A Harvest Tale - Part 2
A Harvest Tale - Part 2
What truths are we searching for in the soul of Italy?
Traveling is the ruin of all happiness! There’s no looking at a building after seeing Italy. — Fanny Burney
Nel vino cè la verità [In wine there is truth] — Old Italian proverb
But I digress
Before I continue our harvest tale with the first part of our trip to Italy, I must beg your forgiveness for the recent irregular scheduling of this newsletter. One of the hazards of writing about winemaking, particularly around harvest season, is the danger of tumbling down every rabbit hole encountered in the telling of your story.
There’s simply too much going on and it’s too easy to want to explain it all—if only to get the chaos down on paper, and seek some order to the pandemonium. Unfortunately, that can result in the story you originally set out to tell never getting told. An exasperating writer’s block sets in and you find it easier to procrastinate, to simply wait for the confusion to abate (i.e., not write at all) rather than apply the hard work and discipline necessary to find clarity. To borrow from Lao Tzu, “Muddy water let stand, will clear.”
Anyone who reads my missives knows that I am forever guilty of this kind of digression. It’s my literary equivalent of tasting everything on the buffet table, everywhere, all at once. So, working my way through recounting the 2023 harvest season is going to be that way, just telling you now. Mea culpa.
Congratulations Ken!
On November 2nd my final two out of eleven fermentations this season went dry and I pressed the must into holding tanks to settle for a day or two before barreling. You’ll hear more about this in an upcoming post, but such was the amazing length of this year’s harvest. So, on November 3rd, feeling smug, very exhausted, and very relieved to have the last of all of the 10 tons of grapes I had picked finally past that point, I attended a wine tasting.
“A wine tasting?” you might ask. “Did you not get enough wine over the previous two months?” But I don’t drink that much during harvest season. Fully enjoying a bottle of wine is just too tough on this aging body, especially the morning after when all I’m trying to do is simply survive the physicality of the job. I do taste a lot, however, but not in the way you are thinking. And I almost never swallow. I taste wine “in the making”—fresh grape juice, fermenting wine at every stage, press fractions of wine, one-day old wine, one-week old wine, wine going through MLF, wine before racking, wine after racking, wine while blending—all of which is hardly the same thing, or as pleasurable, as say, sitting out on the patio at Gundlach Bundschu and reveling in a Mountain Cuvée.
But on November 3rd, the 50th day of my 2023 harvest season, I was ready to really taste wine. And so, I went to the best wine tasting event of the season.
I’ve written about Ken Wornick, my “wine guru” many times over the past three years, almost from my very first newsletter. I met him in 2018 when I made the Tiny Vineyards documentary (in which he was portrayed), and he is truly the single most influential reason I became a winemaker.
Ken has been making wine, mostly behind the scenes for private clients, for nearly 30 years, and he has shared his vast experience and know-how with me, generously and unfailingly, every time I asked. This year he finally realized a long-held dream of building his own winery, to make his own wine, under his own label, from his own rare and very special Sagrantino grapes, grown in his own vineyard, on his own land.
It was to the inaugural wine tasting, winery opening, and brand unveiling of this wine of Ken’s, this Sonocaia, that I made my way on November 3rd. And I was hardly disappointed! Pay attention wine world, this is really something. And you, dear reader, can only benefit from the revelations you’ll be afforded at sonocaia.com
And this just in! Friday’s Sonoma Index Tribune just featured Ken in a huge, two-page story announcing the opening of his winery. Check it out!
Red is the color of…
Finally, I just have to quickly acknowledge how visually sensational the end of the season was here in Sonoma Valley. In my previous five autumns in wine country, I have never seen such color in the vineyards, especially the reds. Vineyards everywhere seemed to literally glow on fire when backlit by the afternoon sun.
Unfortunately, red leaves in a vineyard in the autumn could be, well… a red herring. It isn’t always the same process or as predictable as the famous fall colors of New England, the breathtaking hardwood palette of the Ozarks, or the blazing yellow of aspen changing in Colorado. The normal leaf color progression for healthy grapevines as they give up their grapes at harvest and prepare to go dormant is green, yellow, orange, brown… gone. And often those orange and brown stages barely get started before the leaves fall off.
