Here in Italy, my Catholic friends think impure thoughts, use birth control and don’t truck much with confession. While an American might seek out Our Lady of So What—a church to match his morals—Italians don’t see it as a matter as religious choice, but one of identity. Sure, the Pope might be a loonbag, but he’s our loonbag.
Plus, he supplies rules, much beloved in this country where you need a permit to paint a house or mow a lawn. Regulations permeate Italian life like smoke in a bar – passers-by see the cloud, but insiders are too acclimated to notice. Not that anyone follows rules, personally. Laws are necessary for other people.
So, apparently, are stultifying layers of ceremonial beaurocracy. Guests at formal dinners have been known to starve to death waiting for the introductions, platitudes and thank-yous to end. This could account for the national pastime of footsie, which I think evolved into football, which is what they call soccer. I developed this theory during a particular speech that went on long enough to actually age the wine they were discussing.
A typical example of procedure masquerading as competency is the wine appellation system. In America, appellations tell you only where grapes were grown. In Europe, on the other hand, they are intricate rulebooks controlling grape variety, harvest dates and scads of other vineyard and winemaking practices.
The point of them, claim authorities, is quality. A wine marked DOCG (Denominazione de Origine Controllata e Garantita) is guaranteed to be good. Except that wine drinkers know that's hogwash; that even among DOCs, there are star producers and dogs.
Another reason, they add, is tradition. Without rules, everyone would forsake grandpa’s plonk-barrels and run off to make faceless international-style wine. Now, in many realms, Italy is brilliant at preserving history without mummifying it. All over the country you see hilltops crowned with charming cobblestoned towns; layer-cakes of Etruscan, Roman and more recent ruins. But look inside the ancient stone houses, and you can bet they’ve been refitted with plumbing and electricity.
Even traditionalist winemakers don’t want the world to stand still. Thanks to their innovations, the thin, orange battery acid that Italy once called red is almost extinct. But given a system that forbids things like irrigation and screw caps, the tweaking and tinkering had to be done outside the lines. Still, it was common enough that alternative, looser appellations were created. For instance, IGT (Indicazione Geografica Tipica), coined to confer legitimacy on Bordeaux-style Super-Tuscans like Sassicaia and Ornellaia.
But traditional appellations aren’t going away. You’d be crazy to abandon the cachet and brand-power of classics like Chianti, Barolo and Suave. But when consumers want inky-rich red, and your appellation demands 100% Sangiovese—a thin, cranky grape, at heart—you’ve got a problem. Many I taste are surprisingly rich and modern. New clones, they tell me, riper grapes. But I have other sources, anonymous deep throats from wine’s shady underbelly, who say no way; there’s cab in them thar bottles.
This is an accusation so serious that insider trading and bestiality pale in comparison. So I try to check it out. But I might as well be asking about bodies dropped in the East River. Some deny, others accuse neighbors, and a few deliberately misunderstand my questions, although, come to think of it, that could have something to do with my lousy Italian.
Yet they have nothing to fear from me. I don’t want to out producers—I’m on their side. If consumers want lush, purple, and—yes—delicious wine, you either make it or go out of business. Following the letter of the appellation would be suicide akin to playing major league baseball without steroids.
So, if a touch of Cabernet makes better Brunello, why not change the law? “Impossible!” comes the collective gasp. Yet the origin of current appellations was a pretty haphazard process: functionaries traveled the country, noted how regional wines were made, and declared them official. It’s not like they were chiseled in stone by God or Fred Flintstone.
But I’m forgetting: this is Italy, where everyone wants a speed limit but no one drives it. Where stupid laws are meant for breaking and a good Catholic can lie, swear, and wander into church when he damn well gets around to it. You got a problem with that?
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