My Barbaresco Waterloo, May 10

May 10

My Barbaresco Waterloo

On every one of these trips there is a day of reckoning- where fatigue and jet lag combine with other circumstances to make it extremely long and trying.
Today was that day.
First of all there were sixty-some hot off the bottling line 2008 Barbareschis from Neive and Trieso to deal with.  Now, the 2007s tasted last year were disappointing for their excessive ripeness and boring homogeneity. The opposite was true, I think, in 2008, where the wines are much leaner, more attenuated and just plain a bloody chore to drink. In fact, for the first time at Nebbiolo Prima, I declined to take notes on some. The winemakers themselves very much like the vintage but they are either over-anxious to sell them or else deluding themselves.
These were tough wines to taste and evaluate- it was as hard a day as I've had tasting wine.  Yesterday's delicately balanced wines from Barbaresco became today's pushy, hard wines from Neive. Treiso, usually the source of the prettiest wines in the DOCG seemed not to fare any better.
This is not to say, of course, that you should entirely write off 2008 for Barabaresco- I may be proved totally wrong and the winemakers right if the wines fatten up and grow into their greenish tannins and high acids.  This isn't science, it's a sort of alchemy and, over the years, I've found Barbaresco harder to evaluate than virtually any other wine.
Still, as I say when I talk later about Barolo, choose producer over either vineyard or vintage and you probably won't go wrong. But read the notes first!

A word about the 2006 Riservae....we tasted about two dozen and I am hard pressed to make too many generalizations about them. Some still showed a fair bit of oak which only works as a complexing agent if there is enough backing fruit- that happened a few times but, on the whole, these were pretty severe wines too. I will reserve judgement until I see what happens to them once they are released. 2006 is a very fine vintage in Barbaresco but there is far less consensus as to what style Riserva should be....I do mention a few below.

It should also be noted that the day's session ended with six Baroli from Novello, my best being the juicy

2007 Abbona Marziano Terio Ravera and
2007 Elvio Cogno Ravera

In the meantime, here are a few  that I believed were the most promising of the day's haul:

2008 Ceretto Barbaresco Bricco Asili Bernardot: oaky, spicy and briary but also was one of the few where there was enough fruit to fill it out. Complete ***

2008 Francone Barbaresco I Patriarchi: burned earth,violets, spice, cherry confit....an extravagantly earthy wine from a producer new to me. ***

2008 Monteribaldi Barbaresco Palazzina: Another Neive wine that showed oak but had the fruit underneath to sustain the aggressive tannin. ***

2008 Oddero Barbaresco Gallina: tannic with ferrous and blood showing now, but really has the stuffing. This is becoming my favorite producer in the region as everything they do is consistently spot on.

2006 Castello di Verduno Barbaresco Rabaja Riserva: what's not to like here? Big, broad and polished. This winery is very good.

2006 Nada Giuseppe Barbaresco Casot Riserva: pretty and balanced, shows some oak but the fruit sustains it.


Following the tasting, with an eye towards regaining my fighting spirit for the Baroli to come, I declined the buffet lunch and had a pizza and a most-welcome beer with Michael, a mate who has been at Premier Cru in the East Bay nearly as long as I have been at PRIMA, and had a bit of a rest before driving over to Oddero in Santa Maria di La Morra for what proved to be the saving grace of the entire day, a vertical tasting of the Oddero's fantastic Baroli, including the transcendent 1964 that reminded me of why I make these sorts of exhaustive forays in the first place.

The Odderos (currently run by Mariacristina and her niece Mariavittoria, though papa Alberto is still active) have been making fabulous wines from their Santa Maria property since 1878.  Their's is an impressive estate making not only Barolo from their home Pieve Santa Maria property but they also own vines in Roggeri and Brunate (the highest part) in La Morra and several other important sites, notably Bussia Soprana, Villero and Vignarionda. We sat down in their beautifully rustic cantina (Cristina's decorative flourishes are everywhere) to a flight of wines meant to show the Oddero style, one that remains consistent (iron fist in an iron fist?) throughout a most varied group of vineyards:

2007 Oddero Barolo: A beautiful 2007 that shows juicy freshness and lovely pure fruit. Not sure of the price yet but it will be a hero in our restaurant.

1997 Oddero Barolo Mondoca di Bussia Soprana (magnum): a show-stopper that just gushed cherry-confit but shows the Oddero's very structured side as well. Hold longer if you can.

1978 Oddero Barolo: Still a powerhouse....they didn't bottle single vineyard wines in those days and this is the best of everything, iodine, tar, violets......

1964 Oddero Barolo: I don't 'rate' wines but this was as close to a 100 point Barolo as I've ever had! Perfectly mature, immaculately balanced, soft (but still with lively tannin) with all kinds of exotic and alluring things going on!

Dinner was, well, odd.  The group had been arbitrarily broken up into dinners at various spots around the area and while some dined much closer, I drew a shorter straw and joined a score of assorted German journalists at I Cacciatori, a very traditional osteria in Monteu Roero, some 40 minutes away. I am not complaining, by the way, and the most bland food in Piemonte is still pretty damned good, but I found myself in a narrow, very pink, room with all Italian speakers, including a fluent-Italian speaking Japanese journalist who refused to help me out when I asked him in Japanese to help me communicate something I wanted to say in Italian. In any event, the food was perfunctory (delicate zucchini flowers baked into a bland fritttata, Spinach and Castelmagno Risotto, Stinco di Vitello) the wine much so as well, and that lethal combination of a long day, jet lag and frustration really set in. It was only when I went to the bathroom towards the end of the meal that I discovered a small group of American confederates from my group stashed in another dining room. They had been there the whole time! Anyway, I was happy for Tuesday to end, take another Ambien and root for the 2007 Baroli to rock my world.     

