Cafes & Wineries

It always comes as a surprise to some American wine lovers when they hear about French wineries deciding to open up shop on American soil. I think this surprise comes not only from the historical rivalry between California and France that came to head in the 1976 Paris Tasting, but also because America is used to being in the role of colonizer, rather than the colonized.

I also think that most wine lovers have the impression that the all French think of America as the land of fake wines made on soil with no terroir. Unfortunately, it is pretty easy to find people in France all too willing to pronounce such opinons. However, to suggest that this is the dominant French view of American wine is at best a gross generalization, even a stereotype, and as such, to overlook the degree to which some very smart and accomplished French winemakers and wine families have invested in California wine.

I think Tablas Creek Vineyards is perhaps my favorite example of such a project. Even leaving aside my delight at the high-quality wines they continue to produce year after year, I love the matter-of-fact understatement that accompanies their continued presence in the California wine market. Tablas Creek sees no need to boast of their winemaking heritage or history — it is certainly not one of their selling points. Rather they are relying, as any good winery should, on simply making great wine.

Of course that’s what the Perrin family, who run the venerable Chateau Beaucastel in the Chateauneuf-du-Pape appellation of France’s Rhone Valley have been doing since 1909. So, when after 80 years of making one of France’s top wines, the family decided to join with the Haas family, an equally prominent name in American wine, to create a new winery, there wasn’t a lot of fanfare.

The Perrins first knew Robert Haas as the founder and owner of Vineyard Brands, an import company he started in 1973, largely to bring great French wine to the United States. The relationship between the Haas and Perrin family deepened over the years to become much more than a simple business connection, leading to a natural collaboration when the Perrins decided to explore making Californian wine. Together the two families searched the state for a vineyard site that could approximate the Mediterranean climate required to produce great Rhone-style wines, and in 1989, they settled on a 120 acre parcel of land in the western part of the recently created Paso Robles American Viticultural Area.

This plot of land, which is roughly bisected by the creek which lent its name to the new project, consists of broken limestone soils nearly identical to the soils at Chateau Beaucastel. Into this familiar geology and climate the family imported cuttings directly from their estate vines, and proceeded to set up what today is a completely organically farmed vineyard operation that replicates both the grape varieties and clonal selections of the original Beaucastel estate vineyards. The importation of foreign vine cuttings has gotten the wine world into trouble before, so it’s should come as no surprise that the process of getting vines into the U.S. for propagation took several years of testing and certification, not to mention tedious propagation afterwards in order to have enough grafts to start a vineyard.

Between 1993 and 2000, using its own specialized nursery set up on the property, the estate produced nearly 200,000 vine grafts for planting, and for sale to other wineries in the area, many of which have become some of the region’s top producers. At this point the winery has a bit less than 100 acres of its vineyards planted, and is producing around 16,000 cases of wine each year.

Winemaking at Tablas Creek, as one might expect, follows a traditional old world model. After careful hand-harvesting and sorting, all grape varieties are fermented separately with no added yeasts, and aged separately in neutral French oak barrels. Just as in the appellation of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, where up to 13 different grape varieties are blended together to make the final red wines, Tablas Creek places a heavy emphasis and puts much care into the process of blending its final wines. The estate’s signature wines are all blends evocative of their Rhone forbears, though it also produces some single varietal wines.

Tablas Creek will soon bottle their 10th vintage (though the 2007′s won′t be released for some time) and continues to produce a wide variety of wines distinguished by their shared attention to detail and unique character. The winery also continues to distinguish itself by its accessibility and its ability to produce what I believe to be some of the highest quality wines under $20 in the entire state. That alone is enough to make me love the wines of Tablas Creek, but of course, the wines also happen to be great, with some bordering on phenomenal.

While the investment that the Perrin and Haas families have made in creating the perfect marriage between new world terroir and old world winemaking knowledge must have been quite substantial, tasting the wines year after year makes it clear to me that they are well on their way to reaping great returns. Tablas Creek Winery continues to be one of the reasons every wine lover should pay attention to Paso Robles.

