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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels September 7, 2004 Off The Vine It's about the wine, not glitz Lorn Razzano Once or twice a week I receive at work new winery release handouts. These handouts are glossy professionally photographed, archive bound booklets telling us everything we want or don't want to know about the new wine releases, the "beauty" of the vineyards and the rows of wine barrels just perfectly stacked in faux brick cellars. More importantly the winery scene now makes use of the winemaker as pop star. Many winemakers featured in these handouts are posed just right, hair combed to perfection, looking with studied concern at a glass of wine positioned in front of a setting sun. Money, time and slick paper make up these advertisements and prompts me to send you briefly back in time with me. It was in the fall of 1970 at the foot of the Italian Alps. I was 21 years old and bopping from vineyard to vineyard on my great uncle's surplus U.S. Army Harley Davidson acting as a parts courier from small winery to small winery. This morning I was carrying in the worn leather saddles O rings and a spare pump part to Guido Senese, a local shepherd and home winemaker. He and his wife lived in a small hut in the middle of an ancient vineyard that he and his father had planted shortly after the first world war when Guido returned as a wounded veteran. The vines belonged to a wealthy man not five kilometers from Guido's home. Guido and his wife tended the vines and he was allowed to take what he wished for his own winemaking. I was asked to breakfast that morning and sat across the rough wooden table from Guido and his wife, Maria, who was called "La Strega" the witch, for her magical work with herbs and salves for the local people of the valley. The couple were vegetarians, a rarity, in 1970 Italy. At the back of the hut were stacks of cages housing a variety of wounded or sick wild animals that the couple tended as best they could, then released them back into the vineyards or woodlands that surrounded the vineyards. In their cellar sat a few barrels and fermenters. Here was the machine of magic! The first time I tasted Guido's wine I was stunned into silence. His Nebbiolo (of Barolo and Barbaresco fame) was simply stunning! He gave me a bottle which I brought back and tasted with my uncle. He shook his head as he had done many times in quiet, solemn agreement. It seemed that Guido's wine was legendary among the locals. Since I was coming back to America for a short visit to work in my dad's wine business I begged Guido for a few more bottles to take back with me. He gladly gave me half a case. I stuck one of the wines in an "all comers" wine festival and it came in first out of seventy-four wines! I had a few importers and wine distributors taste the wines and they went bonkers! The wines had a snowball effect and very big wine people in the Bay Area were clamoring to find this fine winemaker to import his exquisite wines. Sadly, Guido became sick and moved with his wife to his sister's in Torino. This is really an open letter to emerging winemakers, slick PR men and winery people who think that "showcasing" their efforts with splash and color is the way to sell wine and have the everyday consumer find out about them. My message is simple: Make a fine wine, price it so that we can purchase it without mortgaging the farm and we will come! Forget the hype, put the advertising cash into a good charity and give us a little bit of Guido Senese to pour into our glasses. Lorn Razzano has been a commercial wine and spirits judge at state fairs in California, Oregon and Washington and is a co-founder KSOR wine tasting. He was on winery staffs of various Italian and French wineries in the 1970s, and has owned Ashland Wine Cellar since 1980. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams