Sunday, July 13, 2008

Under the Tuscan Stun

We’re deep into July now, the skin bakes well at 99° F. I might as well tell my sister not to print this one out for our mother, as she will just think I have lost my mind. And yes, I will digress.

Over the last week many wines were opened and tasted, in the course of duty and pleasure. Right now, I am tired of alcohol, but I am sure that will pass. Occupational hazard.

The coming week will be as equally challenging, with travel, tastings, a master class in Italian wine (in Austin), prepping the young pups for Texsom in August.

This whole wine thing, right now, has become such an obsession; it creeps into your life, your work, your closets, the fridge, under the table, another closet, a shelf with 20 years worth of Italian wine magazines. It really wraps itself around the saddle of your life and takes you on quite the ride.

Before you get to thinking this post is leaning towards the visually risqué, let me explain. The images shown have been created by the artistic duo known as Dormice. Dormice are Heinrich Nicolaus, born in Munich and Sawan Yawnghwe, born in Burma. Dormice live and work in Tuscany. I find their work compelling and I am fascinated with the way they pool their creative inspiration. They have a wonderful way with the use of color and form, and that is the simple reason why their work frames this post.

As the world turns, this time towards oblivion and that way towards exhilaration, I find this to be the stuff of summer and July. This month goes too fast for me; I could use two months of July. It sears my inspiration and keeps within me an overload of energy that fuels me deep into the late autumn- early winter time.

Tuscany, Tuscany, Tuscany. What on earth are they doing to you now? Earlier in the week I was sharing a bottle of a simple Chianti Classico from Melini, Il Granaio 2003, with three sommeliers. One, a Master-somm, who was in a great mood, replied something to the effect that this wine in it’s simplicity, how did she say it, something like it was so nice to just enjoy Sangiovese and Chianti like it is meant to be. I had to agree, not because I was trying to sell it to her and everyone else we had tasted that day. But it really was an epiphany to me, because here was this quiet little Chianti that had sat in the warehouse for many months, and it had blossomed into this pretty little wine. It wasn’t a stunner, but the experience was. Because, once again, you never know when the little wine god will creep up into a bottle and reveal itself, if you are quiet and fortunate and have others around you to help row the boat in the right direction. And those kinds of things are everywhere in this wine business.

Some time ago a salesman from a huge wine company called me up and asked me to please help him spread the word on their 2001 SuperTuscan. The wine was Alleanza, from Gabbiano. Usually that wine is not on the high priority list. There’s too little of it in any event. But when I took that wine home and tasted it during an evening, just by myself, again the midnight bloom arose from the bottle and beguiled me with its dance of seduction.

Over the years, another Chianti Classico, from Querciavalle and the Losi family, has been the reason for pause and reflection. This one comes with many visits and memories, something the over-inputted salesperson doesn’t have time for. Today as I was stretched upon the float in the pool, for one brief moment I was under anther sun, this time on the road near their winery going to the spot where their oak tree was struck down many moons ago. From that stunning moment, the raison d'être of the winery was forged.

Last week, another day, Gabrizia Cellai was in town to speak of her wines from Caparzo, La Doga and Borgo Scopeto. There was a moment when we were tasting Caparzo’s simple red, their Sangiovese. No Syrah, Merlot or Colorino, just straight Sangiovese. Again, here I was, at the altar, with something so simple and straightforward, just a blissfully uncomplicated come-across.

How is it a bee sting can be more significant than running into a wall? It might be because the bee pinpoints their focus on exactly one point. Running into a wall can be hard to spot, years down the road. Tonight I ran into a wall. At a friend house someone suggested I try the Silverado Reserve Merlot 1997. So I did. Just as I have tried many other wines lately from my home state. Somewhere I had a Russian River Chardonnay, and again I quizzed myself inside, wondering what it was I had missed. Oh please, California, look to the simple pleasures of wine and life. Less is more, really. Just as Italian food is characterized not by how much you can load into the dish, but rather how well you can work with three of four ingredients, isn’t time we looked to wines like that and celebrated them for their pure simplicity and the pleasure that it brings to us?

I walked away from the table after that ’97 Merlot. It was not something I would ask for with my last meal.

The other day of couple of older guys (older than me) came into a fine wine store where we were tasting the Chianti and they were asking for “big and bold Syrahs.” I really thought, at first, that they were liquor board guys; they had the “look.” I was disappointed when I heard them requesting the big Syrah like it was some kind of vinous Viagra.

