An Entrepreneur Of Adventure

My college roomie Steve was an entrepreneur, though I didn't realize it at the time.  He was not a financial entrepreneur, who eventually made millions off short-selling high-octane stocks.  He didn't buy a Century 21 or a McDonald's franchise.  He wasn't even a romantic entrepreneur, with a knack for attracting beautiful women.  (Indeed he suffered mightily on the mean sheets of romance, though that's a story for another time.)  No no no, he was none of these.  He was a more subtle kind of entrepreneur, an entrepreneur of adventure, with an uncanny and unfailing ability to manufacture great memories from scratch.  And to my unborn grandchildren, I can only extend my advance sympathies for the delight I will probably take in telling these stories over and over again.  Allow me to introduce Steve, the Wineoceros.

It was the winter of 1983 and we were young students in Paris, reknowned for quaffing "les grandes"  --  one litre mugs of Kronenbourg  --  all night long on the Boulevard St. Germain. And while our months of exploring the City of Light at 3AM had already yielded a treasure chest of fun, including surfing the speeding subway as it accelerated away from the quai by hopping on the exterior step and holding the door handles with all our might as the passengers inside picked their jaws up off the floor, we yearned for more.  Besides, the Christmas holidays were upon us.  So we bought our train tickets for Italy and headed off to Gare de Lyon on the appointed day, our knapsacks securely fastened to our backs, looking every bit the naive but eager cubs that we were.  We thought that taking the red-eye train from Paris to Venice would eliminate the crowds traveling every which way at once during the holidays, but boy, were we wrong.  After climbing the super-steep steps onto the train at 11PM, we immediately discovered that the only place to sit was exactly where we entered, on the steel floor adjacent to the restroom.  Not as bad as steerage on the Titanic, but close.

Then again, steerage has a lot of hilarious characters, like the itinerant Italians of all stripes returning home from jobs and studies and internships, etc., in Paris.  What does this have to do with wine, you ask?  I'll tell you what this has to do with wine.  What this has to do with wine is that these Italians didn't really like beer, our favorite beverage at the time.  What they drank was wine.  They drank Barolos, Barbarescos and Barberas.  They drank Piedmonts and playful Proseccos, a "local" sparkling wine found throughout Italy.  They drank Chianti and Carmignano, though we had much to learn about the difference between grape and terroir in those days.  You're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

They also liked to gamble, as the mighty Wineoceros and I soon discovered upon unpacking our portable gaming board, whose game changed simply by turning the plastic dial on the side. (Cards, we had discovered, were a disaster, because you always lose cards when traveling.  Besides, my poker face sucks when I drink.)  As always, however, the game board was set to backgammon, the perfect drinking game in that it is very simple to learn the basic moves.  Piece o' cake for experienced players like ourselves to take these local yokels for a quick trip to the cleaners, eh?  Or so it seemed.  Strictly speaking it should not have mattered that there were so many more of them than us, since this was a game of chance, not a game of football.  But Lady Luck, like all women, is powerless around Italian men, especially in large quantities.  She was giving up those "sei's!" (sixes) in pairs to our opponents all night long.  We lost hot and heavy. Then we won wildly and wantonly.  Then we lost again, quickly and quizzingly.  We drank complimentary bottles of Barolo, Chianti and Prosecco, delighting in their different textures, flavors and noses.  (When it was explained to me by one of my new Italian friends that wine has a "nose," my first reply was: Good one!)  In short, we had the best train ride of our young lives.  Although, had it not been for the brief moment of sanity that compelled me to twist my body 180 degrees as I traveled through the air upon clumsily falling off those super-steep steps the following morn', thus landing on my backpack rather than my face, my tale would have to end right here:  Broken face.  Broken teeth.  Hospital, then dentist.  Spent XMAS in bed.  No fun. ..... But as it turns out, all I had to do was buy a new camera.

First stop, Venice.  I won't bore you with a Foeder's walk through Venice, because Foeder doesn't know a damn thing about wine.  What I will say is that when it rains in Venice, it is damn difficult to get around due to overflowing canals.  If you head out to explore  --  which you shouldn't, 'cuz the stores are all closed when it rains  --  you have to walk around on long picnic tables arranged end-to-end throughout the old city.  But remember, the wandering Wineoceros is an entrepreneur of adventure. So he came up with the ingenious idea of wrapping garbage bags around our legs to protect ourselves from the content of the canals, which includes many things other than water.  (Please, don't ask.) And much to our delight, we found that those closed stores had only closed the doors, not the windows. Indeed, when the Venezei saw us knocking on their windows with our baggy legs, during the only time of year when Venice sees few tourists, they were ecstatic to open those windows so we could climb inside.  Ah, youth. Little did I realize at the time that the vibrancy of youth is a passport that can open almost any door.  Or window, as the case may be.  Just call me Harry Potter.

