Luca Zaia (L) President of the Veneto Region It’s been a few days since Vinitaly 2024 ended. Here are some random thoughts about the Italian wine trade show that is held for four days in April in Verona. First off, those with a stake in such things will declare “The 2024 Vinitaly was the best ever!” and they will back it up with formulated statistics that claim “attendance was up 4% from the previous year!” And that will be true. From 93,000 people in 2023 to 97,000 in 2024 were estimated to have attended. Now it doesn’t necessarily mean they break down the attendance if the same pers ..read more

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante was made into a TV series. We’ve been watching it here on the island. I have been struck by how many places and themes hit home for me. In fact, I had a bit of an epiphany in this 3rd year. I don’t know how to accurately say it, but it was as if I had a confluence of memory and observation coupled with an ancestral energy, as if I am recognizing something I am at first seeing. Anyway, it really moved me to thinking about what it really means to be Italian and have Italian feelings. Especially in the wine world, where I am witnessing all manner of people w ..read more

Since the receding of the pandemic, the wine world has seen the starting up again of traveling shows, seminars and winemaker presentations. And of course, the return of the Master Class on just about everything. In today’s hyper-aggrandized environment for aspiring wine professionals, where certification is all the rage, one would think that someone like a master sommelier or master of wine could be more than capable of teaching such a class. And many are. Likewise, I’ve been in master classes led by master sommeliers who had me squirming in my seat for their lack of preparation and dissemina ..read more

From the archives... Over the past month, as my personal fog has lifted, there have been dreams. And in these dreams, many of them have had family who are no longer with us. The Grande Cinema of them all is one which has taken on a life after waking. We’re in a large family dining room. Around the table are my dad, and his parents, my grandmother and father. Also there is my dad's sister and her husband, and my dad's uncles and aunts, wives and husbands. My mother’s mother is there as well as my mom's older sister and her two brothers and their wives. The table is oval and large. It is co ..read more

We are in the month of March – which has been, traditionally, in the wine trade, a time when winemakers and winery owners jet off and taste their clients on their releases, new and sometimes old. Slow Wine, Gambero Rosso, James Suckling, even Vinitaly with its Road Show, are crisscrossing the planet and spreading the Gospel of Italian Wine. So, it came to be, on a Friday at Noon, one week before Good Friday, that the proprietor of the fabled Tuscan estate, Il Carnasciale, landed in Dallas, between Slow Wine gigs in Austin and Denver for a quick twelve-hour sip and swirl with local chefs and s ..read more

This past week, it was raining hard, and I needed to walk my new knee. So I went to the local mall, North Park, which is enclosed and dry and has a lot of great art and stores. It also has Eataly, an Italian emporium, a dozen places to get espresso, clean bathrooms, and some nice shops. I am into watches, so I like to look at the new offerings as I perambulate my way towards new-knee health. But recently I’ve tracked a trend in retail, which I have been sensing also happens in the world of wine – the new gatekeepers. Three incidents happened, almost at the same time. This first one was in ..read more

Recently, I was introduced as an Italian wine expert. I bristled a little, and explained that at this time I am an enthusiast, and maybe one time I had been a little more involved in the day-to-day business of expertise, but that I have never considered myself an expert. But it got me to thinking about proficiency, and specifically, which person out there might be the #1 Italian wine expert in the world. A tall order, for sure, and one which might be different for different people, in different parts of the world. For the sake of this speculative exercise, though, I decided to lay down a few ..read more

Last Monday, I received a note from a friend in Italy. “Enrico Scavino has crossed over into the Great Sea.” Our paths first crossed 40 years ago, in 1984. It was my first business trip to Italy, and I was with my friend and colleague, Guy Stout. We had a duo of Italian restaurateurs with us, and our guide, Barone Armando de Rham, who represented Scavino to us in the U.S. We were coming from Vinitaly, which in those days was a smallish (but growing) affair. Piedmont! It was so exciting to be going to the Burgundy of Italy, which was what we were told. In those days, the Italian wines and regi ..read more

I’ve been abstaining from drinking any kind of alcohol for the past month, as I had knee surgery and didn’t want it to interact with any medications I was on. Things also were tasting metallic, probably a reaction from all the chemicals that had been pumped into me. Do you want to know something? I really didn’t miss wine. Meanwhile, I scroll past endless dinners and wine tastings from friends and colleagues. The effect is that some of these folks seem to be having an endless and moveable feast, from London to New York, Milan to Hong Kong. If I didn’t know better, I’d almost jump to the concl ..read more

Yesterday morning, very early, I had this odd sensation. I remember lying in bed, as I have done for the past month, recovering from full-knee replacement surgery. I hadn’t been sleeping well for that month, so I just figured it was part of the process, wailing and flailing and general discomfort. And then I heard an ancient song, by the Shangri-las, whispering lyrics to their hit song, “Remember”: (Remember) walking in the sand (Remember) walking hand-in-hand (Remember) the night was so exciting (Remember) smile was so inviting (Remember) then she touched my cheek (Remember) with her fingert ..read more