Dedicated follower of fashion, vigneron edition

As we drove around, to and from his vineyards on the hills of the Maremma, Gianpaolo Paglia of Poggio Argentiera and I were talking about the fashion-driven aspects of making wine.  How, for example, "traditional" Brunello and Chianti were awful stuff that needed new grapes, vineyard-management  and cellar techniques to make the wines drinkable and less hard to sell. How 5 or 10 years ago it was all the rage to brag about all your expensive French-oak barriques, whereas now you have to shut up about them, and so on.  So I began thinking what it must be like for a vigneron, or vignaiolo, who lacks a core set of convictions, whose eyes see only what he perceives to be the main chance, and who is, in short, a dedicated follower of oenological fashion...

1970.  Somewhere in Piemonte.  Or Tuscany.  Or somewhere in between.

Ivo L. was a young success story. 

He was the first person in his family to learn how to read and write, thanks to the TV program "Non e' mai troppo tardi" ("It's never too late"), and he used his newly acquired knowledge to create a contract that swindled a decrepit old peasant out of his 2.3 hectares of best vineyards.  Ivo didn't know or care what sort of vines he had -- the cantina sociale (co-op) was going to buy all the grapes at a decent price.  His no-good lazy-bum relatives would work off their debts to him by tending the vines and harvesting the grapes.  He had just bought his first car, a second-hand 500.  He still lived with his abandoned mother; papa' had run off to Australia years before. 

1986.  Somewhere in Piemonte.  Or Tuscany.  Or somewhere in between.

Ivo had a gnawing sensation in his gut.  Maybe it's jealousy, he told himself.   Odd sensation for a man who had grown used to being on top of things, the first to take advantage of any situation.  He was living well.  He had bought a crumbling estate from a decrepit old aristocrat during the anni di piombo. 

With the help of his wife's money and the backing of the local Democristiano bigwigs, the villa and the property were beautifully, expensively restored.  He had 200 hectares, 50 of them under vine, and he was becoming a force to be reckoned with.  He was running his estates -- really, he had parcels of land all over -- on "modern principles," which was to say everything was centrally controlled and scientifically managed.  Clean as a whistle too.  No more cow dung getting mixed in with the must, he liked to joke. 

His wines had found export markets in Germany and Scandinavia.  But whose hadn't?  His neighbors were sporting new Swiss watches and driving new German cars, too, but that wasn't the source of his gnawing jealousy of them.  No.  They had been "hoeing in the fields, scratching their dirty asses" a decade ago when he was already climbing the ladder.  Now here they were, getting prizes, winning high critical ratings for their wines.  And commanding impressive, crazy-making prices.

It seems that while he was straining and struggling, expensively and with the aid of his wife's father's money, to make "classic" wines from carefully replanted vineyards, the world had changed.  "Classic" now meant old-fashioned, unpopular.  And uncommercial.  Facing serious losses and another unpleasant interview with his father-in-law, Ivo took some advice from one of his most detested neighbors.  "Call this man in Bordeaux.  He can help you.  This American critic adores him."  Reverent pause.  A whisper:  "Now I do too."

Ivo squinted at the piece of paper and lifted the heavy receiver of his office telephone just as the first tanker trucks with Sicilian license plates rumbled up from the dusty road below.

2002. Somewhere in Piemonte.  Or Tuscany.  Or somewhere in between.

Ivo L. was a senior statesman for Italian wine.  His was a wine empire stretching round the globe, encompassing many styles, grapes, terroirs and price points. He was photographed around the world with other wine eminences, wearing wine guildish garb and presiding at dinners sponsored by major wine lifestyle magazines.  And he was venerated not only for his oft-garlanded wines but his deeply tragic and noble family history.  It had long been published that his father had fought and died in the Resistance and young Ivo, a boy of 12, fought on, defending the simple farmers of his native zone from destruction and destitution at the hands of the Nazis (never the "Germans," since they were among his most loyal and bibulous customers). 

These days Ivo was being lionized as the "king of Superwherever."  His wine empire had spread to almost every region of Italy.  He loved to gaze at a special map he had had made, which showed the conquests he had made in the manner of time-lapse photography, showing his increase DOC by DOC, region by region.  Like those maps showing the spread of the Roman Empire. 

Still it galled him that some insignificant wine "journalist" had dismissed his wines as "old-New World style, as passe' as they are short-lived."

Though no longer so young and nimble, he knew it was time to reinvent himself again.  He picked up the phone to call his PR counsel.

2010.  In an extremely tiny, biodynamic certified vineyard somewhere remote.

Ivo, a venerable, craggy figure of 75, is again on top of the world.  The Italian wine press gave him the epithet "Il Salvatore" (the Saviour) because he has campaigned tirelessly for the preservation of obscure grape varieties and more "autentico" winemaking.  His craggy, wise visage twinkles out of countless cover photographs of magazines in Britain, Germany and the United States.  His "bio" wines may not always win high scores, but he laughs at the scoremakers, declaring that good wine can't be described or assessed in a simplistic numeric rating. 

"It's about letting the land speak for you in the wine.  Hearing what the grapes have to say.  They are wise, these old vines of mine.  Wiser than any man."

He's laughing inside as he delivers these lines.  Because his industrial wines are fetching astronomical prices in China and Russia.  The profits are rolling in from those countries while they're nonexistent from America and much of Europe.  He's going through this rigmarole because those "new consumers of fine Italian wines" don't know shit, so they follow the English-language media online to learn what to crave and buy.

He spits on the dandelion-bedecked earth among his vines, leaning on a spade, as the cameraman's assistant shifts the umbrella around and they fuss over the filter to use.  His publicist lowers her arms, resting the cue cards against her slender thigh.  "It's going well, dottore," she says.  "This blogcast will complete the transformation."  She says this without evident pride in her voice, because il Dottore is one difficult client. 

Ivo grunts.  He knows self-serving bullshit when he hears it.  But he knows very few do.

Comments

[AC]

very good!

[justine]

I can feel a note of sadness here. I wouldn't feel it if what you wrote was all nonsense. Bravo.

[Gianpaolo]

that one before was me, not Her.

[Jeremy Parzen]

TH, how are Gianpaolo's wines? I've never tasted them.

And good call on the Dorothy Sayers... a lacuna in my handlist bibliography.

Boccaccio in translation is like drinking a Chapoutier wine that has been filtered. No one's found the verve to translate Boccaccio well.

My grandmother used to keep a secret copy of Boccaccio that she considered "naughty." (not kidding)

[alex]

@ Terry/Strappo,

The most interesting and enjoyable post ever.
Thanks !!!

Just a very minor error...
" He had just bought his first car, a second-hand Topolino."
In 1970 it would have been a 500.
ciao

[Strappo]

@ Alex, thanks. But I thought the one about the Gyspies was pretty good too! You couldn't make up the Sewer and Hot Top gypsies. BTW I corrected the Topolino ref. It's all so long ago it seems like everything happened at once!

@ Jeremy -- the wines are good, they are available in CA. I'm waiting for Fagles to do his translation of the DC. ;)

@ Gianpaolo -- thanks for the idea to do this post, amico!

[Marco]

Molto bono!