When red becomes the dominant color in a vineyard, viticulturists begin looking for negative biotic causes like viruses, bacteria, or fungus, or abiotic influences like nutrient deficiencies, cold injury, or damage to root systems. However, it’s highly unlikely that nearly every vineyard in the region this year was suddenly and simultaneously suffering from red blotch virus or leaf roll disease, or is deficient in magnesium or potassium.
So, maybe what we enjoyed seeing this fall was just a more vibrant expression of that final orange/brown stage as a result of such a long, slow harvest season with no adverse weather events to knock the leaves off early. That’s an extreme rarity in itself around here. Whatever the cause, it sure was beautiful.
Now, let’s get on to Italy.
How to tell this story?
It seems like everyone you talk to has been to Italy. In fact, it seems like everyone just got back from Italy, or is going yet sometime soon. At least that’s the impression I got from talking about Italy in a small wine-centric town like Sonoma. Of course, it could just be that folks everywhere have felt cooped up for so long, what with the pandemic and all, that finally the world just unilaterally decided that it was once again safe to travel, and Italy was a favored destination. I don’t know. Doesn’t quite make sense really, if you recall that Italy was one of the countries hardest hit by Covid.
And on top of that, 2023 has been one of Italy’s hottest years on record, with an average of eleven extreme weather events per day for the first seven months of the year. The Italian government issued a red alert for 23 of the country’s 27 main cities and shut down many popular attractions. Thousands of tourists flocked to hospitals with symptoms of heat stroke and other heat-related illnesses, and many died.
Still, the world descended on Italy in record numbers. According to the market research institute Demoskopika, the country will set a new tourist record in 2023. The number of visitors is expected to reach 68 million people — almost 3 million more than before the pandemic in 2019.
And Deb and I were to be somewhere in that count.
The European heatwaves were a concern when we first started thinking about sneaking a trip in before harvest, but we figured the heat would have to break by September. The sheer number of tourists was hard to put in context, so we simply ignored the potential impact of that. And the idea of any continued risk from Covid was also illusionary. Folks around here haven’t worn masks in months and nobody seemed to be getting sick anymore. For many of us, Covid was so yesterday.
So, to catch up to where I left off in my last post, we bid everyone at the wedding arrivederci! and made our way to Pittsburg International Airport for our evening non-stop to London and connection on to Venice.
Wait a minute now. I just felt the room shift. There was a perceptible mood change amongst you, loyal readers, at the thought that you had been duped by the classic, “Do you want to see slides from my Italian vacation?” trope. And yes, we did take a few hundred (okay, maybe thousand) iPhone pics and digital images on my Nikon Z7 as we made our way from Venice to Cinque Terre to Florence to Tuscany and finally to Rome. And we wrote journals and drew sketches. And we saw every sight one sees on such an itinerary.
But wait, don’t delete this email! I promise I won’t bore you with snapshots of things you’ve probably seen in person, or online countless time, or with an endless, rambling travelogue. Instead, I hope to transport you with just a few cultural images to set the scene, and a few more food and wine photographs to pique your interest, and maybe even your appetite.
I saw many of the famous sights in Italy for the first time over fifty years ago, and then again, half my lifetime ago. But other than a hiking trip along the Swiss border, this was Deb’s first trip to Italy and so this immersive itinerary was hers. It didn’t hurt that we would be deep in the heart of several Italian wine regions, as my focus on this adventure, after tagging along with Deb for the good stuff, was the food and wine. Other than to watch Deb smile and shake her head in amazement at what she was seeing, I went to Italy to be inspired for my own winemaking.
And so, that is how I shall present it here, in picture form, along with a few simple journal notes that are all pretty much wine or food related. If you’re still stifling a yawn, perhaps breaking out a glass of Ribolla Gialla or Amaroni would help as an attitude adjuster.
Venice
Sunday, September 3 - Flew from Pittsburgh to London, overnight non-stop on British Airways. Uneventful red-eye with even the cheap seats reasonably comfortable, but back-of-the-bus British airline food is hardly the way to start a culinary-focused trip!
