Robert V. Camuto's Blog, page 7
June 18, 2022
South by South
June 18, 2022
South by South : More travels and new experiences from Campania to Puglia
I’ve been travelling quite a bit across the Italian South.
Last week I had the honor to serve as president of a wine jury at a gathering that was right up my alley. Radici del Sud is based in Puglia – and brings together the wine trade, journalists, producers and the public around wines from local southern grapes.
Over two days, the jury met in groups ( divided between Italians and “stranieri” ) to blind taste a wildly diverse array of wines from native grapes – from Asprinio to Bombino Bianco and Cococciola to Susumanello.
It proved – again – that Southern Italy’s wines don’t fit into the classic basket of international grapes to which the wine world calibrates its palate.
So, welcome to the sun and the confusion, and please pass the Passerina.
On Sunday evening I presented the Italian version of South of Somewhere ( Altrove a Sud ) at fantastic venue in Bari – Liberrima is both a general bookstore and a hip wine bar with eclectic wines and delicious small bites.
Teresa and Roberto Bruno in Greco di Tufo
There’s a fresh wind blowing across the Mezzogiorno, and my most recent Robert Camuto Meets….column talks about some new favorite winemakers in Campania’s Greco di Tufo — the brother and sister team Teresa and Roberto Bruno. Check it out here at winespectator.com
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June 1, 2022
Hey To Santa Barbara and Back to Italy
June 1, 2022
Hey To Santa Barbara and Back to Italy
What I learned from diving into California's Italian-inspired vineyards
I’ve never really been a surfer, but I did once spend a summer in Santa Barbara. It was 1979 and I had a few credits of study to complete to get my college diploma after my last cold winter at University of Michigan.
I figured at the time that UCSB was an ideal place to do it. I loved spending mornings studying postwar Italian cinema and the plays of Ibsen and Strindberg. Then there was the beach (beautiful in spite of those black oil-spill remnant globules that you had to scrub from your feet with gasoline) and the nights of a new wave music scene taking root at the time.
Well enough memory lane… This early spring, I returned to Santa Barbara and its wine scene (made famous by the movie Sideways) and a couple of its more notable Italian-inspired wine and grape producers.
Santa Barbara pioneering winemaker Steve Clifton
Check out my latest Robert Camuto Meets… at winespectator.com : A Pair of Pioneers Translate Northern Italy into Santa Barbara.
Back in Italy for some time now, I have been travelling south to central Italy and Campania, and there’s one thing that keeps coming back to me :
Making great wine of place often means working your ass off in hard-to-cultivate soils and locales.
Italy’s great terroirs were developed by some tough contadini, feudal sharecroppers or (if we’re talking about antiquity) slaves. Not wine snobs or brand directors.
The New World often forgets this: grapes are grapes, the reasoning goes.
But it’s not really true. You get the stuff beyond the fruit juice from ground in which you can’t grow lots of veggies.
As the pioneering Santa Barbara veteran grower puts it, “You have to plant most Italian varieties in interesting places to make interesting wines.”
For me those places – ones that would never been cultivated today – are what Italy has over everyone.
California also has interesting places, but they are far from their potential. It’s good to see there are those who are trying.
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May 10, 2022
More California Meets Italy
May 10, 2022
More California Meets Italy : A tale of two guys who have nothing in common, except for …
Dan Petroski and Kevin Harvey are in many opposites. Petroski is a seat-of-the-pants winemaker, activist and entrepreneur in Napa, with no vineyards and no personal property other than his cellphone. Harvey is a billionaire tech investor who has bought vast swaths of mountain landscape in central and northern California to plant vineyards.
What they do have in common are a love of relatively obscure Italian grapes and projects on both sides of the Atlantic.
Dan Petroski of Massican (left) and Kevin Harvey in the Aeris tasting room (right)
Petroski has achieved a cult-status with Massican focusing on northern Italian whites. Harvey’s relatively newer project, Aeris, is focusing on the wines of Sicily’s Mount Etna — red Nerello Mascalese and white Carricante — both on Etna and the Sonoma Coast.
