Learn How To Easily Find Wines Of $50 Quality For $10 Or Less. Impress Friends With Your Expanded Wine Knowledge. Eliminate Your Dependence On Wine Salespeople. And Take The Hassle Out Of Buying Wine.
Earn $6.17 / Sale! %75 Commission! The Ultimate Resource For Anyone Who Wants To Learn How To Make Outstanding Wines & Spirits From Their Very Own Home!
While visiting my friend Mario I noticed a National Geographic from 1916, the same as his birth year. Italy in 1916, the year my Aunt Mary and Aunt Josephine were born. They are all still alive and well. Here was a magazine with many great images of the Italy that both of their parents had left. Fascinating stuff, looking back at Italy some 93 years, to see how it has changed. The photographs on this post are from that issue.
Oddly, I think many of us want to find those back roads (and wines) of Italy in 1916. A return to a day when things seemed so much simpler and easier. But then one needs to factor in that time. 1916, World War I, with 37 million casualties (16 million deaths, 21 million wounded), an incoming influenza pandemic that killed 40-100 million people world wide, many younger than 45 years old. So, it wasn?t all rustic charm and simpler times, for those who lived through it.
Not to dwell in the past, especially one which, one might argue, has little significance for the new generation, folks from 14-30. There were barely paved roads, or toilets. Nano I-pods? Bluetooth? How about a toothbrush? No, it was like it happened a million years ago, to the inheritors of the future.
The oldest Italian wine in my possession is a 1936 Est!Est!!Est!!! Amabile. It will never be opened. It sits there, twenty years after the National Geographic issue, in the time of Mussolini, at the edge of another World War.
Wines in those times. Now we see them nostalgically, their wild yeasts and oxidation-rich profiles, and we?re not talking micro-oxidation either. A shame, because we talk about the heritage of great wine from Italy, but is there really much to ponder on before 1945, when the world experienced a change on such a level that in the Olden Times it would have been called Biblical? We sexy it up and call it ?quantum change? as if the atomic age affected winemaking. Which it did, if not directly.
The linear acceleration of agricultural progress hasn?t been without its casualties though. The story teller, the master and the apprentice, the craft of the wine business, all this has morphed into some 15 minute superconducting version, where, in their place, now, young sommeliers walk on water in restaurants across the planet. I was there too, man. We have all been there before.
Maybe I should get out my Andre Simon, C.E.Hawker and T.A.Layton and read them now. These were writers telling the story of wine from a time long forgotten by followers of Galloni,Meadows and Vaynerchuck. It worked for Merlin, to travel through time from the future to the past; maybe with wine it would be equally magical. From what I read it sure seems folks want to find something that has gone missing.
When it comes to Italy, one can actually do this quite easily. Calabria or Liguria would be a great place to start looking for those core experiences in the Italian landscape.
Or, if you want something simpler, something a little less ?nano?, you could read the old books, find the random National Geographic from a million years ago, or you could sit back, pour a glass of ancient Marsala and crank up the Rossini and let your imagination take you away.
I?ve found the Italian of our imagination and our dreams can be a better substitute Italy than the reality on the ground now or 93 years ago.
But if you want to go for the experience of Italy, and you have had your share of visiting museums and restaurants and churches and Autogrills, next time, choose the slow train from Rome to Catanzaro and take a trip back to an Italy that linear time has not accelerated with the rapidity of modernity. You can find vestiges of Pythagoras, Federico II, and Mascagni. You might even find a piece of your Italian soul which you have been looking for.
January 6th, 2005 was my first post to this new blog. Below is how it all started if interested. The popularity of our blog has surprised us. We try to stick to reviewing wine without a bunch of yada yada although I am the worst offender for what may be too much yada yada. It's just that the supreme enjoyment of wine is not merely what is in the bottle but whole experience of fellowship surrounding the event. And what is amazing is that you can have an "event" as mundane as a 3:00 snack, but add a bottle of wine, and it becomes an ocassion! I will resolve to temper my yada yada's without losing the experience. Raise a glass with us to a new year and we hope you visit us and leave comments--often.
How it all started: It was 1979 and I was putting my time in at a hospital laboratory as a medical technologist. Someone brought in a magazine subtitled ?The magazine for physicians at leisure.? On my breaks I would page through it because it had some really nice photos of far away places in gorgeous spots of the world. In one issue there was a feature titled, ?The Ten Best Wines in America for under $10.?
Wine had intrigued me yet my exposure to the fruit of the vine had pretty much been relegated to the annual Thanksgiving sip my parents would serve of?sit down?Mogen- David wine. Even as a kid, I thought it had more in common with cough syrup than a drinkable beverage. That exposure is probably why I was much more a Guinness Stout kind of guy if anything at all.
Still, the mythical stories of the guy who could sit down with a glass of fermented grape juice in front of him and tell you the place it was made, the year it was made and the particular type of grape or grapes fascinated me. So, ?What made a good wine, a good wine??
Even I could afford a $10 bottle of wine every now and then so if the ones in the magazine represented the best in the country, I wanted to know what they tasted like and began to hunt down everyone I could. That was it; I was hooked. I joined a wine club called ?Les Amis Du Vin? which means ?Friends of the Vine? which entitled me to the wine of the month at a local dealer which meant I could get one bottle of the month?s selection for half price. That was the beginning of a lifetime pursuit of what has been an absolutely inexhaustible quest to understand wine. Do not misunderstand though, I am NOT a connoisseur but I do know a good wine from a mediocre wine from a bad wine. And I know a great value when I find one which these days abound! Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and Chile are producing wines not by the hundreds or thousands of cases but by the hundreds of thousands of cases. With that kind of volume, phenomenal bargains are all over the place!