So we have these characters looking to blow $60 on a big red lap dance and on the other end of the scale we have these jokers who come up and say something like this: “Anyone can find a great wine for a $100. It takes a real snoop to suss out the great ones for under $10. Yeah, that would have been a pretty fair way to go about it, back when the price of oil was around $14 a barrel. But now that snoop has fallen behind the reality of the times. Just like the restaurant that cuts back on the quality of the ingredients in their food, so there are measures that can be taken like that with wine. But why would someone continue on with such self deception? Younger generations don’t do that, in fact they see wines at $15-20 as a baseline. And yes, I have gotten off track.

What I am saying is that here we were with this little Chianti from Melini that has five years of age on it, sells for about $20, has some maturity to it, is balance, is simple, is correct. What else do you want? That’s the end of the rainbow. The lightning bolt. The Golden Fleece .







Friday, July 11, 2008

Red Letter Day

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.

Busy time here, in refried country. Wine people from California to Montalcino have been joining us in the sun-baked trenches of the last market that makes sense. Italian wines are alive and well and this week gave proof to that preposterous assertion.

And what is the secret, the magic ingredient? It’s leather and the lack of it in certain places. It relates to the street and the tenacity of those who have joined us in our quest to take on the final frontier. Italy has gotten a hold on this state which is larger than Italy, as large as France. This is no easy task, but we are going to bristle and mow our way through the year to prove to New York, Chicago, LA and San Francisco that there is competition for the fine wine segment of the Italian wine market. This week was just the beginning.

Imagine getting up at 6:oo AM in order to get ready for a long day. Nine wines, six clients, 120 miles of driving, in a circle, like a carousel. Young palates, master tasters, Italians, chefs, wine bar enthoos, no we’re not talking about Austin (next week, Dottore). We’re a bit east of the Barnett Shale, the phenom that is transforming the local economy and making a lot of believers out of the Texas miracle. More on that another time. Right now we have just come off of three days of intensive tasting and pounding the streets. The leather I was talking about was on the bottom of my shoes. No, that’s not some lunar landscape; that, my friends is a badge of honor. Yes, we’re still paying our dues and proud of it.

Vacation to Europe? Not yet, the action is here in the armor plated patrol vehicles. With the inside of them coming up to 110-115° F, we have our Koolatron chests panting to keep our wine and our laptops cool. Suit, tie, long sleeve, yes grasshopper, we have entered the battle zone and we will not surrender and we will conquer the hubris and the entropy. With or without our punch lists.

I got a call from Hollywood today, from a friend who runs a studio. Actually, Burbank. Anyway, he’s got a movie that’s doing great right now. Famous for the way a shoe is integral to the story line. A hybrid.

I’m at lunch with four other gents. Checking out one of the haut-spots. I cannot find a wine on the list for less than $100 bucks. An old Italian SB for $12 a glass that is selling down the street for $9. I start to see red. The start of my red letter day.

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying

Italy is turd-blossoming. A day after tasting wines from all over Italy, from Piedmont to Basilicata, from Sicily to Tuscany, we finish off the day with some Pinot Noirs from The Santa Rita Hills. A Seasmoke trio with a handful of cheeses from Italy to Spain, California, France, Wisconsin.

Later that night, I am dreaming of California; the dream is a wild ride with a young family member, Vinitaly, Dr. P and the rolling hills of the Central Coast, sometimes in the sunlight, sometimes on fire. Then, cool breezes, and a waterfall , emotion, and collapse. Powerful wines that provoke such vivid dreams, or was it the cheese? I know at 9:30 I fell asleep with the lights on, only to hear in the distance the light ring of a text message. It’ll have to wait, I’m in Monroe country.

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you

Dallas, Austin, Chicago, Hollywood, New York, Rome, Washington D.C., New Orleans, Sonoma, Castiglione della Pescaia, Harlingen, San Benedetto del Tronto; just some of the stops on the summer-fall tour.

“Take me with you to Italy,” they said in an aisle as I came up off my knees from placing the bottles of Oltrepo Pavese red on the rack. “We’ll carry your luggage.” I had a master class in packing today. One pair of shoes, two pairs of pants, three shirts, no medicines ( get them there when or if you need them). One camera, no computer, travel light. Nothing to check, little to carry on, they have changed the rules. Like my film-maker friend said today, “flying sucks, unless it’s business class on international or a private jet.” Have your gal call Clooney’s gal and let’s get hooked up, pal. (It’s alright ma, I can make it.)