Piemonte Spring 2011

Getting there is no longer as much fun as being there. In other words, flying in the twenty-first century pretty much sucks. Both of my legs fortunately went as planned and the first SFO-NYC Saturday afternoon was enlivened by sitting next to a very interesting software developer who seemed to know something about everything, and was packing not one, but two fully-loaded I-pads! One was for his mother-in-law in Helsinki, where he was bound.
It seems like months ago when in fact it was only hours- the first hours of what is proving to be a very, very long day. By the time I hit Milano, it was 8 AM Sunday, our time, and I still had the whole day ahead of me. A good part of it was spent in my little Fiat Punto-a little vacuum cleaner canister of a car with virtually no power. It has nonetheless endeared itself to me because it has a connection on its radio for my I-pad. This allowed me to make the Milano-Alba connection in just under two hours with Porcupine Tree at pain level volume!
Of course this is Italy so nothing is ever quite straight forward. I coasted into the Giro di Italia bike race in Alba and found the city center guarded by some thousand florescent orange clad Carabinieri, one of whom simply shrugged when I suggested he let me through his roadblock to get to my hotel. I turned around and, instead, headed towards La Morra, much to the chagrin of the English gentleman I dubbed 'Belamey' living inside my GPS. "Please turn around," he repeatedly implored as I headed away from the Alba hotel destination he had so painstakingly mapped out for me. We learned to get along.
The first person I saw in La Morra was Giorgio Rivetti who just happened to be taking his gorgeous little daughter Lidia into the market as I motored by. Rather than disturb this placid domestic scene, I just rolled down the window, said hi, shook hands and made our promises for dinner tomorrow.
Seems like I always randomly meet someone in La Morra.
I ate lunch in the same osteria I visited last year- good but simple food and some great esoteric wines from local producers. I washed my Lingua con Salsa Diavalo down with a glass of Bongiovanni Arneis (perfect with creeping jet lag) and the Asparagus in Parmigiano Crema and rustic hand-cut pasta with Zucchini and Tomatoes went down with a bottle of Scarpa Barbera d'Asti, most of which I left for the staff, the stylishly insouciant smoking girl with the big sunglasses and the posse of Sunday bikers that turned up while I was there.
Once I checked into the Hotel Calissano (**** great location, brand spanking new and highly recommended) I thought a thirty minute nap would knock the cobwebs loose. But if a thirty minute map works...a three-hour nap must be even better. What luxury. I hope my wife doesn't read this because I have a hard enough time convincing her I am working over here and a three hour nap- hell, I don't remember the last time.
Anyway, a quick shower later, I rolled down to the annual Nebbiolo Prima kick off party, this year held in the square in the shadow of Alba's duomo, a ten-minute walk through Alba's old city from the hotel. All of the producers were there as were all of the attendees. This event is sort of when you scope out who's here and who isn't, and the lineup looks much similar to last year's with some interesting and fun additions...like the two stunning women wine shop owners from Warsaw! The event basically consists of a group of buyers (restaurateurs, retailers, somms) and journalists (bloggers, writers, etc.) from all over the world. For whatever reason, the buyers and journalists are kept apart (who will contaminate who, I wonder?) and mix only at parties like this one, one or two of the dinners, and at the Grand Finale.
And there's this American named George Tita who has a fledgling import business and, even though there is virtually no importer presence at this event, he annually insinuates himself onto the event's fringes, turning up all the time at any event where we buyers are likely to appear. This year he managed to gather eight or so of us together for an impromptu dinner at Castello di Verduno in the town of Verduno, about ten minutes from the back side of La Morra. I went because I've always been interested in the wines of Verduno and this producer in particular. The dinner featured wines from three of his Piemonte producers: Olek Bondonio, Andrea Cortese and Cascina San Martino. First of all, the food was delicious. Olek's wife is the Exec here with a grand reputation in the Slow Food movement. She turned out not only a wonderful Vitello Crudo (packed in salt for three days and sliced apparently) but also the best Tajarin al Sugo (secret is the Bra Sausage, I am told) I've tasted to date- and believe me, I've had a few versions.
The wines were the particularly pleasant surprise: Olek's 2007 Barbaresco Roncagliete (the highest spot of what is also Gaja's Sori Tildin) was polished and deep, especially for a 2007, and Davide's Cascina S. Martino's 1998 and 1996 Barolo Rue (think Chiara Boschis' Via Nouve as far as geography goes) were head turning- the 1996 still on the upswing and the 1998 perfectly balanced.
Well, I'm toast. Ambien willing, I'll get a few hours tonight and tomorrow the real work begins.

Monday, May 9

What a difference a year makes...in several respects. The organizers of Nebbiolo Prima listened to several criticisms of last year's event, notably the one about the deluge of tasting wines in each sitting, and made significant changes; foremost was reducing the daily number of wines consumed by a third and adding a fifth session. That made this morning's foray into the 2008 Roero, 2008 Barbaresco and 2007 Barbaresco Riseva wines far easier to survive. Also the passing of a year has meant that the high alcohol- low acid wines of 2007 have been replaced by the super fresh 2008s, a definitely refreshing stylistic change.

While 2008 cannot be considered an 'important' vintage in the greater pantheon of Piemontese wines, their high acids and fresh flavors do mean that over the short and mid terms, they will be good drinkers....they're just not ready yet. As for the 2007 Riservae, they aren't much more exciting than last year's Normale: even worse, because they were the ripest, most powerful wines in their cellars, the 2007 Riservae and even bigger and more unwieldy than their Normale cousins! Again, I am painting with far too broad a brush, but with 60+ wines under my belt, that's what I am seeing so far.

My notes fell into several distinct subcategories based on the ripeness parameters of the grapes that made the wine. Some, harvested at a little lower sugar, predictably had great fresh acidity and were noted as 'higher toned', 'pomegranate' and 'woodsy.' Others were 'warmer' 'seedy' (think fennel and cardamom) and were a little more 'vinous.' The third category carried more sweetness and I wrote for several 'marzipan' or 'maple sugar', 'cherry confit' and 'pliant.' What unified the 2008s I tasted were nice- if sometimes greenish- tannins, lively acids and decent concentrations of fruit that rarely strayed into the domineering sweetness of the 2007s. In fact, I would have to say that the vintage falls, in a good way, in a narrower bandwidth of styles and flavors. Roero is still far less consistent than Barbaresco and the sizable gap in raw material is still as significant as the experience factor. Here is a list of my favorites from the day:

2008 Cascina Chicco Roero Montespinato: warmer clay nose, vinous pomegranate and cherry, spicy and good.***

2008 Cascina Val del Prete Roero: chocolate mint nose, warm marzipan- maple. Well balanced (nice job Mario!) ***

2008 Renato Buganza Roero Bric Paradis: both Buganza wines were good but I give the nod to this one because I love the name of the cru. Woodsy spice, warm, low toned but also bright and fresh. (new producer for me) ***

2008 Cascina Chicco Roero Valmaggiore: the only Valmaggiore in the tasting really showed its stuff. herb tea, woodsy, putty/earth, really great balance makes it a seamless drink. ***+

disappointment alert: 2008 Matteo Correggia Roero Roche d'Ampsej: this usually reliable wine was marred by woody Bourbon barrel extract and a charry essence.