So if you are serious about pursuing wine beyond a bottle here and there, you have to subscribe to the Wine Spectator magazine. It will cost you $45 a year but is worth every penny. And will save you ten times that in a year by helping you to avoid over-priced and over-hyped wines. Their rating system is irrespective of a wine?s cost so when you see a wine that rates an 88 out of 100 scale and it costs $8 and then another wine that rates an 86 which cost $55; the savings are obvious. Til next time--
January 6th, 2005 was my first post to this new blog. Below is how it all started if interested. The popularity of our blog has surprised us. We try to stick to reviewing wine without a bunch of yada yada although I am the worst offender for what may be too much yada yada. It's just that the supreme enjoyment of wine is not merely what is in the bottle but whole experience of fellowship surrounding the event. And what is amazing is that you can have an "event" as mundane as a 3:00 snack, but add a bottle of wine, and it becomes an ocassion! I will resolve to temper my yada yada's without losing the experience. Raise a glass with us to a new year and we hope you visit us and leave comments--often.
How it all started: It was 1979 and I was putting my time in at a hospital laboratory as a medical technologist. Someone brought in a magazine subtitled ?The magazine for physicians at leisure.? On my breaks I would page through it because it had some really nice photos of far away places in gorgeous spots of the world. In one issue there was a feature titled, ?The Ten Best Wines in America for under $10.?
Wine had intrigued me yet my exposure to the fruit of the vine had pretty much been relegated to the annual Thanksgiving sip my parents would serve of?sit down?Mogen- David wine. Even as a kid, I thought it had more in common with cough syrup than a drinkable beverage. That exposure is probably why I was much more a Guinness Stout kind of guy if anything at all.
Still, the mythical stories of the guy who could sit down with a glass of fermented grape juice in front of him and tell you the place it was made, the year it was made and the particular type of grape or grapes fascinated me. So, ?What made a good wine, a good wine??
Even I could afford a $10 bottle of wine every now and then so if the ones in the magazine represented the best in the country, I wanted to know what they tasted like and began to hunt down everyone I could. That was it; I was hooked. I joined a wine club called ?Les Amis Du Vin? which means ?Friends of the Vine? which entitled me to the wine of the month at a local dealer which meant I could get one bottle of the month?s selection for half price. That was the beginning of a lifetime pursuit of what has been an absolutely inexhaustible quest to understand wine. Do not misunderstand though, I am NOT a connoisseur but I do know a good wine from a mediocre wine from a bad wine. And I know a great value when I find one which these days abound! Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and Chile are producing wines not by the hundreds or thousands of cases but by the hundreds of thousands of cases. With that kind of volume, phenomenal bargains are all over the place!
So if you are serious about pursuing wine beyond a bottle here and there, you have to subscribe to the Wine Spectator magazine. It will cost you $45 a year but is worth every penny. And will save you ten times that in a year by helping you to avoid over-priced and over-hyped wines. Their rating system is irrespective of a wine?s cost so when you see a wine that rates an 88 out of 100 scale and it costs $8 and then another wine that rates an 86 which cost $55; the savings are obvious. Til next time--
OK folks, here's the deal. Today is the last day of A Menu For Hope charity raffle. You've got until Midnight tonight, Pacific Time, to buy raffle tickets for some seriously awesome prizes. Every raffle ticket increases your chance of winning said prize, and every ticket buys healthy, nutritious lunches for school children in Lesotho. What could be better than that?
It's important to realize that even a single $10 ticket can win you some seriously good loot. One of the most popular prizes last year (and this year), the Meadowood vacation package, was won by someone who bought a single ticket.
It's also important that you know that some of this year's prizes have had slightly less bidding than others, which means the chances of you winning them are QUITE HIGH with just a single ticket, and INCREDIBLY HIGH were you to buy say, 10 tickets.
You may be asking, "Now why would I go and spend $100 on raffle tickets, even though the cause is so good." Here's the answer: because if you did, you'd have a very good chance of winning prizes that are in some cases worth THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS.
Getting the picture? It's like this: if I told you that by spending $100 you'd have a 3 in 5 chance of winning $400 worth of wine and be doing a great thing for charity, I hope that you'd see this as a winning proposition, no?
So here are some prizes that need a little love in the bidding department, and might just be yours for the taking, depending on just how generous you're feeling (or how much Champagne you've already had today). Go bid a little bit (or a little more), and have yourself a very Happy New Year!
Wine and Film Premieres from Wilson Daniels One of the country's most respected wine importers, Wilson Daniels Ltd., is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2008. The Napa Valley-based company has created a Menu For Hope six-bottle collection of wines from its portfolio of European wine estates, offering bidders an opportunity to taste wines from six different regions spanning three countries -- with a high-definition twist. Winners will receive the following wines:
NV Delamotte Brut Cotes des Blancs Grand Cru 2006 Domaine Marc Kreydenweiss Kritt Gewurztraminer Alsace 2005 Domaine Faiveley Nuits-Saint-Georges 2006 Domaine Philippe & Vincent Jaboulet Crozes-Hermitage Rouge 2004 Castello di Volpaia Chianti Classico Riserva DOCG 1996 Royal Tokaji Nyulászó First Growth Tokaji Aszú 6 Puttonyos
This fall, Wilson Daniels premiered documentary-style films for its French and Hungarian wine estates, which the winning bidder can watch online or download to an iPod at www.wilsondanielsfilms.com to "virtually" tour the vineyards and meet the winemakers before, after, or while they taste the wines. Value: $275. Prize Code: WB04. Courtesy of Wilson Daniels Ltd.
