Bill Klapp

You are eating too high on the hog, brother...and too low at the same time, apparently! And stop whining about your flu. You're in Italy, and we are not. Flu, we can get here. Culatello, we cannot. You are not a sympathetic figure. By the way (I cannot resist this), I was particularly fascinated by the pinzimonio, raw vegetables "arranged in a BOWEL with the skill of a florist making arrangements for the Ritz Carlton". Is this an international touch, calculated to placate all of the haggis-eaters out there? Or does it merely reflect badly on the new generation of Ritz Carlton florists?

I opened a 1961 Haut-Brion in a roomful of friends. Next time, I'll open wines of similar quality in a closet by myself...

That's what I was looking for! RAW Umbria! (Preferably raw pork products from Norcia.) Sorry!

Ummmmm...Sangiovese has not done all that well in CA so far. Good luck on nebbiolo, the perennial contender with pinot noir for the most difficult grape on earth award. It is true that there are those fog-bound areas of the CA coast that have done well with pinot, and certainly better than Oregon has done, but I wonder if the real estate that might sustain nebbiolo is not (a) in damn short supply, and (b) already planted to pinot. Even in Italy, when nebbiolo is planted outside the Barolo and Barbaresco zones, it produces a pleasant, but ultimately thin and relatively simple, quaff. Barbera is a toss-up, but it seems unlikely that CA can deliver the quality of the Piemonte at a competitive price. I support your belief in the southern varietals.

That's OK. Somebody is threatening burnt UMBRIA on another thread!

And if you mix the two together in equal measure, you get rose!

Pouring buckets in Alba today! Hopefully, it will salvage the white truffles! Barbera and Dolcetto came in with no rain to speak of, with uniform reports of excellent quality. I am guessing that most of the nebbiolo is in by now, but if not, I think that there will be time to take today's rain and wait to pick. The weather is cool and seasonal now, with not much more rain predicted.

No good news on the truffles. Local wisdom holds that significant rain, very soon, could change the outcome, but otherwise, a few puny and very expensive truffles is the prognosis...

Well, armed with years of research and the concensus wisdom of this board, I am about to go in search of good food in Venezia. However, I have a hedge-friends have borrowed an apartment, and if all else fails, I will go to the Rialto fish market and do the job myself! I expect to eat my weight in bar snacks over several days. I am particularly excited about my overnight stay in Bergamo on the way from Venezia to Paris, and a trip to Bar Donizetti. Check out this menu:Bar Donizetti Menu

Norcia is a tiny little jewel of a place. The restaurants and hotels are only so-so, so you might want to daytrip it and stay elsewhere. It is, however, the pork and black truffle capital of Italy, and has more great salumerie per capita than any place on earth! Go around lunchtime, buy some bread, and load up on the local pork products. "Nostrano" is the only assurance of quality that you will need. In 1997, we were based in Lucca, but bored with our area, so we took a circular road trip through Tuscany and Umbria, hitting all of the Tuscan hill towns, Orvieto, Asissi, Norcia, Lake Trasimeno and a host of other places. A gluttonous friend and I hit the butchers in Norcia, and bought about a hundred pounds of stuff, forgetting that we were going to be living out of hotels for five days. I can still recall one butcher shop where they had a glass-enclosed room behind the counter that resembled nothing so much as an operating room in a hospital. In the distance, three butchers could be seen in clean white coats, consulting over a piece of pork. We bought so much stuff that the owner came out of surgery to see us off personally. I remember my friend extending his hand, which was politely refused by the butcher, since he had been touching meat. He did, however, make a fist, and brush my friend's hand with the back of it, in a kind of Italian "soul" handshake. We still refer to it as the butcher's handshake. Last thing-Norcia is so famous that the best pork butchers throughout Italy are referred to (or refer to themselves) as "norcini", indicating a level of mastery many levels above the norm. That being said, since you have already done Tuscany, I suggest that you consider Piemonte and Liguria, rather than doing the Tuscan villa thing a second time. The food and wine are a whole hell of a lot better, and if you enjoy exploring small towns, both have much to offer, plus Torino and Genova, Italy's two greatest unsung towns! You can camp out among the vineyards of Barolo or Barbaresco, and daytrip or overnight to places like Portofino, Santa Margherita, Rappallo, Ravenna, Camogli, the list goes on and on. And even Pisa and Firenze, with Roma a 5 1/2-hour Eurostar ride away. The cheese focaccia of Recco alone will justify the entire trip! Likewise, you can drive an hour east to the French Alps, or two hours north to Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn or Lake Orta (the smallest and most beautiful of the Italian lakes). Egg him on, Robert! You know I'm right!

