Muddy Boots

To Eataly and back

Thick crowds queued in front of the various Eataly entrances. Gamely, and gamily, they endured the 94f/35c heat. A startling percentage of them were speaking Italian. Perhaps they had been flown in by Mr. Farinetti, boss man at the original Eataly in Turin.

They were respectful and orderly, not shoving or maneuvering to sneak into the front of the line. Except for one person.

Strappo.

He pushed and shoved, calling out, "Scusate," "Permesso," "Movetevi, stronze."

He got to the door. He banged on it just as a young man was unlocking it. He saw Joe Bastianich staring with disapproval. Surely not at Strappo, we hope.

"I'm supposed to be pouring here. Verso qua. Dove si va?"

Go to the wine shop next store. 

Unbowed, Strappo cut his way through the orderly but surging ingressors. Many had canes. He brushed them aside in his haste. He had spent $15 on a taxi to get there in time, and still he was late. He entered the shop, greeted warmly by an Italian guy who thought S was a real customer.

No one at the shop knew about any pouring table. Dan Amatuzzi, the wine director, came in. It was all a ghastly mistake. No pouring today. None at all. 

Strappo felt like PeeWee Herman when Jan Hooks, merrily chewing her gum, told him, "There's no basement in the Alamo." Strappo heard a chorus of laughter. Well, no, PeeWee had heard it, but the scene in the movie played back in his troubled mind.

Strappo is never one to let a $15 cab ride go to waste. He hadn't put product (Kiehl's) on his shining Irish face and traveled all the way to 23rd Street just to go home with his tail between his legs or nothing much to Tweet about. 

So he had Dan take a picture. Here it is. Cascina Gilli's Freisa "Vigna del Forno" -- the first bottle of wine sold in Eataly NY's new wine store.

 

Misson, as they say, accomplished.

  

 

Vineyard porn: Freisa ripe for the plucking

Vineyard porn: Freisa ripe for the plucking 

Just posted by Chiara Martinotti of Cascina Gilli, whose wines will make their Eataly NY debut this afternoon and evening. Her caption for this photo:

No more dew this morning, temperature range of 10 at night, sunny dry and hot today

Lovely plucking weather, I'd say.

Your chance to taste 2 splendid wines at Eataly NY

EATALY NY OPENS TOMORROW @ 4.30PM 

Come taste Cascina Gilli Freisa and Malvasia.

Meet Domenico Selections.

Buy something, already.

Eataly

200 Fifth Avenue

We meet @israeliwines

Have you noticed how blogging has been displaced, to a surprising extent, by Twitter, Facebook and (I guess) LinkedIn? 

And have you noticed that "socmedia" inspires even more encounters and consequential actions than antique, 2005-style blogging? 

Yesterday brought another instance of socmedia > real world encounters. I finally had the pleasure of meeting Richard Shaffer, aka @israeliwines, at a tasting here in New York.

Richard, an active participant in the Twitterverse, is a very likable guy who knocks himself out promoting and selling his wines from Israel. I tasted a few of them yesterday and especially liked a Chardonnay from Flam. Unoaked, it was crisp, balanced and refreshing with its acidity. The fruit was good but not too forward. The finish was clean if not very long. There was a Chard/Sauvignon Blanc blend from the same winery; it took the obnoxious edge off the SB but lacked the fresh acidity of the 100% Chardonnay. 

All in all, pretty good for $19, and a surprise to one whose main experiences with Israeli wines had been of flat, faintly dirty-tasting whites. Whether by coincidence or not, those "dirty" and poorly made wines were Kosher, while Flam's far superior ones wines are not (yet).

 Richard with product. Must always show product

 

  

Strappo Famous on Elba

Our good friend Christian Bucci posted this vacation photo on his Facebook page. He was on the Isle of Elba and saw evidence of Strappo's international renown with his very own eyes.

 

 

 

W&S: Serra del Prete one of 2010's "100 Best Wines"

We just got word that the Musto Carmelitano "Serra del Prete" 2007 will be one of the 100 Best Wines of the year in the November issue of Wine & Spirits magazine.* 

Back in June the wine was awarded 94 points in a glowing review by Josh Greene, W&S publisher and editor. 

We're delighted by the recognition, and not only from a sales point of view. We're happy for the serious, hard-working Elisabetta (Betty) Musto Carmelitano as well as her enologo, Fortunato (Lucky) Sebastiano. By the way, we hope to get both of them over to the States in February or so for a tour of our markets.

Old vines at Musto Carmelitano

NB: The Serra 2008 is now on the market. The 2007 sold out rather quickly.  

    

* Be sure to note W&S's

7th Annual Top 100 Event

Wednesday, October 13, 2010 from 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (PT)

San Francisco, CA

Our, er, "natural" wines

I debated long and hard (30 seconds) on the title of this post. The question of what a "natural" wine is has become a vexed one. Molto vexed.

There are many degrees of wine naturalness, as there are of "industrial" manipulation. 

I haven't the stomach to wade into that pool of horseshit -- I mean, aren't we pretty sick of the polemics and "gospels" of vinous purity -- and let's not talk about the inane "sustainability" at all, OK?