Two World Class Gruner Veltliners and a set of World Class White Wine Glasses This prize includes a set of six Denkart Zalto white wine glasses and the two most highly rated Gruner Veltliners in the Winemonger inventory, the 2006 and 2007 Donabaum Spitzer Point GV Smaragd Gruner Veltliner from Austria. The wines speak for themselves, but you should know about the glasses. 100% lead free and dishwasher safe, these glasses were created for the complexity and refinement of the most expressive white wines. Technical perfection is the basic principle of the Zalto Glass Manufactury. Zalto Glasses have always been produced following a tradition of using only the most highly skilled glass-blowers working with a selection of the best raw materials. The curve of the bowls are tilted at the angles of 24°, 48° and 72°, which are in accordance to the tilt angles of the Earth. This stunning glass has become the standard for many world-class tasting rooms and well-set tables. Shipping within the USA only. Value: more than $415. Prize Code: WB07. More details at Winemonger.
Half Case of Verge Syrah, and a Tour of the Vineyard Join VERGE Winemaker Mike Brunson for a special tour of Bradford Mountain where you will see firsthand what it means to farm on the edge of the wild. At just over 1200 feet elevation, Bradford Mountain is on the far western edge of Dry Creek Valley in Sonoma County. VERGE Wine Cellars produces small lots of block specific Syrah and these organcially grown vineyards are perfect examples of what we call Fringe Vineyards. Mike Brunson has over 15 years winemaking experience and will describe the ins and outs of organic viticulture, mountain farming, and Syrah winemaking. After the hike, you'll enjoy a tasting of Syrahs from Bradford Mountain as well as a selection of other Syrahs from around the world. As a parting gift, you will also recieve 6 bottles of VERGE Wine Cellars' inaugural release, the 2006 VERGE Syrah. Value: $240. Prize code: WB08. Courtesy of Verge Cellars.
Wine Book Bonanza There's only one thing better than drinking wine, and that's drinking wine with a nice wine book on your lap. Here's your chance to add to your library and maybe learn a thing or two in the process. Courtesy of University of California Press, pick any 5 wine books from their current list of titles. Value: approx $150. Prize Code:WB09. Courtesy of University of California Press.
Wine Travel Guide Voucher The main raffle prize on offer from Wine Travel Guides is a gold gift subscription to Wine Travel Guides (worth £49 or approximately $75 or €60) which lasts a whole year from activation. This will give you access to all the travel guides on the site. Today there are 46 comprehensive guides to the wine regions of France. By mid-January there will be a further seven guides covering Tuscany in Italy, Rioja in Spain and Mosel in Germany. Here is your chance to plan that trip to the wine regions of Europe with expert insider advice from 15 top-class wine and travel writers.
The bonus offer: If you can meet author Wink Lorch in either the Jura or Savoie wine regions of France, she will personally drive you around the wine region for a day, meeting and tasting with some of her favourite wine growers and taking you out to lunch. Value: $80 or more. Prize Code:WB10. Courtesy of Wink Lorch.
Inaugural Vintage of Capture's Tin Cross Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc This prize consists of a bottle from the first launch of Capture Winery's 2008 Tin Cross Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc. This wine is the unprecedented, first product of the winemaking team's efforts with Tin Cross being to be released in Spring 2009. Additionally, this wine will arrive paired with an elegantly framed vision of its origin; an image of Tin Cross' upper vineyard, professionally photographed and signed by the renowned Olaf Beckman. The total package is valued at $542. Prize Code:WB14. More details at Our Wine Story.
Port Wine Starter Set from Quevedo If you're a lover of port wine, or think you might be, you'll enjoy this gift: A Port Wine Starter Kit made up of: - port wine tongs - port wine filter - port wine decanter - port wine cups - dark chocolate - a coupon for a bottle of Quevedo 2005 Vintage redeemable at the closest wine shop that carries the wine. Value: $90. Prize Code: WB17. More details at Quevedo Wine.
Exclusive Wine Accessory Set This prize includes four exclusive wine accessories developed by Wine Line:
-Wine Vine 12 bottle stainless steel wine rack -Wine Flyte Carrier--for easily serving 6 glasses of wine, carrying & drying glasses as well-patent pending -Wine Aerator w/single glass adapter-patent pending -Chateau Epernay Handmade Rosewood Corkscrew in gift box
These accessories make fantastic gifts for wine lovers. Value: $200.00. Prize Code: WB18. Courtesy of WineLine
Custom 90 Minute Wine Seminar Bill Wilson, the host and producer of the Wine for Newbies Podcast will offer a 90-minute live wine seminar. The winner of this prize can choose the topic(s) for this wine seminar which he'll broadcast via streaming video at a time and date of the winner's choosing. The winner can have as many people participate as he or she wants! Since the seminar will be live via the Internet, the winner can be anywhere, as long as they understand English. Prize code: WB20. Courtesy of Wine for Newbies.
