PART 3: I SELL MY PASSION

Here is the third and penultimate segment of my definitive precis of the LastItalianWineMemoirYoullEverNeedtoRead.  In it you will find joy and heartbreak, hard work and the ineffable pleasure of swanning about with men of noble name and meaningless title. 

Ladies and gentlemen...

PART 3:  I SELL MY PASSION

Metamorphosed from a miserable, depressed wretch, I am a sunny-souled huckster of Italy, of the Italian promise, of the Italian joy, of the Italian wine.   I am become the Mario Perillo of Italian wine.

I go round our great nation filled with little quips and smart one-liners, poetic reminiscences and dreamy anecdotes, with uplift and humor and every manner of good thing to make people think, Every drop I drink is like five minutes of enjoying the Italian Lifestyle.  It's like a little vacation to sunny Italy, land of Audrey Hepburn and Lex Barker, of Gina Lolobrigida and Franco Ziliani.  Land of art, poetry, romance and sickly Anglo-American heroines.  For as we all know:

the Italian lifestyle is lounging around a teeny little table with a teeny little cup of coffee or a 5-dollar glass of water in a photogenic Renaissance piazza with pigeons, priests and lovelorn spinsters of all nations seeking their personal Rossano Brazzi.  And so to all those I meet and befriend I say, “This wine makes me happy.”  Or: “This wine has a good price-quality ratio.”  Or:  “Look, I’ll throw in this if you take that.”  All with appropriate gestures and facial expressions that demonstrate how Completely Native I have gone. 

They lap it up.  I am on my way to becoming a Personage. 

They invite me to congresses, to tasting panels, to pontificate on NPR.  (Have to tone your your enthusiasm level for NPR.  It's ill-bred not to sound as though you're on downers.)

I am treated to weekends at the Pierre, weeks in Cannes, fortnights at Prince Matchabelli's spread in Montecucco, right next to Berlusconi's.  I spend much time shouting in the phone at my people back home, "What do you mean you aren't reordering the Prince's Brunello or his Chianti or his Amarone or his Barolo??  Don't you shitbrains realize what's at stake here!??"

Still I persevere.  I never give up because there's a dream at stake here, people. A dream trumps a principle any day.

Tossing my old seersucker to the homeless man on First Avenue, I am seen at the best places in New York and throughout Italy.  I buy better clothes.  I get manicures.  I lease a charming villa from Prince Matchabelli.  I begin to pen my memoirs.  I get pedicures.  Business and life intervene, however, and I get thwarted.  So I am determined to lose myself in a maze of silk and luxury.  I gain weight.  I cease to visit my producers.  I cease looking for new producers.  I stare at the horizon from my terrace.  I drink only Champagne and mostly at breakfast, which lasts all day.  I cut orange rinds into monster teeth to amuse myself.  I look into the mirror and am horrified. 

I have, in fact, become a monster. 

I decide it's time for a new transformation, for what is America but the land of perpetual self-re-invention. I hie myself away for six weeks to a place where no BlackBerry can reach me.  I put on my pre-personage clothes and wander the sear hills.  I see the simple rude farmer putt-putt by in his 3-wheeled trucklet. I see the vines straggle down the hillsides.  I smell the pigs as I stalk by with my staff.  I remember the old man who smelled like my grandmother.  I weep. I feel redeemed, which is tantamount to saying that I am redeemed. 

I return to the world. 

I'm ready for my apotheosis now, Mr. DeMille.

Comments

[Dave]

The "land of Audrey Hepburn and Lex Barker, of Gina Lolobrigida and Franco Ziliani."
Terry, I see you're getting a little morning exercise of running the gamut.
mi fa sorriso, grazie.
Ciao...

[Strappo]

Dave, I'm a sucker for those odd juxtapositions. I like the implicit pairing of Lex Barker and Franco Ziliani best. It makes me happy.

[gianpaolo]

I love this:It's like a little vacation to sunny Italy, land of Audrey Hepburn and Lex Barker, of Gina Lolobrigida and Franco Ziliani.
Just love it.

[terence]

It's the real Italy too! Just like the way you live and everything!

[Jeremy Parzen]

schmendrick?