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NYT "anything goes" Thanksgiving pairing post: Still up-ending wine journalism

As you may know, I penned a sarcastic post on November 12 (click here) about the fatuity of turkey-and-jello-marshmallow-salad-type wine pairings, inspired by the admission of the august New York Times that "Finding good Thanksgiving wines may be a lot easier than you think." (Click here for the article that started it all.)

Blogger response to my post ranged from dismissive (Frankly My Dear) to the "chortling" and "chuckling" variety (Do Bianchi). I especially appreciated Jeremy Parzen's use of the subjunctive ("Lest he think..."), not to mention the context which inspired it.

I can't speak for Eric Asimov or his tasting panel of radicals, but I received a torrent of emails and Tweets from anguished wine journalists, or aspiring ones (5). I received many more (2) from simple consumers. All were angry, confused, upset.

Typical of the consumers' ire was this note from Marcia Watson of Watson Holler, NC: "Damn you New York City smart-asses! I was all set to serve a nice little Chenin Blanc from the Loire, France, with my turkey BUT YOU HAVE THROWN ME INTO CONFUSION. I guess it's back to beer and ice tea. Speaking of tea, now I understand the fury of the tea-baggers. Jerk!"

Here's a heart-wrenching email that I got just yesterday from Ivan Scurry of the Council Bluffs Dispatch & Dollar Trader:

Dear Mr. Strappo,

I know you don't mean to hurt people with your sarcastic wit, but you've caused one more American journalist to enter the lists of the unemployed. Me.

You see, I've been the wine writer and reviewer for the paper since 1976. Or, rather, I was.

I started out with a bang.  They loved my columns on what to drink at the Bicentennial*, and it led to the full-time union job with great benefits that I had until this week. I built my entire professional life around wine reviews and pairings for the holidays. I prepared from July, tasting, noting, eating and drinking various pairings. I did it with patience, dedication and good old Midwestern methodicalness. Oh, we aren't exciting or trend-setting out here. We're just hard-working regular people who want a good day's pay for a good day's work.

Thirty-three years I plied my craft, I honed my profession. I wrote a seminal work on Iowan wineries and wine personalities. That's a third of a century, Mr. Strappo. A working man's lifetime. I was young. Now I'm old. 

And I was happy. I had a place in the world. People knew me in the street. Sometimes even when I crossed over to Omaha. My very presence seemed to bring a smile to every face.

Now they turn away. I am nobody. My career and life are in ruins. Thanks to you and those "trendy" folks at the New York Times. People who don't take seriously the struggles of ordinary Americans in the Heartland to wean themselves off of lite beer and cola drinks. People who forget how hard it was to gain all that wine knowledge in the first place.

Management used your words as the hammer to beat me with. "Goodbye, Ivan. Call us next week. Maybe you can freelance for us." 

I'd kill myself. But I'm already dead.

Jerk.

Sincerely,

Ivan Scurry

* In the acclaimed "Bicentennial wines" series of columns Mr. Scurry created the "All Americans Wine Rainbow", which consisted of 100% American-grown and made wines with names that honored different American ethnic groups. It was a surprisingly inclusive list, featuring such favorites as Gallo Hearty Burgundy, Sebastiani Green Hungarian, Carlo Rossi Chianti, Manischewitz Concord Grape (a clever bow to both Jewish and white-bread small-town WASPs) and Richards Wild Irish Rose wine. It remains a masterpiece to this day.

      

 

Looking ahead

What will 2010 be like for Italian wine in the US?

Like 2009. Only more so.

Everyone's been hoping for a big rebound in 2010, but early indications are that the market will not snap back to "normal."  Retailers and restaurateurs in New York-New Jersey keep pushing for lower-cost wines; except for holiday gift shopping, the mantra will continue to be "under $20."  

With the weaker dollar, this has important ramifications for producers, importers, customers. 

Producers need to get serious about discounts. I'll go beyond that and recommend they lower their pricing domestically as well. Italian consumers are scraping by these days. Aspirational pricing is no longer feasible, and fashion should follow feasibility. In terms of international competitiveness, Italian producers must lower prices or continue to lose market share to the South Americans. (Talk about an ignominious fate.)

The Grim Discounter

I just got a price list from a Piedmontese producer who assured me that the 20% discount he offered was the best deal he'd offered any US importer. But 7 euros for a Nebbiolo d'Alba reduced to 5.60 -- it's not an attractive price. It would end up on local shelves for, what, $25? I wrote the poor guy back and suggested we start talking at a 30% discount. 