And in those cafes and restaurants and the occasional bakery  --  remember the Rule Of Perpetual Motion, namely that where you aren't is potentially more fun than where you are  --  we tasted the distinctive and delectable wines for which typical tourists pay a pretty penny.  (We were not tourists on this rainy day.  We were good friends, seeking shelter from the storm, so the nice Italians didn't charge us a dime.  Ooops, I mean lira.)  Toasty, warm and ruby red, the wine brought with it a shrewd yet elegant form of social interaction involving foods and conversations that the Wineoceros and I had frankly never experienced with beer.  And let us not forget the maps, especially those enchanting maps of Tuscany and Umbria and Sicily, with rolling hills and miles of virgin vines surrounding ancient cobblestone streets and timeless fountains and musty barns filled with the descendants of horses upon which emperors rode.  These mysterious maps and voluptuous Valpolicellas and powerful prosciuttos and brawny brusciettas suggested an agricultural art that would come to consume my life.  The art of viticulture.

Sonoma Valley Road Trip

So my best pal Steve, an old roomie from Junior Year Abroad and a connoisseur of all things vinicultural  --  from the creamy merlot of Pomerol to trendy Argentinean malbec to the playful prosecco of Piedmont  --  is visiting San Francisco, and I want it to be memorable.  After all, he and his wife treat me like visiting royalty during my annual jaunt to their pad in coastal Connecticut. Thus the ex-altar boy in me decides to treat my buddy to a road trip in a hot convertible.  I own a ramshackle Honda hatchback with over 100K miles, you see, which is hardly suitable for a drive to the dusty back roads of California wine country.  Moreover, it doesn't have a trunk to hold all the cabernet I'm going to be purchasing.  So off to Enterprise Rent-A-Car, where I select a brand-spankin' new Mustang GT with red-leather interior and surround sound.

I hear big Steve  --  Steve le superieur!, as the Parisian woman who lived in the apartment beneath us used to say in the old days  --  arrive in the airport tunnel before he even arrives in the lobby, his mighty footsteps shaking the earth like a pair of jackhammers.  His heavy yet hearty handshake only reinforces the impression of being high-fived by a charging rhino.  He is a rhino of good breeding and taste, however, so his considerable appetites could never be assuaged by beer alone.  His affectionate moniker has long been “the Wineoceros.”

I try to hug my friend the Wineoceros, but my arms barely meet behind his bulging back. I immediately start entertaining him with apocryphal yet epochal tales of my adventures in capitalism. (“In a hot start-up, making tons of money!  Check out the new ride! Paid cash for it!”) The Wineoceros regales me with tales of his latest travels, which include a midnight tour of les caves beneath the city of Beune in Burgundy, and dinner at Chateau Marguax.  How he gets around!

We drive north over the Golden Gate Bridge, then up to the Russian River of Sonoma Valley, in a slight drizzle that prevents me from opening the roof.  This fails to dampen our soaring spirits as we book two seats at the bar for dinner at Bistro Ralph, a funky “boite” in quaint and sleepy Healdsburg Square, far from the crowds and tourists of Napa Valley.  We love its thirty-page wine list, highlighted by more than forty wine-by-the-glass selections, always a comprehensive and entertaining update on the current superstars in the region.  The bartender comes by and fills us in on the best new wines on the list.  We order two each, as students of the grape.  We start with robust yet welcoming Zinfandels from local wineries such as Limerick Lane and Nalle.  In my increasingly cheerful state, I mistakenly begin to call the bartender “Ralph.”  His name is actually Edward, and that is what he likes to be called.  Not Ralph.  Not Edzo.  Not dude.  Just Edward.  I try to correct for my error by saying that I am very impressed by the tasty Zin from Ribbit Vineyard.  Alas, I have misread the cork.  It does not say Ribbit Vineyard.  It says Rabbit Ridge, and I ought to know since I ordered it.  Ooops.  The Wineoceros shakes with laughter.  I grant Edward his leave by shutting my trap for five minutes, during which I make a mental note to put the obscene bar tab on the expense account as client entertainment.  Although just between you and me, I would never waste a Friday night on a client.  I’ll be in the bar, of course, but definitely not with a clingy client hovering over me like a jealous girlfriend.  We work our way through a dozen small tasting glasses.  It's a great way to sample lots of wine without waking up feeling like a car has hit you head-on.  The rack of lamb is a perfect complement to the seductive Williams Selyem Pinot Noir from Rochioli, and we finish with chocolate mousse and a wildly hedonistic Late Harvest gewurtraminner from Husch Vineyards in Oregon.

