Passion on the Vine (Electronic book text)

Chapter 1 Rome We'd left behind the south's sharp ocean inlets--its black volcanoes pasted against orange evening skies, its lemon groves and crumbling villages--for Rome. We followed the A1 Autostrada del Sole, the Highway of the Sun, which cuts through the country, straight from Naples to Milan. It was a two-hour drive, first through lush hills; then through flat farmlands, the standard horse vendors displaying their grazing wares for motorists; then past the withered vineyards, the smoky power plants, the stoic gray roadside corporations, the brightly colored Iperstores, the worker-free construction zones of crushed asphalt and detours, the elaborate Autogrills perched like bridges above the road, the Gypsy camps. We drove by it all and then through the concrete tunnels until we hit the capital, rising up around us in the form of shops and apartments, of ancient statues, baroque palaces, sweeping piazzas. My brother Sal and I had been on the road for days and la citti eterna was to be our last hurrah before our return to the States. Our roles in the rental car were always clearly defined: I was the driver, he the navigator. We were finishing up a whirlwind wine-buying trip, so we were pale and exhausted. I own a wine store in New York City and there wasn't a day that passed without some uninformed individual, a dreamy look on his face, telling me I had the world's most wonderful job. Such people thought it was glamorous, floating across the Italian peninsula, sipping wine poured from fine bottles, sleeping in villas on sweeping vineyard grounds. They couldn't be blamed for the misconception; God knows, I'd thought the same thing when I was a kid. It may be a wonderfuljob, but it isn't always glamorous. I had slept in opulent villas and dined with royals, but usually it went like the most recent trip: in the last seven days, Sal and I had hit up almost sixty wineries and tasted countless bottles of wine. We'd woken up at six and gone to bed at four. We'd eaten at truck stops and at two-star restaurants, gobbled down panini in the car, and been forced by our producer-hosts into many long, multicourse, pasta-laden, oil-drenched meals--the kind of experience you'd savor if you did it twice a year, not twice a week. Sometimes it was kind of like working in the world's best cupcake bakery: no matter how much you love cupcakes, you don't want five a day, every day for a week. Sal and I had stayed in some moldy roadside hotels, a couple of simple rooms-for-rent, and one medieval castle; had tasted virtual vinegar and the most beautiful wines in the country. I'd spent time listening to a Russian scam artist who guided wine tours and I'd sat in the office of a wine producer whose family had at one time been commissioned by a king. We'd been social hostages, privileged to be included at the family table but also dragged to Italian discos filled primarily with men in tight pants. This was what a typical tasting trip was like, racing around the country, trying to find the best wines for my clients and for myself. Sal didn't officially work with me, but he came along because he loved food, he loved wine, he loved the excitement. Round, rosy-cheeked Sal, his head topped with swiftly disappearing red hair, was the reason I was in this business in the first place. He was the one working as a chef, when he was only eighteen, in the little French restaurant inupstate New York, making beef bourguignon and