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- What’s the Rush. Let It Breathe
What’s the Rush. Let It Breathe
- By CWF Sources
- Published 09/19/2006
- Beyond California
ROME -- I was early, so I decided to stroll the blocks that flow out from the Spanish Steps, an unusual, neat grid of streets in a city where orderliness is fleeting and everyone gets lost. Amid this rare symmetry are stores that flaunt 100-Euro bath towels, framed antique etchings and dynamite broaches, like the one I saw in the form of a huge housefly with precious wings laced with diamonds. And then the clothes: shop after shop displays high fashion accoutrements and matching prices.
All this leaves little room for a Rome essential, the “bar”, where coffee, pastries and sandwiches are a sure thing. After a 15-minute search, a virtual eternity in a city center stuffed with bars, I finally found one and had a thin mortadella and mozzarella sandwich, an espresso with a splash of cold milk, and a glass of water. A friend had warned me to eat a little something to prevent the loss of faculties and judgement in the company of strangers. In a little while I would attend my first Wine Tasting.
PUNCTUALITY, FLEXIBILITY
When I circled back, I was on time, which means I was still early. In Rome it’s often better to arrive late, that way you arrive just before things get started. For some reason I hopped on the subway and arrived earlier than the advertised appointment time, 7:15 p.m.
Officially, this was the Eurocircle Wine Appreciation Class 2 (20 Euro) held at the International Wine Academy of Roma in mid-March.
Our correspondent in Italy,
Matthew Alessandro De Bellis
Founded in 2002, the academy’s building is at 8 Vicolo del Bottino. Its entrance is just steps away from the mouth of the metro stop where waves of tourists pour in and out to wander Piazza di Spagna, rest on the perfect cascade of 138 steps of the Scalinata di Trinita’ dei Monti and enjoy the spectacular people scene. Spanish ambassadors to the Holy See have enjoyed a view of the piazza since they took up residence there in 1622, before the Spanish Steps became the main attraction.
With the crowd’s momentum and energy tugging them toward Piazza di Spagna, I’m sure most tourists miss the academy’s narrow doorway. When I walked in on time – early – after my quick meal, fellow wine novices and early arrivals were mingling.
I took a seat, and for a good 45 minutes I studied with exaggerated significance wall posters that showed Italy’s various wine regions, and my place setting. The Wine Tasting room resembled a lecture hall. Rows of wood tables for two faced the front of the room where there was a blank dry-erase board. Being from California, where winemaking has become such a sophisticated affair, I started wondering what kind of evening I was in for. California sold $15 billion worth of wine within the United States in 2004, accounting for two out of every three bottles of wine sold in the country, according to wine industry consulting firm Gomberg, Fredrikson and Associates. I feared our Italian Wine Master might draw up charts, graphs and revenue projections between sips.
MISPLACED FLORIDIAN, HONONARY CALIFORNIAN
At each place setting there were four tall, wide, serious looking wineglasses arranged in the form of an arch, which was completed with a wineglass half-filled with water. To wash the palate between tastings, I presumed. A napkin was expertly pinned underneath the water glass to show the academy’s printed logo, a square, stately old building.
I had seen in movies or read in magazines that spitting or dumping wine into a small bucket was part of the wine tasting ritual, but there was no spitting or dumping at the International Wine Academy of Roma. The spittoons, placed in the middle of each table, went unused, only props.
It was past 8 o’clock, my boredom having peaked some minutes before, when a woman with flared nostrils and strong perfume plopped into the seat next to me in a huff. Without introducing herself, she stated how hungry she was for dinner and scanned the room for food in irritation. She twitched her head from side to side like bird and grumbled about of the lack of food at the wine tasting. She had returned from her native Florida only a couple of days before and was still jetlagged, she crowed. She timed her arrival perfectly.
Nicolo’ Ditta introduced himself as our Wine Guide for the evening. The Floridian kept complaining and talking like a teenager in a classroom, but after waiting an hour, I was determined to catch our wine guide’s every word. Through the woman’s fading chatter I strained my ears and caught that Ditta’s boss, academy Director Ian D’Agata, was supposed to have presided over the tasting but instead had to jet to France on unexpected wine business.
But our pinch-hit wine host was up to the task. Ditta issued clear and concise critiques of his chosen wines. He was confident and knew how to work a room of wine newbies. Ditta spoke in an informal way, joked with us and was quick to laugh. He was a portly fellow, dressed in an unremarkable dark suit and tie, and spoke good, accented English. He would fit in nicely in California. The first thing he did was open the evening’s four bottles, announcing that “wine needs to breathe,” a phrase I’d heard before but carried more significance coming from our wine expert.