We head out the next morning for a scenic drive up through Sonoma Valley before stopping at our first winery in the Dry Creek district.  We’ve chosen back roads that curve through the vineyards, better suited for tractors than sports cars.  Nonetheless, I am treating the rental like a rental by accelerating to 60 mph from a standing start.  At 70 mph on a glorious sunny day, I decide to pop open the roof at last.  Never having owned a convertible, I do not realize that you can only open the roof when the vehicle is STATIONARY.  My friend the Wineoceros has never owned a convertible either, and the rental car agent certainly never mentioned it during our brief orientation.

At full vertical, the roof is acting like a parachute, almost lifting us off the road. My friend observes: "That's certainly causing a lot of drag, eh?"  The roof then snaps in half like it's been violently kneecapped.  It starts banging on the trunk with ferocious abandon, its torn and twisted metal legs scraping the new paint off quicker than a blowtorch.  Admittedly, this is far less annoying than the roaring racket of noise.  I turn to Steve and scream: "What happened to the roof?!"  He looks at me with panic in his eyes, thinking we’re being sucked up in a tornado or something.  This panic is further reinforced by workers in the nearby vineyards pointing at us and laughing uproariously. Steve climbs into the back seat and tries to pull the roof back into the car, but it is shredded beyond repair. We pull over under the shade of an ancient oak tree, in order to examine our plight.  We have no choice but to rip the entire roof off, and delicately place it in the trunk. All that remains in the roof sockets behind the rear seat are four fractured tin arms bent back over each other to form two miniature crosses, signifying their cruel and unwarranted demise.  My friend the Wineoceros ties a commemorative red scarf around the joint of the larger cross to honor its sacrifice upon the altar of my stupidity.  I don’t object, as it occurs to me that the brightly-colored scarf might summon a little sympathy from other motorists, like a peace offering.

We limp in to our original destination, the cool courtyard of the Quivera winery.  We enjoy several of their excellent red wines, including a surprising Syrah that I thought was a Merlot/Cab blend. The wine and cool, dark surroundings calm me down. I haven't broken any laws.  I'm not going to jail.  I have insurance.  I've survived worse than this before, like that time I accidentally lit my wastebasket on fire with a cigarette  --  at the office, no less  --  then tossed the blazing inferno into the men’s room where my boss was answering a call of nature.  (“Fire in the hole!”)  The Wineoceros is smiling again.  World peace is in the offing and we’re back to talking about wine.  That's what the Wineoceros loves most, talking about wine.  Actually that’s what he likes second best, after drinking wine.

We close the day at Rafanelli Vineyards in raucous fashion by purchasing a pricey case of legendary Estate Zinfandel, then hop in the Mustang to zip back to the hotel for quick showers before dinner.  It immediately starts to rain.  Hard.  One of those flash thunderstorms very common along the coast. We try to cover ourselves with floor mats and roadmaps of Napa Valley. The wineries are all closed for the day, and we’re far from cover (hotel or bar).  The Wineoceros is not smiling, despite the fine wines he’s recently consumed.  I say:  "Hey, let's crank some tunes," to lighten the mood.  I stick a U2 CD in the stereo, but the speakers are waterlogged.  So Bono sounds like he's singing in the shower.  I turn the music off.  To hell with world peace.  All I really want is a roof over my head, so the Wineoceros will start smiling again.

We get back to the hotel and abandon the car in the parking lot, letting it fill up with water like an aquarium, and head off to dinner to soothe our wounded egos with vino.  We stop at Bistro Ralph again and start to work our way down the list of fine Sonoma Valley wines available by the glass. The first glass of Gary Farrel Pinot Noir arrives.  By the time we move on to a peppery Syrah from Dehlinger, our mishap with the roof is practically forgotten.