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to






Red lettered words by Bob Dylan

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Empty Suits

It seems like that scene in a movie with everyone sitting around the bar, in the desert, waiting for the all clear sign, after the H-bomb has gone off. The streets are empty, the atmosphere is heavy; have we entered the age of the American Malaise?

Steakhouses and fancy designer restaurants fill up early with Maseratis and Land Rovers parked outside, all in a neat little row. There is wealth hovering around us, but it has migrated to the north of the middle class faster than a jackrabbit in West Texas on the first day of hunting season.

How low can you go? Today I found some fresh Italian wine to sell to a client for $3.50 a bottle. Not distressed, actually from Trentino. A little fruity, but not like the bottle of Sonoma Chardonnay I opened up a few nights ago. That was one undrinkable white wine. Fruit, soaked in oily-oak. Like some of the food I had recently in a new place. Only then it was too much salt. Hey, chefs, if you are making a dish with capers, before you spice-a-spoofulate it with salt, taste the freakin’ food! And they wonder why Italian places are closing here and elsewhere (i.e. NY, SF, LA, Vegas, Chicago, Birmingham, San Antonio, Baton Rouge, Denver, ad nauseum). Yeah it’s a bummer, but it’s even harder to understand why someone would make an investment in a restaurant and then not go to the trouble to prepare the food in a balanced way. And they wonder why we stay home to eat.

Let’s go over the reasons- Let me count the ways:

1) Fresh food prepared simply and not over spiced.
2) Wine that is of my choosing, not from some salesperson’s tick list.
3) While we’re at it, wine that I can access at a reasonable price, not 3, 4, 5 times marked up.
4) Water glasses that aren’t constantly getting refilled.
5) I can park my own car, so if I want to screw up my transmission I can do it at my leisure.
6) I can choose my music, my noise levels, and the people I want around me, not constantly having to be hostage to my neighbors drama and rudeness.

I can only imagine restaurateurs who are truly engaged nodding their heads, but the ones who need to read up aren’t checking in to blogs. Hey, they can barely get their orders out in time.

And here’s another issue, which it seems many restaurant operators are blissfully ignorant about. Diesel is $5 a gallon. So when a delivery truck heads out, with tomatoes or Teroldego, the clock is ticking on the driver to get the goods delivered efficiently. So how come so many restaurant operators are living back in the days when oil was $38 a barrel? And why are they stunned when their business fails? I’m just sayin’.

Back to the empty suits. I was watching one of my favorite movies, Sexy Beast, and was thinking about organization, whether it revolves around breaking into a bank or onto a wine list. It seems like cracking a wine list is more challenging these days. There is a service called Wineosaur, that can track and compare wine lists by regions, neighborhoods, zip codes, types of restaurants, class of restaurants ($$), really interesting analytical stuff. So I print out an analysis for a new place getting ready to open, try to show them what their competition is doing. This is good stuff, free professional consultation, the real deal. But hey what do we know; the organization I work for has only been around since 1909, eh?

OK, the bottom line? Restaurants that use wine pricing to shore up their profits are sticking it to their loyal clients; you know the ones who are looking at $60-75 to fill up their autos? Just like the fill-up used to be $30-35, so the wine that cost $15 also used to sell for $30-35. Now that wine costs $18 and those restaurants are now asking $60-75 for the same wine. No labor, not like the piccata dish with the capers and the salt. Yeah, the wholesalers are the bad guys, delivering wines to the forgetful restaurateurs on a Friday so they can mark the just-in-time inventory up 3,4,5 times and then when you walk in the empty place on a later that night they look at you, the paying customer, as if you were a bit off for not making a reservation. That’s after they enter your name is a database, send it off the homeland security, just in case you brought a wine opener on to the premises. Might be a security threat. Or worse, we might be giving a staff training.

That’s another thing. This week, this very week, in a restaurant, a server described a Montepulciano d’Abruzzo to a friend as tasting “like a Cabernet.” And then in the same night, at the same table, to a group of food professionals, Gavi was compared to a “Sauvignon Blanc.” Oh really? Managgia, porco dio, we really do have so many miles to go before we sleep.

Say good night, Gracie.



From the front lines of the battle for the love of wine.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Once Upon a July

It’s my month, definitely my month. This is the period when I take a breather from the daily grind, crank back, calm down and tan up. Often there is some beach time on the Adriatic. But this year, it’s all done as a remote viewer. There’s too much going on here. The wine trail in Italy must wait. And maybe my month as well might need to be put on the back burner.