GOLDEN GRAPES, SILVER WINE
Ditta seemed to be a traditionalist. He mentioned California wines only once or twice in passing as part of general comments, even though in 2004 California, with its 1,294 wineries, was the fourth largest wine producer in the world after France, Italy and Spain, according to the Wine Institute, a California wine association. Ditta reserved his true respect for French wines but made clear his passion was for wines from his native Italy. The French, he said, are the world’s best winemakers, even though they grow less-than-spectacular grapes. Italians grow higher quality grapes but haven’t yet mastered the science of turning them into extraordinary wine. It’s not for Italy’s lack of natural resources. Winegrowers on the Italian peninsula have nearly 1,000 different kinds of grapes to work with, he said. But Ditta summed up by saying, “The French grow silver grapes and produce golden wine, and the Italians grow golden grapes and produce silver wine.”
Ditta was big on weather: Lots of rain typically results in grapes and wines that have soft flavors and fragrances that are better accompanied with food. These wet-weather wines can be “unstructured,” in Ditta’s wine jargon. Dry, hot weather typically produces grapes and wines with more sophisticated flavors; they command attention and can be enjoyed by themselves. These dry-weather wines can be called “structured,” he told us.
As he began to draw a bar graph on the dry-erase board, I wrinkled my brow with concern. But I was felt relieved when his board work was only to indicate how a grape’s level of water content and flavor concentration differ depending on the amount of rainfall. That was it for the dry-erase board. The rest of the evening was left to our eyes, noses and palates.
READING THE WINE
Ditta began the lesson by teaching us a nifty way to inspect and appreciate wine before smelling or tasting it. He instructed us to tilt the wineglass as much as we could without spilling to create a shallow pool of wine in the curved body of the glass. He then told us to hold the tilted glass above our white handout and read through the wine. For a novice, this was an interesting way to appreciate the many color variations of the night’s four red wines.
Ditta then directed our attention to the “fingernail”, the very edge of the pool where the wine thins into a fingernail shape. Every wine has a unique “fingernail”. Certainly that night’s wines were different. The only thing they had in common was the alcohol percentage -- 13 percent. These are the four wines Ditta helped us discover and critique in an hour’s time.
Schiava “Galea” 2002 by C.S. Nalles Niclara Magré
Region: Alto Adige
Grape: Schiava
The wine’s fragrance and flavor reflect the wet and cool weather of 2002. Glass tilted, the Schiava was bright red with flashes of pink and orange, and I could easily read the typed text underneath the glass. The wine smelled like fresh flowers. Ditta remarked that it was an “unstructured, light-bodied wine best opened within two or three years.” The wine can’t stand alone; it needs help, he said, and is best accompanied with foods, such as cheese and bread. He announced that he had pieces of fresh bread for who asked and answered questions, a silly bribe the Floridian wasn’t to fall for.
Lacrima di Morro d’Alba “Rubico” 2003 by Marotti Campi
Region: Marche
Grape: Lacrima di Morro d’Alba
Named after the Rubicon river, which Julius Caesar crossed in 49 B.C. initiating a civil war in the Roman Republic, this wine’s grapes saw only one day of rain from April to July in a beast of a summer that smothered Italy and much of Western Europe in 2003. Rubico’s “fingernail” started as a ruby red and turned to pink at the tip. I could easily read through this wine as well. The fragrance was of roses, leaves -- a “French perfume,” Ditta said. “You can feel and taste the wine,” not “le barrique”, the wood barrels that hold the wine in the fermentation process.
I think it was around this point in the tasting that our wine guide stopped talking and approached a man in the first row who was pointing to one of his glasses. Our eyes followed Ditta as he held up the glass and said, “A mosquito decided to die tonight.” He poured the poor fella another glass, and I added another task to my routine: Smell, tilt, check for foreign bodies, sip.
Cesanese del Piglio “Velobra” 2001 by Giovanni Terenzi
Region: Lazio
Grape: Cesanese
The weather in 2001 was mild. The Velobra had a strong red color that, when tilted for the fingernail test, thinned only at the very edge of the wine pool, indicating it was a wine with “good concentration,” Ditta said. It was somewhat difficult to read through this “concentrated” wine. The fragrance was well- rounded, soft, sweet and spicy, and the flavors were hard but fresh. “This is a typical, traditional wine,” he said, “not a fine wine.”