Wine, Wine and More Wine from Domaine 547 This prize includes a Magnum of 2003 Pax Cellars Kobler Family Vineyard Syrah and a $50 gift certificate to domaine547.com. The prize can be shipped to anywhere that FedEx legally delivers alcohol to, with the exception of New Hampshire. Domaine 547 is also willing to arrange for shipping to other states, on behalf of any bidder who wants to ship the wine via use of their own UPS account. Value: $150. Prize Code: WB27. Courtesy of Domaine 547.
Magnum of wine, tour, and tasting at Tolosa Winery for Six People Join Tolosa winemaker Larry Brooks for a past, present and future tour of the Winery in San Luis Obispo and finish with a artisan wine and cheese pairing. A Magnum of our 10th Anniversary wine will also be given to the winner upon arrival.
PAST: Guests will learn about the origin of our name and the story behind our brand. They will also have the opportunity to taste past vintages from the Tolosa library collection.
PRESENT: After a brief talk about our vineyard and outside production area, guests will be toured through our tank and barrel rooms.
FUTURE: The tour finishes with a futures tasting from select French oak barrels. This intimate tasting will take place in our private barrel designed area with our finest wine selections.
Following the tour you and your guests will be guided through an artisan wine and cheese pairing with Tolosa's wine and cheese educator & sommelier, John Shakley. As you relax in our beautiful private Heritage Room, John will pair five limited production wines with five artisan cheeses from around the world. Value: $400. Prize Code: WB29. Courtesy of Tolosa Winery.
Is wine food or alcohol? Most Americans would immediately choose "alcohol," perhaps laughing at the question.
In Europe, though, that wasn't the case for centuries. Before water purification became widespread, wine was safer to drink than water. The idea that wine is primarily an intoxicant is relatively recent, and like so many influential memes in the world today, it comes from the United States.
Paul Lukacs' book American Vintage: The Rise of American Wine was inspired by the author's realization at an Italian wine event that U.S. wine has become not only the best in the world (as measured by critics' ratings), but that U.S. wine -- fruit-forward, big-bodied and high in alcohol -- is changing the style of wine throughout the world. Even those who vehemently oppose the former idea must concede the latter.
If all Lukacs, chair of the English department at Loyola College in Maryland, was interested in was those two points, he could have started his timeline as late as the 1960s, perhaps with the opening of the idea lab that was Robert Mondavi Winery. In fact, he expends a lot of verbiage assuring us that American wine, until the end of the 1960s, almost invariably reached its highest peak at "serviceable."
Instead, digging into the history of American wine, Lukacs found himself fascinated by its relationship to alcohol. This continuing theme of the book ends up far more interesting than another retelling of how Mike Grgich and Warren Winiarski proved, in Jim Barrett's words, that "kids from the sticks" could make wines better than the best of France, and a helluva lot more useful than one more polemic about high-alcohol wines.
Prohibition was a defining time in America's relationship with wine and liquor, as well as crime and honesty. Lukacs points out that if the wine industry had been smarter, Prohibition could have been an era when Americans became wine drinkers.
Here's why: When Thomas Jefferson opined about the benefits of wine, one of his strongest points was that it led to temperance. What Jefferson meant by temperance was not teetotalling, but drinking wine in moderation with dinner, the way it had been consumed in Europe for centuries. Like many citizens of this always-culturally-conservative country, Jefferson didn't want to see his neighbors getting blasted at the saloon on bourbon and rye.
Prohibition could easily have gone in a different direction. Home winemakers were allowed to make a fairly large amount of wine for their own consumption, and some California grapegrowers actually did better shipping their grapes to the East Coast than they had selling to the California Wine Association monopoly that had dominated the industry for more than 20 years before Prohibition. A few politicians argued that wine should be entirely exempt from Prohibition. Imagine how that would have changed the roaring '20s: no speakeasies, no culture of lawlessness, less corruption, less capital transferred to criminal enterprises.
Instead, the country got a dozen years of bathtub gin that promoted the sanctimonious-in-public, sin-in-private behavior we still exhibit regarding sex and media. For the most part, unlike French, Spaniards and Italians, Americans don't drink to appreciate the beverage; they drink to drink.
Lukacs blames the wine industry for not promoting its product as one of temperance and culture, instead selling it in saloons as just another flavor of booze. He points out a number of occasions in the late 19th century when the wine industry had a chance to differentiate itself from liquor purveyors, but chose not to.
The disturbing thing about this observation is that little has really changed regarding wine's place in American culture. Those of us who write about wine or work in the industry are a step removed from the way middle America sees it.
I'm writing this from San Francisco, where wine does belong on the dinner table for the most part. But I read this book while on vacation in Honduras. The island of Roatan is dominated by American tourists, many from middle America. People who drank wine there didn't stop at one bottle; they stopped at near-unconsciousness. When I told people I work in the wine industry, the inevitable reaction was not "Do you get to taste a lot of good stuff?" but "How great it must be to get wasted every day!"
I'll get off my high horse now (horse riding makes my butt hurt). Lukacs' other main point of interest, which is far less convincing, is his respect for and concentration on non-West Coast wines, and even worse, wines not made from vinifera grapes. It's interesting to read a book on American wine history that's not focused on California, but if you're writing a book about American wine's "rise" by world standards, you're wasting your time talking about wine from Ohio and Indiana and Missouri. And please, hold the Catawba and pass the Cab and Pinot.
