Driving On To Montalcino, Tuscany, Meeting Alessandro Furlan & Visit VERBENA Winery, 10/31/09

here are the pictures so far that I have been able to download. Enjoy them now as I will add my commentary over the next few days. Cheers, TONY

Piensa : Movie Being Filmed, Beautiful Morning, VERBENA W/ Elena, Luca & Alessandro Furlan, Olive Oil & Wine!

These are some of the pictures that I took as my daughter and I started our marvelous Friday morning, October 30th, 2009 in Tuscany. We left TENUTA VALDIPIATTA just outside of Montepulciano and drove towards Montalcino and VERBENA winery. My good friend Alessandro told me that he would not be at VERBENA until 10:00 -10:15 AM at the earliest.




He suggested that we stop along the way in the town of Piensa and park outside the ancient part of it and then walk around inside. We had to stop first along the way and take some scenic photos and then we found ourselves just outside Piensa where we found parking easily. We paid and walked up into the beautiful old town and saw a movie being filmed. I will include those pictures soon.



Then we drove over to the bottom of the hill of the town of Montalcino to the local gas station Eis is it ( ? ) and waited for Alessandro to show up. He took us to VERBENA which we had passed on our right side as we approached Montalcino. I pointed this out to my daughter as we did and it was good to know that we were so close.

I have lots more to say but want to post these photos now. Enjoy them and stay-tuned for more really soon. Cheers, TONY



I like this more thoughtful picture of Elena above as she ponders something that you must have said to her Alessandro? You two would speak and then you would translate and it worked beautifully this arrangement on a beautiful, warm, blue-skied late morning/ early afternoon just a mile or two from the base of the town of Montalcino.

It was great to walk into the vineyards as we crossed the street from their home and winery into their sweep of rows and rows of beautiful vines that were first of the Cabernet Sauvignon grapes and then of the Sangiovese ( Sangioveto Grosso ).

We got to taste both these ripened grapes that had been missed as the pickers quickly worked their way down these rows of vines. I liked the sweet taste of both and it pained me a bit to see her drop the cluster to the ground of these delicious Sangiovese grapes.

Seeing this Alessandro quickly grabbed some from the bunch in Elena's hands as he also liked very much their taste. I should have done the same. Oh well ...



You said just before leaving us around 2 PM Alessandro that this gas station was a famous meeting place for many that come to this region. I am glad to have been there, too as I can just imagine all the famous and not-so-famous that have pulled into this gas station over the years to conduct business or just be shown one of the greatest adventures and experiences of their life time!




In this picture above are shown one of the plastic green containers for the just-picked olives. I love their myriad of different colors. This is visually beautiful and makes me wonder how each olive in it's different colors ( are they all the same kind of olives? or are they many kinds that are later blended? or simply at different stages of ripeness ? ). I don't know these answers and forgot to ask although these things did occur to me at the time.

Both my daughter and I were really caught up in this experience of the olives being picked and made into olive paste and then oil just two days ago. It was a great experience to be able to be on the spot at the right time and get to taste such fresh extra virgin olive oil.




Don't get me wrong : the wine experience of the Rosso's as well as the Brunello's ( including the Reserva 2004 and 2006 ) were also quite the experience. We tried the vintages of 2004 and 2005 primarily. I liked them all of course and did linger for some time on the 2004 Reserva Brunello. I believe that is the one that I took with me back outside into this beautiful day as Luca and his team of pickers returned with a fresh batch of olives that had just minutes ago been picked.

My daughter described the taste of the two-day-old extra virgin olive oil as tasting " so good, so light ". I agreed : there was a real elegance and delicate, fresh brightness without hardly any edge or burn at all.
We just continued to dip our bread into it and smile and sigh in satisfaction as we put these pieces of golden yellow tinged with green to our now awaiting lips and tongues. Wow ...

It was my first meeting of Luca and Elena as neither of them has been to Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 20008 Tel : 202-363-4265 anthonyquinn@clevelandparkwine.com www.clevelandparkwine.com ) yet.



We are currently selling quite well the 2007 Rosso di Montalcino at the store On Sale for $27.99 a bottle and I will have to order more as we are almost out. I will also have to order bottles of the Brunello from Brennan Downey next time that he comes to the store, probably this week I think. Both will be great to have as I am all excited about this trip and visit to these wineries and so of course I want to have ample supplies of their wines to share with our customers that in many cases seem to love Italian and Tuscan wines.




I was also thrilled that my daughter could cut her teeth so to speak on such wonderful red wines as these : some of the greatest made in the world today. She seemed to really like them and that pleased me very much.