Unable to sleep, I reluctantly broke out our Rick Steves’ Italy guidebook, which I had pretty much avoided so far with a “Who me? I don’t need no stinkin’ guidebook. I can figure it out.” world traveler snobbishness. I admit it, I’ve got an attitude. I’ve been extremely fortunate to have traveled widely in my various pursuits, and I’ve always made it a habit to strike out on my own and try not to appear like your average American tourist. That of course smacks of elitism—and is actually pretty hard to pull off!—as nothing stands out more in a crowd than the aforementioned caricature.
But an hour with the guidebook and I was deeply humbled. It was obvious that Steves, the self-made yet undisputed high priest of travel to Italy, had done a remarkable job and his guidebook would be indispensable for our trip. I say “would be” when I really should be saying “already had been,” as Deb had already been referring to the tome (and a favorite website, earthtrekkers.com) for several months as she planned our trip. It was now festooned with colored sticky notes, annotated throughout in her handwriting, and torn apart and rebound into sections covering the areas we would visit. With my conceit squelched, all I could hope for was that we wouldn’t see too many other tourists blatantly referring to this bible in public. Sadly, even that wouldn’t be the case.
Monday, September 4 - Flew from London to Venice after navigating Heathrow. Total time-suck when they make you reprocess through security even though you’re a connecting passenger in the same terminal. Barely made our flight.
Once on the ground in Italy we followed signs from Vincenza airport to the Blue Line water taxi providing vaporetto rides to Venice, and hopped on the next boat. It’s now possible to take a train directly into and out of Venice, but it hardly provides the traditional, centuries old approach by water. Jetlagged and giddy, we leapt off at our stop and plunged into the labyrinth of confusing passageways and canals that form the islands of Venice.
It is a rite of passage to get lost in Venice, and it will happen multiple times. Funny thing, the GPS on your phone works there, but only sort of. Due to the height of buildings built upon buildings and the extremely narrow lanes between them, it’s quite easy for your Google maps to be off by a “street” or two as we discovered looking for our lodging on Calle Sartori.
Once we found our Airbnb (livable, but nothing special) along a passageway so narrow only two people could walk abreast, we headed for dinner at the Puppa Bar. It was an inexpensive dive off the beaten path, favored by students for its cheap local food and wine. Perfect! We had a big plate of Spaghetti Al Nero Di Seppie (squid ink pasta) with a salad, tiramisu for dessert, and glasses of local Ribolla Gialla and Valpolicella. The food was delicious and the wines amazing, especially the incredibly fresh and crisp Ribolla Galla.
Tuesday, September 5 - I’m a coffee guy. Gotta have it first thing in the morning, preferably with a simple pastry of some kind. And I don’t mind a little ritual to go along, like preparing it in the same manner every day, or visiting a favorite coffee shop. We found all that in spades in Italy, as coffee and the practice of drinking it is a religion there. Our first stop every morning in Venice was Bar Stella Polare for creamy cappuccino, tea for Deb, and croissants baked with orange marmalade filling.
We spent our first morning on a three-hour long guided tour of Saint Mark’s Square and Basilica, and the Doge’s Palace—the cultural plethora of which held me in rapt attention from the first minute to the last. Wow!
Lunch was at some unnamed bar along the walk back to our Airbnb. We made the mistake of eating too far into the tourist zone where often the prices are higher and the quality lower. This place at least had intentions of culinary creativity serving cuttlefish ravioli with smoked salmon paste, a Caprese salad, and cold glasses of a local Sauvignon Blanc and Soave, the truly endemic white wine of this part of Italy. It might have been because we were still jet-lagged, but everything was just sort of bleh, except for the Soave, which was truly delicious but added to my sleepiness.
Upon arrival back at our Airbnb we collapsed into that other time-honored tradition of Italy—Riposo or siesta. Fai un buon pisolino!
We woke from our naps in the early evening, still drunk on the afternoon sleep and the excess of the day, but restored from our travel malaise. Venturing out for what in Sonoma might be called a late dinner, we found ourselves the first two patrons at Hosteria Bacanera, and dined on their outside tables in Capiello de la Cason square.