Lukacs is a very polite writer; he reads like a courtly and well-read man who would be pleasant company at the dinner table. The downside of this is the constant feeling that he's keeping a soft focus on the foibles of wine celebrities.
For example, he cites Ellen Hawkes' excellent "Blood and Wine" as a source on the Gallo brothers, but doesn't use her many hard-hitting and fascinating anecdotes. Thus I found the book most interesting in sections when it discussed people about whom I know little, like Nicholas Longworth, whose Ohio-grown pink Catawba made him the first commercially successful winemaker in America. I also was interested to learn that former preacher Thomas Welch invented non-alcoholic grape juice because he was, in words I would use but Lukacs never would, a teetotalling zealot and insufferable prig. Seriously: Jesus could work miracles, yet He didn't see the need to turn water into non-alcoholic grape juice. (Oops, high horse again. Sorry.)
But for sections about Mondavi or the Gallos or Grgich, among others, what's not written here is more interesting than what is.
I can't finish this review without pointing out something that threw me off at the beginning: Page 3, to be exact. About the famous Judgment of Paris tasting, Lukacs writes, "Since Spurrier and Gallagher had promoted the event extensively, a crowd of spectators, including a number of journalists, came as well."
That's not true, and it's not a minor mistake. To be fair, Lukacs wrote this five years before the one (1) journalist at the event, George Taber, published his own book. But the fact that Taber was the only journalist present, and that he could speak French fluently, was crucial to the event's historic importance, because Taber got complete access to the judges' comments, while a flock of journalists would probably have been held back.
Sadly, I spent the next 359 pages doubting the veracity of everything. Did Thomas Welch really invent a system for simplifying spelling? Was Warren Winiarski really inspired to make wine by a winemaker in Maryland? If there's ever another edition of this book, that early error needs to be corrected.
Paul Lukacs, American Vintage: The Rise of American Wine, W.W. Norton 2005, $13.56, (Paperback).
W. Blake Gray is a San Francisco writer and Chairman of the Vintners Hall of Fame Electoral College. His high horse is named Trigger Happy.
When I was thirteen I thought I was going to grow up to be a photographer. I spent endless hours in the darkroom and carrying my cameras everywhere I went. Being shy, it was the perfect date for me at a youth dance. I could take pictures of the action and go into the darkroom later that night to print them. Often folks would come into the darkroom (it was at the same place the dance was, usually) and see what I was doing. Photography was a social magnet.
A few years later, in college and during the Vietnam War era, photography opened up the greater world to me. I met different folk than the ones in the small resort town where I had grown up. I even met a famous one from time to time.
A word about fame, something I know a little about. I grew up in a town filled with famous people (Palm Springs, CA) and learned very early not to make a fuss over folks who have been afflicted with it. Leave ?em be, talk to them normal, change the subject away from them. Some of them might even make the grade to friendship. But, I ramble.
I am a walker. Love to walk the streets of a town. Rome, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Palermo, Naples, Chicago, Dallas. I once walked the route on Elm Street in Dallas where JFK was shot (grassy knoll) to the shop on the same street where John Hinckley bought the gun that he shot Ronald Reagan with. On a hot July day I took my trusty Canon VIT rangefinder and a new Canon AE1 and did my own shooting. The Dallas of that day has altered greatly.
New York? Since 1975, I have trudged the streets of that city camera and wine bag in tow. My childhood friend and photography co-conspirator Bruce took a fabulous street shot, worthy of a Weegee. Bruce went on to become a movie mogul and one of the greatest collectors of photography in the world. And still a friend and drinking buddy.
I spent time in the NY scene with Diane Arbus? teacher, Lisette Model. Not much time, but enough to remember one cold afternoon in January in her apartment. I had already been to Arbus boot camp. It started in California and concluded in a bar in Milwaukee, a bar right out of the collective mind of Kubrick, Serling and Lovejoy. I had walked onto the set of a world that someone like Diane Arbus lived daily. And it scared the holy crap out of me.
I had my time with the world of reportage and photojournalism. One photographer from Magnum, to remane unnamed, asked my help in getting him and his art director through Tijuana for a photo shoot. An ad campaign for Pentax. I thought it odd that the photographer almost exclusively used his Leica M3 for the assignment. When I asked him, his answer seemed cynical at the time. Now, I think he was like a sushi chef, just using the best knife he had to cut the Toro.
And the old masters, so many of them I was lucky to encounter, sit awhile and soak up their greatness. They were called the f64 group. My entry was through Imogen Cunningham and Ansel Adams. In the darkroom with Ansel was a breakthrough, I still remember the warmth of that little room, and not in a creepy way. How often is it you can stand in the dark and be dazzled with brilliance?
Imogen, she reminds me a lot of my friend Alice. Petite, but never diminutive, cantankerous, strong willed and boy crazy. But a vision and a determination to walk her trail without fear. Imogen was a wonderful mentor to me in life.
On the fringe of the f64 group was Wynn Bullock. Wynn was the one who taught me about the vision thing. He schooled me in the philosophy of perception. Thanks to Wynn, some of the best photography I have ever taken was without a camera. I remember how supportive he was when I came back from NY, explaining to me that he also had to take NY in measures, not in giant doses. Like him, I needed the horizon.
My dad was a photographer and a film maker. I still have hours of 16mm reels of film he shot, some of it family, some Italy, and also Old California footage. He always thought I should take more sunset pictures.