Check out the story in my latest Robert Camuto Meets… at winespectator.com
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April 28, 2022
Passing of a great winemaker and friend
April 28, 2022
Passing of a great winemaker and friend
What made Franco Allegrini a great winemaker was not any wine wizardry, but a commitment to his part of the world, a great curiosity, and making the right choices even when they were hard.
What made Franco a great man and friend were other traits that embodied much of the best of Italy and the wine world : a love of traditions, a big generous heart, and a frank honesty that could border on gruffness. He was a farmer-gentleman (not the other way around) who thought it vulgar for a winemaker to order his or her own wine in a restaurant.
Franco Allegrini
Days ago, Franco died at home from cancer in the Valpolicella hills west of Verona at what seems an unjust age — only 65. His funeral is this afternoon in the village of Fumane where he spent his entire life.
Read my tribute to Franco at winespectator.com
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April 14, 2022
Southern Italian Grapes in the New World
April 14, 2022
Southern Italian Grapes in the New World
Here I am back in Italy ready to dive into some Easter pasticceria. (Wish I were in Napoli for some real pastiera napolitana, the most evocative sensory dessert of all time.)
I am excited because the first of my four columns on Italian grapes in California vineyards debuted this week at winespectator.com with “A Slice of Southern Italy in Paso Robles”.
This column focuses on two wine producing couples in Central California’s Paso Robles : Brian and Stephy Terrizzi of Giornata and Adrienne and Chris Ferrara of Clesi. I really think you’ll enjoy meeting them.
Adrienne and Chris Ferrara of Clesi
Over the next two months I’ll explore the fascinating boutique producers working with Italian varieties whom I met on my tour in California.
Italian varieties in California simply make sense — especially with climate change. Hardy Italian varieties can take heat, drought, and most everything you can throw at them and still express freshness (without the common California practice of acidifying wines).
While Cabernet and Chardonnay (and a few other French grapes) remain a juggernaut, I think a big part of the future of California wine will be Mediterranean.
A presto!
Read the article on Wine Spectator
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March 31, 2022
Back to the Old World
March 31, 2022
Back to the Old World and SoS in Italian
After a thrilling South of Somewhere tour of the west coast of the US, I returned home to Italy with some insights about Italian wines and wine grapes in the US market and wine countries—both of which I think have unrealized potential.
[ Hint: Too often wines are tasted and sold in a stand-alone how-good-is-your-Cab-or-Chard way. Italian wines need FOOD ! ]
Anyway, back in Verona, I was greeted by the first box of newly printed Italian edition of South of Somewhere called Altrove a Sud with a preface by Prof. Luigi Moio of Quintodecimo. The publisher is Bari-based Ampelos.
Altrove A Sud, the Italian edition of South of Somewhere
The book will be presented in a series of events around the upcoming Vinitaly in Verona :
Sicily Pavillion 2pm April 10; Campania Pavillion noon April 12, and a press event at Signorvino (Porta Nuova) in downtown Verona 5:30 p.m.
Wine will accompany all.
Speaking of Verona do check out my latest Robert Camuto meets… on the fascinating and historic Bertani estate, which has one of the world’s great wine libraries in which the public can participate (35 vintages of Amarone on the market now).
A presto!
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March 24, 2022
Wrapping it up in the West
The South of Somewhere west coast spring tour is coming to a close in the next few days and am travelling from Seattle to Los Angeles, when Saturday March 26 I will host the final SoS event — an informal gathering and tasting at Barbrix , 2-4 p.m. (2442 Hyperion Ave. Los Angeles).
Barbrix wine tasting with Robert
Robert’s SoS reading and talk taped with wine educator Jeff Davis at the Sonoma County Wine LibraryIt has been a more-than-great pleasure to travel the coast from Southern and Central California to San Francisco and the wine countries of Paso Robles, Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino. Along the way I have met some kind, welcoming and curious people and some winemakers with different perspectives. I’ve gotten some new stories and whole new perspective on the potential for Italian wines in the US market and Italian grapes in the vineyards of California !
