Cafes & Wineries

Commentary by Beatrice Russo

Friday Aug 29 – 8:00 PM
Once again, the old man, IWG, has left me in charge. What an idiot! He knows there are some old bottles, standing up in his wine room, which are pretty close to my birth year. I have already texted my friend down south to see if she wants to come up and raid the room. I even saw a bunch of old Brunellos from her birth year, 1975. I think they’re both ready.

So he goes and abandons ship, says this month really kicked him in the butt, gotta get away, sun and water and wine and friends. OK, so go, nobody reads your damn blog anyway, get on down the road, Viejo, we can handle it around here for a few days wi-chout-cha.

I bet you’re all dying to know, what’s up with the “intern?” I have long ago given up that title, even though IWG still thinks of me as his find. I am so not part of his world anymore, I’ve learned all his mysteries, and I gotta tell you, when he’s running around town saying “ I gotta get more cowbells,” I think we should “make the call″, if you know what I mean.

Speaking of running around, IWG seems to think he has everybody fooled into thinking I am some figment of his imagination. He says he already set it up on some older post, just so nobody would offer me a job or a column or book deal. Well, ask the old man’s Sicilian Godfather. Every time I go over there to take him some Googootz or pomodorini from my garden, he livens up a bit. Doesn’t seem to think he’s imagining me. I don’t know why IWG thinks he can claim me as his own. Nobody owns Bea.

Saturday Aug 30 – 11:00 AM
I got a text from IWG last night when he landed. I didn′t pay any attention to it till now, Great, what’s for lunch and how well will it go with that last bottle of 1990 Cristal that we be chillin’ up?

He wants to talk, says he had a breakthrough. Just another latent and left-behind mid-life crisis that is haunting his oh-so never-will-be-middle-aged keister again. Look it up, he used it. Said one of his friends in the Hamptons uses it. There are very few who are worse name droppers than IWG.

Now he is torn, ‘cause he gets this call trying to bribe him to come into the city for a tasting of old wines , journalists just back from their trips, old Italian wines, ready to go. I know DoBi is in Germany, and Spume-man is back in SF and the grand poobah nephew of the great sci-fi guy, well he’s still M.I.A. And that pretty well much cover all his friends. At least the ones he think he’s got left, if you don’t include those whack jobs out in Albany and Nyack.

“No, not those,” he says. “Big ones, really, really big ones. Influential in their own circles. Critics, auction houses, European folk.” Ok, so what? Go.

He said he felt like he was abandoning his hosts on the “island”. Give me a break, they’d love to see him go (I can’t believe he’s gonna let this post stay up).

I left him at that. The bubbly was ready and we had figured out how to make Croque Monsieur with some ancient Fontina and Speck he brought back from his last trip. That should go down real good with it. Now, let’s see where did he put the SPF30? The sun is high and bright.

Why is it something like a 1937 Carmignano so interesting? It’s old, like IWG, that must be it. Hell, I’m digging into old, right here in the wine room; have that 1975 Lisini Brunello lined up and am looking at a 1979 Schloss Schönborn Erbacher Marcobrunn Riesling Spätlese for sometime après swim and sol. Let IWG suffer in Suffolk, tonight friends will come over and we will par-tay.

Sunday Aug 31 – 9:30 AM
I told him to not call me before 10. He said he waited until 10:30. Technically, for him, he was right. But I wasn’t ready to hear about his old wine conquests. Our party lasted until 2:30 and some folks crashed around the many beds, while others just split for more private surroundings. I have an aunt of one of the friends who has a cleaning service, he’ll never know. Like he can see anything outside of his own drama? That’s the Mother Lode of Life Theater, boys and girls. Believe me, he’ll never, ever, know.

OK, now he’s all happy, ‘cause he got them to let him take the driver to drive him into town and wait for him, in time to back for some truffle dinner in the Sound. Sounds like he double dipped the elite-class. Good for him.

So it was old Italian for lunch and old French wine for dinner. And there’s still Monday, which he says, in honor of the holiday, will be a tasting of old California wines. I hate him, truly, truly despise every bone in his body. Which is growing ever larger by the day.

