates.  "In 1364 a seller of unsound wine was punished by being made to drink it."  And: "An important proclamation against the adulteration and mixing of wines was issued by Henry the Fifth in 1419, and the punishment of the pillory was ordered for all who sold false wines."

Count Visone's wines are, no doubt, drinkable if not delicious once you get past the heavy doses of oak and overextraction, but "mixed" they are.

Let's say he's been found guilty of fraud by a German magistrate, who levies a big fine and prevents him from selling his wines in  Germany for a period of time.  And let's say Italian authorities have agreed to place the Count and fellow miscreants in the pillory all at once for some well-deserved public humiliation.  I wonder how this might play out...

Brunello Skandal: a few tempting tidbits

Or, as they say Back Home, titbits. 

I have it on good authority that the scandal will have legs because it's the Germans who are prosecuting this thing.  Not easily bought off as the home-boy carabinieri would be.  All ist klar, Herr Kommissar?

I saw a list of the names, not merely one or two and most of them Big Time, who are implicated in the counterfeiting of Brunello.  Should give their PR people lots and lots of billable hours.  This list was "off the record and strictly hush-hush," as they say in the grisly James Elroy crime novels.

This goes way beyond the recent arrest of one of the Frescobaldis for fraud. 

How many Italian varieties have you tasted?

There's that club where you list all the grape varieties you've tried, from all around the world.  What's it called?

Whatever. 

I sometimes think I've tasted 100 Italian varieties alone.  It's hard to list them from memory, but I wonder if I can recover at least a good portion of them.  And what others can YOU add to the list?

Lemme see...

Brunello scandal: My soothsaying abilities substantiated

The blind item I published recently, Skandal, was initially questioned by some as being old news, a recycling of last year's Italian wine scandal.  (Which one?)  It's been backed up by several folks close to the zone in question, if not the incident itself. 

More evil tidings come from Italy.  See the item from Franco Ziliani, whose story is personally affirmed by our very own Jeremy Parzen.  Big big names are involved and the whole dirty affair is about to blow wide open.  Or not....if the age-old client system, enduring Roman social construct, functions as well as it usually does.  In which case the whole dirty affair will be swept under one of Italy's very lumpy rugs.

The client system surrounding a patron would look out for its individuals. They would act as a kind of police, making sure no harm came to their own, that nothing was stolen from them. should one be struck down by poverty, the other clients, - and so too most likely the patron, - would see to it that one would get a loan, a daughter might be provided with a dowry, or at least the group would see to it that the deceased would get a decent funeral.
If the patron might not always provide help personally, it would most often be he who orchestrated it, perhaps asking other clients to help out one of his supporters who had fallen upon hard times. But the wealth of most patrons of course allowed him to hand out money to those they deemed deserving of such aid.
And so, maintaining guards, organizing any help, defending people in the courts, even openly handing out money, it is no wonder that the patrons were seen as protectors of their group.
It was for the purpose of representing their clients in court in was that most sons of high-ranking families were trained in law. And should matters fail and one struggle to get a retrial, then a patron might always call on some of his clients to stage demonstrations outside the courthouse, making their 'public' outrage heard over such 'miscarriages of justice'.

It remains to be said that the word patronus later became the Italian word padrino...  -- Roman Empire Net

                    _______________________________________________________________

Now, signore e signori, how is my soothsaying ability substantiated?   

Read on.  And read again even if you've read it...

Basilicata: Pictures of Musto-Carmelitano vineyards

I wrote a long piece entitled Pondering Basilicata and its Aglianico recently.  Here are a few pictures that Elisabetta Musto-Carmelitano took and forwarded to me via Fortunato Sebastiano.  I'm grateful for these, especially since I seemed to have messed up using Fortunato's camera.  (Naturally, I left my camera at the hotel and naturally I ended up not using it at all.  No comments, please.)

Springtime in the Musto-Carmelitano vineyard with the oldest vines, some over 90 years old.  They produce very small quantities of fruit of great concentration. Note many gaps where oldest vines have died.






Ancient Aglianico vine.  The winery makes only Aglianico.  This is a good thing, and a focus that younger enologi like Fortunato are encouraging.  The compulsion to make a wide range of wines seems to be a relic of the hit-or-miss approach to winemaking.  After selling so many of their grapes to co-ops or big industrial wineries, aziende that switched over to doing their own bottlings had little or no awareness of what worked best in their terroir. 

