Living in California after college, I got into all kinds of jazz. John Coltrane, what?s not to love? So, when I got a Miles/Coltrane CD for Christmas, I was really excited. And then I got to listening to the music.

It was from the final tour in 1960. But it sounded different than the music I?d grown accustomed to hearing from those two jazz giants. It was vaguely familiar, but they were experimenting, taking the sounds out to a more intellectual ledge. It got me thinking about wine styles of late.

Last month I opened up a bottle of Vitovska from Friuli. I?ve enjoyed wine from this grape since I first encountered it 10 years ago. Nice acidity. Good fruit, and often well balanced. There are producers who take the grape down a naturalistic path, which is popular among fledgling enophiles. And I?ve had ones I enjoyed, all the way to the edge with the orange wines.

This one I had, over the holidays, was from that camp. In its appearance, it was caliginous. I took a sip. It was like sipping on a just struck match. Hot and adamantine. I set is aside, for it just wasn?t the right wine to go with the food we were having that night. I was disappointed, but know sometimes wines, when they are first opened, are sometimes reluctant to go out into the world. Cutting the umbilical on this one just wasn?t going to happen. It would have to fall off on its own, in its own time.  I?d come back to it in a day or so.

I relate this experience because there has been this movement, or a trend, to take a position on wine, and winemaking, by many of us who have never made wine. But we?re experts, influencers, and our opinion matters, so we say to ourselves.  But I just cannot burrow down into that polemic rabbit hole. Something, call it an aesthetic constraint, draws me back to my initial notion of what a wine should taste like, and what music to my ears should sound like. I can appreciate the effort. But sometimes, I just can?t go there. Or, I just don?t want to go there.  I want to listen to Miles Davis and John Coltrane play the music that drew me to jazz, which I still love. And I wanted that Vitovska to match up with the Frico, not be a freaking antagonist.

That said, I have and will follow Miles and Coltrane down a musical rabbit hole from an intellectual point of view. And I will try any and every kind of wine out there. And I will not relent from seeking out what it is that calls me to music and wine. And for that I have to thank Miles and ?Trane and all my winemaker friends who have made my exploration into wine (and music) so much more meaningful and compelling.

 written and photographed by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy

Once, on a fast run up the autostrada from Ancona to Verona, an old friend and I were talking about epiphanies. He?d had many in his life and had distilled it down to its essence. ?It?s a bolt of lightning - Il Fulmine.? I?ve thought about those moments lately, as it seems we?ve been having more than our share of ?Il Fulmine? in today?s world. And as we sail through time, many of us have those moments when our purpose is distilled in a flash, and everything is bright and clear, if only for that moment.

It?s much like a photograph. 1/100^th of a second. And then something else. Not gone, but no longer there with the energy and the force it initially struck with. I guess you could say it?s a bit like those times when you are intimate with someone and for a moment everything disappears and there is only light and passion, and emotion and energy.

And while it wasn?t quite that dramatic when it happened, looking back on that day, I realize I was then bound to wine, it made an indelible impression. Let me tell you about it.

It was harvest time, 1977, in the hills of Calabria, between Cosenza and the Tyrrhenian Sea. I was with my young, new family, traveling around Italy and Greece. We?d made it to Calabria and had found my mother?s family on her mother?s side. We were staying with them, getting to know them, and them, us. They were people of the land, working it, clinging to their little side of the hill and pulling out whatever they could to provide sustenance. It was right up our alley, as back in California, where we lived, we?d made the attempt to live simply. We were young and poor. The economy was faltering. And there was a movement to go back to the land.

One of those nights, after dinner, my cousin invited me down to the cellar. ?We have a little work to do,? he said, ?Vieni qua.? I followed.

As we ventured into the dim subterrane, several of his other relatives and friends, all elder men, joined us. I thought of the sweat lodge ceremonies a Native American friend once told me about, and wondered if this was going to be something akin, ala Italiana. Indeed, there was a prescience to that feeling, but one that would not materialize for years and miles.

I was almost expecting flames to appear above our heads, the stage was set for the possibility of a portentous juncture. I didn?t know what to expect. But, as with anything unforeseen, one can evade it or one can embrace it. I was all in, regardless.

When one falls in love, it does unpredictable things to the world around and inside of one. Time stops, then times speeds up. Then time disappears, along with space. Butterflies appear, amidst a cosmic storm of unheralded expectations. It?s a giant swirl of emotion coupled with a visceral grip that feels like a roller coaster gone off its tracks. It?s exhausting and exhilarating.

As it happened, a simpler scenario played out. It seemed that the new wine needed to be bottled and the old wine in the bottles was taking up room. A fitting metaphor for life if I ever heard one. And one that shadows us all on the wine trail.