Another Piedmontese producer understood right away, proposing something close to a 50% discount. He's sitting on a lot of wine. Forget dreams of getting rich. These days it's about enough cashflow to pay the bills.

As a consequence, importers have to get very picky. 

How many times have I heard of such-and-such an importer who has an excellent book, but whose wines are too expensive for today's conditions?  And how many times have I heard of the distributors who represent them slashing prices to an extent that undermines the entire market for, say, Brunello? 

May I tell you that it didn't take a genius to see two years ago that the economy was overheated and was going to experience a hard landing? We saw it coming, and we're hardly Paul Krugman. Our mistake was to underestimate the depth of the depression or "Great Recession" -- which was what they called the Great Depression for its first couple of years. We thought $25 would be the cut-off, not $20 or even less, as it is now.

So we, too, have some very good wines that must be discounted for clearance. Whether we reorder from the producers in question is a matter of their realism on pricing. If they remain fixed on their 2007 prices, then ciao ciao, bambini.

Customers -- our customers, the retailers and restaurant guys -- are having their own brand of hard times. All you have to do in New York is look at the exalted restos that offer deeply discounted prix fixe menus, or those which have changed their name, menu and price points to cope with the new reality. One startling example is David Burke's new eatery on the Upper East Side, FishTail. It focuses on seafood and posts prices far less extravagant than its sister restaurant one block south, David Burke's Townhouse.

Plenty of these guys are just scraping by because their clientele no longer has the money or stomach for $100+ bottles at restaurant table or $40 ones at home. They want a nice bottle with dinner, but they're willing to trade down. And in many cases, no doubt, discovering that the bottle costing one-half what they used to pay is really about as good as the expensive one. The inevitable thought will occur: "Why should I go back to spending more than I need to?"

For those of us who haven't received any TARP money, this mentality is going to persist a long long while.

    

  

THANKSGIVING WINE STUNNER: EXPERTS CLAIM RED OR WHITE OK!

This is big news. Big. Turkey will pair well with white and/or red wines!

It's what Eric Asimov's tasting panel concluded, and it rocks the entire wine world. I can imagine that even in the Antipodes, far from the traditions of Pilgrims and Squanto, the wine folk are buzzing about it today. The single most incriminating line of the story is a caption that says, "Finding good Thanksgiving wines may be a lot easier than you think."

This admission throws years of seasonal punditry and diatribes into doubt -- nay, casts them into the Dustbin of History. Whether you realize it now or not, ladies and gentlemen, mere chaos has just been loosed on the world.

To gauge reactions to this revelation, I managed to track down -- more exactly, to twitter down -- some of the wine cosmos' most important luminaries at their watering hole and wallow pond in London. I asked them point-blank what they thought of this radical idea.  Out of respect for them and their power in the marketplace, I hesitate to publish their unvarnished responses -- not because they are shocking but because they appear shockingly unwilling to grapple with what appears to be a Paradigm Shift. But, as a serious investigative wine journalist -- or blogger, same thing -- I feel it is my duty to do so.

The Emperor of Wine: Thnksgv hedonistic holiday. big bird > big fruit > big red. Pls 4get Loire. Greeeen.

Web TV Star & Author: See, we HV ALREADY CHANGED WINE!!

The "This-Barolo-Smells-Like-Dog" Guy: Lst yr had '45 Haut Brion w tky. Magisterial! Ended w 1861 Ch dYquem, ambrsial

The Importer With the Tumor:  Something J & F used to bring in

The Lady Who Has a TV Show & Picks Wines for Delta Airlines: Whtvr sponsr wants me 2 push

East Village Wine Geek: TOTALLY FCKIN AWSOME!!!

The Empress of Wine: all rthr silly isn't it? choose s.t. pleasing + feast on

The Guy Who Blogs New York Wines: Shandling Bros Merlot-Chard blend perfect choice 4 yr relatives

The Wine Czarina: Did U stuff bird w oysters? Treyf! Will just pick. Anything fr Loire bt it mst smell bretty!

 

 

Stupid Americans in Tuscany

This is how dumb Americans can be --

No, no, let me set this up properly.