Check this out and puke with me ~ His Italian lunch:

1979 Salice Salentino - Malfatti
1978 Etna Rosso - Torrepalino
1976 Morellino Di Scansano - Francheschini

1982 Le Pergola Torte
1979 Tignanello
1979 Sassicaia

1969 Barbaresco Riserve Speciale - Calissanp
1968 Monfortino Riserva - G.Conterno
1961 Chambave Rouge - Ezio Voyay

1937 Carmignano Capezzana

1936 Est !Est!!Est !!! Amabile – Lampari

His Majesty’s Truffle dinner and French wine menu:

1966 Margaux
1966 Cheval Blanc
1964 Mouton Rothschild
1962 Petrus
1959 Ausone,

1953 Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé Bonnes Mares ( magnum)
1928 and 1929 d’Yquem.

I’m so glad we drank his freekin′ 1990 Cristal, sister.

Original post by beatrice.russo

Commentary by the “intern”, Beatrice Russo

IWG wrote about going off the reservation, in his last post. Have you seen the movie Apocalypse Now? Well, it’s one of is favorite movies, I know, because once when I watched his house for a week, I went through all his movies. And he had two versions of it.

For my generation, it’s a Vietnam era movie in which a couple of Green Berets go deep into Cambodia to assassinate a former soldier who has “gone native.” This Captain Willard dude is going after the renegade Colonel Kurtz. See the movie. I’m watching it close-up. Alfonso has gone “Kurtz” on me.

A few months ago he helped get me settled into this gig where I was around a lot of good wine, some money to pay the bills and a career track. Or so I thought. The reality was that if I don’t fight myself through the jungle I’ll never end up with much of anything. The whole wine biz deal is pretty much set on reaching these conditional goals that are constantly changing. I am Ok with a moving target, but, hey, I don’t see much incentive to excell, when the warlords at the top are controlling the numbers. IWG tells me to be patient, it will all work out. Like hell.

He’s off for a few days has to take the vacation time or lose it. When he does, he escapes to his “isola” and leaves me with the keys. Only rule is that I don’t get all wicked and profane. No problem for me, I know how to make myself understood.

Anyway, he’s in the middle of a deal to bring in a line of new Italian wines and all of a sudden he’s verklempt about it. Dude has some gnarly emotions. Feels like he was handled. I told him to get over it, think about the poor suckers in the vineyards. Little young me, telling he who aspires to the pinnacle. Whatever. So he goes and takes off. Fine with me.

I IM’d my friend in Austin, tried to help her get me a bead on the scene. She was out “blitzing” some brand before the hurricane hits land. So she couldn’t help shore up the yurt.

Anyway, thank God he left a freezer filled with some better-than-sex Limoncello. Did I say that? Oh well, it’s been a dry haul lately and relief from Campania in the form of lemons and alcohol will offset my temporary personal disappointments.

And, you ask me, what does this have to do with the blog? Nada. Anymore than sequestering all the jalapenos has anything to do with making folks feel better. Don’t get me started. Here goes. We are now treating produce like we treat terrorists travelers. Stand here. Go through this screening process, drop your drawers, oops you have been infected with salmonella. It wasn’t bad enough that we all had to be infected with fear from the governmental overlords who get the jollies when all of us are scared to get on a plane? Now we have to be afraid of tomatoes? And jalapenos? What is going on in this country?

IWG is really going to freak with this one, but how about what we are all witnessing, this summer? I’m glad this is happening in my youth, although I’m not sure there will be much left in my older years. If I ever make it that far.

Ok, wine. That what everyone wants. I did try some flawless wines from the Loire. Neal Rosenthal stuff. Not Italian, so IWG will probably fuss. Not Verdicchio, he says. Not Fiano. Well, the last Fiano I had wasn’t Fiano. What’s up with that? I want acid, not bubble gum. I tell you, when that producer shows up next month, I’m going to corner him and defy him to turn his property back on track, little ‘ol me. I’ll get my friend in Austin and her southern Italian girlfriend to help me. I don’t want another wine from Southern Italy to taste like it’s from Australia or Paso Robles. Yeah, there’s a kind of hush, all over the world, alright. Telling me to shut my trap.