Forgive the negative start to this post; it's much like a theological discussion of God that begins with all that God is not, or is not supposed to be. (Apophatic theology is the technical term. It's opposed to cataphatic theology, which is roughly akin to when wine critics compile a long list of fruits, flavors, aromas and associations to describe and rate a 1-ounce pour of wine.)

Which is really an appropriate way to launch into our Domenico Selections list of wines that are described as "organic" or biologico, and either biodynamic or "on the way to BD certification."

Eataly on August 31: Be there

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the New York avatar of Slow Food-inspired Eataly is opening to the public on Tuesday at 4 pm. I was going to write "at last" because so much has been written, gossiped and hyped about it for well over a year now, it felt as though it never would open. 

Version 18, eh? No wonder it's taken so long to open

See today's story on Eater.com. The headline refers to the place as a "50,000 sq ft Food Funhouse." The story gives you some hint of why. And, by the way, 50K square feet in Manhattan is huge.  

Domenico Selections was asked by the lovely and talented Chiara of Cascina Gilli to represent them at the opening. As I mentioned in the most recent post, we have had no idea what that entails. 

 
Dan Amatuzzi at Otto last December. A tasting of Mustilli wines from Campania  

Dan Amatuzzi, formerly of Otto, who is the Eataly wine buyer, wrote today and said that it means we re-present the wines to the throngs, he assumes by pouring and explaining them in the complex's wine shop. That we can do. We will be pouring Cascina Gilli's Freisa "Vigna del Forno" and their sparkling Malvasia.

This is one of the wines we'll be pouring at Eataly on Tuesday. Freisa "Vigna del Forno" 

Finally, in all of the local frenzy over Eataly NY's opening, let me quote the New York Post story that's online today:

With an entrance on East 23rd Street, this [wine] shop will sell only Italian vino, including those from the Bastianich vineyards. “It’s really an encyclopedic representation of the best of Italian wines,” says Joe Bastianich.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/lifestyle/food/welcome_to_eataly_G5QHOIVyNtzG44tyFb5GVM/1#ixzz0xe7pUtoD

 
The original Eataly in Turin opened in January 2007. Huge AND with parking. Seems always to be crowded. Expect the same here in NYC  

  

Eataly & the Cloud of Unknowing

Domenico Selections is pleased to report that we will be present at the opening of the New York outpost of Eataly, on August 31. This is an exciting development for New York, and we can only hope that it will be as transformative here as the original Eataly, an offshoot of the Slow Food movement, has been in Turin.

And we are delighted to represent one of our producers, Cascina Gilli, two of whose wines will be available in at least one of the restaurants within this giant complex devoted to fine foods and wines from Italia, not to mention the retail shop which will feature all of the wines sold in the eateries.*

But now could someone at Eataly tell us when and where we are supposed to present ourselves at the 31 August event? What are we supposed to do?  

 

Entreaties to Turin have been ignored. Chiara Martinotti, our liaison at Cascina Gilli, has said that she has been told no details. "Nobody's answered my calls either," she wrote me last week. 

We had been hoping for a winning combination of Italian charm and New York efficiency. 

Well, folks, the big day is two whole weeks away. I suppose that, in Italian terms, that's like two months for Americans. We send new entreaties and hope for a reply before the morning of the 31st. We'll share whatever information we receive.

Ciao for nao.  

* Featured at Eataly will be Cascina Gilli's wonderful Freisa, Vigna del Forno, and their highly rated (91 Tanzer) sweet sparkling Malvasia.    

Wanderer comes home

After a month of hardly being home at all, Strappo is, as they say in classically bad fiction, "tired but happy." The latest journey to northern Kentucky and Columbus, Ohio was a success. Lots of wine poured, lots sold, mission accomplished. (No, really. It was.)

The first half of the trip was in and around Covington, KY, the home of DEPS Fine Wine, the HQ of our excellent friend Kevin Keith. We poured 6 wines in each store on successive days. The Friday evening pour at the main store in Covington was jam-packed the whole four hours. Funny thing: I saw a lot of the same faces as in February. They seemed to favor the most expensive wines and kept coming back for additional 1-oz. pours. They said they loved the wines all over again but had never bought the ones they craved.  I finally shamed a couple of guys into buying the damned wine and went so far as to march one over to the cash register to make sure he actually bought it. 

Yes, that was pushy. In a delightful, jocular way, of course. (Kevin, don't tell me he returned it for a credit. I'll be crushed.)

Then a 3-day visit in Columbus, Ohio, where John Hughes' start-up Old World Wines of Ohio is opening up some cool accounts. I was impressed at what John's been able to accomplish in just 2 months, since I saw a lot of Domenico's SKUs in Weiland's Gourmet Market and a seriously geeky wine bar and shop named The Twisted Vine. There were plenty of others -- and here's hoping John gets us into a couple of the top restos in the area. Based on recent tastings, I think that will happen very soon.

Now -- no rest for the wicked. There's a tremendous amount of copy to be written for the Domenico Selections site, and that's you-know-who's job. I fear this will be a weekend behind the barricades as I crank out a passel of overdue copy.

Meanwhile, some fun facts and observations about NKY and Columbus: