Partying in a cave with Paul Gillet from Maisons Brûlées.
I attended my third 10-year anniversary party in the month of March. Whether you are a winemaker, a pizza maker, or a wine importer, a decade in business is a mile marker worthy of some cake and balloons.
I left Paris and drove to Vineuil. Paul Gillet was hosting a soirée. At least a dozen natural vignerons were pouring wine in a limestone cave. Can’t miss that! The entrance to the fête was in the cliff that faced a tertiary road. It felt like I had ventured deep into the Loire. Townsfolk weren’t privy to this happening. I found it because of a short line of cars. The vehicles looked busted enough to belong on farms. Dead giveaway.
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Top 10 pizzas of 2022: A retrospective.
#10: Sant’ Isidoro Pizza e Bolle (Rome) fried artichoke, parmesan and curly parsley pizza. On the edge of a normal neighborhood, close to the Tiber, the via Oslavia location of Sant’ Isidoro Pizza e Bolle served the best lunch of a five-day stay in the capital. A second pizza (anchovies, breadcrumbs, marinara) was almost as excellent. In-season, perfectly fried artichokes changed this pizza from excellent to otherworldly. (April 8th, 2022)
#9 La Sorgente (Abruzzo) “Pizz’ e Foje” Mustard greens. Turnip tops. Local cow’s milk cheese. Honey. Sweet pepper from Altino. Orange zest. This gets the ‘Going for it: wild ideas that work’ award for 2022. Adherence to indigenous flavors kept exuberance from tipping over into foolishness. The crust was referential of pizzas from Rome, not Napoli. The flavors were entirely Abruzzese. (July 10th, 2022)
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Fattoria Castellina: Biodynamic wines from the Tuscan wilderness
“We have a window to the sea”. I’m on a hilltop above Capraia. Parched amber fields dotted with olive trees, a huge sky. It’s a remarkable view. The land slopes down from Elisabetta Mainardi’s agriturismo at an even grade. The inclined plane continues past Fattoria Castellina’s swimming pool, into a thicket of live oaks and uninviting seaside vegetation. The land beneath our feet is sandy. A cool breeze from Livorno makes being outside at midday tolerable, at least in the shade.
The power is out. Elisabetta and Eleonora are busy preparing lunch, under challenging circumstances. A cluster of guests seem unconcerned by the lack of electricity. The pool is still cold, and there’s wine to drink. A tattooed couple make out in the deep end. A gambling man would peg the scattered tourists sheltering under umbrellas as British. They wilt under the Mediterranean sun like exiles from cloudy northern isles.
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Pizza journal, vol. 2. Three scenes in Campania.
Sulfur rises from the earth. It passes through freezing water, and sticks to my legs. My feet wobble on round river stones. The liquid elicits a flight reaction. I force my body deeper. It is painful. I collapse wholly under the surface. Thermal normalization never comes. Completely submerged, then floating, every second is a struggle to remain in the frigid pool.
Talese Terme smells like eggs. Elegant gardens surround the spring. Columns, statues, art nouveau posters of bathers with parasols drinking sulfurous water as a curative. The literature that accompanies my 12 euro entrance fee suggests Talese’s fizzy water is a miracle liquid to heal many small maladies. Two long arcs of whitewashed alcoves surround the pool. A reclining chair is tucked into each alcove. They are comfortable. After the plunge I sink into one, and doze off. Cognitive function is gone. My body uses all available power to return its temperature to the normal range for land mammals.
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Pizza Journal July 4, 2022. La Comedia dell'Dante/Daniele
The hills outside of Rome are on fire. Funny that didn’t make the news in America. I suppose we have our own problems. And our own fires. I’ve listened to farmers chronicle the days without rainfall this spring and summer, and unremitting heat that started in May. We’ve reached the burst-into-flames point on our journey through the pre-apocalypse.
It’s raining ash on the northern half of the city, including the Parioli neighborhood where I’m staying. I notice the extreme haze while driving away from Fiumicino airport. The smell of woodsmoke hangs over Il Cigno Pasticceria while I stop for a coffee-flavored granita, and a coffee. Served in a chilled silver chalice! I’m tired. Or maybe my blood oxygen level is low. Or maybe withdrawal is setting in. Twenty four hours away from American cold brew and my thoughts and movements are slowing down.
I was sure someone in Parioli was grilling brats in an oil drum over fancy charcoal, to celebrate our country’s glorious revolution. Italians love American things. There’s a Don’t Tread on Me flag hanging from the balcony behind the hotel. Maybe it’s that guy. I wonder if he misses his AR-15. Writes it letters. Has a postcard from the gun range taped to his fridge.
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A visit with Renata at Slow Foods Italy
I had to catch up with Renata and Giovanni at Slow Wine Bologna the moment I arrived, because they were sneaking out early to catch a plane to Copenhagen, Denmark, and then Malmo, Sweden. Yet more wine events bekon. I’m glad dacapo are doing a brisk business in Scandinavia. I know it has been a challenging series of years for many small farmers whose wines we import. Dacapo is no exception. Their cellar and vineyard work have transformed the property, setting Renata and Giovanni up for reaching a new plateau of quality in years ahead. But all that hard work required cash, and the Covid weakened many wine markets in Italy.
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La Casaccia: Margherita has a surprise
We’re meeting in a strange setting. Cold for such a warm person, whose place in my work life has become closer to a friend than a wine provider. We’ve gone running together, in Durham and in Cella Monte. We’ve shared too many meals to count, and spent hundreds of hours criss-crossing my home state selling wine. We’ve even picked grapes together.
It’s a strong bond, made in the spaces where we live and work. But today we are meeting in a vast conference center in the drab industrial outskirts of very beautiful Bologna. It’s the first-ever Slow Wine fair, and I’m happy to be catching the last few hours of a three-day event. Time enough to reconnect with a half-dozen winemakers whose bottles will be in our warehouse this spring.
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