2007 Monchiero Carbone Roero Riverva Printi: oaky for sure but better integrated, a rich, powerful Roero that keeps its balance even after turning tannic on the finish. ***

2008 Massimo Penna Barbaresco Sori Sartu: oaky, spicy nose, really pretty sweet cherry confit fruit that has a fresh, lithe feel to it. This was the first Barbaresco in the tasting and served to highlight the gap with Roero. ***

2008 Produttori del Barbaresco: sure, it's commercial but it's also damned good, a relative powerhouse with juicy, very clean fruit and a plush texture that takes you to bunch of silky tannins. Liquid smoke and vanilla wood tannin too. Hard not to like. ***+

2008 Cascina Morasino Barbaresco Ovello: the black label not to be confused with their Normale which scored among my lowest, this shows textbook Nebbiolo blood, mineral and truffle character. Balanced and filled with nice cherry fruit. ***

2008 Montaribaldi Barbaresco Sori Montaribaldi: impressive for the way it marries its not inconsiderable new oak into the texture, big and sweet but also real well balanced. ***

An Afternoon Tasting of 2001 Piemontese reds:

The 2001 vintage is considered to be 'important', one of the best in the long string of successes going back to 1995. Barolo winemakers like to say that their Nebbiolo is at its best at ten years, so this was our chance to see how the vintage was faring at a decade from harvest. The verdict? It was a great harvest that yielded many great wines, but whether or not ten years is the best time to drink then depends strictly on the wine, and not particularly in the way you might think, as many so-called Old School classics from the vintage showed surprising age and many New School wines were still surprisingly youthful and primary....here were some notable wines of the 36 I managed to taste:

2001 Mario Marengo Barolo Brunate: simply my favorite. Fresh, zingy and filled with youthful cherry confit and violet-scented fruit. Yummy.

2001 Bartolo Mascarello Barolo (magnum): I expected this to be backwards and tannic so imagine my shock when it turned out be perfectly mature with complex briary flavors.

2001 Giuseppe Rinaldi Barolo Brunate/Le Coste: same here plus a bit of iodine and truffle. Nice, gorgeous even but if tasted blind, I would have guessed a lot older.

2001 Oddero Barolo Bussia Soprana Mondoca: elegant, even pretty but still with an iron fist

2001 Giuseppe Mascarello Barolo Monprivato: this was perfectly mature. great color, resolved tannins and powerfully complex.

2001 E Pira Chiara Boschis Barolo Cannubi: sweet, briary and also perfectly ready

2001 Prunotto Barolo Bussia: powerful and still young with a big mouthfeel and tannins that promise another ten years.

2001 Monchiero Carbone Roero Riserva Printi: dark, pungent and still awkward.

2001 Monchiero Carbone Barbera d'Alba Ochetti: surprise! Still dark and sweet!

2001 Moccagatta Barbaresco Bric Balin: an explosion of ripe cherries and other dark fruits. Wa'ay young!

2001 Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco Riserva: monolithic...completely shut down.

My Dinner With Giorgio

I saw another side of Giorgio on this trip. The lights of his life are beautiful Lidia and also, now just a year old, Giorgina.  The winery-resdience compound they share near Ginzane-Cavour is littered with bikes, toys and games. After an aperitivo and photo session with Lidia's Barbi camera/video he Giorgio asks, "Should we get a pizza here in Gallo or......I know a place that's a bit of a drive but....." duh. Last time Giorgio took me on a drive, it was almost three hours to Bibbona Marina and La Pineta, the best seafood I think I've ever eaten! Let's skip the pizza, I said. On the way to dinner, he also showed me the freshly dug furrows in the vineyards he's been making with his horse and plow.  He says he reflects on his father and his roots while pushing his plow- it's a way for him to better understand the land- and stay physically active. Still, he is Giorgio Rivetti and it wasn't long before the conversation turned to food and wine.  Antica Corona Reale turns out to be Michelin ** near Bra and well worth the (only) half hour drive.  Run by Renzo and his family for many years, it earned its stars for its very traditional, earthy cooking. No one ever got a star in Italy for their trippa and fiancier says Giorgio, until this place.  Renzo's son has just completed a major renovation, creating a new patio where guests can enjoy aperitivi and sparkling wine before dining in one of three beautiful dining rooms. Located right off the one of those outskirt streets every town has....the used car lots, small factories and such....you'd never guess this oasis even existed.
This was one of those meals you don't soon forget. After three little plates and a glass of  sparkling outside, we dined on an enormous copper bowl of snails stewed in garlic and herbs, fiancier (cockscomb and a great number of other parts, the best agnoloti dal plin I've ever had (sorry Eric) and pieces of goat roasted on a spit, as well as a hazelnut-chocolate dessert that blew my mind even though I could only eat a bit of it.

Did i mention wine? We had some....a 2007 Henri Boillot Puligny and Giorgio's as not yet labeled but already delicious 2007 Barolo Campe.  In our small dining room there was another couple (the husband an annoying guy who sent back his frog's legs because they were too skinny (Chef asked if he should have bought them in China where they have fatter legs) who recognized Giorgio and went from being a total dick to a gooey, obsequious asshole in seconds and, then,  three enormously tall members of the Italian national championship volleyball team from Cuneo, and five other assorted coaches and girlfriends, all of whom recognized Giorgio too, and insisted that we help them with their 2005 Rivetti- La Spinetta Barbaresco. 
Giorgio and I have a lot in common....except that I don't have a giant international wine empire...and it was wonderful to have so relaxed an evening...even if it was shared with some gregarious 6'10" volleyball players.

The 2008 Vintage of Romanee Conti

Dude, it was so cold in New York. Tuesday, the day after my evening arrival, started off a relatively balmy 39 but, as the day wore on, it got colder and colder. My sister and I, following a delightful pasta lunch at Eataly on Sixth Ave curled south onto Seventh from like 20th, face first into the teeth of what felt like an Arctic gale. Luckily we found sanctuary from the relentless chill in a church about a block down. But instead of a welcoming priest offering us a blanket and a glass of something warm, we had to pay $6.50 for a cup of Earl Grey as this once-gorgeous church had been converted into a mini-boutique shopping mall featuring gourmet coffee, the tea stand, gelato (not so busy) and a wine bar. There aren’t many churches where you can drink Zweigelt by the glass while looking out a stained glass rose window.