When the heck is IWG coming back? I can’t do this gig twice in a row.

Original post by beatrice.russo

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 at the time. 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 Bola Soave so I asked the sommelier to give me a list and some prices.

BR: 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 were 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 place in the burbs; 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 am ‘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

Original post by beatrice.russo

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

Original post by beatrice.russo

Guest commentary by Beatrice Russo

It’s 10:30PM and I get a call from IWG. He’s still at the wine dinner and has a 6:30AM flight to New Orleans for a meeting. Can I write a post for his blog?

Seeing as the last time I did one was in October and the one before that was August, I thought I had weaned myself from that activity. But he did let me use his car when he was in Italy and he helped me get a job. So I guess one more time won’t hurt.

I’ve tasted a load of wine lately and my palate is scorched. Too much Chile, New Zealand and Spanish wines. I miss the Italians. Those are the wines my friends like.

Does that come as a surprise to you? IWG said that too, but he had heard twice today from salespeople and accounts the same song. Hey, some of us in this generation like wines that have flavor profiles. Some of us actually like the combination of coffee, pine and bacon fat.

IWG has been telling stories about his recent Italian harvest trip. Yeah, some of the stories he has been writing here, but man he has worn me out with the other ones, the ones not yet written. I guess he has to tell somebody.
I’ve just been so busy with the gig and all the new wines I’ve had to learn. It’s like Italian wine is a memory from childhood, at this point. But when I get together with my friends, they all ask me to bring some wine from IWG’s house. First, it is free and second, they like Italian wine.

Hey Italian wine producers – young people in their 20’s aren’t all whacked out on beer and Jaeger. We go to wine bars, we read, and we spend money on wine. So stop making it hard for us to afford your wine and tell your politicians to book their round trip to the sun in time for the holidays.

Coffee – went over to a friend’s house. He just got a coffee roaster. I smell that aroma in all kinds of wine from reds from Tuscany to whites from Burgundy. I like it. It’s cleansing.

Pine – sometime ago I was in Yosemite and in the upper part the pine trees on a hot summer day sent out this smell that was pure and beautiful. I sometimes smell that in California wines and also in some French wines from Bordeaux and the Rhone. Also in Barbera d’Alba.

Bacon fat – Aglianico, Nero d’Avola, Zinfandel, Lagrein and Hermitage. Very cool. Who wants a size 2 wine? Give me some meat on those ribs.

Hey I didn’t tell IWG I’d do a great post, just that I’d fill in for him.

He’s busy, I’m busy, you don’t have to scan this one – it’s short.

Original post by beatrice.russo

Guest commentary by Beatrice Russo

What is it about old people? IWG comes up to me other day and says, “Uh, you know you haven’t sent in a blog posting since middle of August?” Uh, gee, I didn’t know it was my job. Hey, Unc, nobody cares about our blog. Got it? And he comes right back, “Uh, so I guess you didn’t have a good time in France?” Oh so, that’s the game you be playin?

So he’s all laid out before the TV waiting for Ken Burns to tell him how The War ended. And he’s been that way every night. Never knew he was such a history buff.

And then during a break he says he’s thinking of moving to Chicago. What? Says there’s some action up there with something going on, money, position; other side of the hill it sounds like to me. He is one screwed up dude, and I can’t believe he lets me post this.

So, France was cool. I had just watched Antonioni’s L’Avventura, so it all influenced me a bunch. Monica Vitti, what an actor. She nailed that certain period in one’s life when there just needs to be a direction and all there seems to be is one endless drama after another. I can relate to it, but not right now. Life is good.

Drew (Ziff) and his new restaurant, going well. He has me cataloguing new wines coming in. Getting ready for the opening. And he has brought on board Brendan, who reminds me of IWG’s son, Rafa. Brendan came from a very cool place, York Street, I even thought of wanting to work there once. But no way am I jumping, now that I have a steady job that I like.

IWG dragged me around one day in France. We left real early and headed down to a place in the south of France, Grasse. He’s all Jumanji about aromas lately. He has this 24 page book he has made with smells and their scientific formula names. He goes around saying things like, warm essence of musk and bergamot, things like that. Kinda creepy, but then when we taste a wine and one of the descriptions matches the nose, I’m like, wow, this is cool. So, I forgive him.

