To Somm or Not to Somm: The Communicative Method of Wine

It's been a good six months since I've been meaning to sit down and watch the recent-ish documentary Somm. Every month or so another one of my friends or family stumbles across it and contacts me asking if "I've seen that new documentary yet- the one about the wine..."  Anyway it's been a busy fall between traveling to and from weddings and wine events and I hadn't seen it until I had the fortune of it it as an option for an flight movie option on our way to Aspen last week (Delta has redeemed itself in my book- free bags with Delta Skymiles Amex and personal TV screens... Hallelujah!).

I wasn't sure what to expect or even if I was going to like the movie - the sommelier diploma has long been something that I've eyed with awe and with skepticism. My courses with the International Sommelier Guild last year often approached wine as an objective liquid. Classes felt like we were putting it into a box with rights and wrongs focusing on the details and not the story or the experience as a whole. A lot of times it wasn't fun, and I often felt that we were losing the forest for the trees. Yes, being able to tell a good wine from a bad requires a fair amount of knowledge, but the knowledge was packed so hard that it suffocated itself at times. I missed the conversations about how that particular bottle came about, the special occasions it's graced, and which piece of the winemaker's heart was in it.

I guess you could call me a communicative wine theorist. This term harks back to my second-language education days graduate school days of theory. Learning a foreign language and learning wine aren't quite that different, really.  Back in the 1950s, second-language acquisition was almost entirely taught by what is called the grammar translation method. It was a method by which students would study the grammatical rules and vocabulary of a language and practice, hardly speaking or watching natural conversation, by rote memorization. Lessons were only conjugating verbs, grammatical exercises and direct translation, and most students who exited the class could not put a full, comprehensive sentence together when speaking or writing to a native. As the years passed, the the 60s and 70s held several very strange methods of second language acquisition (one of these being the silent method, during which osmosis was expected to do the trick with no practice...just think sponge) - we'll call those years growing pains. Eventually, however, in the 90s and now in the 2000s with the widespread use of English and the growing need for people actually being able to communicate in English across the globe, the communicative method has emerged.

Conversation over wine at Villa della Torre

The communicative language teaching method means less of a focus on rote grammar and more emphasis on teaching students to model their speech and  writing after actual native speakers. This means use of authentic materials, many communicative  activities, and only the teaching basic grammatical rules which will then be applied flexibility to the students' own idiolect. (Idiolect: an individual's own way of speaking, often with syntax, semantics and structure which slightly differs than that of those around them.) Each person put their own spin on the language, and although there are general rules which language follows, it changes based on exposure, region, individual, and several other external factors. The person's language is fluid, and teaching a second language must recognize that and allow for that.

Costanza at the Anna Tasca Lanza Cooking School at Regaleali

The same kind of theory can be applied to my approach to wine to some extent. To be a master sommelier you must commit yourself entirely to the grammar translation method, and I'm not sure that's how I approach wine. This doesn't mean that I do not want to be able to name all of the regions in Burgundy or all of the crazy levels and qualifications of German Qualitätswein - I hope to one day do that, and  in fact, I have spent a good deal of time and money on certifications and lessons in just that. But at the end of the day, when I speak in these terms I do not feel as though I am completely speaking about the wine the way that it is meant to be spoke about. I feel that I am speaking robot, grammar translation wine. I instead want to learn about the communicative part of wine, one that I can share with people other than just sommeliers - I not only want to know the grapes that are in it and the year that it was me but I also want to know who made it where it came from, what food was made to be drink with. I want to know the story behind the wine, not just if it is in a barrique or a bottle.

When I have learned the story or -ideally - have actually visited the place that the wind came from and spoke with the people whose love and labor is reflected in each bottle- that is when I feel like I am speaking wine. I use my own idolect then - my own experience with the wine, and in describing it, my own experience with flavors and exposure  I believe that you can't taste a wine without its and your experiences pouring themselves into your tasting. What wines can I describe best? Allegrini, Tasca, Giacosa, Castello di Neive, Antinori, Ferrari, Vinolibero, wines at Fontanafredda, Villa Dora, Nicola Trabbuco, - I haven't been to all of these properties, but I have done my research, and knowing where it comes from changes the wine.

So back to the documentary. The introduction intrigued me, whenever the four candidates are introducing themselves and their love for wine. I distinctly remember one instance where one of the candidates was describing the experience of wine. He said "it is almost like a way to travel around the world."  But that world in the movie was just a bunch of maps and regions with grapes varietals, alcohol levels, tannins, acidity, aromas and bouquets. It was also a world of fierce competition with one another and oneself. The world of right and wrong that is only enjoyable once you prove yourself to someone who in the end won't be there at your wedding, the birth of your child, or you funeral. It's a world where you emanate someone, be the greatest of the greatest by following the greatest of the greatest, not being yourself. There was no idolect in Somm.

Villa Dora - it's not just the volcano in that wine, for me

Right now I am reading Oscar Farinetti's book Storie di Coraggio: Vino Ti Amo. I just finished the first interview where he speaks with the Costantino Charrère of Les Cretes in Val d'Aosta. Farinetti asks the man where he learned his trade and found his ambition The producer answers in two simple words lo specchio. The mirror.