Salice Salentino 2001 Limitone dei Greci by Vinagri
Region: Puglia
Grape: Negroamaro
The last wine of the evening was also a product of the temperate weather of 2001. The Salice’s color was a dull red whose fingernail stretched out to orange earthy colors. The fragrance had a hint of celery but was overwhelmed by the smell of oak barrels. The wine’s aroma was “hiding behind le barrique,” Ditta said. Its flavor “was easy, left no bitterness and was short, a little flat and cooked,” he said, in what were his harshest comments of the evening.
GRAPE GROWING PIONEERS
Despite the poor review he gave of this last wine, the only one from Italy’s Puglia region, Ditta declared that very region to be the “next frontier” of Italian wines. He predicted Puglian winemakers will begin to shine in next three to five years.
Or maybe the region’s winemakers just have lots of room to improve. The Italian Sommerliers Association (l'Associazione Italiana Sommeliers) tasted more than 13,000 wines in 2004 and gave the highest marks – five bunches of grapes, not stars -- to 372 wines, and fewer than 10 came from Puglia. The only Italian regions whose wines received less recognition were Trentino and Lazio. The Piedmont and Tuscan regions strutted in to first and second place with 88 and 84 top-class wines.
Ditta’s “next frontier” prediction was interesting and informed, and it surely fell on dull minds. The wine tasting room was stuffy, hot, and frankly, I was tipsy and needed fresh air. I should have eaten two sandwiches beforehand.
After Ditta thanked us for coming to the wine tasting, I threw on my corduroy sport coat, squeezed past the famished Floridian and stepped out into busy Vicolo del Bottino. I took big breaths and started toward the other end of town to meet some friends. It was 9:30 p.m. I crossed Piazza di Spagna, walked down Via Condotti and turned left on Via del Corso.
I ambled through a sea of people, cars and buses toward Piazza Venezia, the throbbing heart of Rome that in my distant view was crowned by the massive, white Vittorio Emmanuele II monument. I walked off the evening’s red wine, whatever its “fingernail” makeup. I was light on my feet, full of simple thoughts, and thankful I took detailed notes for this article.
Matthew Alessandro De Bellis grew up in the Bay Area and went on to write about crime, business, technology and venture capital financing for various publications. For a spell, he made his living as a freelance writer.
Matthew moved to Rome after living in San Francisco for 10 years. He now lives just outside the Vatican Walls and offers concierge and accommodation services to travelers coming to Rome.
The only reason Matthew wrote this article was because a friend gave him her 20 Euro ticket to the wine tasting. When eating out, he tends to order the hearty, “unstructured” house wine, unfortunately. But he does speak Italian.
To contact Matthew:
Email: matthew_debellis@yahoo.com
www.extraordinarywords.com
All this leaves little room for a Rome essential, the “bar”, where coffee, pastries and sandwiches are a sure thing. After a 15-minute search, a virtual eternity in a city center stuffed with bars, I finally found one and had a thin mortadella and mozzarella sandwich, an espresso with a splash of cold milk, and a glass of water. A friend had warned me to eat a little something to prevent the loss of faculties and judgement in the company of strangers. In a little while I would attend my first Wine Tasting.
PUNCTUALITY, FLEXIBILITY
When I circled back, I was on time, which means I was still early. In Rome it’s often better to arrive late, that way you arrive just before things get started. For some reason I hopped on the subway and arrived earlier than the advertised appointment time, 7:15 p.m.
Officially, this was the Eurocircle Wine Appreciation Class 2 (20 Euro) held at the International Wine Academy of Roma in mid-March.
Our correspondent in Italy,
Matthew Alessandro De Bellis
Founded in 2002, the academy’s building is at 8 Vicolo del Bottino. Its entrance is just steps away from the mouth of the metro stop where waves of tourists pour in and out to wander Piazza di Spagna, rest on the perfect cascade of 138 steps of the Scalinata di Trinita’ dei Monti and enjoy the spectacular people scene. Spanish ambassadors to the Holy See have enjoyed a view of the piazza since they took up residence there in 1622, before the Spanish Steps became the main attraction.
With the crowd’s momentum and energy tugging them toward Piazza di Spagna, I’m sure most tourists miss the academy’s narrow doorway. When I walked in on time – early – after my quick meal, fellow wine novices and early arrivals were mingling.
I took a seat, and for a good 45 minutes I studied with exaggerated significance wall posters that showed Italy’s various wine regions, and my place setting. The Wine Tasting room resembled a lecture hall. Rows of wood tables for two faced the front of the room where there was a blank dry-erase board. Being from California, where winemaking has become such a sophisticated affair, I started wondering what kind of evening I was in for. California sold $15 billion worth of wine within the United States in 2004, accounting for two out of every three bottles of wine sold in the country, according to wine industry consulting firm Gomberg, Fredrikson and Associates. I feared our Italian Wine Master might draw up charts, graphs and revenue projections between sips.
