On and On and On and On and On and On and On the Wine Trail in Italy

Life is short. Like the finish of a cheap Prosecco. Like the memories of the young, and the time between an old man’s trips to the bathroom at night. But life is also long. From the time you begin to read this until the time you finish, life will have seemed to have dragged on forever, and you will have felt like Dante was your guide here and not me. Life is both short and long. A midget with a large dingdong. We straddle both lives, like a gymnast working the parallel bars—even for men, uneven for women. A man works a woman’s bars at the risk of his very salsiccia. Yes, life is a midget with a large dingdong. Show him respect.

Where the hell's the bathroom?

People, so many people in this wine game. The young come to it filled with ideas, certain of their conviction that their ideas are new. All ideas are new when you’re young. I know. I once had ideas myself. But it’s been many years since any ideas have appeared to me. This is the folly of youth. Ideas drive them. But age teaches. Age is the great teacher. I had a great teacher once, in my youth. He taught me the wine business in just a few words. “Alfonso,” he said to me, “leave a little something of yourself in every wine you drink.” And now all those somethings have reduced me to what I am today. A couple ideas short of nothing.

Emptiness, where I walk

Twice is a word I like. It’s like “ice” with a “tw” before it. I like twice because I like people to read everything I write twice. So it finally makes sense. Like tradition makes sense. Without tradition, what are we left? Emptiness. The feeling I try to leave you with here. The tradition of emptiness. Like writing about ratings. Ratings have no tradition, no memory; ratings are emptiness. I contradict myself by writing about ratings when I express that writing about them is emptiness. Words folded into words, this is my luggage on the wine trail in Italy. American Tourister—my role in the wine world of Italy, and my luggage. Folds within folds.

My Life--full, or empty?

Where do we go from here, the young and the old? Life is a midget with a large dingdong and no ideas, only luggage. If you think about that long enough, maybe read it twice, it will start to make sense. Where will wine go? My beloved Italian wines, where will their journey take them? Will it be a short journey or a long journey? Both. Short for the wines that court emptiness, like Soave and wines in fish bottles. Why do they put wine in a fish bottle? Just for the hali…but I digress. Long for the wines that speak of the people and the country where they are made. The wines of my dreams and my nightmares. My dreams, my loves, my desires. My nightmares, my fears, my… What was I talking about?

Age. Ideas. Folds within Folds. The emptiness of my luggage on and on and on and on and on and on and on the wine trail in Italy.