mondosapore

Wine flu worldwide alarm

A Public Service Post about Mankind's Latest Fear Factor

It seems that the mysterious "wine flu" has raised fears around the world.  I'm flooded with searches from New Zealand, Mexico, England, China and right here at home.  And it seems that everyone wants more information about this wine flu.  Some perspicacious searchers have googled complete questions to which I have no answers (I am not an epidemiologist, let alone a pandemiologist).  But I thought I'd share them with you in case you, educated, intelligent readers, might be able to respond in a helpful kindly way.

Does wine flu past from person to person?

Yest, it does.

What is wine flu?

I'm not sure.  It might have something to do with bad corks.

Was the 1918 flu the wine flu?

I'm not sure.  It might have had something to do with bad corks.

Were is the wine flu?

It threatens to be everwere.  That's why they callin' it a pandeemic, bubba.

How to get people wine flu?

I'd try Amazon first.  A gift card is always appreciated.

Why is it called wine flu?

I'm not sure.  It might have something to do with bad corks.

Is wine flu is the end of the world?

Only if it kills you.

 

After a shitty, sweaty day...

You need to decompress.  Once I would have spent an hour rowing my guts out. Or riding a stationary bicycle at insane rates of speed and resistance.  I used to have rooms devoted to such machines.  That was when I lived in Ohio.  I've come to my senses, or che son vecio, and I eat pizza and drink wine.  Copiously. Ah! 'tis very bliss after years of steely self-discipline.

Of course now I live in that abode of sin and fruitiness, NYC, so what do you expect?  And we HAVE NO SPACE in our teeny apartments.  And I refuse to pay a grand to join a health club.  And the $10 city rec center across is the street isn't quite comme il faut.  And...I've run out of excuses.  I'm a lazy old dick with a 38" waist.  Oh. My. God.

So here we are at the end of the day, reacting randomly to some of the silly bullshit on the InterTubes.  Such as...

* Arlen Spector's defection to the Democratic Party.  As Glenn Campbell said when Waylon Jennings won a Country Music Award, "It's about damn time!"  (A Country Music Award?  They reward such crap??)

* According to a surely trustworthy poll cited by Huffington Post, only 21% of US voters identify themselves as R____.  I can't quite digitate the word, sorry.  

* Speaking of awards shows, the last Miss America contest I watched saw Vanessa Williams win.  And unwin.  To another Black Lite babe, Suzette Charles. When was that?  

* What is Ms. Charles doing now?  Changing quarters in an AC casino?  We know what Vanessa Williams is doing.  

* "Wine flu[e]" continues to frighten and perplex the people.  Not to mention the even more shocking vine flu.  Site traffic is up here at mondosap thanks to the virtual illiteracy of most nationalities in the English-speaking world. Ignorant yobbos of the world, I salute you.

Buona notte, kiddies.  

  

  

See Muddy Boots for some dandy news

"They like us, they really really like us."  

Well, not us.  A couple of our wines.  See this article, which contains a sneak preview of the June Wine & Spirits magazine.

Bully for us.  

Flash! Wine flu threatens now

SERIOUS NEWS INDEED, AMERICA AND THE WORLD

Judging from the number of Google searches from the anxious, who have come to this unimpeachable source of true facts and sage commentary, there seems to be another deadly scourge staring a suffering humanity in the face:  Wine flu, and its cousin malady, vine flu.  

Needless to say, I hope wine and vines aren't capable of transmitting their diseases to us, though speaking for myself only, I could do with a bit of noble rot.  Not just the other kind -- I'm lousy with the ignoble kind.  It comes with age, no matter how thorough your hygiene.

All joshing aside, ever since Jeff walked into the office today with a jumbo dispenser of Purell, I must admit I've been feeling a little achy and my throat's gotten scratchy and people look at me funny when I cough ("Don't mind me," I tell them, "it's only my old pneumonia.  Honest!")

Quick, Jeeves, a new surgical mask and a bottle of Aglianico!

  

Swine flu & wine's healing role

The blaring headlines have everyone on edge.  Swine flu seems to be spreading rapidly round the world, to Israel even, and it seems to be both highly contagious and severe.  We've read much about the health benefits of wine, especially red wine, for years now.  It's good for your heart and longevity, and as a source of antioxidants it's far more fun than blueberries.  Now it's time to look at the ways wine, especially red wine, can prevent or mitigate this new scourge of humanity (and suines), swine flu.