I went looking for signs of economic life in America, in the restaurants, in the markets, in the liquor stores, in the lakeside dancing spots, looking for hope that the America I grew up in was still there. Maybe a little dented, bruised, but not down for the count.

The thing is, it looks like all across the globe, except for the extremely wealthy, we are in a pinch. Italy is in a crunch, things there are expensive. Across America, East Coast, West Coast, flyover country, there are signs not only that things are slowing down but the people don’t seem be able to recognize what we’re in. My 94 year old mother commented to me today, that she thinks this could be worse than the Depression she went through as a young American. My mother, who is paying almost $5 for a gallon of gas.

And folks at farmers markets, selling their organic berries, still think Barack Obama is a foreigner or a Muslim? We are standing in the square at High Noon and this is one noir moment in our history.

And what is the Italian response? From Italy, it seems that silence is what they are serving back. I am astonished that they think this would be an appropriate response. Like the cat that sits in the corner and pretends to not see you, thinking if they don’t look at you, you will think there aren’t there. Invisible. Not culpable. Unbelievable.

I have been reviewing wine lists across my region and am amazed that no one has thought to re-adjust their mark up so that folks could actually be persuaded to get in their SUV’s and go out to dinner and possibly order a bottle of wine. Salespeople all across my region are telling me, in places both reasonably priced and high end, things have slowed down, body count is down. Except in Afghanistan.

Listen, you buy a bottle of wine for $25, you charge $90. Wrong. You charge $60, maybe, and give the diners a break. They are already taking it in their tanks; find a way to bring them back in. Because if you don’t, you might not be able to get them back in, even if you charge only $50. It’s heading that way, faster than a brushfire in Southern California.

Here’s a sign of the times. We have 700-800 cases from a winery in Puglia, the wine just showed up. Suits on Stockton Street decide to move the wine over to another house. Happens all the time. This here now is fresh wine, retails for $11-12. Although a year or so ago the same wine could be found for $9-10. Anyway, I get to offering this wine for $5 for the whole lot, way below cost. Don’t know why, maybe to slow it down in its next life cycle, maybe to give a friendly account a deal. Now here’s the shocker. I run it by a couple of accounts across the state and the wind-up is, they can’t take it all. Yes, it’s a good deal, they admit, but cash flow or body count is low. So, no deal.

That, my friends, is not a good indication. For any of us. Not for the bio-dynamic, free-range, sulfite-free crowd and not for the let’s go get some K-J at Cost-Co crowd. I have been talking about this for a while now and folks are just trading down, not one or two price points, but more. Hey, Rumsfeld and the Pentagon tried it, and didn’t that work out real well for all of us? Now we have a whole country looking for something from somewhere cheaper than China? Good luck.

Is it all doom and gloom, sky is falling, badder than bad? Of course not, but the signs are all there.

A bunch of Italian working men go into a club at then end of their shift, have a beer or a whisky. Talk about their lives, their family, their women, their goomadas. At the end they all go home, where their kids and their wives are waiting for them, water boiling on the stove, a pot of sauce simmering, some pork riblets in it to thicken the sauce and supply some meager protein. The same story across the country for two, three generations. And then, no more, it’s gone. They’re gone, the people, the traditions, the hopes the sauce, the boiling water. The goomadas. La commedia è finita.

Forty years later we stare into screens, looking for meaning, searching for our simmering sense of belonging to something on a Sunday night in the middle of the desert on a hot night in July.

Yep, definitely my month.