Robert at Seattle’s La Tavolata Stone Way SoS dinner with wine director David Sennen and owner Ethan StowellAfter that I will be back in Verona ready for Vinitaly and the release of the book in Italian under the title Altrove a Sud.
Speaking of Verona do check out my latest Robert Camuto meets… on the fascinating and historic Bertani estate, which has one of the world’s great wine libraries in which the public can participate (35 vintages of Amarone on the market now).
This spring has not felt like work, truthfully.
Salute!
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March 4, 2022
West Coast Bound
In another galaxy far, far away I lived in CA. I moved to San Francisco’s Mission District right out of college in 1979 — a time I remember when the hippies were cutting their freak flags and becoming punks – dying what was left of their hair purple or blue.
Anyway, this time my mission is three-fold : talking about Southern Italy and my book South of Somewhere, trying to understand where the west coast of my native land is at, and visiting some of the young producers today working with offbeat Italian grapes.
Italy and it’s South have a lot to offer the wine world like crazy underdog grapes, amazing variety and maybe just some keys to vineyards in the face of climate change. That’s the basic message, but there’ll be a lot more and it will be changing from day to day.
I am excited about the events that are coming up starting week 1 in L.A., with a March 8 “fireside chat” over wine at the N-10 Restaurant with the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce West followed the next evening at Mozza (March 9) with “South of Somewhere” Southern wine dinner.
The following week, I’ll be in San Francisco (March 14-17) at Biondivino, at A-16 (March 15-16 in SF and Oakland) and one of my favorite bookstores in the world : Omnivore Books (March 17). That Friday (March 18) I’ll be in Sonoma with the Sonoma County Wine Library Association.
The following week (March 22-23) I’ll touch down in Seattle for a pair of wine dinners at Tavolata Stone Way, before returning to LA (March 26) for an afternoon at BarBrix.
Please check out the schedule with ticket info and reservations. And if you’re in the area, come on out—would love to see you there.
In other news, if you haven’t already done so, do check out my latest Robert Camuto Meets….column on Bisol’s (Too Cool?) extreme wine project of Europe’s highest altitude vineyard in Cortina d’Ampezzo. This may be one wine that’s just too high up there and out there. But the draw is the fashionable locale and the mountains that will be a host for the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Salute!
February 3, 2022
Welcome to Fiano February
This is how my latest Robert Camuto Meets…. column begins :
About 20 miles south of Naples last spring as I sipped chilled white wine before lunch, the thought hit me: Fiano must be the greatest white wine of Italy. Was I intoxicated by the Mediterranean view and a moment of la dolce vita? Maybe….
Fact is, Fiano is a crazy chameleon of a grape and wine that shows so many different faces and flavors depending on time and place.
At the end of last fall, I visited some great producers in Fiano’s home in the interior of Campania around Avellino.
In a pair of columns this month, I’ll explore all manner of Fianos : fresh, deep aged, mineral-driven and sparkling. Come along for the ride starting today at winespectator.com
January 17, 2022
A mother and her nest in the heights of Montalcino
I love the high elevation Montalcino wines of Le Potazzine, and I love the story of Gigliola Giannetti as a family matriarch, winemaker, grower and survivor.
Giannetti, a now single mom who runs Le Potazzine with her two daughters, was born on the Argiano estate — herself the daughter of workers there.
She and her ex-husband began the 12-acre estate 28 years ago in some of the higher vineyards southwest of Montalcino at a time when locals thought they were wasting their time.
“The contadini said you can’t make a wine of 13.5 (percentage alcohol) up here,” says Giannetti. “Thirty years ago, we didn’t think the climate would change.”
The climate has changed. And so have the times. Ditto for Montalcino.
In fact, Giannetti’s life has pretty much been about doing things that others thought imprudent – from her vineyards to her wine shop and restaurant in town – and then toughing her way through.
Last fall I visited Le Potazzine — now a stellar female-driven producer of Brunello and Rosso di Montalcino in an appellation oft-propelled by pretense and machismo. Read that account (free) at winespectator.com.