My reason for being there had to do with two tastings: a Tuesday morning Master Class at a mid-town Hilton sponsored jointly by the Vino Nobile, Chianti Classico Riserva and Brunello di Montalcino consortia led by Kevin Zraly (followed by a giant tasting of several hundred wines) and Domaine de la Romanee Conti’s annual tasting of the new vintage hosted by the domaine’s director Aubert de Villaine.

The former event probably deserves more attention than I will give it now. Suffice to say that the wines were intriguing- the 2006 Brunello vintage as good as advertised and the 2007 vintages of Riserva Chianti and Vino Nobile, maybe not. And I wish Kevin Zraly, with a room full of wine writers and educators in front of him, had decided not to spend his hour and half doing a poor version of wine stand-up and focus more on his well-chosen line up of extraordinary bottles.

The main event was a formal affair in Del Posto’s Barbaresco Room (maybe the first time that this much Burgundy has ever sullied this Mecca of Nebbiolo) on Wednesday morning. The California contingent (friends Andrew from SPQR, etc, Alan from Massa, Raj from, well, Raj, Inc. and myself) distinguished ourselves by being the only ones at the tasting without neckties (dude, it was like 20 outside...I wore a heavy sweater and a scarf) while the New York wine glitterati looked great in their suits and dresses all seated around a single king’s table in the center of the room. Space was tight and I lived in fear of either elbowing the taster next to me or spilling all of my Echezeaux on the table in front of the vibrantly cheerful Lettie Teague or intensely focused Eric Asimov.

The always understated de Villaine spoke at length about the 2008 vintage, the cool spring that resulted in a significant degree of millerandage (the small irregularly sized clusters that are often the harbinger of great harvests) and the ‘miracle of Burgundy’ late September that cured many of the ills that plagued a wet, mold-and-botrytis-ridden summer that, at one point, threatened the entire harvest. As usual at this address, the grapes were sorted nearly down to the berry, and 30-40% of an already-culled harvest never even made it past the sorting table.

The harvest has clearly pleased the Domaine and, even though de Villaine could find no direct correlate with which to compare 2008, he stunned the room (or was having his way with us, perhaps?) by dropping a 1978 bomb. Yes, I agree these will be very long-lived, perhaps even spectacular, wines but I don’t think 2008 is another 1978. The wines are, indeed, very pure, focused Pinot Noirs with ravishing aromas, uncommon minerality and very firm acids. I can say with some certainty, these are not wines for those interested in drinking their DRC young. Apparently, even though the bottles opened in LA several weeks ago showed more generously than this New York set, the 2008s will never be confused with those bang-up 2005s and, if de Villaine’s assessment is any indication, the dark, unctuous 2009s. Still, this is a Burgundy-lover’s vintage and those who collect the wines will need to have these in their cellar. And if de Villaine’s ‘1978’ comment proves prescient, in twenty years these may be modern-day classics.

I also have to say that after six vintages of tasting these wines in this format, I always find it a fun and intellectual challenge. I do believe that each of the DRC cuvees is not only remarkably true to its terroir, it is a pure, empirical bellwether of a given vintage. Even though I have tried a score of 2008 reds already, I only now think I understand the vintage, in Vosne that is.

Here are my notes:

*2008 Vosne Romanee 1er Cru Cuvee Duvault-Blochet
The sixth vintage of this essentially declassified Grand Cru cuvee since 1999, this wine is made up of second pickings of the old vines from the Grand Crus and some younger vines. de Villaine says this wine ‘announces the quality of the vintage’ and so it is in 2008. Exotic, immediately appealing nose of sexy cinnamon stick and something floral. Cool, candied raspberry fruit. Palate is lean and high toned with crushed stones and dried raspberry. As it turns out, the elements of this nose are a theme throughout the tasting. **+

*2008 Echezeaux
Limpid, pure color (2008 is not a dark vintage but the wines are gorgeous to look at)…lower toned than the Vosne with base notes of something darker and more pungent. Elegant, fresh and hauntingly pretty fruit that gains in intensity as it airs. Cherry, tea, a bit of orange…a wine of finesse. I think this is a great Echezeaux. ****

*2008 Grands Echzeaux
Once again this is the black sheep of the tasting. Initially quieter on the nose with a slight rustic side. Much bigger on the palate- evocative (in a good way) of Nuits St. George- with a bit of earth and game. Ferrous-blood, orange peel and lots of mineral. This is a big wine and will probably eventually grow into its outsized self. ***?

*2008 Romanee- St. Vivant
This is an exceptional RSV. Nose harkens back to the Echezeaux with plenty of floral-cinnamon notes pushed out by a frame of mineral-driven acidty with more sheer intensity than any of the above: the muscle of Grands but not the weight creating something both diaphanous and substantial. Tannic, young and vibrant! ****

*2008 Richebourg
A muted, closed-in-tight wine that’s both monolithic and acidic. It is in the wine’s finish where its quality, length and potential shows. Promising but tough to evaluate today. Funny, I’ve written this several times before about Richebourg. ?

*2008 La Tache
La Tache always seems to me to take the best attributes of every other wine and distill them into something unique and wonderful, and that is again the case in 2008. The sexy aromatics (a head shop filled with sandalwood and sitar music), violets, muscle, mineral, ferrous-blood, orange peel…..all swirling within this gorgeous not-big-but-not-lean texture. Stunning acidity….emotive wine. ****

*2008 Romanee Conti
Decadent nose- exuberant and pretty once, closed down and coquettish again. Dry, pure, focused showing the barest hints of the ravishing wine it will one day become. Will it be a second coming of 1978? Got $4000 to find out? I don’t. ****

*2008 Montrachet
The Chardonnay suffered none of the maladies of the Pinot Noir and the yields were much higher. This is absolutely massive. So much intensity- almost painful to drink. How can a wine be so powerful and rich- almost like a confection- yet have so much backbone? One taster worried that it was too big and exotic but I think he missed the impressive underpinning of acidity…..it would be an easy mistake to make! **** (!)

Back On The Sake Trail

To badly paraphrase an already bad Country-Western tune: "What made Akita famous (almost) made a loser out of me." Or, put another way, I've always liked sake but it hasn't always reciprocated. While living in Akita Prefecture back in the early eighties, I was force fed a lot of it. The area was justly famous for sake and in my capacity of language teacher (have English- will travel) and visiting something like 110 different Junior and Senior High Schools throughout the prefecture, I met a lot of people anxious to show off the local artisan brews, usually with the added impetus of an unlimited 'entertainment' budget provided by the school's principal.