A few years ago I met a Tuscan landowner and producer of wine and olive oil (naturalmente). He had a posh agriturismo (let not the name dismay, an agriturismo is a tax dodge). His marketing person had told me that his goal was to get guests to pay to harvest grapes and, later olives. He confirmed this. We laughed. The marketing person then was an American too. "You're gonna make them pay to help you harvest!?" We talked about all those Poles and Romanians who would be jobless if this outlandish idea took hold.

FF to today. The producer and his current marketing person told me that, certo, Americans were paying 100 euros extra to spend 2 days "helping" harvest the grapes. OK, they probably got in the way more than they really helped. Still.

I asked what sort of idiots these people were.

"They're 60 year old people who have never done anything like this, and they were thrilled." 

"Oh, they're the sort of Americans who walk around with a smile all the time and are enthusiastic about everything - even being exploited?"

"Yes!" Then they told me I wasn't a typical American. Jesus, I thought, are we all supposed to be that dumb?

"They're not like you! You're not a real American!" What, they've been Twittering with Sarah Palin?

I wondered where these poor saps could have come from. Besides Ohio. Anybody from Ohio is just so tickled to leave the place. I asked, "Well, what did they get in return?" 

"Well, we gave them lunch."  (!!!)

"What did you give them?"

 "Lots of pasta."

"What else?" Blank looks. "A bottle of oil? Some of your cheapest wine?"

They looked at each other hilariously.

"You cheap bastards!"

They laughed and exclaimed, "They loved it! They thought it was a great privilege!"

I told them that if I ever visited them (and I do like their wines), I would avoid harvest time. If I didn't, I'd pretend I didn't speak English, because I'd be highly tempted to start an uprising of the exploited masses (of senior citz).

En bref, mes amis, that is how stupid Americans are supposed to be. 

Chinese people, your big moment is coming. 

   

Natural wine, apotheosis of

The first version of this post was published in March of last year. Since then the New Orthodoxy has marched disputaciously on in its jihadic way.

I've always loved those What If stories, like "What if the South had won the Civil War?"  "What if Hitler had triumphed?"  "What if Attila the Hun had died somewhere in Pannonia before he got to Italy?" 

These are all cliches, and the stories usually wind up with the restoration of our manifest destinies.  You know, the USA and the CSA are reunited in sea-to-sea glory, though nothing is ever mentioned about the status of black people.  American insurgents topple the violent, corrupt, comically incompetent regime of the Nazis, "Hogan's Heroes" meets Abu Graib.  The Roman Empire soldiers on and Pope Leo is consigned to the dustbin of history; in a few centuries the Romans hit the beach at Miami and the eagles of the Legions stand guard over Boise in another century or so, with everyone speaking some sort of Latin.  (We call it "Spanish".)

These are obvious and well-hashed story lines for alternative history.  But no one, to my knowledge, has attempted an alternative history for modern wine.  Not that it would alter a thing, but it is a useful exercise in salutary masochism to imagine What if...

Ities on a junket

I spent a half-hour at an event today. It was full of wine people and hangers-on. There was a press briefing, which I missed to my undying grief, at which Italian agriculture minister Luca Zaia and pezzi grossi from Veronafiere (Vinitaly) and other lobbying entities pimped the glories of Italian agribusiness. 

After the press wanking I went with the flow and found a wee table to stake claim to a seat, wandered around looking for something to eat -- forget it, I don't stand in line for so-so hors d'oeuvres -- and sipped a glass of Bastianich Tocai (Friulano, I mean) as the greedy masses lumbered by. 

I was snubbed by a couple of people (hi, Charles Scicolone, nice to see you too) but I mostly stared with bemusement at the merry Italian junketers who go from Del Posto to Marea to other high-end eateries, usually of the Italian persuasion, on their junkets to New York. Many so elegant, so beautifully tailored, so well-connected. 

They looked delighted, no doubt because They Have Access to Mr. Zaia & Co., and because, well, for a few days they're doing New York which is of course equivalent to saying, "I've been in America. There is a profound understanding of our wines/oil/cheese/salami, and so everything is marvelous." Not to mention the pretty young assistants who travel with il Patrone, whom they undoubtedly call Dr. Max* behind his back. They serve to mitigate the tristesses and solitudes of travel in a distant land.

If these Italian joy-riders do deign to visit another city it's usually Miami (obvious as to why), LA (ditto), San Francisco (ditto). They'll do Boston, Philly, DC -- well, they're not far away and they're important parts of the Northeastern Megalopolis (60 million people or so, the population of Italy in a tighter, richer space), but they're no Vegas, that's for sure. (House rules always favor the big spenders in Washington, unlike in Vegas.)

