A Source of Real Satisfaction

It’s April 2006. I’m purposefully ambling through a complex of airplane-hangar-sized exhibition halls in the northern Italian city of Verona. The scene is set with a low rumbling din flowing from the rows of stands of varying elaboration laden with WINE! I hate to use this cliche`, but the shoe fits like a glove - I was like a kid in a candy store - and I think most of you would have been too…aisle on aisle of wine on offer from the most enologically diverse country in the world, and you can taste any or all of these nectars for free! The event in question is the now famous Italian wine fair: VINITALY. But despite all of the things to be learned and the fun to be had in tasting, I was there for work. I was looking for some exciting and “never before seen on the other side of the pond” wines for the shop…

I had set my priorities weeks before. Italy has more wines than Jamaica’s got mangos, so WITHOUT a clear focus, wasting time and the dissipation of energy is all too easy to manage…I had decided to leave what I’d call the “Big 4″ (Tuscany, Piedmont, Veneto, and Puglia) wine producing regions in Italy out of the mix entirely. Not because there aren’t lots of GREAT wines that come from these regions, but precisely BECAUSE of it! As I said above, and have been saying for years, Italy’s greatest vinous resource is its diversity, but whether from a lack of imagination, courage, or gumption, importers and buyers worldwide have over-emphasized these regions over the others, leading to a lopsided selection of Brunellos, Barolos, Pinot Grigios, while COMPLETELY ignoring entire other regions with other stories to tell (how many of you have ever drunk a wine from Valle d’Aosta or Molise or Calabria?).

So I focused on three roads less travelled (Liguria, Lazio, and Molise) and one that while already “discovered”, is still in dire need of deeper digging (Friuli Venezia Giulia). The only real criteria I had was tasting exclusively local/native varieties. No Cabernet/Merlot blends from the Ciociaria, no Chardonnay from the Cinque Terre, no Traminer from the province of Isernia (though the more observant among you will note that I made one semi-exception - the damned wine was just too good!). And so I semi-methodically stepped from booth to booth, greeting, chatting, sipping, expectorating, and exchanging business cards.
And to say that I tasted A LOT of wines over the three days I was there is a serious understatement (if I had to guess, I’d say it was well over 100!). Predictably, I kissed more than a few “frogs”, a couple of turtles, and at least one alligator, but there were some definite and duly noted prince(esses). I carefully placed these business cards in the “keeper” pocket, determined to find a way to get these exciting wines back across the Atlantic, and onto our shelves…

Let the record clearly show that wine importers and distributors are not always the most flexible or nimble concerns in the world. Sometimes its a matter of ego, sometimes one of just laziness, but so many folks in this segment of the business are just not that jazzed by these kinds of arrangements, but after a fair number of phone calls and meetings replete with cajoling, shameless begging, one or two threats, and at least one “I’ll be your best friend”, I managed to arrange a way to get some of this great juice stateside…

And then the wait…price and quantity negotiations - producer to importer, then importer to retailer, label approvals, shipping delays, and a bevy of other potholes large and small, FINALLY, one gloomy Monday morning led to seeing the first of those cases on the shipper’s handtrucks rolling across the threshold of our receiving dock. Yay! And I gotta say, I’d imagine that other than actually GROWING the grapes, and VINIFYING the musts that they yield, there is nothing more satisfying than seeing one’s work come to such a palpable fruition - to be able to bring well-made, new, and exciting wines to market, putting them in the hands of a client, and getting almost unanimously positive feedback on what others thought was too “outside the box” to take a chance on…I don’t mean to say that this is the ONLY thing that gets me out of bed in the morning, but it goes a lot further than a stale 7-11 bagel does for sure…

So here is a selected grouping of what I like to think are some really exciting, authetic wines, ready to be sampled tonight, and all of this started as a little daydream back on that rainy weekend in Verona. I guess its not a cure for cancer or a direct path to world peace, but I like to think that maybe it’s a one VERY small step toward those ideals, and it brings me a lot of satisfaction, and my hope is that it does the same for you as well.

Some of these items are so recently arrived that I have not yet had a chance to crack ‘em and write up my formal tasting notes. That said, I surely WILL be writing impressions for each of these wines, and they will appear as always on their respective pages on our site. In the meantime, I encourage one and all to try beat me to the punch and pre-empt my “official” scribblings, and post YOUR tasting notes here….Ready…Set…DRINK!!!

TOM CIOCCO

From Friuli - VIGNA TRAVERSO

From Veneto - ORNELLA MOLON

From Molise - CANTINE CIPRESSI