Nurse the Hate: I, Italian Wine Scholar

I am in the midst of Unit 2 of The Italian Wine Scholar program.  This is a self created torture where I am trying to gain a heavy understanding of obscure Italian wine regions that I have had only a passing interest in.  As I had previously warned, I am going to see if I can pass the Master of Wine exam, a feat accomplished by only 39 Americans ever.  As I am currently not in the wine trade in any shape or form, this is akin to my trying to win the NBA Championship without ever playing previously in an organized basketball game.  It’s an incredibly foolish endeavor as I not only clearly don’t belong in the game, no one else wants me in there either. 

For me to enter the Master of Wine program, I need to pass an entrance exam.  Though I did pass the rigorous set of WSET Diploma exams, let me be frank.  I did so with my usual “shuck and jive”.  I got incredibly lucky on the theory questions where they just happened to have asked me things I knew about.  It was like I walked into a crowded bar and someone yelled out, “Do we have anyone here that can sing some Johnny Cash songs in an uptempo punk rock style?”.  The holes I have in my knowledge base are big enough to drive a truck through.  Hence, my attempt to cram a lifetime of Italian wine information into my head in a few months.

I have never been an aficionado of Italian wines.  There.  I said it.  I understand why others get excited about Barolos and Brunellos in the same way that I intellectually understand excitement about camping, musicals, jam band festivals and Indian restaurants.  These are fine things to do, but you can go ahead without me.  Despite me telling people that I don’t care for musicals, there is always someone that urges me to go see “Hamilton”.  “Oh!  Even if you don’t like musicals, you’ll love that!”  By combining a musical with rap music, two things I dislike, I know goddamn well that not only won’t I like it, I will hate it with the intensity of a thousand white hot suns.  It is my version of combining salmon and bubblegum, two shitty things made worse by being thrust together. 

Now if given the choice between a nice glass of Brunello or having to endure Hamilton, I will take the Brunello every single time.  It’s just that I have never been excited about these wines, probably because I only had a flimsy understanding of them.  When I was a young lamb wandering the dangerous forest of Italian restaurant wine lists, I would usually just order a Chianti as that was the only familiar thing on the menu.  Italian wines are confusing, and I avoided most of them, as every time I ordered something unfamiliar, I would get a glass of wine that tasted like old cherries and dust.   “Is this good?  It is?”  I learned enough about Italian wine to be dangerous in my WSET studies, but to say I had a grasp of what was going on would be a great overreach.  If asked a question of some depth by a wine professional regarding 85% of Italy (i.e. not Piedmonte, Veneto or Toscano), I would be exposed for the fraud that I am.  Hence, I am now ALL IN on Italy.

The problem is that I am going this alone.  It’s like I am playing tennis by hitting a ball against a brick wall.  It’s difficult to get a real feel for Elba Aleatico Passito DOCG when it is a paragraph in a book.  I don’t think I am going to be afforded the opportunity to order myself an Acquabona Aleatico dell’Elba DOCG 2011 anytime soon, so I need to somehow remember the concept of what that is and where it came from in the off chance that I am asked in the future, “Can you assess the quality of this passito versus that of a Montefalco Sagrantino DOCG made in the traditional appassimento method on the graticci?”.  It’s not easy learning a new language, geography, soils, climate conditions, Italian history and key producers in small villages of wines you’ve never tasted while chipping away at it two hours a night.  Yet, this is what I have taken on.

I am surrounded by bottles of wines I can barely pronounce while looking at maps with sing songy names that I cannot seem to remember.  I have made a stack of flash cards that is teetering dangerously.  I could spend the rest of my life on this and not make a dent.  The shit is overwhelming.  The Wine Scholar Guild gives you a year to prepare for and take the “Wines of Central and Southern Italy” exam.  I am going to pass it in 10 weeks.  Then I am going to pass “The Wines of Northern Italy”.  After that?  I’m going to go drink a Barolo at a performance of “Hamilton” motherfucker.

Salut.