MISPLACED FLORIDIAN, HONONARY CALIFORNIAN
At each place setting there were four tall, wide, serious looking wineglasses arranged in the form of an arch, which was completed with a wineglass half-filled with water. To wash the palate between tastings, I presumed. A napkin was expertly pinned underneath the water glass to show the academy’s printed logo, a square, stately old building.
I had seen in movies or read in magazines that spitting or dumping wine into a small bucket was part of the wine tasting ritual, but there was no spitting or dumping at the International Wine Academy of Roma. The spittoons, placed in the middle of each table, went unused, only props.
It was past 8 o’clock, my boredom having peaked some minutes before, when a woman with flared nostrils and strong perfume plopped into the seat next to me in a huff. Without introducing herself, she stated how hungry she was for dinner and scanned the room for food in irritation. She twitched her head from side to side like bird and grumbled about of the lack of food at the wine tasting. She had returned from her native Florida only a couple of days before and was still jetlagged, she crowed. She timed her arrival perfectly.
Nicolo’ Ditta introduced himself as our Wine Guide for the evening. The Floridian kept complaining and talking like a teenager in a classroom, but after waiting an hour, I was determined to catch our wine guide’s every word. Through the woman’s fading chatter I strained my ears and caught that Ditta’s boss, academy Director Ian D’Agata, was supposed to have presided over the tasting but instead had to jet to France on unexpected wine business.
But our pinch-hit wine host was up to the task. Ditta issued clear and concise critiques of his chosen wines. He was confident and knew how to work a room of wine newbies. Ditta spoke in an informal way, joked with us and was quick to laugh. He was a portly fellow, dressed in an unremarkable dark suit and tie, and spoke good, accented English. He would fit in nicely in California. The first thing he did was open the evening’s four bottles, announcing that “wine needs to breathe,” a phrase I’d heard before but carried more significance coming from our wine expert.
GOLDEN GRAPES, SILVER WINE
Ditta seemed to be a traditionalist. He mentioned California wines only once or twice in passing as part of general comments, even though in 2004 California, with its 1,294 wineries, was the fourth largest wine producer in the world after France, Italy and Spain, according to the Wine Institute, a California wine association. Ditta reserved his true respect for French wines but made clear his passion was for wines from his native Italy. The French, he said, are the world’s best winemakers, even though they grow less-than-spectacular grapes. Italians grow higher quality grapes but haven’t yet mastered the science of turning them into extraordinary wine. It’s not for Italy’s lack of natural resources. Winegrowers on the Italian peninsula have nearly 1,000 different kinds of grapes to work with, he said. But Ditta summed up by saying, “The French grow silver grapes and produce golden wine, and the Italians grow golden grapes and produce silver wine.”
Ditta was big on weather: Lots of rain typically results in grapes and wines that have soft flavors and fragrances that are better accompanied with food. These wet-weather wines can be “unstructured,” in Ditta’s wine jargon. Dry, hot weather typically produces grapes and wines with more sophisticated flavors; they command attention and can be enjoyed by themselves. These dry-weather wines can be called “structured,” he told us.
As he began to draw a bar graph on the dry-erase board, I wrinkled my brow with concern. But I was felt relieved when his board work was only to indicate how a grape’s level of water content and flavor concentration differ depending on the amount of rainfall. That was it for the dry-erase board. The rest of the evening was left to our eyes, noses and palates.
READING THE WINE
Ditta began the lesson by teaching us a nifty way to inspect and appreciate wine before smelling or tasting it. He instructed us to tilt the wineglass as much as we could without spilling to create a shallow pool of wine in the curved body of the glass. He then told us to hold the tilted glass above our white handout and read through the wine. For a novice, this was an interesting way to appreciate the many color variations of the night’s four red wines.
Ditta then directed our attention to the “fingernail”, the very edge of the pool where the wine thins into a fingernail shape. Every wine has a unique “fingernail”. Certainly that night’s wines were different. The only thing they had in common was the alcohol percentage -- 13 percent. These are the four wines Ditta helped us discover and critique in an hour’s time.
