Here I met on Monday afternoon April 26th, 2010 at the Hendry House during the Downey Imports Annual Wine-Maker/Owner/Rep Wine-Tasting Gia Pascarelli ( Mid-Atlantic Regional Manager ) of Dalla Terra Winery Direct ( Of The Earth , Tel: 914-623-8838 Fax: 860-760-6106 Dalla Terra , Napa Tel: 707-259-5405 Gia@DallaTerra.com www.DallaTerra.com 85 Sheehy Ct., Napa, CA 94558-7575 ) and we tasted an assortment of the VIETTI Piemonte wines that I have represented and sold for the last 25 years or so : ever since discovering them years ago at the Mayflower Wines & Spirits when I worked with Michael Downey the founder of Downey Imporst with his wife Peggy. Sadly Michael has since passed away and Peggy and Brennan and Shannon ( their tow children ) have continued with Downey Imports. It's all one big, marvelous story that I have been thrilled to witness and in some ways be a part of.
I still have an old bottle of 1978 Barolo VIETTI that I need to drink and perhaps share with Brennan and perhaps Elizabetta ( daughter of Alfredo and Luciana, owners of VIETTI that I met back in the mid eighties when she came to the area to work at the Mayflower Wines & Spirits and learn the business and English, too. What a great time that was : what wonderful experiences we all shared together. I will never forget the time as it was such a period of discovery with so many possibilities and so little yet developed. The canvas was still largely open and ready for things to happen and to grow and to develop.
Burton Anderson's book " Vino " on Italian wines was quite the item and he actually came to the store at least once and I got to meet him and get him to sign some copies of his book and smaller pamphlets that we sold back then of them.
Bob Parker's Wine Advocate was still in the initial formative years and had not quite caught on or taken off and there were even some individuals betting and saying privately that he would not make it. I only heard these rumors later having never voiced them myself. I liked Bob, he was a very kind and respectful and gracious soul back then and so of the time that I knew him through the Mayflower I had nothing negative to say about him or my relationship with him.
Sidney, Michael and I used to sell him wines in these formative years of the Wine Advocate when he would come, load up his shopping cart, take the wines to the checkout counter where Iris was waiting for him and pay for the wines that he would be writing about shortly. I am sure that he discovered the VIETTI wines here at the store with us that he still writes quite favorably about even today, Sunday, August 15th, 2010.
This is like going down memory lane for me tasting these excellent wines of VIETTI. Chris Barker and I will have to look at getting one of the reds into the store to sell along with the Arneis dry white that already does so well for us. It sure is a bright treat and so lively and full and fresh and forward and balanced and simply a dream-come-true-when-drinking. I could use some today on this rainy day here on Sunday, August 15th, 2010 at my home in northern Virginia. There's a gentle drizzle outside now. My wife got back from walking our dog this morning and when I asked her how it was she said that it was fine but that it was a bit humid outside.
As I type I am sitting by my hand-painted bottle VIETTI Vinificato Da Vietti Nel 1979 BAROLO in Castiglione Falletto denominazion d'origine controllata Della Localita' Roche ( 8600 bottles this # - I can't read the number, I painted over it with my acrylic paints back in 1079-1980 sometime ) ; imported by the Mayflower Wines & Spirits, Hyattsville, Maryland.
I enjoyed this bottle of wine with my wife sometime back then when I worked for Sidney Moore and her partner Michael Downey. They relied on Sidney's parents at the time to find and arrange to have these various selections come to the United States for sale back then in the early eighties and maybe even before.
Sidney, when did this all start for you and your father Aaron Millman, and your mom Helen Millman? I know that at one point your father honed many of his wine skills while working for the very big and successful Milton Knonheim Imports/Distributors back a very long time ago.
I think that at some point this hand-painted bottle of mine ( I am an artist that creates something in some or more mediums each and every day non-stop : good at creating, not so good at promoting, and wanting always to stay true to the artistic impulse and not the commercial one ) hung from the ceiling at the Mayflower Wines & Spirits down at the corner of M. Streets and New Hampshire Avenue. Sidney liked my hand-painted bottles. I remember Danny White telling me that he did not. He worked in the wine-business here for many years before heading out to Las Vegas where I hear he has been amazingly successful.