It rains all night.  But we continue our weekend in wine country, albeit in a car that smells like wet dog soaked in stale beer.  It works in our favor as wine country empties of all but the most devout wine lovers, and kind winery workers extend pity by treating us to private barrel tastings by the family fireplace.  We trade stories, sample hand-crafted wines made by producers secure enough in their skill to put their names on each bottle, and end up buying quite a lot of wine.  After two eventful days of wine tasting, I finally drop the Wineoceros back at the airport, and apprehensively steer the car back to Enterprise.

The salesperson asks if I had any problems with the car.  He looks up quizzically as I respond by suggesting that we step outside.  He takes one look at the car, and falls to the ground harder than if he had been pushed over.  He is laughing so hard he can't breathe or talk.  He is trying to say something, but I can't make it out.  I lean closer, as though trying to hear his dying words for the benefit of next of kin.  He finally succeeds in rasping out: "Where's the roof?"  I walk over to the trunk, open it, and remove the tattered remains.  Now several other customers are staring.  One of them tells me: "Careful. Don't cut yourself."

The salesperson gets his camera.  This annoys me, since I do not want to be immortalized on the wall of the dealership as Stupidest Customer Of All Time.  Okay, so the roof didn't make it.  Like, certainly this isn't the only time someone has lost a roof?  "Actually," the saleskid replies, "it is."  But hey, not to worry.  At least I'm okay.  That's the important thing.  Right?

Roma, The Eternal City

(from XMAS vacation, 1983)

After the continuation of our competitive and cacophonous backgammon match in a converted monastery  --  converted to a bistro, that is, with syrupy spirits rescued from ancient cellars, judging from the dust on the labels, and sparkling stained-glass windows translating dusk into every vibrant color of the rainbow  --  the Wineoceros and I make a bold decision to board the train for the Eternal City that very evening, which drops us in the deserted central train station in the middle of the night.  (“What, no dancing girls?” I inquire upon our arrival.)  Not even one pensione is open, however, so we make an equally bold decision, motivated by exhaustion, to sleep in a nearby park.  It is quite cold in the middle of winter, so the ground is extremely hard.  (Almost as hard as our knapsacks, doing double time as pillows.)  In other words, our sore backs only survive until daybreak, when the pensiones are finally cooking breakfast.  Our noses quickly guide us to the eggs, where we eat with the alacrity of unfed house pets before treating ourselves to a hot shower and a deep sleep.  This is one of the few times I have seen the Wineoceros sleep till noon, as he is a go-getter and early riser with an internal alarm clock that never fails.  “I guess even the best hit the wall sooner or later,” I mention to my unconscious friend.

Though I can’t say I broke out the ol’ tape measure, Rome immediately strikes me as one of the largest cities I have ever seen.  It sprawls everywhere at once, with the constant threat of noisy collision between cars and buses, cars and pedestrians, and cars and cars.  Heck, throw in a few goats and pigs amidst the architectural splendor, and it might easily resemble a cross between Calcutta and Paris.  (The Roman Empire, it still spans continents!)  I especially admire the bustling Spanish Steps. They remind me of the white steps to Montmartre, the only hill in Paris.  I throw a coin in the fountain for good luck from some saint-of-old described on a worn wooden plaque.  (“Please help me think of something intelligent to say to the leggy beauty on the bench, the local girl with the glowing olive skin and shimmering dark hair,” is what I implore the saint.) However, I refrain from testing the saint’s greed with a handful of coins, like the monk to my left.  The last thing I need is an expensive relationship with an indigent apparition.  

One can devote a lifetime to the study of ancient Roman architecture.  The Pantheon of 27BC, for example, has been around almost as long as recorded time itself, and captures the preening ambition of that era with its cavernous interior and abundance of natural light.  These two things are generally considered at odds with one another by architects, making the accomplishment that much more impressive.  Beware the wide-open piazza outside, though, with its equally wide-open pricing of food and beer.  (“Which number on the bill is the beer, and which is for service?” I ask, a question the waiter simply ignores by saying “prego” over and over again.)  According solely to the whim of the proprietor, one can easily spend ten bucks for a beer.  (“Where’s that wealthy monk when I need him?” I ask the Wineoceros.)  The only certainty is that the menu is no guide at all, which is drastically unlike our experiences in bucolic Bologna and peaceful Perugia.