We shared a plate of wonderful gnocchi with goose, duck, and rabbit ragu, and a pistachio mousse for dessert. I asked the very friendly sommelier for a good local red wine and he brought me a bottle of Manzone Rosso, a very inexpensive red blend of Barbera and Dolcetto grapes from nearby Barolo in Piedmont. The wine was medium-bodied with a good acidity, soft tannins, and aromas of red fruit, along with a hint of herbs and spices. It went really well with our meal. I loved it!
Wednesday, September 6 - Breakfast again at Bar Stella Polare, where else? Then we set off on a fun self-guided exploration of the center of Venice, the amazing fish market, the Grand Canal, and a Leonardo da Vinci exhibit of inventions in an old church. By mid-morning we were hungry again—go figure!—so we acted like Italians and stood up at a bar to munch a snack of small ham and cheese sandwiches. And, I had my first Apernol spritz, a quickly habit-forming, bitter but refreshing cocktail of Apernol, prosecco, soda water, and a slice of orange. Created in Venice in 1919, Apernol itself is made with an infusion of orange, rhubarb and a secret mix of herbs and roots. Apernol spritzes have been the rage in Italy for decades, and here in the States for just the last few years.
Walking the streets of Venice is an indulgence in visual and historic overload. Quite honestly, everywhere you look is a photograph, from the canals to the ancient buildings, all frozen very purposely in time from long before there was even film. Deb is an artist with her iPhone camera and every time I start looking at her pictures of Venice I’m transported back to the time of Napoleon, and much earlier. There are still buildings in the city dating back 800 years.
Before we knew it lunchtime had rolled around and we shared a fantastic tuna/tomato/mozzarella salad followed by a macchiatoni (an espresso with a small amount of foamed milk) at Bar Foscarini, just under the Ponte Dell’Accademia. Then a vaporetto water taxi on the Grand Canal back to Rialto Bridge, and a short stroll home for our daily riposo.
This was our last night in Venice so we splurged a little for dinner at Vecia Cavana, a higher-end local’s ristorante near “our” part of town. It requires a reservation, which of course we hadn’t remembered to secure, and we actually only got in because once again we ate before civilized Venetians would even consider sitting down for dinner. We had traditional plates of marinated sardines with onions and raisins, and a simple pasta with wild mushrooms. Absolutely sublime.
I ordered a half-bottle of Amaroni della Vallpolicella for more than the cost of all the wine I had drunk so far on this trip combined. A full bottle of their best vintage was 650 Euros or about $700. Amaroni della Vallpolicellai is considered the most prized (if not the most powerful) expression of the wines of Valpolicella. It is truly ambrosial, and is made so through a process called appassimento, which is the natural partial dehydration of the grapes to produce a greater concentration of colors, aromas and flavors in the wine. I can attest, the result is orgasmic.
We ended our evening with a nighttime gondola ride. Yeah, a bit touristy but still romantic, and a lot of fun!
Cinque Terre
Thursday, September 7 - Early the next day, we took a vaporetto water taxi to the Venice train station, a fast train to Florence, a fast train to La Spezia, and a regional train to Monterosso in Parco Nazionale della Cinque Terre—one of the most picturesque and remote coastal stretches of Italy. Few roads, fewer cars and almost all travel done by train or boat, or by walking on trails along the steep shoreline.
Before we left the States Deb and I had each decided to channel our early vagabond days and travel to Italy with just a wheeled carry-on bag and a small backpack. This made us extremely free and mobile, and never under the threat of lost luggage. And, despite the limitation on what we could pack, I still got home with clothes I never wore. This would all become quite handy as we now entered the most train-transported and heavy-walking section of our trip.
Arriving in Monterosso we walked up the steep main street to check in at the Hotel Souvenir. I loved this place. Just what I imagined a small tourist hotel tucked into the hillside should be, old but working accompaniments, a comfy bed, big bathroom, and windows that opened fully to a cooling sea breeze.