They also felt that, in order to seem important in the eyes of local consumers and retail buyers, they had to offer an assortment.  Which accounts for the otherwise inexplicable presence of metodo classico sparklers made of Aglianico or Sangiovese in different parts of Italy. 





A different Musto-Carmelitano on a different day.  Like most small producers, they acquire a small bit of land here, one there, and so forth. 

Beautiful Aglianico

La famiglia Musto-Carmelitano:

Elisabetta and her brother at right.  Her father and uncle at left.  I really liked her old uncle.  At the end of our discussion, he looked at me and said, "You faahny."  If he only knew.

JFK to Manhattan

Flight crew treated us like royalty, fed us a lot of Medoc. Hence yours truly slept for several hours.

By the way, the young woman I wrote about is named Katia. I went back to see if she was there last night, and she was. What a lovely person.

Will be home before too long. What I crave for dinner is a turkey club with potato salad. And lots of New York tap water.

More later, folks.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Piazza della Rotonda

The crowds of all nations come here. All of Spain seems to have descended on Rome, and they're all here at this moment. The sky darkens and the lights go in, dimly, inside the Pantheon. The very sweet young lady who is giving us bread and wine tells us about her life in San Lorenzo, a popular district near the main station. She says the area has been getting better since she moved there ten years ago. It's a student area with a lot of bars. Trattorias, bookshops, fancy takeout places, boutiques. It enjoys street lights now. It's much safer than before. I wonder how long she can afford her rent. I ask her what the Italian word for "gentrification" is. She doesn't know it but knows what I'm talking about.

She tells me she's from Agnani in the heart of Ciociaria, where the Sophia Loren character came from in "Two Women", based on Moravia's lovely novel. She's one of legions of young women who have come to Rome to wait on the better off. Her grandmother and several aunts came here over fifty years ago to work as wetnurses for middle class women. They left when the babies were weaned. They in turn had to hire even poorer wetnurses to take care of their own babies.

It strikes me as something out of Dickens, a old scenario that women from the Philippines, China and many countries play out today.

Third world buskers and peddlars are working all around. Italy has outsourced its old professions, so fondly described by countless novelists and film makers. Progress of a sort.

The lights aren't going on in the piazza. The young lady says there are many problems. My heart goes out to her. She gives me a big smile and wave as I leave, reminding me of the young girl Marcello met at critical points in La Dolce Vita. She is the sweet soul of Italy.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Grosseto station

Beautiful day, warm and sunny. Smells of spring in the air, lots of flowers in bloom. Some old dude in full cowboy getup is smoking away on the bench next to us. Wonder what his story is.

Grosseto is a pleasant little city, provincial capital of this Maremma section of Tuscany. A news article yesterday said it's the fastest growing town in the country...but at the price of further depopulation of the little towns of the interior. People probably come here to get warm. And nice beaches are really close by.

At least Grosseto seems like a town of the living. Too many Italian towns and cities have an emptied-out feeling, at least in the off season. With good weather like this Grosseto seems full of energy, which may simply be proof of my hypothesis that Italy is two countries, of summer and of winter.

Whatever the case, I'm loving this face of Italy.

On to Rome, a city I love, in a few minutes. Lots of sunlight and warmth. And a room near the Pantheon, one of my shrines!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Live in Italy?

I long had a dream of living in Italy.  Well, show me an Anglo-Saxon who hasn't and I'll show you one whose dream is to play golf for eternity in Naples, Florida.  Know what I mean?

Now that I've been in Italy a lot -- a lot -- in all seasons of the year, including the winter when everyone pulls down the blinds and hovers around a kitchen stove to keep warm, still wearing a bulky sweater or a quilted coat, I can tell you that I'm not so sure about this...

It isn't just that the houses are cold and it costs a fortune to heat them.

It isn't just that you aren't really accepted because you're a foreigner and you lack the family and lifelong contacts that are essential to getting by in this country.

And it isn't just that the dollar is so pathetically weak that you'd like like a pauper unless you are trust-fund rich.