Culturally, the finest stop on our Roman tour is St. Peter’s, with priceless sculptures and columns by Bernini, the famous frescoes of Michelangelo on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, and the High Renaissance oil paintings of Raphael.  The Basilica of St. Peter is over 1100 feet long and nearly 800 feet wide, and every inch is a priceless artifact.  There are gold and bronze altars devoted to individual saints all over the place, though I am particularly taken by a massive marble baptismal font that looks like a great place for a quick dip.  A holy hot tub, if you will:  Just fill with water, insert one leggy Italian beauty, and hop in!

Oh, and on Christmas Day, St. Peter’s Square fills with pilgrims from every corner of the earth, whom the Pope addresses in seven different languages from the central balcony.  One can’t help but be impressed by a guy who can make people cry in most of the major dialects known to Western man.

The real action, however, is on Christmas Eve, an experience that will always remain one of my lasting tributes to the spontaneous joy of bulletproof youth.  The Wineoceros and I don’t just throw caution to the wind this special night.  We hitchhike along, letting the wind presciently carry us to a basement cave/kahhv cleverly masquerading as a restaurant, with a cool climate for the countless bottles of wine in the walls, and where we finally meet a waiter, of Moroccan descent, who speaks fluent French.  (Merci mille fois to the gods for that.)  This solves the communication barrier and “the American tax” fairly quickly, which we return in the form of a generous tip, though it takes a while to do the math when staring at a fistful of lira in denominations starting at 10,000.  (“I’d say a good tip is about a half-inch thick when you fold the bills over,” the Wineoceros suggests.  Boy, I’ve never needed a ruler to calculate a tip before.)  Then, with heavy coaxing from a suddenly tuneful Wineoceros, we get the entire place singing “And So This Is Christmas” by John Lennon, a soulful compliment to the spirit of the season as well as a fiery lament over the precariousness of world peace.  “And so this is Christmas, and what have we done?”  In an existential sense, that is. 

The unseen winds of fortune next carry us over the fence into the Roman Forum, which ruled Roman economic and political life for centuries.  It was the residence of kings, the meeting place (curia) of the senate, and also the battleground for the empire itself, as Rome eventually was invaded by vandal armies from the north, south, east and west.  It is a symbol both of Rome’s glory and its destruction, with strong arches still supporting burned basilicas, and we explore them by moonlight.   (I’m quite certain that Rome quickly became the seat of Christianity by revealing architectural secrets that Christianity could never have learned on its own, thus cementing its place quite literally into the fabric of daily life.)  And amidst the eerie silence, the Wineoceros and I vicariously imagine the life one must have led to earn eternal glory with a personal shrine such as the Temple of Vesta, for vestal virgins, or eternal disgrace in the Forum’s only prison, the Carcer. Hmm, maybe the Buddhists have invaded too, as those nasty cats might easily be reincarnated criminals.  That black one over there, for example, with the dead eyes and the filthy untrimmed claws.  “I bet he was Jack the Ripper in a previous life,” I opine.

And finally, then, the Coliseum, which we enter by climbing a dilapidated fence, because even the winds of fortune are a little tired of carrying us fatsos all over Rome.  Too bad for me, of course, when I almost sprain my ankle on the fall.  The Wineoceros would have too, if his wool coat hadn’t caught on an exposed link.  I pull him down, and drop him in the dirt.  (Good friend.)  “Hey, help me up!” he demands, though I immediately scurry along.  It’s tough enough pulling the weighty Wineoceros down.  Up is out of the question.  

The Coliseum in the moonlight is definitely a giant Carcer.  Pretty much everyone who came here came here to die, as far as I can tell.  The catacombs, which most tourists never really get to see, are bone-chilling, as you start to wonder if what you are hearing is a raindrop or the step of a strange foot, possibly belonging to the undead.  I feel like a rock climber who might get lost at any second by falling down a buried crevace, never to be heard from again, or perhaps a Who down in Whoville. (“We are here, we are here, we are here!”)  And it is only on the floor of the Coliseum, home of murderous alley cats, that one gets a real sense of the enormity of the place, and the inevitability of destiny.  Here you kill or get killed, whether gladiator, Christian or bull.  “Was that a rock I just stepped on, or a human bone?” I ask the Wineoceros.  “You don’t want to know,” he replies.  “Keep stepping.”

We ascend the ancient stairs to the top and stare down on Rome, our conquered friend.  Earlier she was our master, overwhelming us with her history and heroism and haughtiness.  Now she is our slave, having yielded her deepest and darkest secrets to the curiosity of foreigners.  On the roof of the city, we hum Lennon.