So, we went about the business of emptying the bottles, one by one until the wee hours of the morning. I swear my Italian was never better in those moments. I was being initiated into the mysteries of Bacchus. Little did I know this ceremony would portend a life, and a livelihood, that I didn?t know was stalking me. I?ve often spoken of being a slave to the wine gods. This was the moment I was conscripted into that legion.

Later that day, after much needed rest (and coffee) it dawned on me that I had witnessed something momentous, but I didn?t know exactly what. It would only be years later, many years, that the meaning of those hours in the room where it happened would shine a light upon the path that I had tread all these years. It was the epiphany, that bolt - Il Fulmine - that provided me with a purpose. 

And it unfurled among the humblest of places, with family and friends. 

Transformational over Transactional

It?s something I ask a lot. Then, maybe it was because they knew I had buying power. But not now. I?m done with that. So, why, if at all, do some of those folks still stay in touch?

There has to be more to it than a mere transactional sentiment. It doesn?t make any sense to spend time and money and labor and all that only for a couple of cases of wine. I say this not because I am cynical of my Italian winery friends motivation.

No, I really think many of my Italian friends in the wine trade in Italy aren?t thinking about the transaction as much as the need to transform the hearts and minds of Americans (and other nationalities too). It wasn?t that long ago that they (we) had to spend an inordinate amount of time apologizing for the wine we made (or sold) because they (we) felt it might not be rising to the standards set by our French cousins. I know, that seems like a lifetime ago. But the need to please can often outweigh rational and proper business practices. In other words, transformational relationships surpass the merely transactional ones, over time.

But, in the transactional world, one knows that nothing is forever. You get a great by-the-glass placement that?s making everybody a bunch of money, and the competition takes the wine buyer to a strip club and gets him a lap dance, and badda-bing, you lose the placement. The wine buyer got a better deal. It was just another transaction. Not even a good business decision, by the way.

So, back to the Italians who have made transformative relationships more important than their business transactions. An example.

There is a wine producer in Piedmont, and I will not use his name, because the person is a very humble person who would be embarrassed by the story I am about to tell you. But for years this person has had me in their home, taken me to dinner, spent time with me, both in Italy in in my own home. We?ve become friends.

I felt guilty, for sure. I always wanted to do something, something more. But the stars never aligned.

But I also realized that both of us are doing fine in the world. Why couldn?t it be more than a transaction, a real relationship, a friendship? And that was really what it was and is.

[I know, not a tasting note in sight. Alfonso walking the plank with another one of his cockamamie ideas.]

But my friend in Piedmont, is still my friend. I drink his product at home from time to time. I think warmly of him, and he isn?t the only one. There are scores of people in Italy whom I think about in that regards, even though they have nothing ? I repeat ? NOTHING ? to gain from my present position.

This is the golden nugget that makes Italy and her people and her wine so indisputably ascendant. Because these people know something about the value of real relationships, they are and will continue to succeed even in these trying times. And you know what? I?m going to be there with them, raising glass after glass for them, and with them, because that?s how you succeed in the wine business. When you give it all your heart, and then some.

Happier new year, y?all!

Fifteen years in most cases is a relatively young age. But for a wine blog? It?s ancient. Some would say pass?. Lord knows, I?ve tried a lot of different things to keep it upright and sailing right along. But It is work. No doubt about it. Although it is also a labor of love.

All this to say, I?m glad to have made it this far. And grateful to the impressive volume of readers who come to this site once a week for my essays.

What still gets me excited about my ?Sunday sermons?? Well, there is no lack of drama or change in the world of wine. And as I?m, more or less, specialized on this blog in Italian wine and culture, for sure there is plenty to write about. But, that said, I?ve pivoted from the newsy and gossipy to what most people perceive to be a bit more esoteric of paths. And there is more than one path. I?ve been experimenting with this blog in those areas, for those who have been following. I love science fiction. In fact, I love stories. And I don?t think they always need to be the hard factual stories a journalist cuts their teeth on (I have my wine column in the Dallas paper for that). I?ve probably written this a time or two on these posts, but one time when I was sitting there having a bottle of wine with Eric Asimov, he asked me ?What is it you?d really like to write about?? I cannot believe I spontaneously answered to him, ?Oh, I?d love to write a science fiction novel!? Yeah, I said that to the nephew of one of the greatest science fiction writers of all time, Isaac Asimov. But I did do that. And even though it was momentarily embarrassing (to me) there was more than a kernel of truth to my affliction for science fiction. And some of that has been bleeding onto these pages.