As you will see from these pictures that follow that I took many of my favorite types of pictures though the wine glass that I held and often swirled around to capture the transparencies of the red Sangiovese grape in all its wonder and regal, royal splendor of intense color variations, moods and magic.




Both the glass and the red Sangiovese wine as well as the reflections of light and image reflected on and off the wine glass do things to change the final image that the lens of my Canon catch in the less than a split second of time.




Looking at some of these images takes both time to get used to and to appreciate and understand. Sometimes the obvious is hidden and replaced by the unexpected that each viewer either welcomes or not depending on their mood or reference of the moment.

Of course I like all of this as it is often a bold challenge to the people looking at them. I want something new to show through. I want something " of the Moment " to be the focal point attaching people to the place and the time of the experience. This all helps to better define the moment and experience.




I will include more soon as I have a chance. Enjoy this so far as it has been developed ... caio, TONY ( Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 3:15 PM )






I'm glad to have this picture of us together above as well as the one below with Luca speaking as much with his hands as with his lips. I took many of these and will probably include them later in my blog spot called : chatart.blogspot.com. They in themselves speak volumes along with the facial gestures.

Luca was speaking a mile-a-minute to Alessandro as we looked on. He was getting ready to head back out to pick more olives and I don't know exactly what he was saying? Fill us in Alessandro : what was Luca so passionately speaking about here?

Dinner W/ Half-Bottle Of RIACCA Valtelina Superiore 2005 @Great Western Hotel By Malpenza Airport Sat. Eve,, Oct. 31st, 2009

This meal in the Great Western Hotel just outside of Malpenza, Milan, Italy was delicious and I was only sorry not to be enjoying it at the time with my daughter that was already on her flight back to Cambridge, Italy. That was very bitter-sweet for me to be dining alone after a week of wonderful dining with her in Italy with glorious, unseasonably wonderful weather to boot!




The wine, a 2005 RIACCA Valtelina Superiore 100% Nebbiolo - 13% alc. by volume , from Lombardy was also marvelous. Together they made me almost feel better as I ate and enjoyed the two together. They paired very well this 2005 RIACCA Nebbiolo : a dry, traditional-style Nebbiolo red from the Valtellina region of Lombardy. I loved it's earthy, dusty-dry, pithy, warm-sun-dried/baked flavors of it's origin. It was brilliant as it was and great to pair with a meal. On it's own it would have been a bit too dry with the levels of acidity a bit sharp for most palates : but not when coupled with a meal.

This is my kind of wine and I love having it come from regions like the Valtellina that has been making it for centuries now. I want to keep all these diverse areas of wine production alive and well for years and centuries still to come.

I was so delighted to have noticed it on the wine list and in a half bottle that was perfect for me.




My service was acceptable though perfunctory and a bit cold I must say. There was no effort at all to do anything except the bare minimum that was required of the two men in the dining room. The food was however as I have already said quite brilliant along with the wine.

I was not expecting any of this but delighted to have stumbled upon it on my last night in Italy I am sure for quite some time to come!

Cheers, TONY

I'm Excited, Exhausted, Thrilled From Visiting Tuscany's MONTELLORI, IL BORRO, VERBENA & VALDIPIATTA, & FOSSI Wines 9/25-31st, 2009

I'm really tired from my return trip yesterday from Italy and yet I am so excited and charged and filled with things that I want to start writing and recording before I begin to forget them. Mostly I took photographs and many mental notes as my daughter and I moved through Italy starting on Milan and winding our way through Florence and Rome and then later the Tuscan countryside; then driving back to Milan ( Bergamo airport for my daughter and Malpensa for me ). We had a blast. It was primarily a great opportunity for me to be with her and acknowledge the great job she has been doing in college and now grad school ; and of course some wineries and as much great wine and food as we could get in as a week goes by very quickly when one is having as great a time as we both were.

The weather was unseasonably wonderful as everyone there told us. It had been raining the week before and here we were everyday waking up to a brisk morning with blue and clear skies with the eventual warming and bright sunshine and lovely fall colors everywhere with incredible scenery old and new and some flowers still in bloom as well as bright red ivy and trees in yellows and reds that looked very much like maples.

I told my wife last night that besides all of this natural beauty and scenery everywhere ( as well as incredible art and both wine and food ) that the two things that impressed me most were : the kindness of every Italian that we spoke to when we needed assistance as well as the highest level of professionalism, commitment and enthusiasm and passion from the four wineries that we visited as well as people like Andrea Fossi ( FOSSI Chianti and Tuscan wines, as well as Puglia ) and Alessandro Furlan ( now both a winemaker and someone who represents some very fine Italian estates like VERBENA, Montalcino and DEGANI, Valpolicella ).