Being a black and white kind of guy, I could never understand why he wanted to thwart my path. But fathers do that to their son?s even when they aren?t conscious of it. I love to watch sunsets (like sunrises better) but not to shoot.
My college teacher, Philip Welch, introduced me to many of the West Coast school. He was a student of Frank Lloyd Wright and had given me the entrée to that world. He told me about famous people. He said, ?Call them up, knock and their door. If they are truly great they will talk to you, if not, they are only famous. You want to meet greatness, not fame.?
I?ve had a few friends through the years who made it to fame, but not quite to greatness. I have also had more than my share of friends who bypassed fame and went straight to greatness. I have photographed them, opened bottles of wine with them, danced with them, laughed with them, cried with them and walked through pools of Jell-O with them.
All along the way there has often been a camera nearby, my consigliere of consciousness.
Yesterday I was driving to the older part of town to visit a friend who was in the hospital. He has been a mentor to me, and as I was nearing the facility, I saw the old street where my dad and his family had lived more than 90 years ago. The picture above was taken there, 1313 Hall Street, Dallas, Texas, where my dad was born. The house is gone. All that remains of his original family is his sister, my aunt Mary. She's the little baby in my grandmother's arms. My friend in the hospital was asleep, but he didn?t look well. He is dying. I know the look, the sound, the smell. If it were a wine, I would describe it thus: pale and a bit cloudy. The bouquet has faded with a light scent of dried rose petals and ripe, aged Asiago. In the flavors there is a little tinge of acid, the tannins are all gone, the fruit is fleeting, and the finish is swift.
Hopefully, my friend's will be as well. For his sake.
It had been raining, and the streets were damp and saturated. It reminded me of Ireland, of a hopeless and miserable Dublin after a night of drinking too much Guinness and too little sleep. Cold, dank, unredeemable.
I was near my friend's wine store and hadn?t eaten all day (it was 2 p.m.), so I stopped in to get a sandwich, and ended up working the floor.
The store was crowded, and Sinatra was crooning over the speakers. A young man came up to me and asked me about the Italian Club. I gave him the requisite information and encouraged him to stop in at one of the Wednesday wine tastings they are starting to do. Then he reached out his hand to shake mine. My hand was bleeding from a boxcutter that had slipped when I was arranging some wine case stacks. I didn't even know I had cut myself. All in a day's work, even if it is a Saturday. Or a Sunday. Grab some tape, cover the cut and back to arranging bottles and straightening shelf-talkers.
In the past, we didn?t need an Italian Club. We had the Family. On Sundays like today, my family would spend the day together, eating, drinking, carousing at the beach or in a vineyard somewhere, in Sicily, Dallas, Los Angeles.
My dad and his dad would hang out together. My son is in Vegas, working. My dad and his dad are gone. It?s Sunday again, and I?m sitting in my room writing about something that doesn?t exist anymore.
My dad and his dad were in business together, for a while. I don?t think my father liked that too much. Probably my grandfather wasn?t too clued in on his son?s aspirations. I think my dad probably wanted to be some kind of artist, maybe an actor. He certainly ended up in the right place for it, Los Angeles in the 1930?s. The golden age of American cinema. But my dad cobbled, and my grandfather acquired real estate, and the ship sailed on. E la nave? va.
Once, when my grandfather had made a pile of money, he loaded his young family up and sailed back to Palermo for a while. He was now an American, and while he was going back to Italy for a while, he could never stay there indefinitely. He had crossed over into the American dream. He was making it big. In the picture he wasn?t more than 24 years old, but the opportunities that he had reached for paid off early. My son is now 30 years old. I wonder if the opportunities for his generation will ever afford him a chance for a good life. It doesn?t seem as bright now. Warmer, yes. Brighter, no.
When my mom and dad were married in 1936, they took their Ford roadster up the California coast. They were building the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. My parents were 21 years old, hopeful for happiness in their future and their children?s future. For their honeymoon, they tooled up Coast Highway 1 into a world we can only dream about now.
The Great Depression was receding, and war was a few years off. It was a moment to enjoy all that the possibility of life had to offer.
On those Sundays leading up to those years, they would spend sun-drenched days at the beach with their Wise Guy uncles and their Hollywood girlfriends. They were ?A? listing through life, the Golden Age of the American Dream. Cigarettes didn?t cause cancer, yet. Diseases were being conquered. The atom was being harnessed. Seat belts weren?t necessary. Front doors needn?t be locked. Out in the San Fernando Valley and Escondido and Cucamonga, the family would picnic in the vineyards. Note the happy faces and the glasses of wine. My dad with some of the many women in his family. His Aunt Mary, his sister (my aunt) Mary, Josie and Cuccia, Tootsie and Anna, and Rosemary and on. So pristine in the simplicity of their happiness. Wine, women and song. And food, what great food. Local, fresh, not microwaved, not from a can. California, the Golden State in a golden age. My mom and dad, with riding boots. Chances are, Dad made them. How much my son looks like him. I now am the age my father was when I wondered what it would be like to be his age. I think I might be happier at this age than he was, but his youth sure looked good from this vantage point. And my mom, the classic Italian beauty. She?s almost 93 and still pretty fired-up about life and living. Thank God she?s in good shape. My friend in the hospital, what I wouldn?t give for him to have been that fortunate, too. My Aunt Josephine, on the right in the picture, next to her brother Felice and his East Texas bride, Reba. And my dad and mom. A night out on the town. Was it in Dallas? Or Hollywood? They look out at me from this picture as if to say, ?Bring us your best bottle of Italian wine, and come sit down with us and enjoy your family.? If only I could, Uncle Phil. My mom and my Aunt Jo are both in their 90?s now, both in pretty good health. Still driving. But not in the rain.
