This was a great weekend tasting with Filippo and Mike Dee and we sold lots of Filippo's Italian wines, especially his Bonarda indigenous grape variety red that come from the southern Oltrepo Pavese region of of northwestern Italy : not far from Milan and Mapenza and the other airport that is I believe just to the east that handles many of the continental flights in Europe unlike Mapenza which deals with a lot of the international flights.
Funny, as I read the back label of the Bonarda dry red, slightly sparkling red wine label pictured above on the right of the table I began to realize that the region that this wine is made in is just south of the airport that i dropped my daughter off to catch her flight back to England and London and then onto Cambridge last week of October, 2009.
We had spent a week traveling in Italy together and her flight left the night before mine did the next morning. So we drove through this wine country and saw many vines and if I had not been driving I would have taken lots of pictures of them. We had our navigational system with the English-speaking lady that spoke to us as we made our way from destination to destination. It was a godsend really and saved our asses almost every time and certainly kept us relaxed and comfortable and on-schedule as much as possible.
My daughter was just here tonight at our home in northern Virginia on Friday evening, 11:23 PM on October 1st, 2010 and we were talking about this trip that we shared as we watched on A&E television the program called " Teach: Tony Danza ". She said to me did I realize that it was almost a year since we had been there in Italy together? She said : " Let's go back ! " I wish that we could, really. We had a blast and I said that to her as we watched our show.
It was interesting to watch this show about teaching as that is what our daughter does : teach. It's also what I do with wine and food : teach how to combine the two successfully and enjoy them together and learn one's own palate and feel comfortable with that. So I think we both enjoyed this show about Tony Danza : I know that I did.
Funny, there was a quick clip / preview of the : Teach : Tony Danza that showed him introducing his daughter to his class. I guess that will come in a following episode. I'd like to see that. My daughter said that the show seemed more about Tony Danza than it did about his students. I said that : yes, for the moment that might be true but that it would change to be as much about them as about him as it developed and they started to speak their minds more.
This Bonarda is quite an excellent wine and we are now out at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 20008 Tel:202-363-4265 sales@clevelandparkwine.com www.clevelandparkwine.com ) and I will have to ask Mike Dee to send us some more.
Everyone that tasted the Bonarda liked it - all ages, every group, every sex, it did not matter : it was liked by almost everyone and as these pictures will show almost everyone bought a bottle.
The night that I dropped my daughter off in this region not far from Milan and Mapenza was perhaps one of the hardest ever for me. I was lonely already : I already missed my daughter and it tore me apart and made my heart burst. It dropped me into a deep funk and a funk on my last night in Italy was certainly what I did not want - it was the last thing from my mind. I made it to my hotel and checked in, napped and then went down to dinner at 8 PM and though I greatly enjoyed my dinner and another local dry red half bottle of the local Nebbiolo grape ( a 2005 Sassela or Vagella ( Inferno & more ) or something like that : one of those Lombardy Nebbiolo's ) - the food was excellent : my heart was breaking having to dine finally alone without the company of my daughter. I was quite literally miserable and even though I heard some English from people spoken around me I did not have the right state of mind to start a conversation with them. Oh well, I took pictures with my Canon camera and went on up to bed. I have those already posted here at blogspot back in December 2009. Check them out.
I have also already blogged here about this excellent Bonarda and so you must check that out because it has more factual information about the wine itself.
This blog entry is more atmospheric and artsy and fun with this story about my daughter and me being right in this region of Oltreo Pavese/ Lombardy, northwestern Italy almost a year ago. What an amazing experience that was and just like now here in northern Virginia and Washington D.C. we also seem to be experiencing an Indian summer of sorts. It was so warm there in northern Italy the last week of October 2009 : amazing, really.
I will have to buy a bottle of this Bonarda and bring it home and share it with my daughter and wife. My son may also want to have a " wee " sip: just to know a little about it? Probably not, he's not very interested in wines yet. Plenty of time for that later.
So just enjoy these artsy photos that I took with my artist's approach and bent and mind-sett. Hope you like them : hope they inspire you to go looking for this red-labeled Italian slightly-sparkling, zest and tart and tangy and spicy Bonarda wine? That's a great part of my idea : to inspire and fire everyone in a visual manner.
Cheers, I may add more later as I think of things. It's always a great thing to be able to go down a memory lane, especially one that was so vivid and gripping and emotional for me as well. Cheers, TONY
I love some of these photos like the one I took above with the image being totally out-of-focus and blurred. There's a certain nervous and vital and alive energy and rush to it that animates and makes me want to take a closer look, too.
Good friends above from Quebec, Canada above : one that I know quite well now and two that were visiting at the time.
Love those many tattoos above : wish I could have gotten better close-ups of them.
People meeting for the very first time above : love that Bonarda! It's also grown in Argentina now and does really well there, too. But it comes from Oltrepo Pavese/ Lombardy, Italy - don't forget that ever!
Great photos above in case you did not get to look at the previous photo of our Canadian friends above.
Cheers and come to the store tomorrow : Saturday, October 2nd, 2010 from 1-5 Pm to help us celebrate Cleveland Park Day with Hugh Hamilton of his own Aussie winery in McLaren Vale, South Australia. Hugh's a great friend now after all these years of " the Mongrel " and the Jim Jim red and white wines - as well as the Jekyl and Hyde, the Loose Canon and more. Cheers, TONY Join us, there is never any charge.
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