We needed lots of help as we navigated our way through Italy this past week. We had never been to this part of Italy and so everything was new to the both of us. We used every mode of transportation available to us : the train, the bus, the metro and a rented car from Hertz. We did not rent a motorcycle this go-round : what was the matter with us?!? Anyway, each and everyday we ran into complications and I had no problem reaching out for it and often the responses delighted, surprised and even amazed me. All the help we got really did make our stay in Italy all that more enjoyable as well as quite a bit less stressful.

Unfortunately we were on a severe time-crunch and so could only visit four wineries this week : MONTELLORI - owner Allessandro Nieri, sommelier and wine-maker Virgilio ; IL BORRO - Sebastiano Ferragamo and Sara Gherardi ; VERBENA - owners Elena and Luca ; and VALDIPIATTA - Giulio Caporali, owner and Sara the English-speaking, foreign tour guide specialist extraordinaire. In each case you can see my daughter and I met with the principles involved ( owners and winemakers as well as sommeliers and export managers ). They all did a superb job at introducing us to their wineries and practices and their current releases of wines both exported and not. For example at VALDIPIATTA I tried both their red Pinot Nero as well as their intensely flavored and complex dry white that are not available as yet in the United States but both of which I would buy and sell at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits.

I wanted to meet with the principles involved at each winery and this was the highlight for me as well as I believe to some extent my daughter. The fact that owner Salvatore Ferragamo that lives in Florence with his wife, son and two twins was willing to drive forty minutes to IL BORRO and show us around himself with Sara Gherardi was a huge plus for me. Thank you Salvatore. After all, thew last time we met was back at Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits on 9/16/03 and though we had a great first visit there this one was really special for me.

The wines of each of these wineries including those of FOSSI were all exceptionally high and they represented a whole spread of old, traditional wine-making to a meeting of the ways between all the new innovations as well as time-honored and blood-sweated traditional/classic methods to produce the highest quality of wines that both grapes, land and weather conditions allowed the grapes to be produced in each year.

I was quite literally swept off of my feet on pretty much every level possible. Bravo to all of you. You have raised and kept the bar of excellence and value very high indeed as I do not believe any of you are asking more than your wines are worth. As a matter of my opinion, I believe for these very, very fine wines indeed that you are offering value and that encourages and pleases this humble palate of mine greatly.

I had reached out to many of the wineries that had visited Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits over the years going back to 2002. Many of them responded and asked us to come visit : to call us when we arrived in Italy to organize a visit. However, because every visit takes time and the wineries are spread-out over a pretty big area it was impossible to visit them all ( ISOLE E OLENA, POPPIANO, TERRA BIANCA, LANCIOLA, BUONDONNO, NITTARDI, TENUTA VITANZA, CASTELLARE, CASTELLO DI BOSSI, FATTORIA DEI BARBI, VILLA CALCINAIA, LA GERLA ). I know some of these owners and winemakers better than others and some have been at Cleveland Park now on two or three occasions even and tasted their wines with our customers by chance or on planned in-store wine-tastings. It pains me that I could not come to see you this time : but I thank you for your responses and kind offers to visit. It will have to wait until my next visit.

The only winery that we visited that has not had a winemaker or owner visit Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits was VERBENA. Alessandro Furlan my old friend now of twenty-five years represents them in the U.S. ( we currently sell both the 2007 Rosso di Montepulciano and the 2004 Brunello ) was kind enough to arrange a visit for us. Since Alessandro is such a dear friend I could not miss this opportunity to spend more time with him in Tuscany. That's the way I am - friendships and old bonds mean the world to me as tough decisions always have to be made.

It was a good thing that we visited VERBENA with Alessandro as he interpreted for us beautifully and made the visit all that more special and meaningful as owner Elena and her husband Bruno ( as well as his mother, their daughter and baby ) and the olive oil, the wines and especially the 2004 Reserve Brunello and Vin Santo were pretty incredible.

Of course food was also a big part of all of this and will have to be mentioned and highlighted as I go along.

I would have loved to have seen more of them but I did not want to water-down the experience for either my daughter or me. We did want to visit some of the small towns in Tuscany and so we did make it to Montepulciano, Montalcino, Piensa, Arezzo, Pisa ( just at the train station for 15 minutes unfortunately ) and Fucecchio. There may have been more. But this was a whole lot when you add in Florence, Milan and Rome.

The other thing that was amazing for us was to be able to see both the olives just freshly-picked as well as to taste the olive oils a few hours' old ( VALDIPIATTA where owner Giulio Caporali - his daughter Miriam was in California selling their wines at the time ) and a day-and-half-old at VERBENA ( Elena the owner tasted us on hers as her husband Luca was out picking more olives to make more. Luca said that for them it was a very small harvest this year for the olives.