They have been replaced by better-quality, cheaper (mostly) Italian, Australian and Spanish wines. Now it is true that the absence of that overwhelming oak flavor in some of them foreign wines can be disturbing to the American palate, but it's like your first Diet Coke after a lifetime of drinking the sugared stuff-it takes some getting used to, but eventually, you can learn to appreciate the unadulterated taste of the fruit, and then, it is really hard to go back again!

Given the current pricing, are Napa Cabernets the American Supertuscans? By that I mean that a whole bunch of people pay increasingly huge amounts of money for low-production wines which, by and large, do not have much of a track record, and seem styled to the popular taste.

But how about "Venezia is Italy's answer to Disneyworld--strong attraction, but packed with tourists and the food is mostly terrible"?

Nova car rental did not quite do it for me. I have gotten consistently better rates from Auto Europe.

I doubt it. It was probably filmed in Canada or somewhere in the former Soviet bloc, in order to trim production costs! By the way, if you thought that maybe I didn't like the book, the trailers for the movie make me physically ill! Apparently, the book has been turned into a Doris Day-style romantic comedy. Puh-leeese! JosephB, nothing for you on Pavia, but Mortara is the goose and foie gras capital of Italy. Trattoria Guallina, Albergo San Michelle and Ristorante Torino are the dueling palaces of goose-tronomia. Don't miss the soft goose salami and the goose prosciutto!

As the old joke goes, a year's supply for an American police officer is roughly 20 per day, or 7,300. An average American citizen could get by on roughly one-fourth that number. Offering any less than that would be fraudulent advertising...

Glad to see the balancing views on Cortona being posted. I saw the art in Cortona and San G, but that is not enough to justify an extended stay in either place, in my humble opinion. Hospitable people and beautiful views abound in Italy, as does interesting stuff to do and see, so it is all relative and in the end, a matter of personal preference. For me, Montalcino totally eclipses Cortona and San Gimignano all rolled into one. A larger, much more interesting town, a super Etruscan museum and, oh, yes, some fine wine shops. Likewise Siena. Same is true of Orvieto, which has the most beautiful cathedral that I have ever seen, as well as better food and wine. The truth be known, I much prefer Umbria to Tuscany.

It could have been worse. Had the Church let you in, it would only have been a short time before it would have seized upon one of the many facts of your life that would justify excommunication (or perhaps exorcism). The Fog Junkie

Alas, I went there seeking 1947 Petrus at least 30% off retail, and came away sorely disappointed...

Serendipity! I'll be coming there late in the day from Venezia (and a big final lunch, to be sure), so I'll lay waste to Donizetti for dinner! And do not think that the "fog junkie" comment went unnoticed. It makes me appreciate the sunshine all the more, during the 12 or so times a year that the sun is seen in the Piemonte...

It is impossible to dispute the Peck strategy, having availed myself of it so often over the years. It seems a "Tommy" (or, at least, a "Tommy's virtual persona"!) kind of thing to do...