Maybe a few of the less well-heeled, and those who are more tolerant of provincial cluelessness, will schlepp to Chicago or Dallas or -- ha! -- Cleveland.  But those stalwarts are in a tiny minority, those who leave the cocoon of self-regard with all its comforts and transplanted values. What they experience is or should be a wake-up call, because:

People don't get your wines

They won't pay your ridiculous prices

They find you less charming than strange

You too often have an attitude that can be, oh, a tad off-putting

We all know understanding and appreciation go both ways. 

You're the ones trying to sell something that people can pretty much do without. You first. 

 

*Very old allusion to a scathing satire of the same title (patrone = boss) by Goffredo Parisi.

 

For a more urban America

My brother John visited last week. He lives in a McMansion in suburban Columbus, Ohio, and it was his take on urban life -- or Manhattan life at any rate -- which prompted me to write this post.  

John spent a number of hours just walking around, observing, soaking up the atmosphere, making comparisons. He was amazed by the number of laundries and dry cleaners - at least one per block, it seemed. Also the number of big drugstores, banks (mostly Chase branches) and eateries. 

Paradise, actually

Of course, a part of these profusions comes from the population density. This part of town is mostly highrise apartments. But part of it comes from the limitations of the living spaces that high land and construction costs impose.

* Laundries and dry cleaners: Most people don't have a washer or dryer in their apartments -- at least few renters do, and an article in today's New York Times states that about 75% of Manhattan residents are renters.   

* Big drugstores: Most people have health insurance around here, especially given the fact that the neighborhood skews older (Medicare). Aside from the endless flow of prescriptions drugs, we use Walgreen's, CVS, Duane Reade and so on as convenience stores. Not much call for 7-11 stores; we don't have as many cars as the rest of the country. 

* Banks: Lots of people and, often, lots of money. It's a well-off area, by and large. (By and large, I said.)

* Eateries: We have tiny kitchens here. You can't eat in them. You can scarcely cook in them. And there's not much room to entertain in most apartments. And you have to get out of the apartment yourself because you can't escape to your media room or your rumpus room or whatever for a small change of scene. So there's a plethora of places to eat at all levels of price, formality, ethnicity and so on.

Now these factors aren't anything revelatory for big-city dwellers anywhere in the world, except possibly in the US. Americans are, by and large, used to having a lot of space to call their own, indoors and out. They have to get in a car and drive sometimes miles to get the most basic of items -- a loaf of bread, a bottle of beer, a library book, cash from the ATM. Here, you go down the elevator and walk down the block. It takes less time and less energy in every sense of the word.  (If this is nice when you're 30 years old, think of the benefits when you're 60 or 80. AND they'll deliver almost everything to your door at no extra cost.)

If we leave the neighborhood, we'll usually take a bus or the subway.  Not one person per vehicle, or two, but 50, 100, whatever. Vastly more efficient in terms of energy.

The small apartments mean much less energy consumption per capita. In large buildings like mine, heating comes from huge buried steam pipes that supply buildings up and down the avenue. In summer, it's far cheaper to cool one or two or three rooms than six or eight or twelve per household.  Another bonus: it's less to clean.

And the best thing about living smack in the middle of things is the time you don't have to spend sitting in your car, welded to the damned seat, stuck in traffic or driving many miles to your house.  Several hours per day, often four per day in a congested area like New York-New Jersey. That's four hours a day you can spend working, resting, hanging out with your friends -- whatever you want to do. That's a quarter of your waking hours you've got back to do something other than breathe in exhaust fumes and bore everyone with unnecessary cell-phone calls.

As to the supposed anonymity of the big city, you recognize and greet your neighbors here about as much as you do in smaller places. Maybe more; when I lived in Akron the neighbors would have driven over each other quicker than they'd be pleasant. 

Perhaps even more beneficial is that you encounter people of all races, nations, religions and attitudes every day. By and large you get along fine because if you didn't -- well, you wouldn't be able to get your dry cleaning done or buy fresh vegetables at the corner market or get your hair cut. You rely on one another to make things work. 

By and large, they work pretty well.

 

   

 

Italian wine guides: soliti noti x 5

The usual suspects indeed.  

A quick scan of most of the guides shows a numbing uniformity and predictability, whether from guide to guide or from year to year. Giampiero Nadali has published his compilation of many of the major guides - such as have made their best-of lists available - and you can catch his "public service" post here.