Trained In Bologna

I have seen pictures of myself playing with trains as a child;  a pastime that, according to my dad, provoked hours upon end of curiosity and delight.  But I had no idea what level of pleasure trains can truly provide until I rode them all over Europe, and especially all over Italy.  Train rides in northern Europe, for example -- through Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, etc. -- are often flat and uneventful, until you get really north to the fjords of Norway.  You’ll definitely need a good thick book at least as far as Stockholm.  Tolstoy and Dostoevsky work well, I find, as does anything by Dickens.  Stick with the major authors, as it just might lead to a fun conversation.

At any rate, during the christmas holidays of my junior year abroad, my new friend the Wineoceros and I decide to travel throughout Italy;  by train, of course. After a glorious three-day bacchanal in Venice, we hop on a train headed for Bologna. Bologna is the capital of Emilia-Romagna, at the fertile base of the northern edges of the Apennine mountains that form Italy’s eastern spine. The train moves slowly -- never take an express train through tiny Italy, or you’ll miss everything -- allowing us our first daytime views of the captivating countryside. Unlike the ugly suburban sprawl that now surrounds Paris, here we see the urban and the rural cooperate in new ways. Or perhaps I should say that we simply see them cooperate. Neat walled cities are surrounded not by ugly apartment buildings and chain stores, but by fertile fields and vineyards that nourish the city.

In Italy, clay and limestone manors atop verdant hills blanketed by trellised vines populate the landscape everywhere the eye turns, continuing an ancient partnership between domestic life and the soil itself that is unique to our young eyes. We notice the stuccoed and syncopated parapets circling the roofs of many of the estates, roofs that are accessed by hidden spiral stairways beneath each parapet. This clever design permits the padrone many points of entry to the top of his castle and the panoramic view it provides. And ciao bella! what a view it is, with a neat orderliness to the spacing of vines that suggests the ethereal calm of pews in a chapel, while also maintaining strict quality control. Trellises prevent the vines from collapsing on the steep hillside, you see, where the additional stress on the vine produces a much more concentrated albeit limited yield, ultimately resulting in more intense, flavorful wines. Basically you sacrifice quantity for quality, leading to the hearty Lambruscos and soaring Sangioveses we all know and love. Particularly noteworthy is the rich rosy color of these wines, as mysterious and magical as they are potent. I later learn that this is largely attributable to the lengthy growing season in the plains, which allow the grape an extra six or seven weeks to mature on the vine.

After a four-hour train ride we roll into Bologna at high noon. The Wineoceros and I stride out of the station into yet another magical ancient town, and once again I ask myself why I have been living in the classroom the previous decade. Like Paris and all ancient cities, Bologna is a walker’s paradise, only to be seen on foot. In addition to boasting the oldest university in Europe, Bologna looks to me like a great cathedral upon which the architect has chosen not to place a roof. Hidden alleys become the porticos for great open squares, busy as the nave of Notre Dame on the feast day of Joan of Arc, surrounded on their outer edges by colonnaded walkways that lead the eager feet past more cafes and restaurants than one could explore in a month of exploring. These cafes are like little chapels off the outer aisles of my open cathedral.

Specifically, the Wineoceros and I have followed our map to Piazza Maggiore, the largest in Bologna, for a late lunch of whatever looks good. The Piazza is studded with cafes whose tables spill out onto the sidewalk. Each has a particular flavor, and the abundance of choices makes it hard to choose one over another. But after making a complete tour of the Piazza we are very hungry, when to our delight a wizened old man motions to us by bringing his hands to his mouth. “Are we hungry?” he seems to be asking. The trattoria behind him smells of garlic and oil, and a splendorous warm light spills out of it onto the sidewalk. How had we missed this?  The old man beckons us inside, through towering sandstone columns and wide stone arches, and sits us down at a marble table in the corner. The atrium directly above our heads looks like a family heirloom that has been left in the attic too long, with splashes of vibrant color and faces of the saints hidden beneath centuries of cigar and coffee fumes. And in the very center of every table is a half-full unmarked liter of red wine. A middle-aged waiter in a spotless white-cloth jacket with thin lapels comes by our table bearing dark green olive oil and crusty bread. He speaks halting but endearing English. The bottle, he explains, is for whoever sits down: “You only pay for how much you drink.”  He pulls out a small piece of chalk and marks the level of the wine.