You will dine well, my friend! When is the truffle fair this year? It is usually the last week in September, as I recall. This year, I am in denial about the whole business, since I ate so many cheap (a relative thing, of course), tasty tartufi bianchi last year. Forgot to mention-will you be within striking distance of Assisi at any point? In fairness, if I am going to put the "dark" rap on Cortona, I must put the "light" rap on Assisi. I am not Catholic (at least, not yet-I'm waiting to see if Camp's conversion works out), but Assisi is an amazing place. On the way in, you pass more ugly gift-shop schlock than the old Times Square ever hoped to have. But after you get past that, well, there is something truly holy and otherworldly about the place. It is really a "you have to be there" thing.

I resent that! For once, I made no unflattering comparisons between my beloved province and the rest of Italy! I love Milano, but it is something of a bitch to get in and out of. And furthermore, I am broadening my admittedly parochial Piemontese outlook and actually going to Venice and Bergamo this trip! (God, I hope that I don't starve to DEATH in VENICE!) In truth, however, I do believe that a majority of Americans experience some variation of a curious life cycle of visits to Italy. Either together (as Tommy is doing) or separately, Roma, Firenze and Venezia get done. Each is unique, but a case could be made that they are three of the LEAST Italian cities in Italy. Next, Capri, the Amalfi Coast and, for some, Portofino/Santa Margherita offer the beach experience. After that, the advanced students reject the urban tourism and beach things altogether, in favor of the villa in Tuscany (or Umbria) trip, which I always view as a step in the right direction, in that it presents you with a genuine opportunity to begin to understand La Dolce Vita, the miracle of everyday Italian life (except that few are shrewd enough to do it in a farmhouse in Piemonte!). The real explorers then find their way to places like Sicilia, Napoli and other hard-core southern destinations, which I also applaud. Doofusses like me, however, take one look at Firenze and the Tuscan hill towns, and then seek out places like Torino, Genova and even tiny Norcia in Umbria, the pork and black truffle capital of Italia!

I have always found Cortona to be the darkest and least interesting of the Tuscan hill towns. Worse, that it was made famous by Under the Tuscan Sun is something of a condemnation of how little we Americani really know about what Italia has to offer. The two most notable features of Cortona are an interesting hat shop in the main piazza, and all of the Americans asking for directions to Frances Mayes' house (which I believe may have been turned into an overpriced rental at this point)! San Gimignano is also something of a one-trick pony. I would allot about 60 minutes for it, and move on. Firenze is of infinitely more interest, heavy tourist traffic and all, and if you are doing the Barolo thing, I would take a look at the recent Alba threads, and line yourselves up some fine meals in the area. For lunch in Barolo, I highly recommend the bar-ristorante (in the back room-the bar in front is dismal, but there is a cute dining room in the back) La Cantinetta on Via Roma (not to be confused with La Cantinella, elsewhere in Barolo). They serve traditional fare, but extremely well-executed. I had the best insalata russa there that I have ever tasted, and they also do awfully well with tajarin and other pastas. You have a fine ristorante there in Borgo Antico, but Trattoria della Posta is in nearby Monforte, as is Il Belvedere in La Morra. If there are any white truffles in this heat-blighted year, you will be in the right place in season. I wear my Piemonte bias on my sleeve, but one does not go to Tuscany primarily to eat well. You will have a perfect opportunity to see what I mean this trip. I'll be right behind you on 11 October...

Milano is really cool, to be sure (the NYC of Italy, except that the core city is smaller and the quality of damn near everything 5 times better), but I say don't spend the night in Milano. Rent a car at Malpensa, and spend the night at Villa Crespi on Lake Orta. Dine there, or maybe even dine at Al Sorriso in nearby Soriso, a Michelin 3-star without the prices and attitude to match. Super fish dishes, and one of the best cheese carts in Europe. Looks like a bad white truffle season, but a little jaunt into that corner of the Piemonte might get you a taste. I am the resident shill for the Piemonte, and as it is your first trip, I have elected to pass upon selling its food and wine virtues to you (which easily outstrip any of the places you're going, in my humble opinion). I'll let you get all of the history/culture stuff out of the way on this trip! Go to Venice on the back end, since you need to drop your car off to deal with Venice. Flying straight into Venice has its merit, however.