Friday, July 04, 2008

The Hill Country Interview

Guest interview by Beatrice Russo While Alfonso is finding his bliss on his very little own island, he has given up the blog to me, once again. Before he left, we sat down in the Texas Hill Country, where I interviewed him. BR: Did you start out wanting to be in the wine business? AC: No actually I wanted to be a gypsy-freelance photographer. I went to New York in the mid Seventies, lived in Chelsea, did a little part time work at the New School and assisted for a photographer. BR: What happened? AC: I am a westerner, like to see the sunset and the horizon. New York in 1975 was pretty depressing. I moved back to LA. BR: What was the wine scene like when you arrived in LA in the late Seventies? AC: It was fresher, cleaner than where I had just been. I started working in a restaurant in Pasadena, called The Chronicle. It had a fabulous cellar, mainly California wine at the time, but I was exposed to some of the great winemakers at the time. Pasadena was just a little too conservative in those days. I remember the night Jimmy Carter won the election; some of my customers were pretty upset. They looked at me with my longish, curly hair and started blaming me that the country was going down. BR: What did you do? AC: I realized I was in an environment that wasn’t healthy. My son had just been born and I was full of hope. The prospect of serving up Ridge and Georges de Latour to a bunch of miscreants motivated me. So I worked in Hollywood across from Paramount studios on Melrose. It was a happening place. Wine was coming down from Napa we had French wine on our list, there were a lot of stars coming in. It was just a brighter place. BR: So you opted for Italian wine. AC: That came after a while. I was living in Dallas, working at a great old Italian place, Il Sorrento. They had this little room up in the attic that was tem-controlled and had all kinds of old bottles of Barbaresco, Barolo, Gattinara, Amarone and Vino Nobile in there. I was tired of selling Piesporter and Bolla Soave so I asked the sommelier to give me a list and some prices. I went to town. Folks like Stanley Marcus and Terry Bradshaw came in, along with the wealthy set in Dallas, looking to have an experience. It was the Eighties and oil and money was flowing. BR: Were you surprised by the public reaction to Italian wine, or by their eventual mass acceptance? AC: A lot of people travel to Italy. So they are looking for a way to recreate that experience. After a while Italian wine just seeps into your bloodstream and it becomes a natural part of your life. I am constantly surprised and disappointed at the same time. BR: Half-full, half-empty, which one is it? AC: Both. I was recently in a new Italian spot; they had spent millions on the place. But when I looked at the wine list, I wanted to puke. I saw wines on the list that were marked up five times. I mean, who’s gonna spend $170 on an ‘03 Brunello in these times, especially when they can go down to Cost-Co and pick it up for $49. There still is an imbalance out there. That’s the half-empty part. BR: So what did you do? AC: I told my server that I had to leave, personal emergency (it was, to me) and we went back into town. Walked into a little place that makes great pizza and pasta and uses some great locally sourced produce. Sat down ordered a bottle of a cool red, a dry, real Lambrusco for $34, and got back on track. Twenty years ago we would have had to just buck up and drink the Bolla. Not these days, even here in flyover country. BR: Yeah, what’s with you and that flyover comment? I read it on the blog lately. AC: It’s a reference the East Coast folks make to where I hang my shingle. The midsection of the country. You know, where we can still see sunsets and horizons and have a back yard and a garden. BR: You have a unique style of writing. How did this blog thing come about? AC: I have written stuff all my life. I wrote a novel (unpublished) in 1979-80. When I was in Palermo in 1971, I remember writing poetry on the typewriter in my uncle’s library. In those days Italy only used 22 of the 26 letters, I think. So my poetry was a little strange. After my uncle took me around the streets and ruins of Sicily, I read everything I could get from Sicilian authors. This is my basis in blogging. It uses wine as a buoy but launches out as far as I can go, even sometimes in to Borges country. BR: You lost me there, AC. AC: I’m not surprised. BR: Did you ever feel that you had tapped into the Zeitgeist in some special sort of way? AC: This is starting to sound like Dylan’s Rolling Stone interview, Beatrice. Are you talking about the way the blog has been going? BR: Yeah. AC: As I look back on it now, I am surprised that I came up with so many of them. At the time it seemed like a natural thing to do. Now I can look back and see that I must have written those posts "in the spirit," you know? Like "The Endless Italian Summer" or “The Meltdown” -- I was just thinking about that the other night. There's no logical way that you can arrive at posts like that. I don't know how it was done. BR: It just came to you? AC: It just came out “through” me. D.H. Lawrence wrote a poem called “We are Transmitters,” that said it all. BR: You have been doing posts, as far as I can tell, three times a week for two years now. What's going on here? AC: Well, The tail is definitely wagging the dog on that one. I don't know what to say; I'd love to slow down, but the tap is on and the stuff is flowing. So I'm just going with the flow. BR: Have you ever considered moving to Italy? Where you might feel more at home? AC: I considered that back after my wife died. But then I thought about being in Italy, where they’d always treat me like a stranger on a Sunday night. I’d rather not have any illusions about my isolation. Texas gives me space and I like the out West places well enough. No, I’m not bound for Italy, not looking for a convent in the Marche to redo anytime soon. BR: So, tell me a secret, AC, something that you have been keeping all to yourself. AC: I don’t know about that, Beatrice, how about a little dream? BR: OK, yeah, sure. AC: I’d like to slow down on this blogging thing, ‘cause it just seems to have a bit too much of a hold on me. I have other stories in me, like my science fiction side. All those years I spent throwing the baseball in my backyard with the old Italian who used to work for Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone, I guess. I also would like to write a book about a wine personality. I mean one of the John Steinbeck, larger than life people. The kind of person the common man could identify with. BR: You got someone in mind? AC: Look around you, here in the Texas Hill Country; vineyards, Bar-B-Q, all kinds of people running around here. There’s at least two or three books scattered around this crowd. Three that I know of. But there is one I am working on. Wait and see, Bea. You gotta practice your patience, young lioness. BR: Thanks, AC. Comments to me here:Beatrice

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Which Island?



Where is this island? (otherwise referred to as "Isola da Cevola")




Wednesday, July 02, 2008

...and the Horse You Rode In On

Guest commentary by Beatrice Russo

You know the saying? Well, in these parts it’s pretty much “Adios MoFo” when it comes down to this.

I’m looking at decisions made in the name of “industry consolidation” and I just gotta think about the poor salesperson on the front line who is just getting ready to lose 30% of his or her income because some suit in some suite in some city made an executive decision. OK, fine, this kind of stuff happens everyday.

But now they are messing with the Italians. There and here.


I just got back from an extended leave at work, traveling and working for a group of wineries. And then I come back to crazy heat, gas guzzling cars, snipers on the tollway and general mayhem in urban America, complete with Darth Vader syndrome.

When you go to Vinitaly and talk to a winemaker about their vineyards and their wine and their philosophy, and if you happen to break bread with them or close down Bottega del Vino with them, you form a bond with them. In America it’s a bond that is often breached. But in the world of Italian wine, there are relationships and the code of hospitality. And when someone, high in a building overlooking a world far removed from their reality, pushes a button, somewhere it affects those relationships and those bonds. And in the Italian sense, it is something so foreign to the way they do business that I am unable to find the words. But I will press on.

Let’s just say, in a calm voice, I am pissed. I am seeing everything in front of all of us shift dramatically, changes, like we have no idea, are coming. But when someone fulfils their obligations and then gets their feet cut from underneath them, in these times, them there are fighting words.

When are the little guys going to ever be able to get out from under the shadow of the elephants, whose dance of death above us is blocking the sun and causing many of the normal joe’s to suffer? These same joe’s who toil, day in and day out, who sacrifice time with their kids because they need to deliver some cooking (box) wine to their account on the way home on a Friday night. And what do they get in return for this vigilance? They get spat upon by the titans of the industry who go to bed at night between their 600 count Egyptian cotton, in their overpriced condo’s overlooking a bay somewhere out west.

Italy has fallen under the spell of the industrial marketers. So now it isn’t just the Micro-Oxygenators we have to concern ourselves with. Now we have to be on the lookout for the Macro-Expectators, these gurus of the new age with their million dollar salaries and their flatulent bonus programs, which they get when they serve up the shaft to the ground troops. Hey, who needs Iraq, when we have Baghdad by the Bay?

They say small is beautiful and IWG sez he is going to be on the lookout to find ‘em small, grow ‘em small and keep ‘em small. Safety in numbers? Why not? You lose one, no big deal, they’re like a bus, hang on and another one will be right by. You can catch the next one.

Hey, Italian wines are complicated creatures, what with all the different things to remember and to know. Today I was trying to figure out one little hill in the Barolo district and it nearly drove me nuts. But I did find out, and now I know. And you know what? Knowledge is power. And when it comes to Italian wines, the suits in the suites could give a rat’s keister about this kind of low-level stuff. Doesn’t interest them, doesn’t keep their 80 foot power boats filled with gas. Doesn’t let them live in the lifestyle in which they have become accustomed to. Entitled, they are? Nah. They earned it, fare and square. Don’t believe me? Just ask ‘em. Or ask their PR wonk or their lawyer or their botoxed trophy wives.

I think about any of those little winemakers on a bricco or a poggio who have spent lifetimes developing their soil and their wine and their craft and then these huge marketing companies come by, spout out some crap about the US market, give ‘em a big order, pay up front and bingo! They just sold their souls to the devils in Baghdad by the Bay.


Yeah I know this is obtuse and blurry and I am not going to explain any deeper. And they said, back in the day, suffice it to say, the little guy better look out, because the behemoths are prowling and devouring. Italy, wake up, they are in your vineyards and your boardrooms. They will steal you blinder than Garibaldi plundered the South.




pix by Leonardo, the old dead Italian guy
(who outshines these new geniuses by a millennium)



Comments to me here:Beatrice



Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Bea is Back



And she's got her rant on. Next in the queue.
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