We contacted Dr. Leo Kramp, chief immunologist of the Springfield Health Network, where he is a colleague of Dr. Nick Riviera, world-famous thoracic surgeon.  We began with a simple, direct question: What makes swine flu different from bird flu, Asian flu, Spanish flu and other brand-name influenzas?

Let me quote directly from the CDC website: "Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza viruses that causes regular outbreaks in pigs. People do not normally get swine flu, but human infections can and do happen. Swine flu viruses have been reported to spread from person-to-person, but in the past, this transmission was limited and not sustained beyond three people."  This means that birds don't spread this disease.  People do.  And, at the beginning, of course, pigs.  This is different to the other forms of influenza because birds, Asians and Spaniards are not directly involved.  At least, that is the current thinking.  It seems we can thank the Mexicans for this one.  

Why are there so many diseases coming up these days which are classified as possible pandemics?

Global travel. Crowding. Unsanitary living conditions. Divine retribution.

Excuse me?

God is punishing us for doubting His word, the inerrant Word as revealed to us in the Bible.  Mostly the New Testament of course, but we ignore the Old Good Book at our peril.  Case in point, Lot's wife. Not to mention Sodom, whose activities today would be "sanctified" by marriage in Connecticut and Spain for example.  That said, I wouldn't be shocked if there weren't a resurgence of a particularly virulent form of Spanish flu within 2-3 years.

Let's touch on the health benefits of wine in this case.  You have said that wine is an effective drug, so to speak, in combating this frightening illness.  Please elaborate.

Very well.  There are many ways in which one may use wine to either stave off or mitigate the effects of this disease.  One is to soak the surgical mask you're wearing with wine every hour or so.  This will add alcohol to the filter and turbocharge germ-blocking. 

Should it be red wine?

It's dangerous to post when you've drunk...

...a fair amount.  It's grand to drink a bunch of the wine you've scouted and imported and bet your tiny little farm on.  Actually, I've drunk of couple of them tonight.  First I drank a glass or two of Reale's Aliseo. Then we ordered from the Peking Duck House (53rd Street outpost) and I gorged myself on duck and Rasott, the Aglianico that McDuff reviewed today.  I love the stuff.  

And I'm about to join Ken in the dessert portion of our din-din, the Piandibugnano Nanerone, a really stupendous 100% Aleatico from Montecucco, not Elba.  Tuscany, yes, but another Tuscany altogether.  

Now I 'd like to launch into some sort of tirade...but, damn it, the wine's made me feel so very mellow. 

Buona notte e vi benedico, figli miei... 

 

 

Real and blogging worlds meet

Every so often you meet someone you got to know through blogs, and who got to know you.  I always marvel at the precise way a wine blog (for example) draws a virtual string between me and someone far away -- Australia, Turkey, Poland, Brazil...and North Carolina.  

Yes, yesterday I met, in person, a fellow winelover, Thom Calabrese, who lives in Asheville, NC.  We met at Gabrio Tosti's store (another plug for you, boy), where he went especially to buy a couple of my wines (another plug for me, the shameless whore of self-promotion, fiddle-dee.  Thom didn't spring for the $55 one even though it is very rare and highly unusual and fascinatingly delicious.  But let's not quibble about a mere 55 bucks in a time of macrocosmic financial uncertainty, though billions have been thrown at less sure bets like Chrysler and Bank of America.)

But the point was...well, what was it?  

Oh yes, right, sure, uh-huh.  

That it's a funny, serendipitous old world on the Internet.  Thom C. found this blog via a wine friend in Asheville who used to live in Italy, and who moved to Asheville last year, a certain Michael Culley aka Michele Colline. Thom's been in the wine biz at various times, mostly on the retail side, and he shares a certain Strappo's life addiction to Italy and all things Italian, mainly the wine and food.  Not the execrable TV shows, however.  Or the habit of wearing those choking scarves, a mom-inspired fashion that leaves me both puzzled and annoyed.  Still, except for those things and the Camorra, there's more to love about Italy than not. (I even like the tight jeans. But I would.)

Whatever.  Thom was a great guy to meet.  We went to Schiller's, an outpost of the Balthazar empire, shared a flagon of rosado de Rioja and merrily killed a couple of hours.  

Image below. I did a search on Google Images for Thom Calabrese and this is one of the things that popped up to torment me.  Shit!  Fuck!  Hence the absence of "Oscars" on my notional mantlepiece.  Yes, Mum, I am indeed my own worst enemy.  By the way, "Thom Calabrese" may be the creation of the witness protection program.  There are no online pix of the man.   

  

 

      

Q & A

Q: Why hasn't Strappo been posting much on Muddy Boots?