It's that there's nothing to do in nearly every city and town of this country.  Nothing.  No family, no lifelong friends?  Forget it.  You're going to spend a lot of your days sitting in coffee bars by yourself, reading your Blackberry or the London Times from last week.  The towns roll up the sidewalks soon after dark. You'd better like horrifically bad TV with the same hosts recycled a dozen times a week, or you'd better find a good dealer.

Unless you have a family and lifelong friends, in which case you can never escape them and talk about something new after 20-30 years.  Or:

Unless you can afford to live in Rome, of course.  Now I know why all roads lead there.  The Pantheon!  Jesus, I love Rome! Roma Aeterna!)

Skandal! Ich liebe ein Skandal!

I have heard, through the immemorial grapevine, that a major scandal is brewing.  A German paper has published a small article that the carabinieri, Italy's charmingly compromised national police force, have uncovered a massive fraud in Brunello.  Seems that a lot -- a lot -- of Brunello producers have been caught palming off wine from Puglia as their own...wine that would have sold for pennies in Puglia suddenly commands many euros and many many many dollars as Brunello.

Does anybody in Montalcino area have more concrete info?

(Yes, I confess there is an element of Schadenfreude here...like Bears Stearns, so many of the hitherto mighty in Italy should have their day of reckoning.)

Da vedere anche:  http://tdh46.typepad.com/mondosapore/2008/03/brunello-scanda.html

Return to Montecucco

I'm in Grosseto now after a whirlwind 24 hours in the Montecucco zone of southern Tuscany.  I wrote about this emerging wine area in December (follow this link).  I tasted the producers' wines again and have some general thoughts about the strikingly distinct terroir of Montecucco vs. the better-known denominations of Tuscany.

First of all, these wines tend to be leaner than the well-publicized ones north of here in Chianti and in neighboring Montalcino.  The climate is very much harsher, the altitude higher, the sugars somewhat reduced.  Furthermore, the enologi of Schiaccionaia (Luca D'Attoma) and Piandibugnano (Paolo Trappolini) are leading both wineries in a similar direction, where the grapes and the land are allowed to express themselves without being smothered in oak or pumped up with excessive sugars and alcohol.

Secondly, there is a willingness to experiment with different grapes.  Aside from Sangiovese (which sometimes has difficulty reaching maturation here), producers have Aleatico, Syrah, Viognier, Vermentino and even Pinot Noir in their vineyards.  There are many more varieties represented.  While I'm all for using native grapes whenever feasible, I love a crisply dry, profumato Viognier when I find it -- especially in Tuscany, which is so short of interesting white wines.

No vines here. On the flank of Monte Amiata

Side note: much of the zone is too cold for either olives or grapes, so in effect this is a northern European wine area.  This and the diverse soils make for highly interesting and drinkable wines.  The Consorzio di Montecucco has a stand at Vinitaly, and it's worth stopping by to chat with the producers and try some of their best.

Also consider...

New York becomes just a little bit more Fun City

Holy shit.  I read about this on my Blackberry and wondered what would have happened to ME if I'd been home.

Home sweet home: Second Ave. after the crane collapse.  It's just a block away, a block way.  Give  'em shelter

I can see this place from the apartment's windows!  I walk down that street all the time!  I've thought that building was too tall for the lot and the construction progress too rapid from the get-go!  I agree with the neighbors, it was a sloppy site and going up too fast!

Day by day the USA becomes more and more a Third World country. 

Hey.  We don't need to be better than everyone else.  We just need to not fall behind fucking China.

Salustri Santa Marta 2003

Sitting in this little trattoria-vineria in Grosseto. I ordered this biologic wine from Salustri, all Sangiovese, on someone's recommendation. Shan't name names.

All I can say is that Alice Feiring might like this stuff because it smells of chicken coop, or as they say in the world of winespeak, barnyard.  Trust me, kids, once you've smelled a chicken coop in full shit cry, you know "barnyard" is too elevated for this stench.

Ah well, it's got alcohol and it suits the joint I'm in.  Still stinks though.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Pondering Basilicata and its Aglianico

March 14 - Maschito, PZ, Basilicata

Today we went to Basilicata, a drive of almost two hours from Venticano in Campania. I'd been looking forward to this jaunt because I'd never been to that little-visited region, and they have Aglianico del Vulture there.  The terroir and localized clones result in a very different wine from the big, powerful but ultimately suave Aglianicos of Campania.