My dad?s sister, Aunt Mary, called me today. She was checking in with me. Her husband passed away a few years ago. Her son-in-law died a little over a year ago. Last summer one of her grandsons had an accident in the ocean, and he too is gone. So she called to see if I was still here, still around.
Yes, Aunt Mary. Many of them are gone but we are still here, those of us on the edges of the photographs. Still ticking and kicking. Still dreaming and still looking for a way to make all this work out. I miss our Family Sundays. And so I sit here and put down these thoughts for the internets to hold, for another place and time and people. It was a great time, and the memories feed the heart and the soul, on Sundays, when the family is spread out far.
My brother-in-law Nick was born a hunter. Growing up in Greece during WWII, where famine was the norm at the time, he learned how to survive at a very early age. When his family immigrated to the New World, settling in Southern California, I could only imagine what he must have felt like, as a child. He took to California and the American Dream like a duck to water.
All this as an introduction in the way of a comparison. Nick, being a hunter, is one of a handful of hunters who have made it into the Grand Slam Club. You can read about it here. The guy loves to hunt, fish, golf, win. I mean, we were sitting outside having lunch and I caught him stalking prairie dogs, it?s just in his blood.
Oh, and he likes wine. Italian wine, California wine, French wine. Good wine.
On a visit earlier this month at his and my sisters rambling Tuscan ranch house, on the 16th green of a PGQ gold course in Indian Wells, we got to opening a few bottles of wine. And talking about what makes a wine great. It got me to thinking about the way we collect our wines. Are they trophies to put on a rack and lay claim to bragging rights? Or is there a deeper meaning to the wines we have opened, enjoyed and appreciated over the years?
Is there an Italian Grand Slam for wines? And if so, what would they be?
In my mind I?d be putting Barolo and Barbaresco up on the wall. Brunello? Most likely, but these days, Brunello is bothering me. If you put it into the context of 50 or so years, then OK. But right now, I?d say Brunello is on probation with a lot of us.
The fourth wine? Amarone? A Maremma red, maybe from Bolgheri? Something from the Valtellina? A Taurasi? What do you think?
About ten years ago my brother-in-law and sister and I were having breakfast at a hotel. A few tables away Angelo Gaja and his field rep were seated. I mentioned to my brother-in-law that the gentleman about his age was a famous Italian winemaker. I went over to the table and said hello. After all I had first sold Gaja?s wines in 1981.
When I came back to the table, Nick seemed surprised that I knew and had done business with such a famous wine personality. I explained to him that once you enter into the field, most doors will open one day or another, no big deal.
But Gaja has not only entered the Grand Slam Club. In his winemaking ventures he also has produced the grand Slam wines if you see those four wines as Barolo, Barbaresco, Brunello and Bolgheri. So to him, hats off. I only wish I could taste through some of these wines once in a while. They seem to have moved to an arena where other wines that I used to enjoy, wines like Pomerols and Pauillacs, have also migrated to. The investor classes.
No doubt Barolo, Barbaresco and Brunello are in my club. But the fourth wine? I?d like to think Amarone might rate high and Taurasi as well. Not yet with Sicily, nor Sardegna, sorry islanders. Not yet.
I do have fond memories of Chambave Rouge. But that is a wine for the ages now and the storytellers. I guess Neal Rosenthal and I are some of the few lucky chaps to still have a bottle or two around of the legendary 1961 from Ezio Voyat.
I?m sure my brother-in-law, if he was playing this game, would put Sassicaia on that wall of fame. And prior to the 1990?s I would agree. But that just gives the wine two decades to have proven itself. Is that enough? Is the wine still capable of evoking legendary emotions?
After last years trip to the Valtellina, I was hopeful. And while I won't rule it out, there?s still
Tecnorati
Not to dwell in the past, especially one which, one might argue, has little significance for the new generation, folks from 14-30. There were barely paved roads, or toilets. Nano I-pods? Bluetooth? How about a toothbrush? No, it was like it happened a million years ago, to the inheritors of the future.
Wines in those times. Now we see them nostalgically, their wild yeasts and oxidation-rich profiles, and we?re not talking micro-oxidation either. A shame, because we talk about the heritage of great wine from Italy, but is there really much to ponder on before 1945, when the world experienced a change on such a level that in the Olden Times it would have been called Biblical? We sexy it up and call it ?quantum change? as if the atomic age affected winemaking. Which it did, if not directly.
The linear acceleration of agricultural progress hasn?t been without its casualties though. The story teller, the master and the apprentice, the craft of the wine business, all this has morphed into some 15 minute superconducting version, where, in their place, now, young sommeliers walk on water in restaurants across the planet. I was there too, man. We have all been there before.
Maybe I should get out my 
When it comes to Italy, one can actually do this quite easily. Calabria or Liguria would be a great place to start looking for those core experiences in the Italian landscape.
I?ve found the Italian of our imagination and our dreams can be a better substitute Italy than the reality on the ground now or 93 years ago.