Lunch is superb in every possible way. My first thought is of the Heineken in Amsterdam, which is so much fresher than the stuff we get in the States. We begin with bruschetta featuring cherry tomatoes dipped in sticky Gorgonzola on a bed of buttered bread still hot from the oven. This brings out the darker notes in the house wine, notes of leather and tobacco. There is no turning back: We need another dish that will keep up with this increasingly seductive and spirited wine. As a matter of fact, we need more wine. And forget the chalk this time.

I order a juicy pollo in bean sauce while The Wineoceros orders a Tortellini Bolognese, assured by our talkative waiter that the spicy mortadella and ham have been cured and seasoned with rosemary and garlic for two full days. Hearty eater that he is when traveling, The Wineoceros comments that that this might be an excellent way to avoid just getting a plateful of pasta, having already reconciled himself to the likelihood that pasta might well be impossible to avoid. Allow me to share a secret: like the Heineken in Amsterdam, real Italian pasta will make you forget everything you thought you knew about pasta, since it is always homemade and therefore as unique as the plate on which it is served. There is a tender melts-in-your-mouth texture to Italian pasta that might easily be compared to the texture of San Francisco sourdough, and the locals aren’t kidding about the seasoning either. If you don’t cook with garlic, you don’t cook.

The afternoon melts away, our waiter cajoling us into trying one local dish after another. We rave about the wine, which is complex and refreshing at the same time. Almost magically, like an out of body experience, the wine makes it seem as though we haven’t been eating all afternoon. We ask the waiter who makes the wine  --  we are at a bit of a loss without a label  --  and where we can buy it. His eyes twinkle as he tells us that this is his family’s wine, and that the old man who greeted us at the door is the wine maker. We are floored! The Wineoceros proclaims the old man a saint and asks again where we can buy his wine. The old man smiles and motions for his son the waiter to settle our bill. We pass huge sums of lira back and forth, and notice that after three hours of eating and drinking we are only charged the equivalent of $40. Having paid our bill, we are led out of the trattoria by the old man. He doesn’t look like he can walk another three blocks, and yet he leads us on a meandering journey up out of the city center into the surrounding hills. The city makes a graceful transition from busy avenues and shops to quiet narrow streets that wind uphill. After half an hour we emerge on a plateau overlooking the city. Below us lies the beautiful red buildings of the city, and next to us lie steeply-terraced vineyards separated by ancient stone walls, with weather-beaten granite houses also dotting the landscape.

The old man leads us to one of these houses, at most ten feet by twenty feet. Inside is a simple living room with a hearth for cooking and a couch which probably doubles as a bed. We walk through this room into a storage room in the back. It is crammed with dark, cool bottles of wine. He pulls one down and opens it, gesturing for us to sit down on the couch. A table is drawn up and an old woman, presumably his wife, emerges from a second room in back, which must be a kitchen. Somehow she has been told that we were coming, and is therefore bearing a hefty tray of cured prosciutto and mortadella. We eat and drink well into the later afternoon, enjoying their stories told in increasingly confident English. We feel guilty that we don’t speak much Italian, but no one seems to care. As we are getting ready to leave, the old man disappears into the back room and emerges with a cloth bag filled with four bottles of his signature wine. We make a weak attempt to refuse this all-too-gracious gift, but he insists and we leave grinning, amazed at our luck. Several days later we share one of these bottles with a man we meet on yet another train. He proclaims the wine to be a simple Lambrusco -- a vin de table, nothing noteworthy. We chuckle, not bothering to correct him. After all, it is a wine that had bridged language and age, single-handedly making our trip to Bologna unforgettable.

The Passagiero in Perugia

The great thing about Italy, and Europe in general, is that you can get everywhere by train.  The train stations are often right in the center of town, so you don’t even need taxis or subways once you arrive.  As students on holiday in Italy, The Wine-Oceros and I had visited the Verona of Romeo and Juliet, spent a magical few days in water-logged Venice, had lunch underneath the porticoes of Bologna and were now off to Perugia in the heart of landlocked Umbria.  By train, of course.

We chose this ancient hill town because of a famous tradition we had read about, the nightly Passagiero.  Perugia is a much smaller town than bustling Bologna that nonetheless exudes the same university ambience.  Like an intensely flavorful Sangiovese, Perugia is a highly-concentrated version of Italy’s finest attractions, from the old cobblestone streets to the byzantine arches and domes that decorate the exterior of its buildings to the mosaics and frescoes (bright watercolors on wet plaster) that decorate the interiors to the crisp clean air to the intoxicating scent of fresh foods from the outdoor markets.  You can eat and drink all day in Italy without getting fat.  There is no place else on earth where this happens.