Sorry Gia, this blog is more about history and links and family and nostalgia : la famiglia, con i gesti e dolce far niente ( " the joy of doing nothing ") . I just got these from reading the story in the Travel section of the Washington Post's Sunday edition entitled " Eat Pray Love " Takes Moviegoers To Three Foreign Lands But Is It All Hollywood? The three lands are Italy, India and Indonesia and I was inspired by the review of the movie that starts for Julia Roberts here in Italy as she escapes New York City and moved to Rome " to rediscover happiness and wonder ". I like that, I like it a whole lot. And the funny think Gia is that my seventeen-year-old son just came out of his room from reading " The Scarlet Letter " for school next tear and said that he and his friend want to go see " Eat Pray Love " later today. He even asked me when dinner was so that he would not disturb our dinner as in the movie : " In Italy, food is her new love. She ( Julia Roberts ) is seduced by its gorgeousness. The camera lavishes attention on the plates at sunlit trattorias : the pink folds of prosciutto served with sweet figs ; a golden fried mozzarella that crunches at the touch of the fork."
My son just recently got swept-up by Italian food, especially Italian Tuscan extra virgin olive oil on crunchy baguettes at our dinner table. His same friend that he wants to see this movie with just returned from three glorious weeks in Tuscamy spent painting and drawing and enjoying Italy and all that it offers, too. It sure is a small world Gia!
My only complaint reading these lines by Mary Beth Sheridan in the Washington Post newspaper is : " where's the wine in all of this? How could you Mary Beth have left this out it appears entirely here? Unacceptable, really, got to go back and insert a line or two about the wine somewhere. Was it not in the movie at all, in the book, on the table in one of these trattorias where Julia was sitting?
You did a great job Gia pouring and taking care of everyone at the table gathered closely around you. You were also good-natured and smiled and did not seem bothered by my constant clicking of Canon digital photos. We exchanged cards and I told you what I was going to do with them and am sorry to say that it has taken me so long to do so. Thanks for your patience and the pours. I enjoyed my wines quite a bit a the time and saw/tasted once again first-hand why these wines of VIETI are still so popular and sought-after
They dd become expensive, however, and s once that Mike Franklin sold his company Franklin Selections we stopped buying so many of them to sell at Cleveland Park Wines& Spirits/ For awhile John Janack, Mike Franklin's right-hand man ( Cindy must have been his right-hand lady ) really took care of Mike Martin and me at Cleveland Park Wines &Spirits and we sold the whole line across the board for at least three-four years and did really well with them. Those were fun times, but not as fun as the ones that I had at the Mayflower Wines & Spirits with Sidney, Mike, John Taylor, Iris, Leon, Larry Jenning,Mo Parzoe( he got e my job at the Mayflower Wines & Spirits : thank you Mo for that ), Karen and many more people ...
I also met the owners of VIETTI Alfredo and Luciana Curado back then : husband and wife came to see us when the Millmans returned with them one year. The Millmans lived in Florence, Italy at the time and of course the Viettis' came from Piemonte, Italy. I wish that I had used my camera back then like I do now. I would have liked to have photos of all of this as I do now. That's a shame but alas it will have to suffice that I conjure up this memory with my words here.
They were very kind and smiled broadly and seemed genuinely interested in being there in the store to see where their wines were selling and to meet the rest of the staff like us and see who was selling their wines for them. They were just learning English then and I spoke only French and no Italian so communicating was a glorious labor of love.
I did get to meet their daughter Elizabetta and did use my camera back then and take some black-and-white photos that were a bit grainy and out-of-focus : or was it simply that my flash did not work as well at the time? I will have to find them and look at them as they were taken way before the advent of the digital camera! I am thrilled to have them nonetheless.
Elizabetta came to dinner at our old apartment before we had children at the Lorcom House which is just across the street from Arrow Wines today. We used to buy our coffee and bagels and lox over at Arrow Wines back then even though I was at the time employed by Mike and Sidney.
The Mike I talk about is Michael Downey of the Michael Downey Selections which has recently been abbreviated with his untimely/unfortunate death to simply Downey Selections. It's hard for me to make this break as I worked for three good years alongside Michael and Sidney and some of my very fondest wine memories and experiences are back then with them.
One of my craziest memories is walking down the ramp at the Mayflower Wines & Spirits and seeing some Barbera or Dolcetto VIETTI ON SALE for $3+ a bottle. It was the summer time as it is now and it was a slower time in the store as everyone was on vacation at the time. I remember thinking to myself that this was an incredible value. I remember recommending that anyone that did come to see us at the time should buy some of it if not all of it because it was a " steal ". It was, too : amazing wine and so inexpensive!
I still have one bottle of VIETTI that I need to enjoy that I have from that time working at the Mayflower Wines & Spirits. I will go back to my IBERNA wine-closet/cooler and check it out and include that information here.
