Smell the wine and speak Italian

Because the cork always smells like cork in any language.

Preface: I read Eric J Lyman and his Italian Dispatch here on Substack. As he says in his intro “observing Italy through everyday encounters, history, and observing details most people miss.” this story is inspired by his writing. Thanks for the inspiration from someone who doesn’t speak Italian.

We were at a very popular wine bar, Café Paradiso, in the Porta Romana district of Milan. It’s talked about heavily in wine circles, among locals, and is a cool neighborhood spot.

We got a 2-top inside, not too long after they opened. Plenty of ‘Reserved’ signs on empty tables as well as explicit instructions from our host that we needed to vacate the seats by 7:30. All good. Plenty of time to try some wines and have some salumi.

There is no printed wine list, only a printed food menu. There were no fewer than 5 staff members working the floor, of which, and I’m speculating here, 1 or 2 of them were owners or had a financial interest in the business.

The first person to interact with us took our order — white and sparkling to start, plus a plate of salumi and olives. Clean pours, nothing funky or natty. No flaws.

Round two of the wines were served and selected by a different server — Rosé and orange wine. The Rosé had a bit more skin contact, thus a bit more tannin, and while clean, I’d argue the color was more Rosé like but it drank like a chillable red.

The various orange wines that were brought over were higher in volatile acidity and we did not care for them. We went back to the white.

We were thinking this was going to be our dinner for the night, with another 90 minutes before 7:30, so we ordered more food and decided to go all in on a bottle of red.

The same person who brought over the orange wines presented 3 different selections of red wine bottles, describing each as having high farming standards and all natural.

We picked selection Number 3, a Sangiovese from Emilia Romagna. The cork was pulled, the server smelled the cork and poured each of us a taste. I put my nose in and got the immediate, albeit, very faint smell of cork taint. It was a really small pour, really small. I covered the glass with my hand and swirled, trying to concentrate the aroma. It’s there. I asked the server to give me a little more and covered it again with my hand.

The server smelled the cork again and said, “No, no, it’s fine.” There was a bit of an insistence, verbally, that this was a “natural producer, I’ve had this many times, it’s fine.” The server smelling the cork again isn’t going to detect cork taint.

I disagreed. It’s there, cork taint is there. I offered my glass without sipping it for the server to smell it. The offer was declined.

Our server returned to the bar and kindly brought back Wine Number 2, a Dolcetto, pulled the cork and poured a taste into two fresh glasses. The wine was completely fine.

The wine in question was then brought up to the bar and poured for at least one of the gentlemen who seemed to have an interest in the establishment. Very brief low-toned conversational Italian was spoken and body language was observed by me. He was certainly tasting the wine in question, looking at me and his server. He did not address me or his server directly, merely tasted the wine, and walked back outside.

The moral of the story? I wish I spoke Italian.