When I was thirteen I thought I was going to grow up to be a photographer. I spent endless hours in the darkroom and carrying my cameras everywhere I went. Being shy, it was the perfect date for me at a youth dance. I could take pictures of the action and go into the darkroom later that night to print them. Often folks would come into the darkroom (it was at the same place the dance was, usually) and see what I was doing. Photography was a social magnet.
A word about fame, something I know a little about. I grew up in a town filled with famous people (Palm Springs, CA) and learned very early not to make a fuss over folks who have been afflicted with it. Leave ?em be, talk to them normal, change the subject away from them. Some of them might even make the grade to friendship. But, I ramble.
I am a walker. Love to walk the streets of a town. Rome, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Palermo, Naples, Chicago, Dallas. I once walked the route on Elm Street in Dallas where JFK was shot (grassy knoll) to the shop on the same street where John Hinckley bought the gun that he shot Ronald Reagan with. On a hot July day I took my trusty Canon VIT rangefinder and a new Canon AE1 and did my own shooting. The Dallas of that day has altered greatly.
New York? Since 1975, I have trudged the streets of that city camera and wine bag in tow. My childhood friend and photography co-conspirator Bruce took a fabulous street shot, worthy of a 
I spent time in the NY scene with 
I had my time with the world of reportage and photojournalism. One photographer from 
And the old masters, so many of them I was lucky to encounter, sit awhile and soak up their greatness. They were called the 
Imogen, she reminds me a lot of my friend 
On the fringe of the f64 group was 
My dad was a photographer and a film maker. I still have hours of 16mm reels of film he shot, some of it family, some Italy, and also Old California footage. He always thought I should take more sunset pictures.
Being a black and white kind of guy, I could never understand why he wanted to thwart my path. But fathers do that to their son?s even when they aren?t conscious of it. I love to watch sunsets (like sunrises better) but not to shoot.
My college teacher, Philip Welch, introduced me to many of the West Coast school. He was a student of Frank Lloyd Wright and had given me the entrée to that world. He told me about famous people. He said, ?Call them up, knock and their door. If they are truly great they will talk to you, if not, they are only famous. You want to meet greatness, not fame.?
I?ve had a few friends through the years who made it to fame, but not quite to greatness. I have also had more than my share of friends who bypassed fame and went straight to greatness. I have photographed them, opened bottles of wine with them, danced with them, laughed with them, cried with them and walked through pools of Jell-O with them.
Yesterday I was driving to the older part of town to visit a friend who was in the hospital. He has been a mentor to me, and as I was nearing the facility, I saw the old street where my dad and his family had lived more than 90 years ago. The picture above was taken there, 1313 Hall Street, Dallas, Texas, where my dad was born. The house is gone. All that remains of his original family is his sister, my aunt Mary. She's the little baby in my grandmother's arms. 
Cigarettes didn?t cause cancer, yet. Diseases were being conquered. The atom was being harnessed. Seat belts weren?t necessary. Front doors needn?t be locked. 
Out in the San Fernando Valley and Escondido and Cucamonga, the family would picnic in the vineyards. Note the happy faces and the glasses of wine.
My dad with some of the many women in his family. His Aunt Mary, his sister (my aunt) Mary, Josie and Cuccia, Tootsie and Anna, and Rosemary and on. So pristine in the simplicity of their happiness. Wine, women and song. And food, what great food. Local, fresh, not microwaved, not from a can. California, the Golden State in a golden age.
My mom and dad, with riding boots. Chances are, Dad made them. How much my son looks like him. I now am the age my father was when I wondered what it would be like to be his age. I think I might be happier at this age than he was, but his youth sure looked good from this vantage point. And my mom, the classic Italian beauty. She?s almost 93 and still pretty fired-up about life and living. Thank God she?s in good shape. My friend in the hospital, what I wouldn?t give for him to have been that fortunate, too.
My Aunt Josephine, on the right in the picture, next to her brother Felice and his East Texas bride, Reba. And my dad and mom. A night out on the town. Was it in Dallas? Or Hollywood? They look out at me from this picture as if to say, ?Bring us your best bottle of Italian wine, and come sit down with us and enjoy your family.? If only I could, Uncle Phil. My mom and my Aunt Jo are both in their 90?s now, both in pretty good health. Still driving. But not in the rain.
My brother-in-law Nick was born a hunter. Growing up in Greece during WWII, where famine was the norm at the time, he learned how to survive at a very early age. When his family immigrated to the New World, settling in Southern California, I could only imagine what he must have felt like, as a child. He took to California and the American Dream like a duck to water.
On a visit earlier this month at his and my sisters rambling Tuscan ranch house, on the 16th green of a PGQ gold course in Indian Wells, we got to opening a few bottles of wine. And talking about what makes a wine great. It got me to thinking about the way we collect our wines. Are they trophies to put on a rack and lay claim to bragging rights? Or is there a deeper meaning to the wines we have opened, enjoyed and appreciated over the years?
In my mind I?d be putting Barolo and Barbaresco up on the wall. Brunello? Most likely, but these days, Brunello is bothering me. If you put it into the context of 50 or so years, then OK. But right now, I?d say Brunello is on probation with a lot of us.
About ten years ago my brother-in-law and sister and I were having breakfast at a hotel. A few tables away Angelo Gaja and his field rep were seated. I mentioned to my brother-in-law that the gentleman about his age was a famous Italian winemaker. I went over to the table and said hello. After all I had first sold Gaja?s wines in 1981.
No doubt Barolo, Barbaresco and Brunello are in my club. But the fourth wine? I?d like to think 