Wine Jabber

2010 Tasting Trip, Day 6. Best Meal of the Year, Hands-Down.

No spring tasting trip is complete without a meal at Dal Pescatore, one of the greatest restaurants of Italy. I’ve eaten at all of Italy’s Michelin 3-star restaurants (there’s only 4 or 5, sheesh) and this one is hands-down my favorite. It is possibly my favorite place to eat in the world – not only for the amazing cuisine, but the care and graciousness of the staff and family. The old maxim about great service making your meal taste even better is, in my experience, true. I’ve written about the importance of the general mood and tenor of a restaurant’s staff, and what I wrote about Casa Bleve applies here doubly. There is a sense of joy and pride here that I’ve rarely experienced elsewhere. What happens when you take otherworldly food and combine it with great and caring service? Your taste buds are off-planet, definitely.

I survive my first encounter with the Italian Health-Care system.

My knees are hurting so much from all the activity of winemaking – climbing ladders, running up and down stairs, jumping up and off of tractors – that I have begin walking with a noticeable limp. The pain is intense and I am popping Advil like candy corn. Usually, in the States, I see a chiropractor every week or so; I like having good posture and it helps me sleep a lot. Here, chiropractors are unheard of. I try not to complain but Andrea and Rosella, especially, notice that all is not well in Allieland. Unfortunately, they’ve never even heard of chiropractors.

Rosella and Mariuccia

Some days, I help out in the warehouse off the bottling room putting together orders for shipment. Rosella, Luca’s wife, is in charge of shipments, and we become fast friends putting together the orders. There’s always lots of joking and god-natured teasing, but with Rosella there’s a double dose. Andrea walks in one day and tells her that he’s never ever ever EVER seen her mad, unhappy or yelling in all his time at the winery; always happy, never irritated. She tells him to ask Luca if he’d agree with that statement! HA!

Feeling out-of-place.

Some days are easier than others. Thursday is a day to put my head down and just slog through. For the first time since arriving, I had insomnia Wednesday night, and Thursday I cannot seem to do anything right. Even Andrea seems taken aback with me and cannot joke about my abundant fuck-ups. I haven’t had a wi-fi signal to grab since Sunday and I am really feeling out of touch and, for the first time this trip, noticeably lonely. I am feeling worn down.

I think this says it all.

At a local winery, I find a half-empty blackboard. I decide to leave this tag on every empty winery blackboard or message board I find ...

'K. I'm Back.

Thanks for your patience, gentle readers – it’s been since February that I posted and it has been a “wee bit o’ a trip” since that time. I’ve traveled a lot since then: France in January (wine visits in Champagne), Italy in March (the usual tasting/research trip in Veneto and Piedmont), then two weeks of delirious relaxing in Switzerland in July (hiking in the alps, no wineries whatsoever) plus short trips to New York (several), San Francisco and Santa Fe. I also, decided, during this time, to sell off most of my business activities – I now no longer have employees, a wine store, a cellar construction business – everything has been re-purposed toward doing work with a laptop and an internet connection wherever I may find myself. Then as icing on the cake … I decided to move out of the historic home I’ve owned for 21 years and have lovingly restored from “dump” to “babe lair” (or thereabouts) and move from Colorado Springs (my home of the last 26 years) up the road to a condo apartment in downtown Denver. One-third the space, no less. As I have no intention of boring you with the nitty-gritty of these decisions, I’ll just say that I’m ready to “lighten.” Sound like a mid-life crisis? Sure, sure – I’m just glad I’ve already suffered through the indignities of the high-maintenance girlfriend, the large, tacky gold medallions with the unbuttoned-nearly-to-my-waist shirt (looooove that look!), the uncontrollable need to share waaaaay too much with total strangers and the de-rigeur overpowered sportscar. I have no intentions about being a moron in exactly same way twice. No, no, my friends, you won’t be bored. I’ll be finding new and original ways of moronosity …

I hope to have Denver as a base for writing and living, and spending 3-5 months of the year traveling and researching.

Traveling and researching what? Two, maybe three books – one on general wine education, derived from my experience of owning a wine centered restaurant (Primitivo – some of you may remember it); a second on Barolo wine in particular (twelve years of notes and counting) and lastly, a possible fiction – a mystery set on a border. I’ll give some ideas about the books in the next post.

In any case, the last two months have been a whirlwind – lack of sleep, bad eating habits and not enough down time have been the norm. I got on a plane from Denver to Frankfurt and slept 8 hours straight, then two on the next flight, took a four-hour afternoon nap in Rome the first day, then slept 14 hours that night. Yesterday I took the train up to the Barolo, am currently ensconced in a tiny, drafty apartment in the town of Monforte d’Alba and am watching the light change over a storm over the Maritime Alps to the west. I’m here for seven weeks of harvest and cellar work. It’s a beautiful place, and it is nice to come to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere where people know you well.

Picture: The view over the rooftops of Monforte d'Alba from the tiny terrace of my apartment. This is the ONLY place in the apartment where I get any wi-fi signal - So I may not be posting if it starts raining ...

I spent the day getting settled, finding a supermarket, calling friends, and will leave in a few minutes for dinner with the Altares – makers of great, great Barolo. Apparently they started the Dolcetto harvest yesterday. The fruit is good, not great, this year. They have better hopes for the Nebbiolo fruit, which still needs a few weeks of ripening.

More to follow. Thanks for sticking with me.