Also, back at the time when Gastone Zempieri was still working for Winebow Imports he invited me to a wine-dinner at Galileo being hosted by Paolo Coppo owner of the COPPO winery in Piemonte, Italy. Who should have been there at the same time : one of the current, younger family members of the VIETTI winery : Mario Cordero, son-in-law that married Emmanuela ( the other child of the Curado's is Luca that has become the wine-maker along with his father Alfredo ). They both signed my special/personal guest book at the time. Roberto Donna came out after the dinner and all three sat side-by-side and I have pictures of that, too. I sat there right across from them and it was fun to witness and observe three Italians from Piemonte, Italy let-loose and have a blast talking as they all knew one-another quite well it seemed! I'm glad I was there to listen and watch and snap a few pictures of the three of them.
It was an excellent meal by the way with the COPPO wines which I have also over the years sold quite a few bottles ( especially when the Wine Source Import house went out of business. I think I cleared them out of almost all their COPPO inventory at the time and made a lot of very happy customers in the process as they got the wines for pennies and not dollars as they are today and were even back then in the early 2002-3-4's?
I just went to my IBERNA wine cooler storage unit ( that I got in a trade years ago with Davis Sponn that was back in the early nineties or very late eighties the first to take my wine education class. He came to me thanks to Catherine Kaylor that knew him and his start-up building wine-storage units. David came to several of my classes back then. What a long road it's been! ) and discovered that I have indeed two bottles of VIETTI from the old Mayflower days :
1) a Imbottigliano da Vietti Castiglione Falletto Italia Annata 1982 BARBARESCO Della Localita' Masseria Delle 5037 Bottiglie Questa E'La No: 1807 ( alcohol 13.5% by volume incisore gianni gallo/ stampatore giani cosso No 170037 bottiglia Seria 1 A Barbaresco). The back label reads : " This wine is made from the ancient Nebbiolo grape of the Lampia variety, cultivated in the area of Masseria di Nieve. The ideal soil with western exposure, the careful viticulture, the traditional vinification and the ageing of at least two years in small oak casks produces a harmonious wine, austere but velvety, of great finesse. To drink when 3-8 years of age." Imported by the Mayflower Imports, Ltd, Mayo, Maryland, U.S.A.
2) the second bottle of VIETTI that I still have from the old Mayflower Wines & Spirits days is : Vinificato da Vietti nel 1978 in Castiglione Falletto, BAROLO Della Localita' Briacca, alcohol 13.9% by volume,( $11.99 a bottle back then, code number # 460. I think this means that we paid $4.60 a bottle for it back then in the mid eighties? ). It has the round orange sticker on it saying : " Serie 1 A No: 403980 Barolo, and the back strip label back then on white matte paper said simply : Table Wine 750ml Imported by Mayflower Imports, LTD, Hyattsville, Maryland, U.S.A. ).
I put all of this information down more as curious information that might mean something to someone and nothing to another. I just think it's interesting to have it down in case something I recorded does , in fact spur a memory or a recollection or a clue to a puzzle ...
I like this picture of you Gia above. I hope you like it, too. It's my signature of " through the wine glass, with the wine inside, the bottle, the label and the person behind the wine : all gathered and presented together. Nice : a complete story of sorts where each of us has to fill-in some of the details as best we can with what we see here in front of us.
VIETTI in a large manner as far as it's sales are concerned did start at the Mayflower Wines & Spirits. Our customers became very familiar with these wines and we were some of the very first to bring them to an American audience. I think that it's important not to forget and to give credit where it is deserved. Aaron and Helen Millman got the ball rolling in many ways for the VIETTI wines and I am sure that the owners have many stories and memories to impart about this very exciting time in the just-blossoming wine-business.
Italian wines were just beginning to really happen and it is large part because of the ground-work that was lain by Michael and Sidney and the Millmans of course. They have since passed away and Micheal, too died at a very young age and we miss them all. Sidney is going through a serious health period of her life and we wish the very best for her. I continue to this day to still sell her wines to drink with her husband Dan ( as well as to Harry Moore, Sidney's son). I am pleased to be able to do this for the three of them as it for me keeps the link sound and alive that has existed for me for years with all of them.
Peggy Downey, Michael's wife still runs the company with her two children Brennan and Shannon Downey ( as well as Guilaume Shannon's French husband and Bill ). I am closest to Brennan as he continues to come sell to me and keeps the link very much alive for me with his bright twinkling eyes, broad smile and understanding of me and my particular artsy-fartsy ways. Thanks Brennan.
As you can see from this picture above that I like to take more atmospheric and artsy photos : visual and intriguing, I hope that make you want to jump out of your seats and call us or email us or come down to the store in search of some of these marvelous VIETTI wines! Please say " yes " that you are inspired to come in search of these wonderful wines from VIETTI.
This is a long, convaluted story with me piecing together lots of parts and parcels of stories and old baggage and partial memories. I am sorry for any mistakes that I might have made from my fading memory. You can comment at the end of this blog and fill-in anything that you would like to add to this story. Cheers and thanks for your patience and indulgence here. TONY
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