We got to taste both of these on the same day, Friday the 30th of October, 2009. The VERBENA extra virgin olive oil from around Montalcino was lighter golden and more elegant and both clearer and brighter and more refined. The VALDIPIATTA olive oil was darker green, more opaque and as if more of the olive was left in and not filtered out. Of course it represented an extra virgin olive oil of only a few hours having been pressed and so that have made the difference. I do not know if they used the same olive varieties or not? Sara added some salt to it and that intensified even more the flavors. Both were sublime and my daughter and I were both close to heaven in both cases that day. It was quite the treat to sample brand spanking new extra virgin olive oil as we did and I feel very privileged to have had this experience. So did my daughter who also loved both olive oils.

Of course I have taken many pictures and I hope to download some of them this evening before I return to work tomorrow. I also hope to add more blog outlines here of this wonderful week away from the worries and the cares and the responsibilities of having to buy and to sell wines, manage a fine wine store in our nation's capitol, be a father and a husband, etcetera. This was a wonderful and much valued/appreciated respite from many things and to have been able to have spent such a wonderful week with my daughter ( thank you ma belle et intelligent fille a moi ) in such a wonderful place I give thanks to all my lucky stars as well as my son and wife that let me go and to all the people ( like David Pinzolo of Winebow selections ) in Italy that made this possible. Grazie, merci, gracias, thanks. We could have not done it with all your support and kindness.

Being an artist I found beauty everywhere I looked and tried to capture it with my CANON Power Shot SD790 IS digital ELPH. I also did some quick sketches of many of those that we came into contact with and gave them to them as mu/our thanks for all that they had done and meant to us during this week. Combine this with all of my mental and emotional and personal notes and observations that I will soon record here and you get some idea of the wonderful and enormous labor of love that awaits me.

I, of course have omitted many things here in my fatigue and will try and include them as I go along over the next couple of weeks.

Cheers, TONY

Flying Home From Milan. Italy Sunday, November 1st, 2009

This was a great relief to finally be at the Malpensa airport just outside of Milan, Italy in the Lombardy area that produces so much fine Nebbiolo-based wines in the Valtelina region ( Inferno, Sfursat, Grumello and more ) as well as the really flavorful sparkling wines of the Franciacorta region like Bella Vista for example. On my last evening by myself and feeling quite sad about this state of affairs I enjoyed a half bottle of 2005 Sassela with my risotto and mushrooms that I found to be outstanding. The Sassela needed the food as it was medium-bodied-to-light and still both a bit closed and tight. I loved it traditional dried and rustic quality that reminded me of fried fruits with some engaging spice and earthy, warmed Italian turf overtones. I would both order the bottle again as well as sell it at our store Cleveland Park Wines & Spirits ( 3423 Connecticut Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 20008 Tel: 202-363-4265 anthonyquinn@clevelandparkwine.com www.clevelandparkwine.com ). I wish that there were more quality half bottles like this available for us to buy and sell our customers in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. It cost me 16 euros I believe on the wine list at the Best Western where I stayed the last night ( Saturday, October 30th, 2009 - Halloween night! Boo!! ).

Yes, I stayed in Best Western as they were running a great Saturday night special on a room. My good friend Alessandro Furlan found this out for me and informed me of it the night before as my daughter and I enjoyed a completely authentic Italian meal ( all in Italian - no one there spoke a word of English! ) and a glass each of a just slightly sparkling Prosecco. The accommodations were excellent and the food I ate along with this half-bottle of 2005 Sassela were outstanding. My service was professional but nothing more from either of the two servers.

I had a long flight home and met Marco from Lombardy ( Cuomo ) as well as our flight captain J.C. from J.F. K airport to National airport. I had great conversations with both that of course included wine as many observations of life. I will include all of these as I have a chance but for now I will be putting out a series of outlines to begin with that reflect the course of my week in Italy with my daughter from Sunday.October 25th through Sunday, November 1st, 2009.

On my Air Italia flight from MIlan to J.F.K. airport I asked for some red wine and they gave me a bottle of 2008 FREI called " Redwood ____ " : I can't remember the last name. I was disappointed not to be served something Italian as I had enjoyed some of the very best Italian wines from Tuscany this past week including some others from Italy, too ( Veneto, Naples, Lombardy, ). I tried this Cabernet Sauvignon from FREI and seriously could not drink it and so poured it back into the 187 ml-size bottle carefully. It just tasted like a lab chemical experiment and I wondered where the fruit was of the Cabernet Sauvignon grape from which they started?

I will add photographs etcetera as I can. In the meantime stay-tuned for a whole series of blogs on this incredible Italian week filled with new experiences and insights. I sure do understand why everyone goes there and continually returns for more.

Cheers, Caio, TONY