On the plus side, Nihonshu could act as a wonderful social lubricant: the more we drank the more my host's English usually improved- or at least so he imagined- and I am damned sure my Japanese became bloody magnificent during any of those drunken forays in any of Akita's many, many drinking establishments. The downside, however, was that sake hammered me.

And it hammered me good-particularly when served warm, and in Akita,in my mind one of the coldest places on earth, even the best sake is served that way: usually from a small tokkuri made at a local kiln (pottery, as it turned out, became a much safer hobby for me than sake) and poured into a tiny guinomi that dispatched the sake down my waiting maw oh-so-smoothly. The problems started for me when I realized that as a guest in Japan, that little cup in your hand would never, ever be empty and that warm liquid seemed to get absorbed into my chilled interior startlingly fast.

Especially dangerous was when the local sake was consumed as part of Japan's Holy Trinity of alcohol: many beers to start, sake in the middle and whiskey to finish. Three or four nights of this ritual consumption a week definitely took a physical and mental toll, especially when doing battle with my Japanese colleagues who, lacking the enzyme to actually digest alcohol, seemed to have the endless capacity to guzzle copious amounts of alcohol, turn bright red, vomit our late-night ramen or udon on the sidewalk and wake up fresh as daisy.

I struggled to develop countermeasures to this endless sake drinking, but being so deeply a slave to Japan's complex web of obligation and obligatory drinking, I was essentially doomed from the start. I knew I was beat when during a rare two-day visit to a school on the Japan seaside, I spent a very long first evening getting totally polluted with a particular Japanese English teacher only to have to walk into his classroom to teach at 7:00 the next morning. It just sucked that he looked like he had spent the previous evening playing tiddly-winks and turned in at 9:30, while I was staggering, bleary-eyed, in front a classroom full of students still exuding sake from every pore. As much as I loved Akita and the people there, I was sort of grateful when my tenure ended and I could finally confine drinking to my own terms.

During my ensuing decade-plus in Japan I drank very little sake as my blossoming love of grape wine interceded and the smell of even the most delicate junmai-shu would instantly send me reeling back to that helpless feeling of having some equally zonked Japanese drinking buddy cheerfully pouring me onto the last train towards Akita City.

But time heals all wounds and, now 17 years after repatriating ourselves, I am sufficently dried out, very provisionally, and able to crawl back on the horse that threw me and, this past weekend, Anne and I accepted the invitation of some new friends to attend a sake tasting dinner at Hanazen, a very fine, very authentic Japanese restaurant in Orinda.

This is a very sweet little spot and if you don't know it, it's worth finding (www.myhanazen.com). It's run by a young couple: laconic Kenji, the taciturn, very Old School Chef and his lovely, loquacious wife Coco, daughter of one of Japan's best known sake critics, who conducts the tasting while Kenji turns out one lovely plate after another. Our autumnal menu started with a delicate piece of cod tempura stuffed with a few strands of green o-cha soba. This was paired with Kamikokoro, a soft lactic tokubetsu junmai from Okayama. Next came a stunning trio on one lovely plate: a bracingly briny surf clam sauced with a bit of fermented sea cucumber and served in a hollowed out persimmon, a snow ball of silky tofu and crab and an incredibly delicate piece of ocean trout wrapped somehow in a swirl of crisp green apple. This was a thrilling melange of tastes and textures and the sake, Otokoyama Kimoto, was aromatic, fruity and very good, if not a terribly dynamic companion to the dish. More sake came, of course, an Okunomatsu Ginjo to accompany a well-executed saba (mackeral) baked in miso; a very good Kikusui Hiyaoroshi- a seasonal sake paired with an oden that completely restored my faith in this dish, ruined for me by the smell of rancid over-simmered dashi in the typical Japanese convenience store, and a powerful, dry Suijin from Iwate, alongside a small platter of exquisite sashimi and sushi.

This really fun night of sake and food has opened the door for further investigation into the now-expanding world of imported sake. I've refrained from selling it at PRIMA as I would be the only one of my staff other than Peter with any knowledge of it and that knowledge was for many years tempered by my reluctance to get re-involved. My visit to Hanzen is causing me to rethink this, and next year may see Chef Peter and I reinvestigating our Japanese roots and creating our own version of the sake dinner. In the meantime, make the time to visit Hanazen and enjoy for yourself some very fine sake served the way it should be.....with some wonderful food.

The Guys In The White Coats Are Finally Coming For Me

In addition to being a lamely infrequent blogger, I am also a fairly lame worker-outer. (I would use a term like 'exercise enthusiast' except that I am not terribly enthusiastic about it.) I do my 20-30 minutes on the enormous elliptical trainer we inherited from my father-in-law almost every day- I'm proud of that. Besides, not using the damned thing would be a travesty as it dominates our sitting room like a 4000 pound white elephant and its alternative uses (coat rack, clothes line, object d'art) are not very palatable to my wife. So every morning I hop up there, set the controls to 'fat burner' (this thing has a control panel like a jet fighter!) and pump away. I face the television and usually pop in a DVD or videotape from our smallish, random collection and work through each one in maybe four or five sessions.

In fact, I am not particularly a believer in collecting DVDs and tapes that we'll probably never watch a second time. We do have a lot of Japanese cultural stuff and a few of the old Japanese classics because of my wife's work but, beyond those, there is no rhyme or reason to the disks and tapes we have sitting on that shelf: the complete Buffy The Vampire Slayer series, Poirot, my brother-in-law's Deadwood (awesome. frantically peddled my way through that back in July), A Fish Called Wanda and an assortment of other things I have no idea how we obtained. Who the hell is Eddie Izzard and where did we get that awful DVD?

But working out on the elliptical is really boring. Even if whatever video I have on is riveting, my mind tends to wander. In a semi-workout trance one morning I managed to convince myself that the large print over the fireplace is really a one-way mirror and behind it are a group of serious white-coated researchers who view me like a lab rat on a wheel. They monitor my workouts carefully noting the speed and revolutions I accomplish each time. Recently they've taken a great interest in how my workout results vary depending on the stimulus coming from the television.

