Italy Day 4: finalmente, Vini Veri!

Above: tasters nap in the springtime sun outside Villa Boschi where the Vini Veri tasting was held again this year. I don’t know why but my day at Vini Veri made me think of the northern Italian folk song “L’uva fogarina”: “Quant’è bella l’uva fogarina, quant’è bello saperla vendemmiar!” (The Fogarina grape is so good! So good for the pickin’!). See below…

Let’s face it: we all go to Vinitaly every year because we have to: by the second day of the massive trade and consumer fair, the pavilions are a slosh of deal-making, true and otherwise would-be wine professionals, the occasional parasitic wine writer, and a sea of reveling imbibers who show up to get their drink on. Every year, the same parties, the same dinners, the same 45-minute back-and-forth drive from Verona because who can afford a $700-a-night room downtown? Well, I can’t.

But a breath of fresh air awaits those true lovers of real wine who attend the increasing number of satellite, alternative fairs. My favorite is the Vini Veri tasting, held at the Villa Boschi in the heart of the Veronese heartland (Isola della Scala township).

Above: I was captivated by Dario Princic’s whites, all of them macerated with skin contact, like this Pinot Grigio (in the photo). Few realize that Pinot Grigio is a red grape — a light red, but red nonetheless. It was the Santa Margherita white Pinot Grigio craze (which began more than 25 years ago) that made Pinot Grigio a white grape. Princic’s wines are fantastic.

Highlights:

Dario Princic (Friuli, see above, his Tocai was among the best I’ve ever tasted), Vodopivec (Friuli, I tasted some aged Vodopivec Vitovska later on in the trip and will report in an upcoming post), Coste Piane (Veneto, Prosecco aged sur lies and fermented using metodo classico - double-fermented in bottle - in magnum, freakin’ killer), Monte dall’Ora (Veneto, great Valpolicella and his top Amarone is off-the-charts good, need to taste with Brooklynguy) and, of course, Paolo Bea (the inimitable producer of Sagrantino).

But that’s not to exclude so many awesome producers who make natural, real wines: Cappellano, Trinchero, Rinaldi (Giuseppe), Cos, just to name a few (Maria Teresa Mascarello was not at Vini Veri this year).

Above: Gianpiero Bea of Paolo Bea. Gianpiero is one of the founders of Vini Veri.

Dario Princic told me that there is a movement within Vini Veri to reunite with the splinter group Vinatur and the Triple A tasting next year: the idea is that of organizing a fair at the Vicenza fair grounds with 200-250 producers, a fair that “could truly rival Vinitaly,” Dario said.

When I asked Gianpiero Bea about this, he didn’t seem too pleased.

Above: it was great to see my old friends Steve and Sita, high-school sweethearts (they met on an exchange program in Spain), married to this day, with two beautiful daughters. Sita’s friend Giovanni Baschieri got me my first gig in Padua way back in 1987!

My college roommate (from my first year at the Università di Padova) Steve Muench (above left) and his wife Sita Saviolo (above center) drove down from Padua to taste with me. I saw them a few times on this trip and they even made it up to Ljubljana to see Nous Non Plus perform there.

I can’t recommend Vini Veri enough: if you have the chance next year, be sure to make it down there. To me Vini Veri represents a mix of all the best things about Italy: real wine, real people… winemaking as ideology, winemaking that expresses place… heavily-left-leaning politics and homegrown, grassroots organizing… Vini Veri is a wine fair that even Pier Paolo Pasolini would be proud of (especially in the light of his Friulian origins, since so many great Friulian producers present their wines there). Does anyone remember Poesie a Casarsa?

Even if you don’t understand Italian (or Friulian dialect), check out the images in this short on the collection of poetry that won Pasolini fame at an early age:

There are many versions of L’uva fogarina on YouTube but I liked this one the best. Most believe the Fogarina grape to be a type of Lambrusco found near the town of Gualtieri in Emilia. Something about that beautiful spring day in the middle of the fields made me think of L’uva fogarina. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination…

Oscar Party

Above: brother Abner and cousin Amalia donned Groucho Marx glasses in honor of Oscar Riles Parzen.

The Riles and Parzen families gathered last Sunday to celebrate the arrival of Oscar Riles Parzen (January 18, 2008, 7 lbs, 14 oz). Held at the San Diego Yacht Club, the affair was dubbed the “Oscar Party” and included awards, commemorative t-shirts, speeches and readings (I read “Where the Sidewalk Ends” by Shel Silverstein),* and an Oscar piñata (left).

Marguerite, Micah, Abner, and Oscar Riles Parzen treated us to a sumptuous brunch of smoked salmon, eggs Benedict, roast beef with horse radish, and pastries. Bloody Marys and Mimosas were also served. Little Oscar slept through most of the festivities.