Anyway we drove so long it seemed we were almost going to Italy (I wish). But we get to this town and he goes to some building that has this real scientific look to it. Find out it’s a perfume school and he is there to visit an old friend who teaches there. They make scents for all kinds of things, perfumes, nail polish, soaps, everything it seems, except wine. What? The friend says they even make vegetable based scents to “enhance” the aroma and flavor of wine. No way. Those French folks, they are a crafty lot.

A nice lunch and a pale rosé from the area, the two of them go off into a lab afterwards and I excuse myself to go walking the town. The place does have an unusual scent to it, like a closet I once walked into, a friend’s grandmother who asked me to put a hat box on the top shelf. Just like her closet, all kinds of musty, musky, dusty, flowery, totally overwhelming scene.

It got me to thinking about my mother and dad and my twin and for a moment in the sun, in the south of France, I allowed myself a moment of regret and pity. But I say to myself, I am well, I have work, people like me. I am young; I have my whole life before me. This will pass. And it does.

Later that night after we get back to the chateau there is a bottle or two of unusual liqueurs. IWG goes for the absinthe, but I spy some flowery looking bottle that looks old. It says Grand Marnier Cuvée du Cent-Cinquantenaire, so I take a pull of it into a snifter. By this time everyone at the table is getting plowed with XO Cognac or some other kind of liqueur, but it’s just a short climb up the stairs to bed. No big deal. So I step outside to listen to the owls and the frogs and stick my nose in the snifter. The whole south of France was inside. It was like being on a ledge overlooking the ocean and all of a sudden fear was so intense that my senses were elevated to a higher degree of receptivity. That’s what I must do with this sommelier business.

Nothing above me, nothing below me, so I leap off.
Something I read in one of IWG’s old hippy paperbacks.

Original post by beatrice.russo

Guest commentary by Beatrice Russo

Ziff and Dale invited me to lunch today. It’s Restaurant Week and they are heading off to Austin for the Texsom conference that they are in charge of. I am staying behind. Like I said, it’s Restaurant Week and someone has to answer the dumb questions that the R.W. amateurs ask. Like last night, I heard this one: “Do you have an Italian Pinot Noir?” Yes, and I also can recommend to you a Vermentino from France, but why? Another one I heard this week (these people must have driven in from Tyler or Longview): “What’s your best Texas wine?” How about the one that doesn’t make me puke (which, by the way, wouldn’t be some overpriced Palomino-Chardonnay from a wine-bully.)

As I said, we are at lunch, kinda celebrating. One of the restaurants took pity on some of the locals and opened up for lunch. Peaky toe crab, awe-inspiring okra (you heard me) with fried green tomatoes and a whole, grilled Branzino. Family style. Me, I’m always hungry. Ziff was watching his weight and Dale was loosening his belt. They brought a bottle or two of Burgundies for fun, A Rully and a Santenay. Look guys, anytime you want to raid the cellar, I’m there for you.

At a table nearby, one of IWG’s gulag-mates was entertaining a chef. He stopped by on his way in, asking where IWG went this time. I said Fort Worth and acted like I didn’t know what he was talking about. They had some cool stuff in their bag, sent over a taste of Camartina from from Querciabella. IWG loves the property; the wine was tasty, especially with the lamb.

We finished with an incredible slice of Pecos melon (not cantaloupe) and some German shots that were bitter and gave me a headache. But hey, it was a 2 hour business lunch.

I sent the boys on their way. They had to be in Austin and tropical storm Erin was racing to meet them.

The gulag-mate called me over to come taste some Priorat. It had been opened about 4 hours earlier, so it tasted almost bearable. After Santenay, Sangiovese and bitters, Garnacha and Carignane were maybe too much in the same day. And it’s like 102°F outside.

The chef we sat with had a funny story about Spanish wines. I gathered he ran the wine program and the kitchen at this place where he worked, a gentleman’s club. You know, pole dancing, scantily clad girls, and plenty of smoked salmon on the buffet. And bubbly, lots of bubbly, you get the picture?