The older woman who ran the place, perhaps even owned it, greeted us with a friendly recitation on where to go and what to do in Cinque Terra. Would we be hiking between the five towns within the park? If so here’s what you need to know. Where to eat? Not any of the touristy places, most are already fully booked for the evening. Try Ristorante Belvedere, a favorite gathering place for locals. It’s right on the beach.
And she was right, Ristorante Belvedere was sensational. We had an outdoor table ten feet from the wall that borders the beach. We ordered a half-liter of Brocca, a delicious local red wine made from the hardscrabble grapes of truly tiny vineyards clinging to ancient terraces on the steep hillsides along the coast.
For dinner we feasted on local seafood—a plate of small fresh sardines, filleted open and marinated in orange juice and olive oil, a platter of grilled swordfish, bronzini, scampi and squid, Trofiette pesto pasta with potatoes and green beans, and finished off with lemon sorbetto. Need I say anything more?!
Friday, September 8 - The next morning, we were treated to a fantastic Euro breakfast spread at the hotel—the Italian equivalent of a cheap airport motel breakfast buffet in the States, only this would have qualified as five-star anywhere on the American side of the pond. We ate our way through several different cultures of breakfast food and listened to the excited chatter of an older group of English and Scottish women who had just returned to the hotel in their wet bathing suits from their early morning swim in the Ligurian Sea. They were still dripping wet and were starving. And they were very funny.
Today was a day of reckoning. We planned to hike the Cinque Terre trail from Monterosso to Vernazza, two-plus miles of very steep up and down through terraced vineyards and tiny farms. We’d have lunch in Vernazza and then carry on to Corniglia, a longer and even steeper second leg mainly uphill to the coastal plateau. From there the trail was closed due to landslides, so we planned to take the train from Corniglia to the final town of Riomaggiore, and then catch the ferry all the way back up to Monterosso so we could see everything from the water.
What actually happened was we made it to Vernazza—more difficult than expected—but insanely scenic. We then celebrated with a big lunch at Taverna del Capitano right on the beach in Vernazza. We drank a half-liter of an amazing no-name local white wine, and we ostensibly refueled on smoked swordfish, Trofie al Pesto pasta, and a huge del Capitano salad. But by the time we were finished with all of that neither one of us could move, much less hike, steeply uphill, for two-and-a-half more miles.
Outwardly disappointed, but secretly relieved, we made our stiff and painful way up to the train station and carried on with our itinerary to Riomaggiore. The ferry ride back up the coast to Monterosso was beautiful and gave us a unique and spectacular view of five tiny villages carved into the steep slopes of a bygone era.
[Our Italy trip and a surprise harvest continues in my next post]
Happy Holidays! How’s the wine?
Here’s hoping you and your loved ones had a tasty Thanksgiving with scrumptious food and memorable wine. Deb and I actually had our traditional feast a few days early and then we flew right on T-Day to Kauai to recover from harvest—or was it that literary procrastination setting in? Hmmm? In any event, it was tropical heaven!
If you were one of Tiny Vineyards Wine Company’s cherished charter customers—and there have been so many of you fabulous folk!—I hope you’ve finally gotten into a bottle of our Requisite Red, Eclipse Malbec and/or Daniel’s Pride Chardonnay. All three are drinking extremely well, as attested to by a wave of generous reviews. Thank you all for your support and kind words. I can’t believe that after more than two years of nurturing our first commercial vintage—alternating between angst and amazement—we’re finally drinking the stuff. And it really is good!
And, if you want some more for those Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa celebrations, or you’ve finally decided to find out what all the fuss is about, go to tinyvineyards.com for special discounted pricing and free shipping deals. Don’t forget to apply the coupon code IKNOWJOE at checkout for an additional 15% off your entire order of three bottles or more!
Then, please let me know what you think of the wine. Give it to me straight, I’ve got thick skin (yeah, right). I realize that you can’t please everyone—especially with wine. Different folks simply have different tastes. So, I now have only one ultimate goal with Tiny Vineyards Wine Company, and that is to make the highest quality wine possible that I personally love and want to drink, and then hope our tastes align.
To sharing a bottle. Cheers!