But writing is not at the top of my queue. Nor is wine, really. Italy still commands a lot of space in my world, real or imagined, for sure. But it?s the visual part of this world that really has me hooked. I?ve been a photographer for 55 years. That?s 80% of my life. My (analog) darkroom is fifteen steps from my (digital) office. So, there?s a reckoning coming. Everything is ready. I?ve been to Italy more times than I could remember, if I didn?t keep a spread sheet of those 59 treks back to the wellspring of so much inspiration and affection.

The Italy I knew in 1971 is nothing like the Italy I hope to revisit in 2021. Think about it, a half century. Holy crap, it?s a little scary! But I like what I see, even when I close my eyes and imagine what it must be like. Thanks to films, music, friends, and any number of other connective ways, Italy stays in touch with me. And when the screens go dark, there is always the invisible, the imagination, the dreamscapes that keep sending me messages, keep staying up with those of us who are listening.

While I?ve gone over my 800-word limit (again) I want to thank you for being here all these years and for commenting and reading and coming back from time to time to check in. I?m not going anywhere, yet. There still is a lot of Italy, her wine, and my real (and imagined) realms to discover.

 

When all the kids took their swing, the poor creature finally burst opened and all manner of shiny and sweet things flew about the field and we all scrambled for the treasures. I don?t know why, but that memory reminds me of 2020 and Italian wine.

And how has that worked out, you might ask?

For myself, I see it as a reset. I have looked long and hard at what Italian wines I have gathered, which account for 75% of what sit in that cold, dark closet, awaiting their release or their rendering. Most of them are well, but ready anytime from now until the next 20 or so years. I guess one could say I?ve created my own little Italian wine oasis on this island, these islands, we all call home during this dilemma.

Yes, I have scores of pictures and films and music and all the necessary hooks to catch my attention, to not let it sway too far from the heart, this love for Italy, her wine, her food, her art, her culture. Meanwhile, back in Italy, though, nothing stands still. The grapes still grow, as do the inventories. The wine has got to go somewhere, even if we won?t be opening them up in front of a fantastic vista overlooking the Roero or the Arno.

It seemed that, for many of us, the ease and relative affordability of air travel conferred a right that one might have taken to be immutable. An obscure virus from the Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China changed all that. The forces of destiny shattered the pandemic pi?ata and spilled the virus to all corners of the field, this time the whole earth, and many of us took up the bounty with ensuing consequences.

Still, many of us wax and wane (and whine) about what we?ve lost. If you?re reading this you haven?t lost the ultimate gift, that of life.

Yes, you cannot go to your favorite trattoria in Rome and drink that amazing bottle of wine with your pasta alla Amatriciana. For now. Not forever.

So, all this to say, what? You?ve walked us out to the end of the plank, now what are you, what are we going to do?

In reality, who knows. But with what I have to work with, right here and right now, in the present moment, here is what I propose:

Enjoy it with your family, or your pod, for the time being.

Try not to think about the way things used to be. They were only that for a moment. And now they are something else. Deal with being in the present moment.

Drink up some of the old and rare bottles, for no reason other than you have made it through alive so far. Who knows about tomorrow? No one does.

Plan? Yes plan, but don?t lose sight of today for a tomorrow that really is indeterminable. Work with what you?re given.

Watch movies. Italian movies. Old neorealism one or newer ones from the likes of Paolo Sorrentino, Edoardo Ponti, Alice Rohrwacher or Laura Bispuri.

Write to your friends in Italy. Letters, not emails. Not just zoom calls. Not just WhatsApp conversations. Write a letter and see how long it takes to get there. Those kinds of things received these days are precious, pre-pandemic gifts from the soul. Don?t just expect to receive. Give.

Whether it is olive oil or Pelaverga, mineral water or pasta, embrace all that Italy is sending to you through this time. Yes, we can?t be there, most of us, but there is not the plane that can take your spirit to the place that your spirit cannot already get there on its own. Look up, move forward, don?t look back. 

And keep swinging.

That was how I started out with this odd holiday, Thanksgiving. Like Columbus Day, Thanksgiving has come under fire by some who see it as having racist origins, representing a celebration of the conquest of Native Americans. I get that. I also know we, as a country, need something to unify us in this time of discord. I don?t think cooking a bird or smoking a ham will save us, I?m not that na?ve. But I do see people finding ways to make moments for peace and serenity. And if celebrating Thanksgiving in the old way that the story was told to us is behind the times, can we not shift from that to a less highly charged observance? We cannot go back and undo what the Anglo-western world did to the indigenous souls here in America. But we can recast the day with thoughts of gratitude and clarity. No, we Americans aren?t the greatest nation the world has ever seen. We aren?t even handling something like this pandemic as well as many other nations on the planet. We have failed miserably. But we cannot shirk away and pretend that all that came before didn?t. We must admit, even concede, that we are not great again, and we must start over again, with the hindsight that we didn?t do it right, all these years. We must change now.