Anyway, chef likes Spanish wine, been to Spain a couple of times lately. Likes it a lot. So he gets real sore when he goes to the tapas restaurants in town and the Spanish wine selection is lame-o, like a liquor store in some river bottom area. His line, “I have a better selection of Spanish wine in a topless bar than a tapas restaurant,” really nailed Dallas with another bulls-eye. That ain’t the wind, folks, that’s the sound of the wine business sucking, this time with Spain. He was right when he said, “Buy good wines and sell them, push your customers, make them drink something besides Silver Oak or Coppola.” I know IWG says that and Ziff and Dale too. So, I’m on board, guys, even if you never see me in a gentleman’s club. I leave the testosterone and pole-positioning to the other species.

Original post by beatrice.russo

Guest commentary by Beatrice Russo

Well, I finally made the deal with Dale. He’s the sommelier that Arthur brands as the decanter. Dale is in charge of a new wine oriented restaurant and retail place that’s coming here. He wants to set this town on its side, with low restaurant wine list prices and great sommelier service. A place where our generation can say to the GenExers, “Hey old geezers, wake up.”

He has been told it will be his show to run, there wont be some corporate suit from up north telling him what he can and can’t do. No Boss Hogg telling him he cant buy Voerzio or Gravner or Tulipano Nero.

He’s been telling the IWG that he wanted to hire me, but I had other things going on. But then the heavens opened up and money poured down from above. So, just like that, I have a full-time gig.

I almost got a dog. Not one of small ones that gets lost in a purse. He was abandoned, and had been abused pretty bad. But he was so badly beaten that the vet had to put him to sleep. Just my luck. Dogs and humans.

IWG has had a “project” this week. He’s been holed up for days in front of a computer with a couple of special programs. One is a way to find wines that are selling well, for the press. The other is to see how his vendors products are selling vs. the amount of dollars locked up with inventory. There really is no talking to him. I saw peeking over his shoulder, Lambrusco sales up 30% and operating with ¼ of the inventory on hand. A very hot Pinot Grigio up 250% in the last year. So why is he such a grouch? He should really chill, take a couple of days off.

Best wine this week? A 2005 Chateau Thivin Côte de Brouilly. The old Italian Wine Guy brought it home along with leftover Peking duck he had with his buds. IWG was real secretive about this dinner. Only thing I can tell is, he has obsessed over these hidden kitchens that he used to go to in Palermo. He says there are Mayan and Cambodian hidden kitchens here, but they are closed to non-natives. He is obsessed with finding authentic cooking. I guess it’s safe to say he hasn’t found his Italian place here. Yet. Actually, he mentioned a couple, David and Rafaella. Said her gnocchi was as good as anywhere he had in Italy. So he does have his hidden Italian kitchen. But I guess Mayan or Cambodian sound more exotic.

Oh, the wine. It was pretty. Gamay. The color was light but deep. Old World. Hand picked. Earthy. Not Americanized, it had character. Tasty with the duck, a direct hit. I can has Beaujolais?

So I’m glad, I’ve got a job and a cool place to stay. Oh, I almost forgot about the apartment, this is too much luck. This Senior VP dude, works for Coca-Cola, friend of friend, has a house in the Park Cities, empty nester, just him and his wife. They live on Bordeaux Street and have a garage apartment. 600 square feet and a lap pool in the back yard. He’s always traveling and his wife goes with him a lot. They have an apartment in NY and a house in Colorado. If I watch their place when they are gone I can have this wicked crash pad for $500 a month. I have already started moving in, and they have wireless, so I don’t have to lose my link with my glo-bal-tri-bal-fam. Totally hot. Later.

Original post by beatrice.russo

Guest commentary by Beatrice Russo

I ran some of the mail I was holding over to the IWG. He told me he was going to Fort Worth and if I had time, or was in the area, to meet him and Giulio over at a dark, little Italian place. My project hit a snag, so I thought I’d catch up with them around lunch time.