I have to tell you that, reviewing these lists, I realize how sick I am of Italians bitching about the pernicious influence of Robert Parker, the Wine Spectator, etc. The fact is that the tasting panels consistently select the biggest, oakiest reds of the producers. That these are the most expensive shouldn't be much of a surprise; the guide publishers are eager to sell books and the producers to get their best return on investment, and somehow their needs always mesh tidily.

What impresses me most is the relative independence (or is it contrariness?) of L'Espresso's guide. God knows my taste is to the less big, less oaky, the fresher, the more varietally distinctive. Massive amounts of wood don't allow that to come out, and God also knows all that oak masks a heap of defects and short cuts. the editor and tasters of L'Espresso must share some of my preferences because when it comes to the more "tipico" versions of a winery's bottles, they select those over the big barriqued ones.  Case in point: L'Espresso awarded Aurora's Rosso Piceno its highest rating while Veronelli picked the Barricadiero (obvious what that is). The Rosso Piceno is delicious and distinctive; the Barricadiero is, well, New World. 

Well, at least Veronelli selected Aurora for something. Though this guide was implicated in a pay-to-play scandal in recent years, they did break out of the rut and went deeper into regions where Gambero Rosso scarcely deigns to tread. 

Still, for me, the L'Espresso guide is far more credibile and adventuresome.

 

Farewell, thou $50 bottle

There's an interesting piece from Reuters on the MSNBC web site today. It covers the "worldwide glut" in wine and how it's affecting prices.  The leading case in point, the collapse of the market for $50 Pinot Noir from a California vineyard, which is now offering the juice for $19.  (Click for entire article.)

Leave 'em hanging, boys

Well, business cycles come and go. There are periodic wine gluts, which are not always directly connected to business cycles -- bountiful harvests in several wine regions can skew prices for a season or two.

But the really significant piece of information in the article comes at the end: 

Danny Brager, vice president of beverage alcohol at The Nielsen Company, said, "When we last looked at wine at price points north of $20, we saw declines at each of them. It would seem quite logical to us that consumers are stepping down from what they used to spend per bottle, to a lower outlay."

He also found consumers were quite happy with the quality of wines they were buying for less than $20.

Marcelo Papa echoed that sentiment. Papa is one of the four chief winemakers for Chile's Concha y Toro, which unlike its competitors has seen sales of most of its brands rise 30 percent this year.

"Compared to 20 or 30 years ago, wines under $20 or $15 are of much better quality today. They're just better made wines." he said.

(Underscoring mine.)

It's normal for people to scale back in hard times, so the crash of the $20+ segment is no surprise. It's only a slightly greater surprise to read that some cult wines are offering deals. 

But the truly significant point is that improved quality from every wine region in the world, combined with vast production, threatens the medium-term viability of the over-$20 market. Why spend $50 or even $25 for a bottle when there's as good as one on the shelf at $20 or $15?

We see this problem quite clearly in Italy, our source. Makers of perfectly fine but unexceptional wines continue to demand 5, 6, 10, 15 euros a bottle. When we explain the realities of the economic situation in the United States -- not to mention the pitiless competition from all the world's wine regions --  the producers must think we're telling them a tale, something meant to entertain and swindle them.  As an Italian  acquaintance of mine who lives in New York said recently, "They are living in a fantasy. No one's buying there and no one's buying here at those crazy prices." He predicted a collapse of asking prices for wine after the first of the year.

We'll be there, bargaining hard for everyone's sake.

    

Shit Europeans spend money on

I'm in a contemplative mood. I just got back from the Yitzkor service at the synagogue. You get somber when you spend two hours devoted to the dead.  The fact that most of the service is in Hebrew helps; you can drift easily.

So my heart and mind were open as I came across town in a taxi. I saw all the happy people prancing around town on their New Yawk vacation, often wearing the same bewildered-but-we're-determined-to-be-delighted look you see on Americans wandering around Rome and Paris. My heart was heavy as I considered all the expensive toys these Europeans have -- all the shopping they do thanks to our low prices and death-spiraling dollar. 

Item 1: Every European tourist carries around his neck an expensive camera with a vast assortment of expensive, complex lenses. Americans are content with a point-and-shoot digital job.

Reason: Americans spend their money on health care.

Item 2: So many of these tourists lug around big shopping bags stuffed with goodies -- from Saks, Bloomingdale's, Chanel, Tiffany, D & G. Americans tote bags from Daffy's and H&M.