The Basilicata I saw was at odds with the Basilicata I'd always read about.

Yes, Basilicata, way down there

The place is usually described in brief but dismissive terms.  Words like "bleak", "rugged," even "desert-like"  crop up often. Since the region was never a center of great urbanity, and since it isn't filled with "brand-name" art works, it's inevitable that the typical guidebooks would give it short shrift.  Although I must note that the highly urbane Horace, great poet of the early Empire, came from Venosa, a small town we drove through today.  Signs all over the town celebrate this.  Or not: a graffito on the outskirts proclaims, "Orazio era frocio!" (Horace was queer!)

Anyway, back to Basilicata as a whole.  I was impressed by the wide-open spaces and green hills, by the sparse population and the spare beauty of the few hilltop towns we saw.  The open-skyed, undulating plateau with its grain fields and pasturage called to mind large tracts of Anatolia.  Here and there were orchards of peach and cherry just now in flower, olive groves, vineyards, a gently vertical counterpoint to the horizontality of the endless green grasses. 

Abandoned stone houses, some of them a single room, stand here and there in the fields, expressive even now of the terrible isolation and poverty of previous generations.  Yet this countryside is carefully tended; hardly a hectare is without human attention.  A poignant landscape and a beautiful one.  The orchards and wildflowers are in bloom now, the young grasses fresh and green.

This Basilicata is no desert.  I'm sure when British guidebook writers venture here in July, they feel they've entered an alien zone that wars with a sensibility formed by walks in Devonshire and postcards of Chiantishire.  Granted, the summers are dry and hot, the grass does turn brown, and the landscape must seem dauntingly harsh.  It's really another example of how Italy is two countries.  I don't mean North and South; I mean a land of summer and a land of winter.  The differences can be as startling as the difference between summer and winter in, for example, the Great Lakes area.  The tourist brochure version of the country hasn't got much to do with the real place.

Parco eolico ("wind park"), known to us as a wind farm. Right now the landscape is as green as Ireland and often as devoid of trees as the Oulde Sod

(NB: This Old Sod is treeless.)

VISIT TO A WINERY

Fortunato Sebastiano took us to see the winery of the Musto-Carmelitano family.  It's in the town of Maschito [sounds like "mosquito", is said to derive from a Latin word meaning "place of male vines"], province of Potenza (PZ).  Led by the young Elisabetta, the tiny azienda has just begun to make its own wine.  Formerly the production went to the cantina sociale (growers' co-op).

At present the Musto-Carmelitano winery has only about 3 hectares (7 acres) under vine.  Like other farmers there, they also grow wheat, olives and several other cash crops.  In other words, they're real farmers, not well-heeled city folk who decided to have some fun with wine.  And there is no hint of a Tuscan monoculture (all vines all the time!) in this zone.

This winery's vineyards are, as so often, scattered round the area in small parcels.  Some of the vines are as old as 80-90 years, meaning they're at the end of their productive life, and some are "new" at 20 years.  Every grape grown in and around Maschito is Aglianico.  Further, their two single-vineyards wines display a strong individual character that reflects the soil, the vines' age and the exposition of each wine's materia prima (raw material).  As you might expect, the Musto-Carmelitanos' Aglianicos display a depth and an emerging complexity that bodes well for the future; the 2007 vintage, not yet bottled, is their first "serious" production.

The Musto-Carmelitanos use a modified form of the traditional alberello (bush) kind of vine-training -- so modified that it looks a lot like Guyot.  This helps further reduce the yields on plants that often produce few bunches of grapes due to age, which gives the fruit more concentrated juice and aromatic polyphenols in their thick skins.  The elevation (2000 feet) and large range of day-night temperatures also play their part in making fine grapes at the harvest in November.

Elisabetta makes three levels of Aglianico del Vulture.  The base red, Maschitano IGT, is, frankly, unworthy of the denomination and the other wines in her lineup.  Tellingly, Maschitano is made of purchased grapes.  I'm told that this wine has a local following because, as Fortunato told me, "the other base wines around here are so dreadful."  Even though I didn't think much of this one, I do admit that it's far better than some of the horrifying vino sfuso (bulk wine) I've been drinking lately. (When I'm paying for wine, trust me when I say I don't go all-out.)