Schiava “Galea” 2002 by C.S. Nalles Niclara Magré
Region: Alto Adige
Grape: Schiava
The wine’s fragrance and flavor reflect the wet and cool weather of 2002. Glass tilted, the Schiava was bright red with flashes of pink and orange, and I could easily read the typed text underneath the glass. The wine smelled like fresh flowers. Ditta remarked that it was an “unstructured, light-bodied wine best opened within two or three years.” The wine can’t stand alone; it needs help, he said, and is best accompanied with foods, such as cheese and bread. He announced that he had pieces of fresh bread for who asked and answered questions, a silly bribe the Floridian wasn’t to fall for.
Lacrima di Morro d’Alba “Rubico” 2003 by Marotti Campi
Region: Marche
Grape: Lacrima di Morro d’Alba
Named after the Rubicon river, which Julius Caesar crossed in 49 B.C. initiating a civil war in the Roman Republic, this wine’s grapes saw only one day of rain from April to July in a beast of a summer that smothered Italy and much of Western Europe in 2003. Rubico’s “fingernail” started as a ruby red and turned to pink at the tip. I could easily read through this wine as well. The fragrance was of roses, leaves -- a “French perfume,” Ditta said. “You can feel and taste the wine,” not “le barrique”, the wood barrels that hold the wine in the fermentation process.
I think it was around this point in the tasting that our wine guide stopped talking and approached a man in the first row who was pointing to one of his glasses. Our eyes followed Ditta as he held up the glass and said, “A mosquito decided to die tonight.” He poured the poor fella another glass, and I added another task to my routine: Smell, tilt, check for foreign bodies, sip.
Cesanese del Piglio “Velobra” 2001 by Giovanni Terenzi
Region: Lazio
Grape: Cesanese
The weather in 2001 was mild. The Velobra had a strong red color that, when tilted for the fingernail test, thinned only at the very edge of the wine pool, indicating it was a wine with “good concentration,” Ditta said. It was somewhat difficult to read through this “concentrated” wine. The fragrance was well- rounded, soft, sweet and spicy, and the flavors were hard but fresh. “This is a typical, traditional wine,” he said, “not a fine wine.”
Salice Salentino 2001 Limitone dei Greci by Vinagri
Region: Puglia
Grape: Negroamaro
The last wine of the evening was also a product of the temperate weather of 2001. The Salice’s color was a dull red whose fingernail stretched out to orange earthy colors. The fragrance had a hint of celery but was overwhelmed by the smell of oak barrels. The wine’s aroma was “hiding behind le barrique,” Ditta said. Its flavor “was easy, left no bitterness and was short, a little flat and cooked,” he said, in what were his harshest comments of the evening.
GRAPE GROWING PIONEERS
Despite the poor review he gave of this last wine, the only one from Italy’s Puglia region, Ditta declared that very region to be the “next frontier” of Italian wines. He predicted Puglian winemakers will begin to shine in next three to five years.
Or maybe the region’s winemakers just have lots of room to improve. The Italian Sommerliers Association (l'Associazione Italiana Sommeliers) tasted more than 13,000 wines in 2004 and gave the highest marks – five bunches of grapes, not stars -- to 372 wines, and fewer than 10 came from Puglia. The only Italian regions whose wines received less recognition were Trentino and Lazio. The Piedmont and Tuscan regions strutted in to first and second place with 88 and 84 top-class wines.
Ditta’s “next frontier” prediction was interesting and informed, and it surely fell on dull minds. The wine tasting room was stuffy, hot, and frankly, I was tipsy and needed fresh air. I should have eaten two sandwiches beforehand.
After Ditta thanked us for coming to the wine tasting, I threw on my corduroy sport coat, squeezed past the famished Floridian and stepped out into busy Vicolo del Bottino. I took big breaths and started toward the other end of town to meet some friends. It was 9:30 p.m. I crossed Piazza di Spagna, walked down Via Condotti and turned left on Via del Corso.
I ambled through a sea of people, cars and buses toward Piazza Venezia, the throbbing heart of Rome that in my distant view was crowned by the massive, white Vittorio Emmanuele II monument. I walked off the evening’s red wine, whatever its “fingernail” makeup. I was light on my feet, full of simple thoughts, and thankful I took detailed notes for this article.
Matthew Alessandro De Bellis grew up in the Bay Area and went on to write about crime, business, technology and venture capital financing for various publications. For a spell, he made his living as a freelance writer.
Matthew moved to Rome after living in San Francisco for 10 years. He now lives just outside the Vatican Walls and offers concierge and accommodation services to travelers coming to Rome.
The only reason Matthew wrote this article was because a friend gave him her 20 Euro ticket to the wine tasting. When eating out, he tends to order the hearty, “unstructured” house wine, unfortunately. But he does speak Italian.
To contact Matthew:
Email: matthew_debellis@yahoo.com
www.extraordinarywords.com