They noted how poorly I performed as I waded through the entire Ken Burns Civil War video series. It's wonderful stuff for sure but despite the 'Johnny Comes Marching Home' and 'Dixie' soundtrack I merely plodded my way through Fort Sumter, First Manassas, Antietam, Gettysburg and Vicksburg. The pace barely even picked up when Grant took Richmond.

But, those secret researchers discovered, good food movies can really get me going. Babette's Feast, even with its sluggish pace and barely understandable soundtrack, got me to over 1300 revs in 20 minutes. Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, especially during the first twenty minutes when that awesome Sunday lunch is being prepared by Chef Chu led to an impressive 1350+ revs! Tampopo, always a favorite, almost caused me to break the machine I went so fast.

The white-coated folks are not so sure this is a good trend. It's my unhealthy fondness for food and wine that has necessitated my need to be on that thing every morning in the first place, one points out. OK, but I have a few more food movies I may need to put into the rotation. Thank goodness we now have Netflix. No, not Sideways. I saw that 'unmounted' twice and hated it. Who can watch a movie where not one but both protagonists are despicable? I told the researchers to stick to their business and quit suggesting flicks for me to watch.

Late last week I popped in The Concert For George, a DVD of the George Harrison tribute concert Eric Clapton organized at the Royal Albert Hall in late 2002, a year after George died. My first two elliptical sessions comprised the first part of the concert, a full Indian orchestral piece beautifully conducted by Ravi Shankar's daughter Anoushka. The results were, as noted by the guys behind the wall, quite brisk. This is the first music DVD I've watched while working out and the results are quite promising: over 1500 revs in fact. The Western part of the show started this morning with moving renditions of Harrison's "If I Needed Someone," "Give Me Love," "Beware Of Darkness," and "Here Comes The Sun." Damn, during the really beautiful "Give Me Love" (sung by ELO- Willbury alum Jeff Lynne) and Clapton's "If I Needed Someone" and "Beware Of Darkness" I was pumping like mad and the time melted away. The white coats must have been very pleased and will, I am quite sure, nod with pure satisfaction when the ex-Beatles, Tom Petty and other rockers hit the stage over the next few days.

As for the future? I pretty much choose my videos randomly. It could be The Graduate, The Triplets of Belleville again or Seven Samurai if Anne doesn't have it at school.

Whatever it is, I am hoping that those gentle folk with the clipboards approve.

A Recent Obsession

Yes, I know.
Bloggers blog therefore making me the world's sorriest excuse for a blogger.
So sue me. I am over it. Even though I spend most of my waking hours writing wordy, mistake -ridden prose at my job, I hereby resolve to write wordy, mistake-ridden blogs more frequently.

One of my excuses has been that I have nothing to blog about, and even if I did, who'd really want to read it. But I've been told by those that know far more than I that that's a sort of reverse Narcissism and I should just shut up and write.

Besides, I've been puzzling over some wine things these past few days and maybe the act of writing about them may help sort them out.

Over the summer my wife and I traveled to Austria, Italy and Croatia and at the risk of creating the internet's ten trillionth travelogue, now, some ninety days after returning, some of the trip's most salient wine related points are still resonating with me.

But first of all, let me say that if you've never been to Dubrovnik in southern Croatia....go. And go soon. I've been lucky enough to have travelled to many, many places and my first steps into the walled city count as some of my most memorable. Please conspire to have your first view inside the city walls to be after sunset. That was a moment I doubt any of us- my lovely wife and San Ramon neighbors and friends Jim and Marla Simon, will ever forget. The city's sheer medieval glory is stupendous: far more than enough to counteract the effects of the resident's relentless pandering to its vast tourist population and, no matter how tired you are and how you much you resent the fact that there is a charge to do EVERYTHING in Dubrovnik, also make the trek over, around and, literally, through the city's walls and take advantage of one or more of the well-advertised docent-led morning tours. We spent two hours with a guide who was sixteen and living in Dubrovnik when the Serbs started bombing the city in December 1991. You'll never look at the city, or any of the poorly knit confederation of warring states that we grew up calling Yugoslavia the same way again. There are tours about what it was like to be Jewish there, an architect's view and many more. Make the time, even though the temptation to just sit in one of the amazing street-side cafes drinking ice-cold beer and watching an endless parade of fascinating people may prove irresistible. Fortunately we were able to make time for it all.

We also spent some time visiting wineries on Croatia's scenic Peljesac (Pel-yeh-zhak) peninsula, Central Dalmatia's most important wine growing region. This is certainly worth the detour if you're staying near Dubrovnik, if for nothing else than to see the ancient towns of Ston and Mali Ston and the impressive 'Great Wall' that connects them. A few hours beyond gets you to the heart of Peljesac wine country and a widely scattered multitude of tiny towns and wineries ranging in size from the miniscule ("Please don't make any noise while you're tasting, you'll wake the baby.") to several larger ones with tourist buses and all. The best-known appellation on the peninsula is certainly Dingac (Ding-gazch). It is here that the local Plavac red manifests its best expression, making wines that remind me somewhat of a mythical blend of Gevrey-Chambertin and Barbaresco....but, unfortunately, not always necessarily as good as that sounds.

In fact, let me refrain from making too many qualitative statements about the Croatian wines I tried- one way or another. Our friends and I bought a mixed case or so of reds and whites from a good merchant who gave us wines that covered the length of the Dalmatian Coast. But we consumed them mainly while sitting on our balcony overlooking the gorgeous Adriatic, usually as the last giant cruise ships left the harbor just a few hundred yards under our noses, not the best circumstance for serious wine evaluation. We could have been drinking battery acid and it would have tasted good and, in fact, there unfortunately were a few wines that did a pretty fair imitation I am sorry to say. And there were several other wines we tried out in wine country that were also, how to put this politely, rustic. But, at their best- and there were several wines that were very, very good- the whites were clean, zingy and loaded with mineral. The Malvasia-based wines tended to be blowzier, even fat, and when I could find a well-made one that was of a current vintage (not as easy as you might expect), the usually inexpensive Grasevina, the Croatian synonym for Welschriesling, was a solid choice for watching the ships and fishing boats leave Dubrovnik at sunset. The reds were even more of a mixed bag even though 90% of them were made from the Plavac grape, a close cousin to Italy's Primitivo and a direct descendant of our own Zinfandel. They could be lean, acidic and unfriendly or ripe, raisin-y and filled with volatile acidity. The best, as I said about Dingac, had a Pinot Noir-like charm while also reminding me of the thoroughly delightful Zweigelt (my current favorite red) of Austria.