And what does that have to do with wine? Well, this is, sometimes, a wine blog. And over the last few days, many of us have been hunkering down and eating foods that provide comfort, maybe even solace, away from our families and normalcy and the world we once lived in, which is no longer.

I often come back to one word ? resilience ? to chart my course in rough seas. It has worked many times. And now it is a big part of what I believe will get many of us through this cultural dust storm, which has blinded so many from seeing the simple truth.

And now, on to food and wine. This is where it gets tricky. Why? I know well enough that there are scores of sites with wine notes. People attempting to talk about this wine or that wine, with superlatives and adjectives and a laundry list of attributes that we?re all supposed to understand, nod our heads in agreement, and rush to the store, or our online merchant, and order up. Those notes are really more for the individual writing them, a journal of sorts, of their perceptions and observations about a particular wine. I get little or nothing from them when I read them, and there is no reason to think if I were to continue with that kind of exercise here, that any of you would really get to ?know? a wine with my words.

But two wines in the past week have given me pause to think more about them and their context in my life. They were accompanied by food, and they caused me to consider how ordinary wines might become extraordinary, when the times are out of the ordinary.

I noticed two things about the wine right off. It was too cold, and the flavors were closed in. So, we let it warm up and breathe. Now, I?m a fan of Abbazia di Novacella. I love their Kerner and their Sylvaner. During a visit to the winery, probably ten years ago, I marveled at the amazing repository of knowledge their library held. It is on the Via Imperii and was one of the stops along the way for religious pilgrims on their spiritual path to Rome. One of the oldest wineries in Italy, it oozes history. One can spend a moment in the chapel or the library, for reflection, meditation and the hope of clarity.

The wine wasn?t oozing with spice as Gewurztraminer is often cast. It was more like a pulse, a heartbeat. I watched and listened and sipped this wine over several days. At nine years old, a white wine, and an ordinary wine at that, it was full of life and balance and even pleasure. It doesn?t qualify as a vino da meditazione by the usual parameters one expects of such a wine, but it nonetheless ignited a moment of contemplation.

The wine was so pure, so clear, so focused and clean and balanced, and it matched well with the smoked turkey my son labored over for hours. In one word? A joy.

And this time, the Parmigiana was coming together like a nest of hornets. If it was music, it was Bartok and his peasant singers, not Leonard Bernstein and his West Side street gangs dancing till their last breaths.

A funny way to look at food? Maybe. But everything?s a little funny right now, isn?t it? So, why not?

I didn?t look at the vintage when I opened it. When I cut the umbilical cord, and the wine entered into the world at 6 years of age, at first sniff and sample, I?ll admit I was a bit disappointed. I remember saying to myself, ?Why didn?t I just open a bottle of Montepulciano d?Abruzzo?? The answer to that question would have been, ?Because I didn?t have a normal, young, everyday one in sight.? So, I set the Barbera aside and proceeded to direct the oven to make a hearty, rugged crust on the top of the Parmigiana.

Meanwhile, the wine, 20 minutes later, was warming up to its new life.

I was engrossed in the Parmigiana, because it was one of those times I made it and it rose above the ordinary, the just good. It was, can I say it? Yes, I can. It was perfect. It was ?last meal on earth? perfect.

So, it went from an ordinary, husky dish with an everyday Barbera, to a lightning bolt moment. The wine was right there with me and my Parmigiana.

It was like an octopus, a shape-shifter of a wine, in which one moment it was scratchy and tannic and fruit-laden, to the next, when it was velvety and rich to the point of plush. But there was no self-awareness imbued within the walls of that bottle. It was rocking into its life, dancing and swaying. Such a pleasure. No, I didn?t need to open a 20-year-old Brunello this night. Or grab my one of my last ancient bottles of Hermitage. The Barbera would suffice. And then some.

It wasn?t meant to be a night for such an epiphany. It just happened that way. And the reason why I started on this lengthy post and this perambulation was for this: You don?t always have to grab for, or hope for, a ?great? wine. You don?t need to be jealous of your friends in New York or Singapore, when they post their umpteenth bottle of Soldera or DRC. It isn?t necessary. Sometimes the shy little one in the corner is as good of a dancer as the princess or the queen, maybe sometimes better even. It really relies upon your soul and the way you look at things, to take their gifts in. If you have an open mind and an open heart, you will be rewarded. You may not get 300 likes, but really who cares? The ?like? will come from you. And that is something no one can ?block? or take away.