The wines produced from Elisabetta's own grapes are another

Posts you might have missed

A regular visitor has pointed out that several recent posts weren't flagged by Google Reader, so you may not have been aware of the brief postings about a short trip to Basilicata and some other tidbits about Campania.

Until I get a real wi-fi connection it will be this way...thanks for your patience.

I am now on the train to Grosseto, from which we will head for Montecucco tomorrow. I can't insert links to past articles here, but the object of the visit is to see two interesting producers whose wines we tasted in December, Piandibugnano and Schiaccionaia.

By the way, as we were driving through Naples this morning, I got a strong Blade Runnerish feel from the place. Depressing to think that could be our common future.

I'll indulge in one of my famous generalizations and declare that the interior of Campania is a pleasant surprise, green and clean with lovely people, while the coastal zone is a terrible mess. Too bad every guidebook ignores the interior even as it softpeddles the utter crumminess all around Naples.

Fortunato, a son of Campania, feels strongly that way, so it isn't just this prejudiced dickweed of an American shooting his ignorant mouth off.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Where the hell have you been?!

I have been away from my usual slothful place at my laptop in New York for less than a week and I see that the site traffic to mondosapore has fallen about 50%.

What gives, my fickle friends? Must I remained chained to my computer day and night 24/7? You gotta lotta splainin' to do...

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Aglianico country

Today we were in the heart of Aglianico di Taurasi territory. We met with the Boccella brothers, Raffaele and Giovanni and retasted wines that we tried some months ago. The '07s are still in tank and botte and are coming along beautifully. Even though it was the hottest summer in this area in 20 years, the juice shows impressive balance. One aspect of the grape life at 2000 feet above sea level: it can reach 100 in the shade in the afternoon but will go down to 60-65 at night. These "escursioni termiche" of course bring out vivid aromas and zesty flavors while promoting the all-important acidity that keeps the wine from flabbiness. Boccella's wines are powerful, rich and deep examples of a noble grape, but not at the expense of balance, even refinement.

The wines have been favorably reviewed in Italy, most notably by the knowledgeable writer for Naples' "Il Mattino," Luciano Pignataro (see my blogroll for the link). Luciano is a champion of the best food and wine from southern Italy, and a discerning one. And unlike so many of his ilk in Italy, the word on the street is that he's got "mani pulite" (clean hands).

This thumb dance is getting sort of tiring. And I'm using Typepad's email-your-post feature. It'll be interesting to see how this comes out.

A presto, kids.

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Awaiting the busy winemaker

I'm sitting on a bench outside a hotel in Venticano, province of Avelllino. It's mild but a bit cloudy. I'm typing on the Blackberry because I have some time on my hands. Fortunato is running late. This is a rather stressful time for him, the last phase of his winemaking, ie, bottling. Fraught with weird problems that crop up when you think you've got them solved. Corking machine resists precise adjustment. Bottling line breaks down all of a sudden. Metal bands pop off the expensive new botti. Pain-in-the-ass stuff that can that can mess up your progress and even threaten the quality of your wine. It won't, of course, if you're skilled at crisis management, which winemakers seem to be. Even so, it casts your days in the flashing red light of "trouble, Will Robinson." Meanwhile, no crisis for me. I'm sitting in the now-glowing sun, basking in the bird-loud spring morning. Not a bit of stress here and now. That will be for later.

Briefly Basilicata

Went to Basilicata today with Fortunato Sebastiano. The region is usually descried as bleak, desert-like and dangerous, but the green, blossoming springtime aspect of the place was stunning today in its big-sky beauty. I'll write a long post with photos when I have a real wi-fi connection and not this Blackberry. The real point of the corto viaggio sentimentale was to visit a very small family winery that makes Aglianico del Vulture from very old vines, some over 80 years old. Lots of potential. That will be part of that long post too. Meanwhile, Ken wants everyone to know this important fact: Il gatto e' nero. (He's learning Italian.) Ciaoooo.

Spring in Campania

You know it's spring in the hills near Avellino when in some of the sunniest spots the vines are already budding. I have been tasting tank samples of the latest vintage, simple, delicious white wines bursting with flavor and zippy fruit, They are about to be bottled; I can't wait to find out what they'll be like in bottle, after they recover from bottle shock. The wines are natural, very clean and wholesome. I predict that, as protein becomes more expensive and rare for the average person, high-quality products of the soil will become more important, not least wholesome wines that help fill you up and keep you from lamenting, "Where's the beef?" And salmon and shrimp and chicken. Tomorrow off to Basilicata and then back on Saturday to visit a wonderful Aglianico producer. When I am no longer forced to write on a Blackberry, I'll provide some details. Arrivederci.

