The following was initially meant to be an introductory anecdote to introduce a review of the excellent book Vino Italiano by Joseph Bastianich and David Lynch. As most of you know, brevity is not my strong point, so I decided to break the review up into this anecdote with the actual review to follow. Please bear with me. I think a lot about cutting down what I do into more digestible parts.

Upon reading the title of Joseph Bastianich and David Lynch’s new book Vino Italiano, I was reminded of a sort of employee picnic I attended some years ago. I was young and working in a small Osteria in central New York State run by a crazy Piemontese gentleman by the name of Giovanni. While Giovanni was almost completely insane and dependent on more substance than Lou Reed, he was a great guy to work for most of the time. From him I learned a lot about Italian food, wine, and culture while sitting in on his early morning espresso and grappa sessions, right before he would go down into the basement and add pot and prescription painkillers to the mix to become unintelligible in every way. It was really at his hands that I became a true fanatic of Italian wines and simply wine in general. He had loaned me a book by Terry Robards, former long-time wine columnist for the New York Times and, as it turned out, the proprietor of a small wine shop in a neighboring town from where I grew up. The book was inscribed by Gio and addressed to Gio as he had given the book to himself on one of his birthdays. Mr. Robards was obviously a huge fan of Italian wines himself as I remember long sections of that book where he urged buyers of ultra-premium Bordeaux to look towards appellations like Brunello di Montalcino and Barolo.

Giovanni had under his employ as his dishwasher an older Neapolitan gentleman by the name of Guido. It was rumored that Guido had a bad gambling problem and indeed he would disappear for days or weeks on end without notifying anyone. In his stead, Gio would often hire some young kid who would instantly get the boot the moment Guido came rolling back into town. Guido spoke very little English, was impossibly vitriolic and reeked of booze, tobacco, and clothes that he probably didn’t even change weekly. He was short and bald and his teeth and lips were stained brown from the chewing tobacco he used. How Giovanni and Guido came together in that unlikely area in central New York, I’ll never know. All we knew of Guido was how much he hated us and the entire litany of slurs that southern Italians are known to utter in the direction of northern Italians. And let me tell you, these slurs were rarely ever delivered in good humor. But like an old embattled and embittered married couple, neither Gio nor Guido seemed to want to give the satisfaction of ending the relationship finally.

 The picnic I am talking about took place in early summer on Giovanni’s property out in the rolling hills of that area. Gio’s house was not large, but it sat on an appreciable plot of land, even holding a couple of his step-daughter’s horses, though I would hesitate to call it a ranch. At his behest the picnic was to start at 10am, for we were to eat and drink straight through two meals and well into the night. That particular day was the first time I had learned the pleasures of a meal delivered at an excruciatingly slow pace, spread across many hours and hitting upon just about every high note of peasant Italian cuisine. Likewise, we toured many of Italy’s wine appellations, and even copious amounts of Heitz Grignolino back when Gio could get some mailed to him. Apparently Gio’s parents, Piedmontese vineyard owners, had provided Joe Heitz with the initial cuttings of this Grignolino, now used to make a port wine, I think.

Shortly after we had settled into the first round of many, a battered old white van with rusting body panels came rumbling up to the head of the driveway bearing the logo of a local electrical contractor. When it stopped we all looked up the driveway from our picnic tables to see Guido amble out of the van, pulling two large jugs bearing red wine out and onto the dirt drive. He left a third on the passenger floor. Guido, wearing the same wool sweater he always wore even though it was the peak of summer, hit the front of the van twice with his stout small hands, slammed the door shut, and raised his hand in salute to the driver, who roared off down the small country road. Guido hooked his thumbs into the handles on the two jugs and slowly hobbled down the drive towards the picnic area. Red wine sloshed back and forth as he walked.

The fact that Guido was there at all was amazing to us and the fact that he came bearing gifts doubly so. Guido parked himself on a log in front of the then-cold firepit and put the two jugs down flanking himself to either side. Throughout the day, Gio or his wife Theresa delivered food and wine to Guido who refused to even acknowledge the presence of the rest of the party at the picnic tables. I remember being somewhat baffled and offended at the time that such a bilious old man commanded such politeness from our hosts. Eventually the sun sank and our heads floated in a sea of wine, grappa, and amari. Gio piled wood into the firepit and lit a fire of a size only capable of a man under the grip of powerful muscle relaxers and a lot of alcohol. I myself was under the burden of quite a bit of alcohol so I do dimly recall the flames weren’t the only things dancing in my head. The party went on, though, and wouldn’t stop for quite some time.

At the time there was a very cute and quirky young chef working for Gio who was something of a musical expeditionist. It seemed that every couple of months she was trying her hand at a new and uncommon instrument. That month she had happened across an old accordion in very good condition at a thrift store, so of course she was trying to learn how to play it. She had brought it to the picnic to show Gio and the rest of us, and indeed it was a beautiful instrument with a white pearl casing and brass buttons.

No sooner had she snapped open the case to show a barely cognizant Gio than Guido finally uprooted himself from his spot on the log to gently ask her if he could try it on. Shocked, I’m sure, she said yes. All eyes were on him as he slung the strap over his shoulder. Without unlocking the bellows he ran his thick fingers over the keys and valves.

You could see now the flames dancing in his eyes as he peered down at the accordion, which itself glimmered in the firelight. He unhooked the bellow lock and gave the accordion a couple of meek squeezes. It bleated a bit and overall sounded wheezy and atonal. I thought that maybe a father or uncle of his had played the accordion and that he had picked it up in a fit of nostalgia. No sooner had I thought that than he launched into a surprisingly delicate rendition of Amazing Grace, which surprised all of us.

He had only played through the first verse and first chorus when he simply stopped, locked the bellows and sighed, rubbing his hands together gingerly. His hands were trembling and I remember wondering if he was simply arthritic or if he had felt electricity crackling though his hands. He unslung the accordion and handed it back to Sara then wiped at the corners of his eyes with the filthy sleeves of his sweater.

Sara placed the instrument back into the case and Guido stroked it as if it were a cat.

We asked him to play again, but the only response we got out of him was, “thank you, thank you.”

For the rest of the night everyone wanted to know more of this new—or old—Guido. Several had taken a spot on the log next to him, but while he was much kinder than we had ever seen him, he was as taciturn as ever. A gentle smile and eyes that reflected the firelight did not leave his face the entire night.

When I took my turn at cracking the enigma, I decided to ask about the two glass jugs of nameless red wine that still sat in the dirt on either side of him.

“Of course,” I said, holding out my glass, bracing myself for a healthy dose of sugar and formaldehyde.

He poured liberally into my glass still with that wistful look on his face. “Vino Italiano,” he said as he poured. I may have done something so silly as to swirl and sniff.

Being the know-it-all that I was at the time I asked him, “So what are we talking about here, is this Barbera, Sangiovese, Primitivo, something from Campania perhaps?”