Reason: Americans spend their money on health care.

Item 3: Europeans can be seen eating in voluble, greedy groups in glossy Midtown restaurants. The only Americans you see in such places are on expense accounts, and those far fewer than formerly.

Reason: If Americans have jobs, they're spending it on health care. If they're unemployed, they're going bankrupt from spending on health care. Hello, Subway.  Hello, Quickie Mart.

I'd like to go out for lunch. I'm sick of tuna fish sandwiches. But I'll open a can.

Reason: I just sent in my health insurance premium.

Shit.

No spleen. No shirt. No blog

After some reflection I've realized why wine blogging lost its allure for me. I'm no longer angry all the time.

It's true.  Anger, the desire to ridicule and expose the institutionalized bullshit of the wine world, frustration with my own shitty existence -- all fueled the fires of spleen that got me going and spurred me to rip it up.

As I've read the occasional blog post and the frequent Twitter and Facebook entries in recent weeks, I've noticed the aggression and anger in a lot of them. And the sniping and the bullying and the small-minded assertiveness that seem to propel the bloggers as they jostle for mind-room and bigger-media exposure. I'd ask an irritated "what the fuck is that all about?" except that I know the answer.

As with everything else in our culture, the initial impulse to communicate rather quickly becomes a choice to a) inform b) perform or c) reform.

If you choose to inform in a wine-blogging context, you write even-handed reviews and provide background information without too much editorial coloring.  After all, you're not there to be an advocate or polemicist, your mission is to tell people accurately about a wine, a grape, a region, etc.  In other words, you offer balanced, relatively objective reporting (relative objectivity being the only kind there is). You sane and sober reporters know who you are.

Most of us are less disciplined and more egoistic. We wish to perform. We have an attitude and perhaps a few little axes to grind. We're tummlers. There's an element of aggression in what we do, but there's also the saving grace of play. There's nothing inherently wrong with this choice, but the sheer numbers of bloggers who elect to go this route contribute to excesses in rhetoric and phony controversies. The strategies of "performance" are varied and tricky, and some of the choices made do add a lot of unnecessary noise to the blogosphere.

In other words, a lot of silly, annoying bullshit. Sophomemes, I'll call them. Most of us tummlers are guilty of perpetrating this sort of stuff from time to time.

Finally, in my neat tripartite taxonomy, are those who are on a mission to reform. A self-appointed elite who display all the characteristics of all self-appointed elites: loneliness and contempt.  For they few are bearers of a superior knowledge and purveyors of scorn for all who fail to attain their standard. Quick to sneer, eager to denounce. Foolish in their pretense. 

Once this would have been the point at which I launched a satirical attack on such intolerable asses. But I can't work up the spleen. Splenetic no longer, I am mild as a lamb. My venom has been milked. The fires of hatred have been banked. 

Baby, I'm over it. Got others things to lay waste my powers upon. Arricazzoderci.

   

   

    

Si si, je suis un bloggueur

Yes, ladies and germs, it's been a while.  About two weeks since last I posted on this blog.  And the last few posts were just cross-posts to Muddy Boots.  

Yet, ladies and germs, I occasionally miss the old frisson that a really topping post gave me and, I assume, some of you.

Though, ladies and germs, I am glad to be free of the compulsion to write whatever crazy thoughts came into my head, perpetuating, say, a drunken rant for all posterity or till I cease to pay for the registration of this URL.

Even so, l & g, given the sort of nasty customer I am, there remains a need to spew venom on the happy warriors and poseurs of the wine and wine-blogging worlds, and this will be the place to do it.  Example: from the "town hall meetings" on "healthcare reform" I'm getting a vibe only slightly more vicious and ridiculous than the endless debate on (say) "natural" vs. "industrial" wines, or whatever terms people use to support their faith.  Add gun-toting to the mix and it will be a fun post with a bloody outcome.  Like a wine Hamlet, where everyone dies.  This prospect pleases me for some reason.  

       

89 is not 90: a tale of medium woe

What happens when your wine gets an 89?  

It's like the sound of one hand clapping:  here.

Another dreadful podcast

I am a scemo.*

I intended to post another podcast of Dom & the Somm with Susannah Gold.  Somehow I recorded 'cast 2 over 'cast 1.  Really, I don't know what happened.  Forgive me, Susannah.  You should probably do the sound engineering thing next time. 

Anyway, here's the link to the latest thrilling episode of "Dom without the Somm":  click.

