The Best American Travel Writing 2014 Read Free

upward, leaving behind so-called lesser wines and climbing toward greatness, toward the profound, toward—inevitably—the expensive.
    This is why, two decades after my summer abroad, I found myself in Italy’s Langhe region, in Piedmont, visiting a bunch of producers of Barolo, the complex, elegant wine made from Nebbiolo grapes—the epitome of a Serious Wine. I tasted dozens of amazing, and often profound and transcendent, Barolos, which convinced me, once again, that Nebbiolo grapes grown in this corner of northwestern Italy create one of the world’s greatest wines.
    My visit culminated on a sunny Sunday afternoon with an auction called the Asta del Barolo, inside the famous castle in the town of Barolo. Collectors—some from as far away as China, Singapore, and Dubai—purchased bottles from prized vintages for thousands of dollars. One acquaintance, an Austrian banker living in Hong Kong, paid 3,000 euros (about $4,100) for three magnums dating from the mid-1980s. I sat next to a charming producer, whose family’s elegant, silky Barolos annually receive high scores from critics, who call them “genius” and “breathtaking.” During lunch, we tasted about 15 examples of the 2009 vintage. Later, there was talk among the younger winemakers about Jay-Z’s recent visit to Barolo, where he supposedly dropped $50,000 on wine and truffles.
    I won’t lie: it is sexy and exciting to be part of an afternoon crowd like that. And I cannot state clearly enough how much I enjoy Barolo. Perhaps it is geeky to say, but sipping it can be like listening to a beautiful, challenging piece of music or standing before a grand, moving work of art. I love it so much that when people ask what my favorite wine is, I often exclaim, “Barolo!” And they nod and say, “Ah, yes. Barolo, of course.”
    But that afternoon at the castle was total fantasyland. When I returned home, would I be drinking very much Barolo? Um, no, not so much. Saying that Barolo is my “favorite” is very much a misrepresentation of my everyday drinking habits. How often do I drink it? Outside of professional tastings, when I’m buying wine to serve at home or when I order it in restaurants, I probably drink Barolo three or four times a year. Maybe five if I’m particularly flush. That’s because the price of a decent Barolo at a wine shop starts at around $60 a bottle and quickly climbs to well over $100. Double or triple that price on a restaurant wine list. Even though I love Barolo, it will always be a special-occasion wine.
    I was thinking deeply about greatness in wines when I decided to make a quick side trip to visit my old exchange family in Pieve San Giacomo. On a whim, I’d asked Daniela, Paolo’s daughter, to do a little research to see where her father used to buy his fizzy red wine, and with some effort we located the winemaker. To my surprise, the winemaker was not based in Modena, but rather a couple of hours in the other direction, in the Colli Piacentini—the Piacenza hills—a region I’d never heard of.
    After getting lost, and refereeing an argument between Daniela and Anna, who was almost carsick in the back seat, we were finally welcomed into the garage of the winemaker, 80-year-old Antonio, and his daughter, who was roughly my age. Anna became emotional—the last time she’d visited the winemaker was in the early 1990s with Paolo. “I remember you had a goat, and it used to like eating the grapes!” she said. The goat, of course, was long dead.
    From stainless steel tanks, we tasted his crisp Riesling and a strange, straw-yellow wine made from the local Ortrugo grapes. Antonio told me that most of his customers come to buy his wine in demijohns because they prefer to bottle it themselves, as Paolo did.
    â€œWhat about the frizzante red?” I asked. “Do you still make it?”
    He smiled broadly and retrieved a bottle