A: Ask him yourself. I think he's a crummy time manager.

Q: Why haven't you been posting much here on mondosapore?

A: I've been a) busy, b) preoccupied, c) depressed, d) hung over, e) all of the above.  (Actually it's a & b.)

Q: Do you miss Italy?

A: Yes.  

Q: How have sales been going?

A: Good -- and frustrating.  Good because we're opening new accounts all the time, some of them in very very good places.  We're getting lots of reorders. Frustrating because we need to move more product...buyers are cautious because consumer spending is a little erratic.

Q: What do you think of the whole wine-blogger ethics thing that's reared its ugly head (again)?

A: I'll quote some of what I wrote on Jancis Robinson's site yesterday: 

I've found the whole debate, framed by the outrage at Mark Squires (probably because he is Mark Squires), has been of the mountain/molehill variety. But now that I am making a living in the wine business, it may be that grubby old commerce is altering my views; I'm not one to look too hard for the mote in my brother's eye.  

Q: Why do you hate Dr. Vino?  More to the point, why do you love Mark Squires?

A: I neither love nor hate either man.  I try to be a friend to all.  Unless they annoy the piss out of me.  Then I just tune out.

Q: Alice Feiring asked why you say she is "necessary."  

A: The answer to that one, I thought, was pretty obvious.  She has a great bullshitometer.  

Q: Why do you have no blogging ethics?

A: I'm not important enough to worry about.  I will never win a Major Award.

Why Alice Feiring is necessary

Alice tweeted the blog post that she put up yesterday -- to sarcastic, devastating effect.  If you haven't seen this, you really should:  Click here.

It should come as no surprise to her readers that the winery she skewers is in the Golden State.  One of her online handles is Barola, and she blogs often about her visits to French vignerons, especially in the Loire.  Definitely not a New World-style fan. 

  

Alice Feiring.  

Photo from NY Sun, defunct and unmourned right-wing rag

As so many in the wine world know, Alice is a fierce proponent of natural, "unspoofulated" wines.  (Did I spell that correctly?)  You know, judicious use of oak, no micro-oxygenation, etc., etc.  Sometimes she goes a bit over the top in order to fire up her copy and the reader.  And sometimes I think she only needs to smell brett (the barnyard or chicken-coop stench) to declare a wine pricelessly old-school and so on.  She is an extremist, a fundamentalist.  She was born to shake things up.  She does, regularly.

In these days of runaway bullshit and meaningless buzzwords, we need Alice to call it all out.

    

Weekend in Richmond

I'm sitting at Richmond airport (free WiFi!) after a weekend visiting my daughter. I have nothing more urgent to report, so I'll tell you about things like the weather.

It was a perfect day Saturday, warm and utterly cloudless.  Sunday got darker as the day went on, but it was very warm.  Today it's more like the weather we've had all spring in New York, cool and raining torrentially.  It was good to get a dose of sun and heat. 

I drove around on the weekend, admiring the flowering dogwoods and azaleas, which are at their peak.  Except for the mighty oak, last to leaf and last to fall, the trees have a nice haze of green about them.  They would have made some pretty pictures.  I kept leaving my camera in the hotel room.

I marveled at the relentless expansion of suburbia here, where one quaintly named subdivision after another gave way to an endless string of identical shopping centers.  Most of them seemed fairly busy.  People seemed to be buying things.  But I wonder.  Do all suburbs have countless cutesy-poo shops where you can OD on colonial-style candle sconces and mallards in six or eight kinds of materials?

By the way, I just used the suffix "-less" three times in one short paragraph.  I think it was an effective rhetorical device, regardless of what you may think.

One thing that struck me all weekend was the sound track of Richmond.  In the car, in stores, in eateries, ALL the music was from the 70s.  I even heard "Jive Talkin'"!  I think that says something.

Speaking of eateries, as you might imagine in The Land of A Thousand Strip Malls, chain restaurants are thick on the ground here.  We ate Saturday lunch at an Outback Steakhouse (the burgers really are good) and filled up on grease Sunday morning at Friendly's.  We gave ourselves a break by going to Can Can Brasserie for dinner both nights.  The grub's very good and the service friendly, even if it is occasionally slow.  I suspect Can Can also has one of the most interesting wine lists in the city.

The wine manager and sommelier, Bob Talcott, has put together a well-priced list of wines from all over France.  The Muscadet (sorry, I wasn't paying close attention to names) was one of the best I've ever had.  Just great with my moules frites.  You have to admire someone who makes the house white a Picpoul in a market like Richmond.  As Bob told me, he's been educating his clientele since the place opened four years ago.  Lessons learned, evidently -- Can Can is very busy, and regulars seem to make up a good share of the diners.  In fact, a couple at the next table said they live close by and eat there three or four times a week.  They always order a bottle of wine.