Full disclosure: I received these wines as press samples.

TASTING NOTES:

2006 Tablas Creek Vermentino, Paso Robles
Palest of golds, this wine has a lullaby of a nose with aromas of vanilla and white flowers. In the mouth its flavors center around apples and pears dusted with citrus zest, and an overall experience of clarity and brightness. This is marred by a hint of bitterness in the finish, but this doesn’t keep the wine from being lovely and refreshing. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $27. Where to Buy?

2006 Tablas Creek Grenache Blanc, Paso Robles
Pale gold in the glass, this wine has a lush, tropical nose of guava and other exotic floral aromas. In the mouth it is a delightfully zesty mix of flavors like sarsaparilla, vanilla, and papaya. The wine is beautifully textured, with a silky weight on the tongue that lingers, as does the long bright finish. Score: around 9. Cost: $20. Where to Buy?

2006 Tablas Creek “Cote de Tablas” White Blend, Paso Robles
Pale gold in color, this wine smells of baked apples and wet stones. On the palate it is striking in its minerality, with a sharp acidity carrying flavors of apples, incense, and wet slate quickly over palate. The finish is slightly woody and has a bite to it that put me off initially, but that aspect of the wine mellowed with some air. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $16. Where to Buy?

2006 Tablas Creek Roussanne, Paso Robles
Light gold in the glass, this wine has refreshing nose of pears and star fruit that makes you thirsty just smelling it. The wine is poised and well composed in the mouth, nicely balanced between fruit, acidity and minerality. A mix of flavors that range from toffee, pear, grapefruit and orange zest combine to make a nicely complex rendition of this white Rhone classic. Score: around 9. Cost: $32. Where to Buy?

2006 Tablas Creek “Esprit de Beaucastel” White Blend, Paso Robles
Light blonde-gold in color, this wine has a rich nose of star fruit, mineral, and floral aromas. In the mouth the overwhelming impression is one of balance and delicacy, though this is quickly eclipsed by a sensuousness of texture upon which float flavors of white peaches, pears, and a calcified minerality that extend into a long, beautiful finish. Score: around 9. Cost: $23. Where to Buy?

2006 Tablas Creek Viognier, Paso Robles
Light yellow-gold in the glass, this wine has a nose of strong linalool (think fruit loops) mixed with the classic candied peach aromas typical of the varietal. In the mouth this wine is a smooth operator, with a nice mix of peach and apple flavors that linger nicely into a moderate finish. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $28. Where to Buy?

2006 Tablas Creek “Antithesis” Chardonnay, Paso Robles
Light yellow-gold in color, this wine smells overwhelmingly of vanilla. In the mouth it offers flavors of golden apples resting on a bed of nice acidity, but these apples lack complexity. The wine has a pleasant finish, but cannot transcend its own niceties. Score: around 8. Cost: $31. Where to Buy?

2005 Tablas Creek Cunoise, Paso Robles
Light to medium garnet in color, this wine smells like grape soda laced with pomegranate syrup. In the mouth, for a few moments, you might actually think that it IS grape soda laced with pomegranate, though the lack of carbonation gives it away for being merely a light fruity wine that some might love, but I certainly don’t — not my style. Score: between 7.5 and 8. Cost: $33. Where to Buy?

2006 Tablas Creek Rose, Paso Robles
Light pink in the glass, this wine pairs aromas of strawberries and lilacs to tantalize at first whiff. In the mouth it possesses a light sweetness, made bearable by a decent amount of acidity and pleasant strawberry and raspberry flavors. Not mineral or dry enough in its aspect to pass for a French rose, this is nonetheless one of the better California pink wines out there. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $27. Where to Buy?

2005 Tablas Creek “Cote de Tablas” Red Blend, Paso Robles
Dark ruby in color, this wine offers cherry and earthy aromas and a nice combination of plum and cherry flavors tinged with an appealing earthiness. Fine tannins, and secondary flavors of sandalwood emerge as the wine crosses the palate, but these are replaced by a light bitterness on the finish that diminishes the wine’s overall impression. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $16. Where to Buy?