Many years had passed since I thought of “Where the Sidewalk Ends,” a poem I read and re-read countless times as a child. With all the talk today about global warming (and how global warming is or is not affecting winemaking), recession, war, and the pitfalls of politics, it occurred to me that little Oscar is one of the “children” who know “where the sidewalk ends,” who has yet to see the “pits where the asphalt flowers grow.” It will be sometime before his halo slips into Baudelaire’s fange du macadam or mire of macadam.**

I hope the world’s a better place when little Oscar grows up and I was glad to share this moment of blissful ignorance with him.

The Riles and Parzen families and family friends. Oscar is in the first row, fourth from left, held by his grand-mère Jane Riles.

From the left, Annelise Riles (holding her son Xavier), Jane Riles (Oscar’s grand-mère), and Oscar’s mother Marguerite Riles. Annelise is a professor and has her own chair at Cornell.

Proud father Micah Parzen.

Marguerite created these nifty commemorative t-shirts.

* Where the Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

– Shel Silverstein

** “My halo slipped off my head and fell into the mire of the macadam,” wrote Baudelaire in his prose-poem “Perte d’Auréole” or “Loss of a Halo,” 1865. The macadam process for paving roadways was invented by Scottish road-builder John Loudon McAdam (1756 - 1836). The word tarmac is also derived from his name.

I’m Drinking What He’s Pouring (or This Ain’t Circe’s Wine)

Above: despite his modesty, wine writer David Lynch is no second-string sommelier (center, with enologist Antigoni Karamvali and marketing director Valerie Tsakiris of Boutari).

It seems that Greek wines are in the air: Eric included a wine from Santorini in a post and column this week and I recently learned that the 2008 Food & Wine Classic in Aspen will include a seminar on Greek wine led by David Lynch — wine writer, top-flight sommelier, and all-around good guy.

Week before last, David and I attended a tasting of wines by Boutari (whose website is written entirely in Greek). Besides Boutari’s winemaker and marketing director, we were also joined by Mitch Frank of The Wine Spectator, a former political writer (whose insights into the current campaign were fascinating).

David likes to joke that he’s a “J[unior] V[arsity]” member among NYC’s top sommeliers but, let me tell you, this guy really knows his stuff: few can rival his knowledge of Italian wine and he’s tasted and poured with the best of them.

“95% of the value of a wine in a restaurant,” he said, “is the serving temperature and the stemware. Serve a $35 bottle of wine at the right temperature and in the right glass, and it’s worth twice that much.”

Above: of the whites, I really liked the Moscofilero (left) but the Santorini (center) blew me away.

While the higher-end blends of native Greek varieties and Bordeaux grapes were international in style and heavy on the wood, the lower-end bottlings were fresh, clean, and delightful. The Moschofilero (white) was distinctive, slightly musky, and delicious with grilled octopus and I really liked the Santorini, made from Assyrtiko grapes, a white with balanced mineral and fruit flavors.

As Eric mentions in his post, the vineyards on the volcanic island of Santorini are a sight to behold (I’ve never been but have seen photographs): the vines are trained in “bushes” (or baskets, as enologist Antigoni Karamvali called them). Bush training helps to protect the vines from strong winds (the same training methods are used in Sicily and Apulia). The bush training also allows the vine to “migrate”: Antigoni showed me images of vineyards originally planted in perfectly straight rows, where the vines had crept — at slightly different rates — to more humid parts of the vineyard. Drinking this wine, you really get that sense of place, that sensation that this wine could have been made no were else in the world.

The wine that surprised me the most, however, was the Nemea (a place name), made from 100% Aghiorghitiko (also known as Agiorgitiko) grapes: the wine was light in color and in the mouth, with wonderful red berry flavor, a perfect wine to serve slightly chilled on a summer’s eve with filleted branzino (otherwise known as Mediterranean sea bass). From what I understood, the price-point for this wine should weigh in under $20.

This was no wine of Circe.* And, hey, if David is pouring, I’m drinking.

In other news…

Thanks to everyone for the messages and positive vibes for VinoWire, which launched this week with a scoop about the changing of the guard at the Bruno Giacosa winery. I am proud to report that VinoWire was the first publication — Italian or English — to to break the story and to reveal the name of the new winemaker. Stay tuned to VinoWire for more…

* For [the painting] “The Wine of Circe” by Edward Burne Jones.

Dusk-haired and gold-robed o’er the golden wine
She stoops, wherein, distilled of death and shame,
Sink the black drops; while, lit with fragrant flame,
Round her spread board the golden sunflowers shine.

Doth Helio here with Hecatè combine
(O Circe, thou their votaress!) to proclaim
For these thy guests all rapture in Love’s name,
Till pitiless Night give Day the countersign?

Lords of their hour, they come. And by her knee
Those cowering beasts, their equals heretofore,
Wait; who with them in new equality
To-night shall echo back the sea’s dull roar
With a vain wail from passion’s tide-strown shore

Where the disheveled seaweed hates the sea.

– Dante Gabriel Rossetti