Fear of flying, wine edition

I hate flying.  I hate the invasive, insulting security and check-in nonsense, all so far from our vision of easy-breezy travel years ago. 

I hate being crammed into steerage, especially when there's either a) a very fat, sprawling man next to me or b) an infant within 30 rows. 

I especially hate the wine you get in coach.  Wait -- they call that wine?

All that's missing is the skull & crossbones

 

I fly Delta a lot (goes to Italy, code shares with Alitalia, which I'll give anything not to fly) -- and their wine selections in coach are revolting.  They serve some muck called Fish Eye or Fish's Suppurating Entrails or something like that, the most horrible "red" and "white" "wines" this side of a vat of spoiled Yellowtail. 

Long ago I learnt not to drink that rot.  What do I drink to help wash down that delicious airline meal and fall asleep?

1. Rum.  Granted, it's Bacardi's standard-issue, industrial rum, but with some lime and tonic it does the job. 

2. Beer.  But only when the cabin temperature exceeds 110F.

3. Wine from Business Class.  Yes, for the same price (often nothing) as the rotgut.  And some of the B Class vino isn't half bad, especially when you're on a flight to Italy.  The odd thing is that the best ones on offer are usually French.  Somebody in Italy is falling down on the job. 

Meta-wine

The past few weeks have sucked.  I've been sick with a terrible case of bronchitis.  Things have seemed to be headed downward, ever downward.  My spirits sank, my mood stank.  I haven't been drinking any interesting wine -- mostly a bunch of low-cost stuff from the south of France, full of health-restoring procyanidins.  Tastes like paint stripper.  So it must be doing me good.

And yet my life's been filled with wine, in a sense.  The realm of meta-wine.  That virtual kingdom where the sustaining juice flows 24/7 from social networking site to social networking site, blog to blog, email to email, TXT MSG 2 MSG.  Meta-wine, which buoys my little barque and carries me from one port of call to another.  The wine-dark sea of meta-wine where I simply dip my cup in the supporting liquid and take a sip when I thirst or ache. 

Without actually leaving the apartment meta-wine's taken me to San Diego, where Jeremy Parzen finalized VinoWire, his collaboration with Franco Ziliani.  To Campania with Fortunato Sebastiano and Luciano Pignataro.  To Slovenia, right over the border from Mario Zanusso and Josko Gravner, with Jancis Robinson.  To Texas, Upstate New York, San Francisco, Argentina, Genoa.  Even into the pulsing heart of Young America.

Ave, meta-wine.

A port of call. 

Slovenia: All joking aside

I want to direct you to this nice wrapup of Jancis Robinson's recent wine-tasting giro di Slovenia.  It's in the Free For All section of her site, so you can read it all without paying.

Dobrovo, Slovenija

About those Italian white wine varieties

I appreciate the nominations you left for "most promising dry white Italian wines".  I was a little surprised, too.  Vermentino?  Really, all you good people?  Muller-Thurgau?  It can be very good -- but that good?  (Sorry, Egle!  I know it's your favorite.)

For some time now I've been oscillating between the native whites of Campania (the holy trinity of Fiano, Falanghina and Greco di Tufo) and the "Great Northeast," as they say in Philadelphia. 

The Northeast encompasses a pretty good range of grapes and terroirs.   To me the best of these regions are Friuli and Alto Adige.  I'm with Alex, who is from Alto Adige, on the worthiness of Kerner or even Terlaner, for example, although I think Gewurztraminer is too unsubtle to make it "the great" Italian dry white wine. 

Tocai Friulano -- now plain old Friulano -- is a real contender, whether under that name or Sauvignonasse (related to what other grape, thinkest thou...?); but its relatively low acidity level makes blending a better way of cozening the best out of it.  Like with Verduzzo, which is alive in the mouth.  And Ribolla Gialla, rather more subdued than Verduzzo but loaded with racy charm all the same. 

I love Northeastern (Alto-Atesine) Pinot Bianco, but its crystalline acidity and purity seem more characteristics of the regional terroir than any grand expression of the grape itself.