2005 Tablas Creek “Esprit de Beaucastel” Red Blend, Paso Robles
Dark garnet in color, this wine has an alluring nose of cassis, wet earth, and mushrooms. In the mouth it is rich with flavors of cassis, cherry, and leather that hang on a framework of leather and iron that rings with a clarity of a perfectly forged bell. The finish extends these resonant flavors as long as you have the patience to pay attention. Drinking this wine not only provokes intense pleasure, it begs the question as to why more people are not making similarly styled southern Rhone blends this well. Undoubtedly age worthy. Score: between 9 and 9.5. Cost: $34. Where to Buy?

2005 Tablas Creek Tannat, Paso Robles
Inky garnet in the glass, this wine has a strong cassis and blackberry nose. In the mouth it is true to its name, with grapey flavors of cassis, blackberry, and blueberry studded with rebar-stiff tannins that grab the edge of your mouth as if they want the wine to linger longer than you might. Not that you’re in a rush to get it out of your mouth — it has a nice texture and admirable length, despite lacking some complexity that it might recover with some age. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $32. Where to Buy?

2005 Tablas Creek “Esprit de Beaucastel - Panoplie” Red Blend, Paso Robles
Dark Garnet in color, this wine has an attractive nose of strong black raspberry aromas. In the mouth the deep and resonant core flavors center on cherry and plum, with high notes of cassis and faint tannins that linger into a moderate finish. Not quite as complex as the normal bottling to my taste, this limited release is nonetheless a beautiful wine. Score: around 9. Cost: $40. Only available through the winery.

2005 Tablas Creek Syrah, Paso Robles
Dark garnet in color, this wine smells of blackberry and chocolate. In the mouth briary blackberry flavors dominate body of the wine which also contains hints of leather. Good acidity and a beautifully dry profile makes this a good food wine, but one that lacks the complexity and lushness its nose promises. Score: between 8 and 8.5. Cost: $35. Where to Buy?

2005 Tablas Creek Mourvedre, Paso Robles
Dark garnet in the glass this wine has a gorgeous nose of dried black cherries, blueberries and a hint of grapeyness that is often the signature of this variety for me. In the mouth it is smooth “like buttah,” its earthy, leathery tones wrapping around a core of dark cassis, plum, and black cherry fruit that lingers into a beautiful finish. There are very few excellent renditions of this grape variety in California, and this is one of the best. Score: around 9. Cost: $35. Where to Buy?

2005 Tablas Creek “Vin de Paille - Sacre Rouge″ Mourvedre Dessert Wine, Paso Robles
Dark garnet in color, this wine smells of stewed prunes and roasted figs. In the mouth it is moderately sweet, with flavors of prunes and chocolate, making me wonder whether I enjoyed drinking it as much as I would enjoy pouring it over some vanilla ice cream. Score: around 8.5. Cost: $45. Where to Buy?

2005 Tablas Creek “Vin de Paille” White Dessert Wine, Paso Robles
Pale gold in color, this wine smells deliciously of yellow melon and honey. In the mouth it is silky and beautifully bright with acidity. The flavors continue in the vein of melon and honey, with additional hints of poached pear, all of which are only moderately sweet. This lightness, along with the pretty medley of flavors are the wines chief points of recommendation as an excellent dessert wine. Score: around 9. Cost: $60. Where to Buy?

2005 Tablas Creek “Vine De Paille - Quintessence” Roussanne Dessert Wine, Paso Robles
Bright yellow-gold in the glass, this wine has a stunning nose of peaches, meyer lemon and bergamot aromas. On the palate it is weighty and thick, while at the same time offering a silkiness, that leaves me thinking of a nude in a Titian painting. The flavors of lemon and mixed tropical fruits end up a bit syrupy for my tastes, and lack quite enough acidity to propel them onto a different plane of flavor. Still, this is the only dessert wine I’ve ever had made entirely from Roussanne, and I’m pleasantly surprised. Score: between 8.5 and 9. Cost: $80. Where to Buy?