But I need to get to the original reason for this post which involves not just Croatia, but the fascinating area just north, where Italy, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia come together, one of the most intriguing areas I've ever visited. My wife and I spent a couple of days in Friuli, Italy, not my first time but hers (and I've been on the wine trail throughout the northeast several times before) but it was a glass of the Vodopivic brother's fascinating Vitovska (an indigenous white grape from near the Slovenian border) at Terroir, a wine bar in San Francisco that features 'natural' anti-avant-garde Luddite wines that rekindled my interest in the region and has me ferreting them out from a variety of sources.

The area makes the best whites in Italy. I think that's a safe statement and I apologize to Alto-Adige, Campania, the Veneto and Piemonte all of which produce wonderful whites. But nowhere in Italy can you find a greater selection of wines that define the state-of-the-art AND are uniformly high quality at the low end too. And even before you get to the envelope-pushing fringe, you have to acknowledge winemakers like Silvio Jermann, the Fellugas, Mario Schiopetto and others for making some of the most exciting wines in Italy. But it's that lunatic fringe, a generation of young iconoclastic winemakers, that have taken their (very long) ancestral legacy and turned it on his head. This is where more than a few winemakers (including the aforementioned Vodopivic wines) have made the antique modern again by fermenting their wines in terra cotta amphorae, much like it was done many centuries ago, as well as reintroducing other techniques that have long been abandoned. Even though wines like Jasko Gravner's Breg and Radikon's Ribolla Gialla are idiosyncratic, to say the least, they are thrilling to drink as you can palpably feel the past bleeding into the future right there in your glass. I've been cautiously buying them over the years and putting them on PRIMA's wine list but it is a rare diner indeed that comes in looking for them or even notes their existence. I'm OK with that because every once in a blue moon I hear the next day (I'm rarely on the floor at night at PRIMA) of a customer- often a domestic winemaker- who experiments with a bottle or two and I find that very gratifying.

I have gone as far as put one of my very favorite whites, a Vitovska from the distinctly out-there Edi Keber, into the high-end wine club I control at PRIMA. The hundred or so members of our Super Consorzio have proved to be enthusiastic consumers of some of my more not-quite-ready-for-prime-time wines and, even though I suspect many of the Super Consorzio newsletters (another excuse for not blogging) wind up in the hamster cage, I am proud to be getting wines like these into the hands of many wine lovers who would never have voluntarily chosen a wine like Vitovska (or even heard of it) for themselves.

In that way our world view increases just that much.

Last Days In Piemonte....the final post

Friday, May 21st

I can’t tell you how good it felt to wake up and not have to face 80-some odd Nebbiolo-based wines this morning for breakfast. With the event over, I was left to my own devices so I checked out of the inn and motored back to La Morra (Santa Maria to be exact) for an 11 AM appointment with Cristina Oddero and her niece Isabella.

With apologies to their young, male enologist, Oddero is a winery of women. The old winery and cellars are immaculate and tastefully splashed with brilliant color in the form of discreet geometric murals on some walls, multi-colored birdhouses dangling from the branches of two deceased birch trees and an ancient dark wooden table in the tasting room livened up by clear molded plastic chairs in zingy orange, yellow and red. It’s such a personal, pretty place that subtly combines the winery’s significant past with a present that’s vibrant and optimistic.

I am afraid that I am taxing Cristina’s (very good) English with my incessant questions but we’re all game and 24 year-old Isabella, winemaker and the daughter of Cristina’s sister, another principal in the winery, is more than willing to help. The estate here is much more spread out than their neighbors up the hill at Montezemolo, and a sampling the wines at Oddero is like taking a tour of the Barolo DOCG’s greatest vineyards. The La Morra estate vineyard runs from the winery up to the top of the hill and the ancient Santa Maria church, hence its name Bricco Chiesa. The rest of the contiguous vineyard flows out from the winery culminating in Bricco San Biaggio, another ziggurat (who thought I’d get to use that word three times in the same document?) capped by its own, much smaller tree. The winery’s other properties include a spot in Barbaresco’s Gallina vineyard in Neive, a two-hectare plot rented from the Church of Alba since the 1990s, Villero, perhaps Castiglione Falletto’s most famous vineyard, Rocche Castiglione, right on the border between Castiglione Falletto and Monforte, a tiny parcel of Bricco Fiasco in Monforte, a postage stamp piece of Brunate situated at the very top of the vineyard, a wonderful spot called Mondoca in Bussi Soprana and the Odderos are one of the few lucky owners of a piece of Serralunga’s famed Rionda, now, once this new legislation is passed, to be called Vignarionda. They also make a zingy white from Chardonnay and Riesling planted in La Morra, a snappy Dolcetto d’Alba and Barberas made from Barolo area vines and a higher toned, quite structured wine from vines near Asti.

In a vintage like 2006, going through the line up of Oddero Baroli is extremely instructive. While the Barolo Classico (the newly approved way to say Barolo Normale) combines the sweetness of La Morra with sterner stuff from Bricco Fiasco, the Falletto wines (Rocche and Villero) are more intense, tannic and vibrant. I didn’t try the Bussia today but the 2004 tre bicchieri winner we have at Prima is big, muscular and briary but, for all that, has nothing on the Vigna Rionda, a classic in 2006 that captures the essence of its great terroir.

The Ladies Oddero took me to lunch right up the hill at the Osteria di Vignaiolo, a totally unassuming but really delicious little place with a lovely outdoor seating area. This was one of those sunny days where the sky was so blue it scorched your eyeballs and everything in sight was in full bloom! I’ve had a lot of great pasta in my day but when you are drinking Bruno Giacosa’s lovely bubbly and a bottle of Oddero’s 2004 Villero Riserva, deep in genial conversation with two well-spoken, lovely women, well, everything just sparkled. I hated for it to end. But then we went off to have a look at Brunate, the top from which we could see just about everything there was to see from Serralunga to La Morra.