David, I have to tell you: I don't have a lot of respect for Trebbiano.  Sorry.  Fine as a blending partner, but its character is di Serie B.  Even Emidio Pepe doesn't convince me.  (My opinion only.)

I like Pecorino and a couple of other central whites, but the white wine situation brightens only when you hit Campania.  Falanghina -- delicious.  Fiano -- subtle, perhaps too subtle for my boisterous taste, but capable of great things in the right hands, as Luca has suggested.  We're still waiting for that revelation.  And color me a barbarian, but I'm crazy about Greco di Tufo, which is tangy and wild and yet amazingly versatile and drinkable.  It may not be subtle or structured enough to age well, but is that truly the main criterion for a
"great" wine?

My current issue with a lot of the Campanian wines we're getting in the States these days: they taste and feel a little sweetened.  They lack precision.  They aren't that distinguishable, in some extreme cases, from...Pinot Grigio.  Overcropping and simple greed are taking their toll.  This is wrong.  Stupid, too.

I invite further comments. 

More great news for the US wine drinker: The dollar sustains head injuries

Yes, folks, the dollar continues its head-over-heels tumble down the stairs.  Here's the chart I got from x-rates.com:

The once-mighty dollar brought low: It cost about $1.54 today to buy a single euro.  It is no longer morning in America.  Say evening.  About 9 o'clock.  Here in the Abendland.

Fun fact: I got a brochure from Morrell Wine the other day.  After they finished touting the wines of plutocrats, they had a group called "Best buys for under $12.95".  A couple of years ago that would have been $9.95. 

As I digitate, the dollar cascades tonight in Asia.  The East is Red.  The West is a sick color green.  ("Oh, Rose, thou art Sick."  Mad sick.)

Executive summary: Be prepared to pay more for your Pinot Grigio, Yellowtail and Cotes du Rhone. 

Good news: The stuff'll still be cheaper than comparable quality vino from Californy.

It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world, Lola.

Best Italian white wine grape?

Italy is big in red.  According to a research report I spied recently, two-thirds of Italy's wine exports are red.  Everyone who's at all into Italian wine has a point of view on Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Aglianico, Nero d'Avola and other black grapes.  Ratings are all about the reds.

Yet one of the most exciting trends I've seen while poking about the little wineries of that country is the growing number of excellent dry white wines, at all levels of complexity, at all price points.  And from all regions, from northernmost Alto Adige to southernmost Sicily. 

These wines are made of a dazzling array of grapes, indigenous and otherwise.  I can't possibly list them all, but off the top of my head some of them are:

Pigato, Pallagrello Bianco, Pinot Bianco, Fiano, Greco di Tufo, Vermentino, Verduzzo, Falanghina, Grillo, Tocai Friulano, Inzolia, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Malvasia, Gargaganega, Verdicchio, any number of Moscatos, Viognier, Riesling, Kerner, etc., etc.

So.  I'd like to ask you these questions:

1. Which is the grape that you believe makes the best dry Italian white wine?

2. Where do you think the most exciting wines of the Italian future will come from?

(It's OK to discuss blends too, by the way.)

Gambero Rosso Report NYC '08: The East Is Red

My special correspondent, Lisa Qiu (also feted recently as Official Mondosapore Groupie), stormed the Gambero Rosso Tre Bicchieri event in on Park Avenue yesterday, with photographer Robin Hwang in tow. 

To refresh your memory, the big Italian wine guide awards 3 glasses (bicchieri) for wines it deems especially good; the 3 glasses refers to the fact that, when two friends sit down with a bottle of vino, if it's OK they drink one glass apiece; if it's good they drink 2 glasses; and if it's REALLY good they drink 3 glasses, which is to say the whole bottle.

Such calculations do not reflect an Anglo-Celtic sensibility.

We'll leave aside the many dark murmurings about the GR tasting panel and precisely how they arrive at their ever more generous judgments.  I will say that, as usual, red wines vastly outnumber whites in the winners circle.  Whether or not this lopsided division accurately reflects current realities of quality and value in Italy, I can't say for sure.  I will say that, as China and other Asian markets become more important to the Italians, the predominance of reds will only increase.

Here is Lisa's report, enhanced by Robin's pix.

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