Wine Land's Redemption

How Italian vino went from plonk to prestige -- and where it goes from here

On my first trip to Bordeaux in the early 1990s, I met an opinionated wine merchant during a tasting at Château Prieuré-Lichine. I was with friends, and we must have been tasting the ’86 or the ’89. One of my friends -- like me, American -- said something innocuous, like “Hey, this is pretty good.”

The wine merchant scoffed. “Mais bien sûr!” he blurted. “Of course, it’s French! The great ones are always French!”

A week or two before, I wouldn’t have questioned the remark. I was a great admirer of French food and wine. I studied French cuisine. I dreamt about drinking claret with dinner.

But I’d also come to France by way of Milan, where I’d tried my first-ever Barbaresco, from Gaja. Days later, I could still close my eyes and recall the first taste of that wine on my tongue.

When the merchant paused to take a sip from his glass, I meekly offered, “But I’ve had some pretty good wine in Italy --.”

He snapped his head up as if someone had fired a gun.

“Italy! Italy! ITALY!” he bellowed, nostrils flaring. “For Italy, it is easy! A monkey could make great wine in Italy!”

That unlikely exchange helped set in motion a chain of events that eventually led me to live in Italy.

Italian winemaking in the 1950s, in Salento, Apulia (Wikimedia photo)