It's short -- 7-8 minutes.  

I tried the video version but the results were hideous to behold.  (Note to self: ALWAYS WEAR THE SHADES.)

 

It's all my fault!

* Halfwit, dummy, dope.

A Muddy Boots controversyette

Clash of philosophies here in Domenicoland

Originally posted on Muddy Boots.  Not in this version

My weak-kneed partners are telling me to lay off the personal, "qualitative" observations.  Present only the facts or, to put it more bluntly, only the facts that are pointedly self-interested.  

For example, they jumped all over me after I posted the one about the wines I'd never import.  (Here.)  And Ken thought a throwaway line was inappropriate here.  "Put that stuff on mondosapore.  That's your safety valve.  You can say anything you want there.  It doesn't directly reflect on Domenico Selections.  That's what you've always used mondosapore for anyway."

They're wrong.  I'm right.

My retort is that if such light-hearted comments aren't thrown in once in a while, Muddy Boots becomes just another boring, smarmy corporate blog: one-note and conventional.  What the fuck's wrong with a little inappropriateness every now and then?  Are we in Victorian London?  Edith Wharton's New York?  Khamenei's Teheran?

Or anywhere there's W?  By the way, I put no stock in the official story that he doesn't drink.  If he truly doesn't, then he really is as stupid as we thought.  

What would you readers, all six of you pathetic dupes, say to support either side?  

Bloomsday & Bloggings Wake

June 16, 1904.  The day reconstructed by a self-exiled Dubliner in Trieste and Paris, whose finished work after years of obsessive rewriting was both the pinnacle and the destruction of the novel.  I refer, of course, to that masterpiece by James Joyce, Ulysses.  

I read the book all the way through three times, twice in the same year.  I haven't got the patience to do it a fourth, and that's my loss.  

Then I think of his last work, Finnegans Wake, over which he obsessed for nearly twenty years, and would have obsessed over longer in new editions if he hadn't died right after his escape to Switzerland as the Nazis spread like ink over France and most of the Continent.  A mad book.  Some sort of mad apotheosis.  This I've never had the patience to read all the way through.  I suspect you need hallucinogens to do so.

There's been much about the changes in blogging of late.  I've weighed in on it.  Fredric Koeppel has. Lenn Thompson has, mostly on Twitter.  Alice Feiring has too, so much so that she's thinking about giving it up, or she says so at any rate.  I'm rather tired of it but now have to maintain not one but two blogs to connive at getting Domenico Selections a bit better known.  Blogging’s gone from being a labor of love to a labor. I think this is, to some degree, inevitable, not least because my goals and my energies are necessarily focused elsewhere.  But we all reach a point where what we're doing no longer seems to work as well as it did or we just grow tired of it.  

You know my heart's not in it as it once was.  The visits and page views numbers reflect the shift of my energies and interests going back to October.  I used to care deeply about the triumphant rise in the bar chart showing a growing readership.  I studied the figures and trends obsessively.  Now I barely look at them. I know the levels are lower than they've been in over two years.  

I do believe it's time to -- not exactly pull the plug on mondosapore, but to devote more time to Muddy Boots.  It means a narrower, less self-revelatory focus, of course.  None of my rants, drunk or sober, no wildly off-topic posts.  For such venting mondosapore will still be personally useful.

Short bursts of op-ed from me will generally suffice.  Twitter, Facebook, the usual minimicromedia.  

Will I really put this blog, the focus of so much energy and passion for so long, out to virtual pasture? Yes yes I will I said yes 

  

 

Obama & Prince Harry: Good for the helicopter industry

Since the Saviour of Capitalism as We've Known It and Prince Polo have hit town, I've heard and seen helicopters everywhere.  E'en now.  Streets were closed all over Midtown last night, although it was hard to know whether it was due to some unfortunate soul's leaping in front of the E train (uptown side at 34th) or the First Couple's Date Nite.  

Two thoughts:

1. Ka-ching, ka-ching, fellow citizens.

2. "Pollution, pollution..."  (pace Tom Lehrer).

I'm just sayin'.

Wine producers in Fantasyland

I was talking with the ubiquitous Giovanni Bertagnolli the other day about the prices Italian wine producers are demanding for their products.  Actually, we were laughing and jeering more than "talking."  The gist:  What's wrong with these people?  Don't they ever get out?  Do they not realize that the world is in a crisis?  And do they really believe China is going to pull them through this severe slump?