Original post by Italian Wine Guy®

I started out to write about a trip I took to Galveston, and a wine that changed my life, the 1964 Monfortino. But as often happens when I am gathering my images, a sign appears and we are on another road to Alba.

It happened once, many moons ago; we were on our way there by way of Novara. They make wine from Nebbiolo grapes there as well, and we were going to visit a tartufaio, or truffle hunter. He was a round, jolly man and we met him in a local cantina.

OK, I cannot go any further until I get this little piece of business taken care of. A colleague handed me the latest Wine Advocate and asked me if we had any wines in there. There were some pages about the 2004 Barolo inside and he wanted to know if we had any offering available. I scanned quickly and saw so many of the usual names, when I came to Giacosa. The Rocche del Falletto 2004 had been given a 99. I remarked to my colleague that the 2004 Giacosa was in there but we still had some 2001 and 2003 available. But at US $180 plus (I don’t even want to think about the 2004 price) it and all of those highly rated wines have become a trophies for people who aren’t in the wine business.

I walked into my little wine room to talk it over with the bottles inside. Many of the wines have been there for some time and so the spirits of the winemakers frequently hover and we have this little chat about the state of things as they are now. Luigi Pira sits on the shelf with an ancient bottle of d′Yquem, while an expired bottle of Marylyn Monroe’s Chardonnay lingers and livens up the bin with her sad little smile. So much tragedy on that row between Pira and Monroe, forget that in 1959 d′Yquem was just happy to get a harvest after the disasters of 1956, 1957 and the lackluster 1958. Pira, it had been said, was depressed and 1980, a harvest of misery, was the coup de grâce.

So what is the use of a score unless there is some music that comes from it? If I hear another winemaker tell me what Parker gave his wine, what am I gonna do? Nothing. But I sure would like a way to tell them, abbastanza, I am not the person who will or can buy the 95 point wine anymore. I only can afford wine made by dead people.
Take that 1974 VINO VINO VINO VINO, bottled to commemorate the 20th harvest of the Cantine Sociale dei Colli Novaresi. Signed by the contributing growers, what pride they show in their signatures. A 90 point wine, then? Who cares? Most of them are dead and rid of us, but that little US$7 bottle of wine lives on.

Luciano de Giacomi of Cascine Drago was a hard crust of a man. But he had a soft, warm inside. The archetypical serious Italian, and the founder of the Order of the Knights of the Truffle and Wines of Alba. He was over educated for the world he found himself in. But there he was, in his cellar with his factor, Barone Armando de Rham, taking new wine out of old barrels to teach the young acolytes about Nebbiolo. I remember more from that afternoon than from a month of reading reviews. In fact I remember nothing from reading reviews. Niente.

All I want is the music inside the bottle. I don’t want to know that your winery is carbon neutral, but you take your private jet to France every year to pick French barrels, which you replace yearly. That’s not a carbon-neutral imprint, that’s a McMansion floor plan. What kind of shadow does this cast? It’s the Hummer school of wine, and they have the big, bad wine reviews to gas them up and send them scurrying from city to city, recanting their narcissistic-cum-artisanal stories of how great they are. Huh?

That’s not how the old dead guys taught me in Italy. We went to lunch, yes, and without cell phones. So maybe, once in a while we headed down little dirt roads in fast Maseratis, but all with respect to the localita’ of it all.

What did they do to me? Did they turn me into the mean old men they were? Or did they inoculate me with their un-steroided Nebbiolo? Delicate? Yes. Light in color and not ashamed of it? Yes. And if we had Dolcetto, it tasted and cost like Dolcetto, not some œuvre-oaked, muscle-ripped. winner-take-all winegasm, for the 1% who can afford it.

Yeah, I’ve gone deep-end-of-the-road on this one. You know the one, it’s a little out of town, and on the right there is this little cemetery filled with the souls of winemaking past. And from time to time they “call” on me to ask how things are going these days.

And I tell them, at my house, it goes well. As do their wines.

Original post by Italian Wine GuyÂ&reg

I started out to write about a trip I took to Galveston, and a wine that changed my life, the 1964 Monfortino. But as often happens when I am gathering my images, a sign appears and we are on another road to Alba.