At one point during the film the candidates for discussing a blind tasting. The conversation was focused on whether certain wine was either Brunello di Montalcino or Barolo - both are big Italian wines that are widely respected, and both can age very well - and the candidate couldn't tell which it was. But they are completely different. My first thought and this is not whether or not the cherries and tobacco of Brunello could be confused with the dead forests of leaves and dried violets of the Barolo, but with how could you possibly mix up a cool, dew-covered wine of Piedmont with a sunny wine of Tuscany? The wine as whole expressed not only the tannins, alcohol, and flavors, but the territory. It was communicating and some Somm's maybe weren't listening.

I have the utmost respect for sommeliers and still am considering one day becoming one. But I also like speaking my own idolect when it comes to wine - one that knows the ground rules and is schooled to some extent, but it also draws on my experience. I think that's how wine should be.

Vino Italiano: It's Personal

I’m a people person.  It’s probably that empathetic, Georgia-born Italian-American coupled with the curious anthropologist in me that makes me want to meet and learn the story of just about everybody I see. Seldom is that a bad thing – although I do get some weird looks in elevators – and often it results in new friends or at least interesting stories from people in all walks of life.

Me + People = Happy  (I love being a guide for WSA in Rome!)

 It’s hardly a shock that this very prominent aspect of my personality carries over to how I approach wines. In fact I think it’s the Italian empathy in me that makes me want to meet and learn the story of every wine I see. It’s that empathy that once again, my favorite author and anthropological-and-linguistic-commentary-genius Beppe Severgnini illustrates perfectly by his comparison of Italian and British flight attendants in his hilariously insightful analysis of the Italian culture, La Bella Figura:

“The Italian flight attendant sometimes takes her job title literally--the plane flies, she just attends. But she's always pleasant, elegant, and ladylike, so much so that she can appear intimidating. I remember one flight from Milan to New York. The Alitalia attendant, an attractive brunette from Naples, was strutting up and down like a model on a catwalk thirty thousand feet above the ground. The man sitting next to me glanced at her and asked me, "Do you think I might be able to get another coffee?" "Why ask me? Ask her," I replied, nodding in the direction of the flight attendant. "How can I ask Sophia Loren for a coffee?" he whimpered. He was right. The good-looking attendant was putting on a fashion show in the sky, and no one dared to interrupt.

But then take a British flight attendant. You wouldn't mistake her for a model. She'll have very little makeup, and no jewelry. Often she is robustly built, and until recently would be sporting one of those little round hats that you only see on British cabin staff and New Jersey ice-cream vendors. Her heels are low, and her shoes are "sensible," as they say in New York. Alitalia crews wear emerald green. British Airways has improbable combinations of red, white, and blue, or a mayonnaise-cum-apricot shade that nature felt no need to invent. The British woman is attentive, though. She comes back again and again, smiling all the time. She waits until your mouth is full, swoops on you from behind, and beams "Is everything all right?"

Then something happens. Let's say you spill your coffee on your pants. At that point, the two personalities undergo an abrupt transformation that--you've guessed it--sums up the respective national characters.

The British attendant stiffens. You have deviated from the pattern; you have done something you shouldn't have. All of a sudden, her inner nanny emerges. She doesn't say she's annoyed, but she lets you know.

The attractive Italian also undergoes a change. In an emergency, her detachment disappears. At times of crisis, what emerges is her inner mom, sister, confidante, friend, and lover. She takes off her jacket and actually helps you. Weak at, if not openly irritated by, routine administration, she comes into her own in exceptional circumstances that allow her to bring her personal skills to bear. Where did the ice goddess go? She melted. In her place is a smiling woman who is trying to be helpful.”

Nicola Trabucco, truly an amazing wine maker and person

Sofia Loren looks aside, I am that Italian flight attendant when it comes to wines. The wines perform best and I appreciate them the most when the situation brings out the personal aspects of each of us. Take me in a wine store, for example. I stare at the bottles, indifferently at the rows of labels, seemingly different yet all the same, when choosing which I would like to take home that night. The 90+ numbers bestowed by Robert Parker on the lucky few do little to entice me. Even when the knowledgeable employee or even owner at the wine store points me towards the best sellers or their favorite wine, I am skeptical and cold. Not that I don’t trust he or she likes that wine, but I’m not interested in the wine - I don’t trust the wine - because I don’t know it. And therein lies the key:  I don’t know it. It hasn’t spoken to my personal side, it doesn’t need or want to talk to me. The way I approach wines are the way I approach people – I want to know them and they want to know me. You can’t just give me a bottle with a technical sheet and a long list of credentials such as “aged in barriques for 6 months before 12 months in the bottle.” My favorite wines taste good because I have a relationship with them – I know their story, that of the people that made them, and the culture they come from.