There are so many ways in which Italian wine producers are deluded and wrong-headed in their approach to pricing.  Some of them are structural: if you set a price ex-cantina, that's the price you charge a restaurant or wine store too -- someone led me to believe that such is law in Italy. If not law, it's a pervasive custom.  

A lot of it is personal, a pride thing.  Or a desperate desire to claw back some of the immense investments they've made in everything from new vineyards to atmospheric tasting rooms.  Or both.

Anyway, let's imagine a typical exchange with a producer who has her head in the clouds.  (I use a female example only because there are so many good, earnest, ambitious young women making wine these days.  This is not to imply that they're any more unrealistic than their male counterparts.)

*****

"So, Alessandra, this is a nice little red you have here.  Clean.  Good fruit.  Good acidity and balance.  Great with food.  Should be excellent for everyday drinking.  Quanto costa?"

"This is 14 euro."

"Scusa?  How much?"  I nearly drop my glass.

"Quattordici.  Fourteen."  She smiles prettily.  "I use the best Alliers oak barrel."

"I'm glad you don't overuse the barrel.  Otherwise it'd cost even more."

Alessandra's face darkens.  "Good barrels are expensive.  This wine is a good wine!  They pay fourteen in Norway!"

"It is a good wine.  But it's Sangiovese.  From Emilia-Romagna.  To sell in America, it cannot cost me 14 euros a bottle!"

Sulks.  "Why not?  It is biodynamic!"

"It would cost about 60 dollars retail!  Maybe more!  No one would ever buy this wine.  Not one bottle."

She scowls.  "You are making too much!"

I patiently explain exchange rates, shipping, taxes, warehousing, delivery and the wonders of the 3-tier system.  Oh, yes, and the need for markups.  

She ponders.  Calculates in her head.  Sighs tragically.  "I give a discount.  But no one must know!"

"OK.  I'm glad you're getting realistic.  So what's the figure?  Three-fifty?  I could live with four euros.  It is biodynamic."  I smile in an encouraging, you-can-do-it, avuncular way.  

Alessandra steps back from the table.  She folds her arms.  Her eyes glint at me in the semi-darkness of the tasting room.  "Ten.  Not one cent less.  Ten euro.  If you buy five pallet."

I step back from the table, too.  I sidle toward the door.  "Interesting proposition, Alessandra.  Thanks so much for your time.  Let me go back and discuss this with my partners.  I'll' get back to you in a couple of weeks."  Which is me saying, You're nuts, lady.  This is an end-cap wine.  It's really worth 2.50.  And lay off the damn wood!  

 

US Embassy promotes gay art!

Decadence, la dolce vita style

When I got to my hotel room this afternoon, I was shocked by what I saw across the street at the American Embassy.  

There, within the walled compound that looks so impressive and worthy of renditionable fright, I noticed (1) that it is in fact a giant parking lot and 

(2) that the main buildings of this "temple complex" are festooned not only with pagan art, they are desecrated with homoerotic (queer-loving) pagan art!

 

The man in the photo, no doubt a pagan "god," is either holding a weapon in his right hand or extremely glad to be in Rome    

If you click on this photo, you will clearly see that the male figure in the center is unclothed.  

As if that weren't disgraceful enough, consider this: his effeminate stance and pre-pubescent size of his genitalia reveal an obsessive paedophilia on the part of the "artist".

As an American and a taxpayer, I want to know: how and why was this so-called classical art purchased?  By whom?  

How I long for morning in America.  This would have never happened on Ronald Reagan's watch!

   

Una nuova realtà salernitana

A new development in the Salerno area

We first visited with Rino di Maggio and Tiziana a year and a half ago.  Lunarossa, the winery they run together about an hour south of Salerno, produces about 55,000 bottles a year of reds and whites on 7.2 hectares, or about 17 hilly acres.  While they have received favorable recognition since their foundation in 2000 from a slew of high-profile Italian publications (Bibenda, Veronelli, Gambero Rossi, etc.) the wines didn't especially appeal to us. The main problem was that Rino pushed really hard on the international varieties; in addition to the local Fiano, Aglianico and Falanghina, he made a lot of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon blends.  They may have won praise in some circles, but we thought they weren't distinctive enough to introduce into the US market.  I mean, really, we have plenty of such blends already on the shelves and wine lists of our suffering land.  We weren't going to load up on another one, or two, or three.

Above: Some dreadful Yank giving Rino an earful