It happened once, many moons ago; we were on our way there by way of Novara. They make wine from Nebbiolo grapes there as well, and we were going to visit a tartufaio, or truffle hunter. He was a round, jolly man and we met him in a local cantina.

OK, I cannot go any further until I get this little piece of business taken care of. A colleague handed me the latest Wine Advocate and asked me if we had any wines in there. There were some pages about the 2004 Barolo inside and he wanted to know if we had any offering available. I scanned quickly and saw so many of the usual names, when I came to Giacosa. The Rocche del Falletto 2004 had been given a 99. I remarked to my colleague that the 2004 Giacosa was in there but we still had some 2001 and 2003 available. But at US $180 plus (I don’t even want to think about the 2004 price) it and all of those highly rated wines have become a trophies for people who aren’t in the wine business.

I walked into my little wine room to talk it over with the bottles inside. Many of the wines have been there for some time and so the spirits of the winemakers frequently hover and we have this little chat about the state of things as they are now. Luigi Pira sits on the shelf with an ancient bottle of d’Yquem, while an expired bottle of Marylyn Monroe’s Chardonnay lingers and livens up the bin with her sad little smile. So much tragedy on that row between Pira and Monroe, forget that in 1959 d’Yquem was just happy to get a harvest after the disasters of 1956, 1957 and the lackluster 1958. Pira, it had been said, was depressed and 1980, a harvest of misery, was the coup de grâce.

So what is the use of a score unless there is some music that comes from it? If I hear another winemaker tell me what Parker gave his wine, what am I gonna do? Nothing. But I sure would like a way to tell them, abbastanza, I am not the person who will or can buy the 95 point wine anymore. I only can afford wine made by dead people.
Take that 1974 Vino Vino Vino Vino, bottled to commemorate the 20th harvest of the Cantine Sociale dei Colli Novaresi. Signed by the contributing growers, what pride they show in their signatures. A 90 point wine, then? Who cares? Most of them are dead and rid of us, but that little US$7 bottle of wine lives on.

Luciano de Giacomi of Cascine Drago was a hard crust of a man. But he had a soft, warm inside. The archetypical serious Italian, and the founder of the Order of the Knights of the Truffle and Wines of Alba. He was over educated for the world he found himself in. But there he was, in his cellar with his factor, Barone Armando de Rham, taking new wine out of old barrels to teach the young acolytes about Nebbiolo. I remember more from that afternoon than from a month of reading reviews. In fact I remember nothing from reading reviews. Niente.

All I want is the music inside the bottle. I don’t want to know that your winery is carbon neutral, but you take your private jet to France every year to pick French barrels, which you replace yearly. That’s not a carbon-neutral imprint, that’s a McMansion floor plan. What kind of shadow does this cast? It’s the Hummer school of wine, and they have the big, bad wine reviews to gas them up and send them scurrying from city to city, recanting their narcissistic-cum-artisanal stories of how great they are. Huh?

That’s not how the old dead guys taught me in Italy. We went to lunch, yes, and without cell phones. So maybe, once in a while we headed down little dirt roads in fast Maseratis, but all with respect to the localita’ of it all.

What did they do to me? Did they turn me into the mean old men they were? Or did they inoculate me with their un-steroided Nebbiolo? Delicate? Yes. Light in color and not ashamed of it? Yes. And if we had Dolcetto, it tasted and cost like Dolcetto, not some œuvre-oaked, muscle-ripped. winner-take-all winegasm, for the 1% who can afford it.

Yeah, I’ve gone deep-end-of-the-road on this one. You know the one, it’s a little out of town, and on the right there is this little cemetery filled with the souls of winemaking past. And from time to time they “call” on me to ask how things are going these days.

And I tell them, at my house, it goes well. As do their wines.

Original post by Italian Wine Guy®

Kamuela, HI (MARKETWIRE) January 28, 2007 – Andrew Hetzel of coffee
consultancy Cafemakers has become the first Hawaii resident to be
certified as a coffee Cupping Judge by the Specialty Coffee
Association of America.