Click here to see Can Can's wine lists and menus.

  

 

A couple of drinking songs

Or, should I say, songs about drinking?  

After dealing with wine all day, even if you haven't drunk any yourself, you begin to see drinking in a new light.  

I was in a West Village wine store yesterday. A well-bred blonde with a well-bred dog on the leash greeted the store manager with a weary hello and headed back to the refrigerator, pulled out a big-name bottle of Champagne and said, "Here.  I really need this.  What a day I've had.  The last twenty minutes have been..."

"It's just 2:20," the manager said.  "You're back already?"

"Keep another one cold for me.  I may be back.  Bye..."  There was a sob in her voice.

"Messy divorce."  The store manager shook his head.  "Her fucking scumbag of a husband's taken all the money she earned -- and she earned a lot.  Now she's back to having her mother pay her rent and Champagne bills."

Everyone's got a sad story.

To honor that, I present two views of drinking by the same performer.  Attend carefully to the lyrics.

Download 02 What's The Use Of Getting Sober (When You Gonna Get Drunk Again)  

Download 17 Brotherly Love

The problem of authenticity

Many thanks to the provocative comments some of you left after my post of April 13.  I'd like to reprint Rachel Black's in its entirety, with some emphases added by the editor (me):

This is a very interesting post. First, yes, I agree with Lynch that the Maremma is very different from the rest of Tuscany in every way. Again, yes, most consumers are too ignorant (as in lack of education) to grasp diversity in wine--it is confusing. If you don't know it, it can't be good, right? There is something essentially human about fearing the unknown, especially when it comes to things we ingest. This is truly the omnivore's dilemma but we have recently reached an extreme where our narrow tastes have seriously harmed biodiversity and cultural diversity more generally. 'Native' grape varieties are a case in point: as you note, this trend is bolstered by wine marketing, and I would argue a great deal of uninspired wine journalism.

Second, the question that interests me most is why it is important to determine origins? There is obviously no answer to at what point a grape can be considered 'autoctono'; however, what is interesting here are the political and economic reasons for trying to determine origins. In the case of Sangiovese, origin myths seem to be attached to ideas of authenticity and, in turn, economic gain based on the popularity of a very modern creation--'Super Tuscan' wines. It really is odd. At the same time, the vitigni autoctoni movement in Italy seems to be a call back to age-old regional diversity and greater local identity in the face of industrial homogenization. Yet, like all calls to arms, this will be a struggle.

Finally, humans have been messing with plant genetics for a very long time. Since vitis vinifera is a favourite, it is one of the plants we have messed with the most. I would argue that genetically origin myths are quite difficult to nail down. We would probably learn a great deal about human movements and settlements around the Mediterranean and of our dependence on wine as a social and economic good. Maybe we could tell something of the ongoing relationship between humans and vines as the two adapted to new social, climatic and economic circumstances.

What is most interesting here is why we search for origins and why diversity is often resisted.    

I love the confluence of "origin myths seem to be attached to ideas of authenticity" with "a great deal of uninspired wine journalism."  And here's why: I am sick to death of all the blathering about "real" and "authentic" and "local" and all the rest of the magic words that seem to characterize the "progressive" wing of wine marketing/writing/fandom these days.  The terms have lost whatever meaning they might have possessed in days of yore.  Or even 2-3 years ago.  

To me this is all of a piece with the holier-than-thou ideology of Zluffud (Slow Food as pronounced in Italian), the monastics of the local-ingredients-let's-eat-more-root-vegetables movement and so on.  

Here's the thing.  The measure of quality in wine is neither its precise chemical metrics nor its mystical qualities as bearer of all traditional agrarian-goodness quiddity.  (Analogous to the simpletonian opposition of "industrial" to biodynamic winemaking.)  Excuse me, but there is a middle ground.  Quite a broad one. And nuanced.  

To me as a wine-drinker and importer, the really important criteria of a wine are in a positive response to these questions: 

Does it have character?  (Is it distinctive and not like a heap of other wines?)

  

Do you want it again -- and again?

Do you want to share it with your friends?

Can you afford to buy it?

Fashionable constructs like "tradition" and "authenticity" and "purity" tend to fall away as irrelevant as you contemplate this approach to appraising wine. 

     

Advice to Italian wine producers: Lighten up!