Giulio is a great guy and a couple of the gals at the table were all ears (and eyes). Not too bad. When I got there they all looked at me as if I had just popped out of a spaceship. I rang it up to the dark; it’s probably hard for some of the old geezers to see in the restaurant. Gives chef some options for his plates.

They were popping a Franciacorta Rose’ which was very deelish. A couple of simples whites, an Orvieto and a Vernaccia, followed up by a Morellino and a very cool wine called Zingari from what sounds like a soul–sister winemaker in Tuscany, Francesca Moretti.

The whole time, the chef was preparing food for the table and the other diners. He came out once and made the rounds, and then we didn’t see much more of him. IWG and Giulio drove over to see him and taste through Giulio’s portfolio. (note to Andrea- dude he put it together, looks like something you might want to do with your portfolio)Even in Fort Worth, the 1st of August, for an Italian, must be a day for a little sleepwalking. Too bad for him, it was a nice ’splay of wines. Snooze, ya lose.

Anyway, the chef, who IWG has known for about as long as I have been alive, sat down at another table and didn’t taste with us. Now there were some good looking people at our table so he missed out on natural beauty and a lot of good wine. We did have an interesting discussion about finding mates. IWG didn’t open the Barbaresco and the Super Tuscans; he told me later that he figured the restaurant owner wasn’t into being hospitable. Yeah. I’d probably use another word, but not on IWG’s site. His momma reads this sometimes.

So, that’s all. Everyone has been posting on this blog this week and I felt I had to put my 2 cents worth in. There’s gotta be a better way to show great wines in the marketplace.

P.S. Saturday IWG is doing a Bar-Bar-S-Q tasting down in the old part of town. Barbera, Barolo, Barbaresco and Bar-B-Q. Sounds kinda katchy. Jimmy’s 12-3, Saturday, in Dallas. He wants me to shave my legs for it. Say what?

Original post by beatrice.russo

Guest commentary by Beatrice Russo
Looks like the IWG will be back in the swing of things next week. If you need to reach him, his Blackberry is on and when he is in an area where he gets coverage he will answer it or reply to e-mails. -Bea

Corky & Tore’ has been a boon, for the IWG and for me. I have been helping a friend tie up the loose ends of a new wine project ( translation: funded pay) and it’s just been a busy week.I am trying to also get out of town and head to Northern California for a few weeks.

Wine wise, it’s been interesting. I have some tasting comments on wine tasted this week, at the end of these notes. Not a bad week. First, the business.

Thank you Arty, for pinch-hitting this week, I hope you get your wish. Drew called and is still trying to get me to come work for him (imagine that?) and he was lamenting that you didn’t called it Drew’s Bomb Shelter. I think you should have called it Smokin’ Dopes, because those two guys are the dopiest wine dudes on paper. But their careers are smokin’ and will continue to do so for some time. Anyway I love them both and wish them happy days.

The Corky character has a few surprises, so Arty tells me. Seems he’s headed to San Francisco wants to test the waters in a bigger pond. Maybe we can meet up in The City. I know Arty also has an interview out there, so, who knows what mischief we can get into?

So the comic strip has been launched. The new project is going well (see: title). Summer is not as hot as it could be, the rain has helped. And if we could get this insurgency thing over there resolved, maybe we could go back to some form of social evolution. Note to the old-fart Boomer generation: Get it together, you guys suck.

This week, some wine guy calls me up, tells me to meet him at the restaurant. He is opening up one of the Big Boys, a 1999 Brunello from Soldera. When I got there it was open and decanted. A plate of fettuccine with wild mushrooms was heading from the kitchen. So we got to tasting the wine before the pasta tapped down.

The Brunello, supposedly organically grown, was a powerhouse. It had a gritty texture, not unpleasant. The aroma was full of flowers and soil. There was a band playing in the bowl. It had everything going on in there, sunshine, the full moon, children crying, colors flying. I could never afford to taste a wine from this property, but it was pretty amazing. Like in a dream, I felt like one of the chosen ones. - Thanks to Neil Young for his lyrics in helping to describe this wine.

With a wine like that, every other note’ll have to wait. I have to get back to the project.

Thanks Arty, thanks Drew. IWG, come back. Pay your check and come home now.

Later.

Original post by beatrice.russo