And if you’ll forgive our ongoing fascination with trains, we naturally took a day trip from Bologna, with the windows open to let the fresh air accompany us.  Through Imola and Forli and Cesena, we probably could have stopped anywhere and enjoyed local wines served with the same hospitality as Bologna, but we had heard from others traveling the rails that Perugia was the place to see.  So we waved at the farmers in the field and continued on our way.

Arriving in Perugia at midday, the Wine-Oceros and I strolled aimlessly through Old Town, our hunger growing with every step.  Our ears were suddenly teased as we turned a corner to the sound of tumbling dice and a busy bistro.  We found a table at the edge of the aisle, providing a stunning view of the unblemished hills with sunflowers and wildflowers of every color still standing proud this late in the season.  Without hesitation a waiter brought two glasses of red wine, and quietly placed our menus on the table.  We borrowed a backgammon board from the barkeep and ordered a simple plate of antipasto accompanied by crisp focaccia dipped in deep green olive oil. The Wine-Oceros let out one of his guttural, conspiratorial laughs as he shook the dice in their tumbler and closed the crucial four row with a six and a one.  I countered with a brazen eleven that let me jump half the board with one of my most distant pieces.  The Wine-Oceros then rolled a six and a one to close the seven point, blocking any more elevens.  He eventually ended up doubling the betting cube late in the game, a double I should not have accepted but did.  Let’s just say that lunch was on me.

The afternoon melted away effortlessly as we sipped our wine, munched on antipasto and continued our backgammon battles.  We asked the waiter in a halting blend of French and English what wine we were drinking.  Luckily he had some knowledge of both languages.  He brought us the bottle, made by a local winery called Adanti and a local grape called Sagrantino, in the nearby town of Montefalco.  It was an uninhibited wine that leapt out of the glass, begging to be drunk.  The seemingly endless procession of small antipasti plates were the perfect match for the Sagrantino. The Wine-Oceros and I eventually noticed a general rustle of tables as everyone seemed to be leaving the restaurant simultaneously.  We asked our waiter if the restaurant was closing, and he replied certainly not.  Instead it was time for the daily passagiero, when the entire town walks the perimeter of the main plaza together.  It’s like a siesta, only without the nap.

And what a place to stroll, this sleepy city on the hill.  The clay in the city walls matches the color of sunlight perfectly, its hue mellowing as the sun gives way to early evening.  During the day, that is, the walls look like a golden chalice that has just been polished.  Toward dusk, they look like coals in a campfire that is finally burning out.  It is a remarkable evolution, almost as though the architecture were a living, breathing entity.  If only these walls could talk, and tell us what is it is like to be Perugia …..

I imagine it would be very fun, judging from the eclecticism of our fellow strollers. There were other students like ourselves, of course, simply caught in the flow of traffic with their hands contentedly in their pockets and the occasional sigaretta on their lips.  There were happily-married elderly couples, getting their daily exercise arm in arm. There were professionals of all kinds (lawyers, storekeepers, etc.), dressed in colorful scarves and elegant berets, looking like the town aristocracy.  We all walked together and talked about our day, in one giant circle, the buzz of conversation as warming to the heart as a great first date, when you know that you will be seeing one another again.


The passagiero:  To journey without destination may sound odd, unless you are exactly where you want to be.  And our first night in Perugia, the Wine-Oceros and I were happy as kids in a candy store.  It was a Zen of the feet, joining the locals in their daily ritual, and we were ecstatic to be included.  As the sun set, the townspeople slowly circled the plaza.  Many eventually settled into an outside table at their favorite café, soon to be greeted by neighbors drifting by.  We followed the local custom, occasionally pausing our promenade to stop for a glass of wine before rising to continue the nightly procession.  The view from the end of the plaza overlooked the vineyards below, and as the sun set, the fields glowed in the toasty amber air. ..




A note on the wines of Perugia

Prized vines growing in hundreds of rows are one of the most common features of the hills in the province of Perugia, where the evolution of cultivation methods has led to the production of increasingly excellent wines.  The appellation D.O.C.G., D.O.C. or I.G.T. is a reward for the very high quality achieved.  Documents in the town hall regarding wine-making show that a well respected red wine was made in the area during the Middle Ages, but the history of wine in Perugia is much older, dating back as early as Etruscan and Roman times.