Sorry, folks, I'm cross-posting in a lame effort to get you to visit Muddy Boots.  

Today's post: a couple of pet peeves...

When you're 64

To Marcia Sue (Meysha Simcha), who would have been 64 today.

Download 09 When I'm Sixty-Four

Native grape or interloper?

When does an imported grape become a native grape -- or, as they say in Italy, autoctono (indigenous)?  

In certain wine-producing regions this is no idle question.  These days the rage for indigenous grapes is such that it's easy to acquire a snobbish, narrow-focused attitude toward interlopers like, say, Cabernet Sauvignon or Sauvignon Blanc.  I admit to have succumbed to it from time to time, and I've been sorry.  ("Well, thank you, Mario, but I really don't want a Merlot of all things from this part of the world."  Taste. Re-taste.  Consider.  "God, this Merlot is fantastic!")

In Alto Adige and Friuli, for example, Merlot and Pinot Blanc, to name two varieties, have been present for at least two centuries.  The wines made from those grapes certainly possess a clear regional stamp; you'd never confuse a Pinot Blanc from Alto Adige with one from New Zealand or, indeed, from anywhere in France.

All of this was brought home in a recent article in Wine & Spirits magazine (April 2009).  David Lynch's story, "Bassa Maremma," points out that Sangiovese isn't the right grape for much of this sandy coastal area with its dry, mild climate.  The Morellino di Scansano subvariety has its own DOC, but Lynch quotes enologo Maurizio Castelli as saying, "Sangiovese does not go well in locations near the sea."  Castelli looks to other grapes to give the local wine character -- alicante bouschet, syrah, alicante/grenache and other vitigni introduced by the Spaniards 500 years ago help give the wines of the "deep" or truly coastal Maremma their special Mediterranean character.  (Think about it.  "Mediterranean" and "Chianti" are two concepts that rarely cross paths.)  

Lynch's question distills the problem well:  "Is five centuries of history in an area enough to make the grape variety indigenous?"

He goes on to answer the question by deferral:  

Dr. Debs digs biodynamic

For more about Deb Harkness' nice review of Trasubie, a BD Sangiovese/Syrah blend, go to Muddy Boots:

Click!

Corrections

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea minima culpa.

It's Good Friday, Lent is winding down, and I must admit my errors of information before my own personal resurrection on Sunday, i.e., my birthday.  Don't ask the number.  Suffice it to say that if you tried to clap through the years, you'd wind up with some nasty blisters.

First, when I walked up to the Vinitaly stand where Nunzio Aurisicchio (Angelarosa) and his wife were on duty, the missus immediately exclaimed, "Why did you call me Matilde?" She was referring to one of my posts. I got her daughter's name right, but somehow managed to understand Matilde for hers.  "My name is Flavia!"  

Oh snap.

"Matilde", allegedly Flavia, with Dalila and Nunzio 

*****

There are a few more errors on the Domenico Selections site, which I swear will be corrected rather soon.

* On the specs page of I Stefanini's Monte di Fice, I wrote -- again unaccountably -- that the wine resides a while in oak.  No, not true.  No wood.  It's the minerality of the volcanic soil and the holding-back of the wine for over a year before release that creates the impression.  And the partial malolactic fermentation.

* On the Borgo di Gete page of Reale's winery, I incorrectly wrote that the wine spent 10 months in oak.  No, no, it's 15 months.  

To err is human, to forgive uncommon.

What it's like to be back home

The first thing you notice is the noise.  Every city has a different noise profile.  Here, in Midtown East, it's the snarling traffic making its way to the Queensboro Bridge (aka 59th Street Bridge).  Ambulances and especially fire trucks screeching and bellowing all through the night.  The squeaky passage of a homeless person's laundry cart in the dead of night.  

The second thing is the light.  At night you never see the stars because the hundreds of lights from thousands of buildings shine all night.  You get so used to them you don't see them and you can sleep as if it were pitch-dark in the apartment.  

Everything looks very dirty and run-down.  Maybe because it's been gray and cold this spring.  Maybe it's because I still feel the effects of traveling and the bronchitis-to-pneumonia.  Maybe it's because everything IS dirty and run-down.  

Still, it's good to sleep in your own bed.  And to get a turkey club sandwich any time you want it.

     

Another new offering from Domenico Selections

A top-quality ripasso will enter the Domenico Selections lineup in time for the fall season. Click here for details on Muddy Boots. 

X-post factum

Please see Muddy Boots for the announcement of two new wineries added to the Domenico Selections lineup.  

Yes, for the moment, our love affair with the Mezzogiorno continues.