This is Italian wine. Italian wines are good because the elements that people analyze are exceptional – they are amazing because each bottle is a reflection of the story of the people who make it. I love Italian wine because if you listen, it tells you that story, and I can’t wait to open the next bottle to hear what the wine has to say or relive the first time I was lucky enough to experience that bottle’s tale for the first time. In my most fortunate of cases - such as the wines of Nicola Trabucco, Castello di Neive, Allegrini, Tascad’Almerita, Villa Dora, Ferrari, and Antinori – I’ve met the wine makers, the families, the employees that pour their hearts into their work, heard their stories, and stood on the grounds where wine was born. In other cases- such as the wines of Foradori, Bruno Giacosa, and Borgogno & Figli (try No Name for a great story)– I’ve read interviews, watched videos, and and studied the legends that are poured into the bottles of these iconic wines.

My Italian-American family

Italian wines are passion and love, they are history and culture, and they, like their culture, are made for empathetic, Georgia-born Italian-American anthropologists like me. 

**Special additional thanks to those don't work for the wineries but who have been key in making it possible for me to explore the Italian wine the empathetic way: Giuseppe LoCascio and Stephanie at Winebow Imports, Jon Goldsmith at Spacca Napoli, Caolan Sleeper at Eataly,  Anthony Minne at Plum Market, and the countless other people with whom I have developed relationships and friendships.

Eataly is Italian, Which Explains A Lot

There's been a lot of buzz about Eataly Chicago's recent opening - the heavy anticipation leading up to the Mecca of Italian gastronomy had set the bar high, and Chicago expected Eataly to deliver. But just what exactly did they expect? I've been reading countless reviews (several of them with a bitter tone) over the past few days, and it leaves me wondering if some people have missed the point.

(angels singing)

Eataly is Italy, not Mariano's. If you read the manifesto of the store, there is no place that says you are going to find the best deals or that you’re going to be able to get your Christmas baking materials in their baking section (which they don’t have…). The point of the store, as is pretty clearly expressed in this manifesto, is educating the population and creating a community around high quality Italian food. Anyone who has visited a place where artisan cheese is being made or wild boar is being hunted and slaughtered (or, really, anyone who has done their research on what it takes to get that food to the store or your table), knows that prices reflect the work that the people put into it. This is actually a well-known and accepted fact in other countries; just consider that France, Italy, and Japan - all known for their exquisite cuisines - spend anywhere from 13-15% of their yearly income on food, while the US is lagging at 7%. Quality and price are directly correlated - when I buy an heirloom cherry tomato from the Green City Market for $4.00/lb it tastes like a tomato. When I buy it from Jewel for $1.99/lb, it tastes like water (but at least red-colored water).

No Name (not) Barolo - one of my favorite wines with a story

All this is not to say that the pricing at Eataly is always fair. I’ve been recently working on wine Tasca, Ferrari and Allegrini, and wanted to use the Eataly wine store, completely dedicated to Italian wine, for a gift basket. When pricing the basket, we noticed bottles such as Allegrini's Palazzo della Torre selling for significantly more than it’s sold around the corner at Binny’s. Same went for Antinori’s Villa Antinori. But after mentioning this to the department, I was told that there are plans to work on price matching in the very near future. Hopefully this is the case, but for now I’ll save the common wines for Binny’s and the special ones that I can only get at Eataly (like Borgogno & Figli’s No Name, a wine intended to be Barolo made in a cask that the DOCG commission did not approve of, and sold in protest as No Name).

Caolan Sleeper, the Project
Manager of Eataly Chicago
(who loves her job and brought
you that wonderful store you're
enjoying today)

Also, Eataly as a whole is not about being the fastest sandwich or pizza maker in Chicago during your 30-minute lunch break, although they do try their best to satisfy their impatient clients. Yes, the lines have been long and the staff does seem like there is a very steep learning curve that they seem to be climbing. But once it gets up and running, I don’t want to be in and out of one of their eight restaurants. My experience in Italy has taught me patience in two ways – one being that type of patience when you’re at the Rome airport lost luggage window and the only person working decides to take 3 smoke breaks of 10 minutes each before you move 5 feet in the line – and the second being that patience that you must have for a true Italian ragù (all day) or authentic pizza (you’ve got to plan days in advance for the dough’s rise time of 8-36 hours). I’ll wait for my food, thank you, so that I know that it’s good.

Eataly is Italian, which means first and foremost it’s also empathetic. Italians break rules because they see the person over the rule or law, and in this case, their people over the $$$. After the employees worked day and night to open the store, they deserved a break - and the empathy of the Eatalian gave them a day off on Monday. Let the people be people – sleep in, spend a day with their families, and recharge from all of the hard work they put into the opening last week. From what I can see, it didn't shrink in fear of it's opening, it gave the people who deserved it a break! If only all corporations saw its employees as living breathing entities with needs.

Oscar Farinetti-  the mastermind behind the
concept - is 100% Italian

Eataly is Italian, which means it’s not perfect, but it is (like all things Italian) passionate. Read the signs, talk to any of their employees (a close friend of mine was very involved in the opening) and they are working 24/7 not because they have to but because they want to  - they love their job. It’s a store that’s built for people who are interested in sharing the learning experience and the passion for authentic Italian food and wine. Yes, it does have several aspects of the store that should and hopefully will be improved. But it is what it said it would be  - an authentic physical homage to the world of Italian gastronomical culture.