In a 5-day series of exams held this January in Waterbury, Vermont,
Mr. Hetzel successfully completed 21 sensory skill and coffee
knowledge tests necessary to obtain accreditation.

Original post by Robert

The white wines of northeastern Italy have never been on the radar for most Americans. Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate only began covering this area in the past year, thanks to the addition of Italian critic Antonio Galloni to his staff. Yet this area produces some of the world’s finest white wines. The best of these wines are made in very small quantities and are quite expensive and difficult to get ahold of here in the U.S. but as more importers seek out the nooks and crannies of the wine world, we are slowly beginning to see more wines from Friuli than the ubiquitous Pinot Grigio.

This month’s edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday, the blogosphere’s virtual wine tasting event focused on the white wines of Friuli, a theme chosen by the hosts Jack and Joanne of Fork & Bottle. Thanks both to the interest and the quantity of the participants (over 40) this month’s roundup is a veritable treasure trove of reviews of the region’s wines. Frankly there aren’t many places on the web where you can find so much valuable info about these wines, so if you have any interest, I suggest you take a look at the various reviews.

In other Wine Blogging Wednesday news, the 42nd Edition has been announced and it will be hosted by Andrew Barrow of Spittoon.Biz, who has selected an oddball theme for the February edition: 7 Words. On February 13th, Participants are asked to craft grammatically correct tasting notes for their wine that contain no more, no less than seven words. The truly creative might be able to even make it a haiku.

Finally, Wine Blogging Wednesday is in search of a new logo. Specifically, a contest is on to design a new one. More details can be found at the WBW site. The deadline is March 31st.

Original post by Italian Wine Guy®

I’ve referred to it in the past as “the beast.” Possessing tannins that need to be tamed through intelligent winemaking, Petite Sirah can truly be a monster of a wine. One of the least well known red grape varieties, it does not command legions of rabid followers like Zinfandel or Cabernet or even Syrah, from which it takes its misleading name. In the right hands, however, Petite Sirah can be a stunning wine — deep, resonant, and rich.

Petite Sirah has been grown in California for a long time, but apart from some limited success in the 1970s at the hands of Carl Doumani and Stags’ Leap Winery, wines made exclusively from this grape variety never really earned the respect or attention of mainstream wine lovers.

Yet producers all over the state continue, quietly, to make Petite Sirahs, and many have no trouble selling them at all.

And occasionally, these producers, not so quietly serve up their wines with roast meats and chocolate for anyone who dares drink on the dark side, if you’ll pardon the expression. The next opportunity you have to sample their wares will be Friday, February 8th, when the society of winegrowers and makers known as P.S. I Love You holds its annual tasting.

By then you should be:

a) sufficiently recovered from the Zap Zinfandel festival

b) in the mood for something other than Zinfandel

So go check it out. Who knows, perhaps you’ll fall in love too.

P.S. I Love You Dark and Delicious Tasting
February 8th, 2008
6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Palace of Fine Arts
San Francisco, CA

Tickets are $30 per person and will most likely sell out (as there are only about 80 left at while I write this). They can be purchased online.

Original post by Italian Wine Guy®

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

WITH its brass-trimmed halogen heating elements, glass globes and bamboo paddles, the new contraption that is to begin making coffee this week at the Blue Bottle Café here looks like a machine from a Jules Verne novel, a 19th-century vision of the future.

Called a siphon bar, it was imported from Japan at a total cost of more than $20,000. The cafe has the only

Original post by Robert

Coffee Fest Washington, D.C. will feature more than 100 educational sessions with more than 50% included in the standard attendee registration.

With nearly every session selected specifically to assist the coffee retailer or restaurateur in improving productivity and profitability, perhaps 5 of the most relevant sessions will be:

1) Brewing a Hot Brand—27-Day Action Plan

Twenty-seven-day

Original post by Robert

Winter Hill and Trees

“Across the country and around the world (in the northern hemisphere, that is) grapevines slumber through the cold. In the coming months the waving canes, like those shown here, will be pruned back to let the plants devote all their energies to the new growth of the 2008 vintage.” — Alder Yarrow

INSTRUCTIONS:
Download this image by right-clicking (Mac users, click and hold) on the image and selecting “save link as” or “save target as” and then select the desired location on your computer to save the image. Mac users can also just click the image and drag it to your desktop.

To set the image as your desktop wallpaper, Mac users should follow these instructions, while PC users should follow these.

PRINTS:
If you are interested in owning an archive quality print of this image, or any of the other vineyard images featured here on Vinography, you can purchase one on the Michael Regnier Photography web site for $85.

ABOUT VINOGRAPHY IMAGES:
Vinography reguarly features images by photographer Michael Regnier for readers’ personal use as desktop backgrounds or screen savers. We hope you enjoy them. Please respect the copyright on these images.

Original post by Italian Wine Guy&Acirc®

This week I came roaring out of debt-free status, after five years. For that time I felt like a millionaire, insofar as I had nothing hanging over me. But opportunity called and the timing was right. So I signed a loan to buy a condo as an investment. No big deal, compared to what folks have to do to buy a place in NY or San Francisco.

But as I signed the contract, I looked down at the bottom line and exclaimed to the loan officer, “I coulda bought a Maserati.”

The Maserati is a running joke. When I was a youth, my dad always said he wanted to buy me a one. I suppose it made him feel good to think he would someday do it. He never did, and he never had to. He did buy me a pretty cool Fiat and he also saved my financial butt more than once. And he did it when he was having hard times. So, bless the memory of my Pop, he had the best of intentions.

And while I’m no longer enamored with automobiles as I once was, a Maserati Quattroporte is a lovely sight.

Tonight in North Texas is getting a might cool. Nothing like Minneapolis or Sondrio, but we’re in the thick of it for all that we’re used to. The new harvest is deep in the core of the earth, slowly emerging. The bees have disappeared from the tree in front of the house. Even the pitiful old black cat is scarce in these times. Squirrels are a bit cranky, it’s like they have entered some period of collective insanity. They peer over brittle branches and shout their staccato insults at invisible dogs and peacocks. Poor things.

Valentino said farewell in Paris. If he hadn’t, the hook was there in the wings, ready to pull him off. There they were, telling those around him that his day was done, his time had passed. Fast forward 25 years and they will feel the chill from the metal synch. Be it Milan or the ancient vineyards of Chaldea, 3,000 years ago or 200 years from now, one’s time is brief and then it is time for the new bees to appear. Nothing to feel superior about, it’s merely a cycle that is more dominant than man. It binds us to the earth in the wine business, because we must follow the cycle and be in symbiosis with it.

Last week Matteo Bisol was telling some folks about the vineyards of Cartizze. In case you’d like to see a picture of Cartizze, some of the most expensive vineyard real estate in the world, here is a picture I took four years ago with Sergio Mionetto. It is not so manicured like the first growths of Bordeaux, but the land here is more suitable for grapes than for great chateaux. The people on these steep hills are a simple, rustic folk. They don’t wear tuxedos or stiletto heels. The tree reminds me of a tree I saw on the freeway today. How is it decided that one tree gets to live in this beautiful hillside and another gets to live on the side of a freeway?

I decided tonight to sip on an Amaro from Braulio. It is a special Riserva 2002 which I first had a Sal e Pepe in Sondrio a few months back. When I splashed a bit into the snifter and was walking back into my inner lair, I was transported back to Bormio and Monte Braulio. Maybe the UFO that was recently seen nearby had something to do with it.
It seems the right libation for a cold winter night a bitter from the Swiss Alps.

Tonight I had little to inspire me to cook. I had some of those wonderful tomatoes from Salerno, capers from Pantelleria, Reggiano, olive oil from Sicily and some fresh eggs. I poached the eggs in with the tomatoes and had a wonderful soup of poached eggs in tomato puree. Simple, warm, filling. And an apple for dessert, with the Braulio for the after-dénouement dram.

It really is a dog’s life.

Original post by Italian Wine Guy&Acirc®