Before I took my leave here and headed off to Barbaresco and La Spinetta, I took a few minutes to consider the rise of the woman winemaker in Piemonte. Cristina and Isabella are part of wheel that is spinning (has spun, more accurately) women to the forefront of the business of making wine in the area. Everywhere you look, it seems, there are women changing the face of the craft and men lamenting the fact that no one seems to be having sons any more! These women, while perhaps loath to drastically change tradition in the area, are doing so nonetheless. The list is getting long. Beginning with Chiara Boschis, Cristina Oddero and Maria Theresa Mascarello, the list also includes the Scavino sisters, the Altare sisters, Marina Marcarino at Punset, Bruna Grimaldi, Gaia Gaja, Bruna Giacosa and a new generation of twenty-somethings featuring the likes of Marta Rinaldi and Isabella Oddero. These are women with the power to determine the direction of their families' legacies through these challenging times. Will they make big changes that will enhance Barolo’s commercial appeal or embrace Nebbiolo’s ‘particular’ character and the fact that it is indeed a niche wine, but a very special one? Judging by what I’ve seen so far, the future of the Barolo wine business is in very good hands!

Giorgio Rivetti's La Spinetta Barbaresco operation is located near the back of the appellation. It’s a functional, modern building, quite suited in personality to the ultra-flashy, super intense wines of Rivetti. Ironically, Giorgio was in California the week I was in Piemonte, and his lovely companion Anya, now very pregnant with their second child together, was at Giorgio’s Tuscan complex being interviewed by a German newspaper during my visit. But, have no fear, Giorgio’s ebullient, very funny niece Dr. Manuela Rivetti was on hand, along with enologist Stefano to offer me the winery’s current releases and a complete look at the amazing 2009 and 2008 Barbareschi and Barbera from barrel and tank. Not many people, maybe no one else I can think of in Piemonte, farm for intensity like Rivetti. Every vineyard he farms is closely spaced and yields are far below the norm in Piemonte. They soak up oak better than any other Nebbiolo I’ve tasted. My favorite of the Rivetti line up is the Barbaresco Gallina in Neive. It has a signature floral quality, violets really, that in the several barrels we tasted from, showed in spades. The 2009 is a real beauty and the 2008 not far behind. Starderi and Valeriano are divided into two sets of barrels, one from the lower portion of the vineyards and one from the ‘alta.’ As you might expect, the wines from the higher portion of the vineyards are tighter and more structured and will form the base of the finished wines while the lower portions make richer, fragrant wines that are all about their sex appeal. I like Starderi second and Valeriano third although I know that Giorgio likes them the other way around.

Debuting this year will be a Barbaresco Bordini from Neive. Located between Starderi and Gallina, these twenty-plus year old vines will make a delicious wine priced between the Barbareschi and Rivetti’s superb Nebbiolo.

From one Rivetti winery to the next I went, driving to yet another castle town, Grinzane Cavour, home of Giorgio’s Barolo winery at Campe. Current DOCG laws prohibit wines to be labeled Barbaresco and Barolo to be made under the same roof unless, of course, you were grandfathered in when the laws changed. Hence the Odderos have both their Gallina Barbaresco and all their Baroli in one winery while Rivetti was forced to build a separate cantina just for Campe. Having been here several times already and with both Giorgio and Anya out of town, I went, instead, next door and checked into the wonderful Tenuta Ottocento (800) Bed and Breakfast. Caretakers Matteo and Isabella have a cute little place and, for E70 including a great breakfast, it’s a well-located inexpensive alternative for lodgings in the Barolo area.

Matteo recommended the nearby Trattoria nelle Vigne, an interesting five-minute drive through the Campe vineyard. This is the classic Trattoria but in a more modern vein with a young, tattooed staff on the floor, rather than just mom and pop. You just don’t feel as well taken care of, I guess. Left to my own devices, I drank a half a bottle of 2008 Belle Cole Arneis and half of a bottle of 2007 Poderi Colla Nebbiolo. There is no menu here and the antipasti comes rumbling out: Achiuge (Anchovies) in a nutty, miso-like paste, fritters and lardo, a chopped salad of celery, peppers, lettuces, chicken and toma, asparagus draped in a rich fonduta and two ice cream scoops worth of carne cruda. I had a choice of three pastas and chose the ubiquitous Piemonte specialty: ravioli with sage butter, followed by a tasty Coniglio con Peperoni. A lot of food and wine for E51.50! It’s an OK place to eat alone and I am betting this is a fun place for lunch too.

Saturday, May 22nd

Market day in Alba is a lot of fun. The normally placid city becomes a beehive of vegetable, meat and fish stands, acres of clothing, farming tools and everything else under the sun. It’s daunting to visit alone. I had some things I wanted to shop for but was simply overwhelmed by the vast expanses of things to buy, all the people and this dazzling sunlight that turned every reflective surface into laser beams that dazzled my eyes. With terminal brain lock, I staggered around for a few hours and bolted back to La Morra for a welcome solitary lunch at an osteria-wine bar in town.

The two young guys seated next to me look barely old enough to drink but they are geeking out on a bottle of Kante Sauvignon with their lunch. I contented myself with a glass of Almondo Arneis and, when the Langhe Nebbiolo I asked for was gone, the server opened a bottle of 2008 Conterno-Fantino Nebbiolo Ginestrina, a knock out that I doubt we’ll ever see in the United States. I ate some delicious burrata with a reasonably ripe tomato and some spaghetti with zucchini flowers.

After lunch I sauntered over to good friend Marco Marengo’s cantina right across from the La Morra bank. Marco and wife Jenny have been making some really, really stylish wines from plots in Roero (one of the few that get the great Valmaggiore fruit), Brunate and the romantically named Bricco Viole. Marco loves his 2006s, calling them the most 'important' wines he has ever made and, indeed, they seem to have bucked the trend of softer, lusher wines in La Morra, with a Brunate that rocked. His 2006 Bricco Viole is, as always, a delicious, fragrant wine with lots of stuffing. The nicest surprise is the 2008 Nebbiolo Valmaggiore. It’s a real tasty wine with great fruit and a juicy quality that makes it irresistible!

By 4 PM it was time to hit the road and I said good-bye to La Morra and headed east towards Lombardia and Milano. I decided to visit Lago Maggiore, the site of some previous fun (are you reading this Eric and Chris?) but it was crawling with day-tripping tourists and after driving around a bit, I decided instead to point my car to Malpensa, and found the not-so-appropriately named Hotel First, just a few minutes from the airport. The highlight of my stay here was being able to sit outside on their patio and enjoy a late dinner of Tagliatelle Carbonara as the sun went down. The server, who doubled as the hotel’s porter, brought me out a very tired bottle of 2006 Prunotto Arneis but not even that terrible wine could dampen my enthusiasm for this lovely, lovey evening, my last in Piemonte.

No choice, I guess but to go home!

Thanks for reading.