Wine Philosopher: Paolo Rodaro

By JudithKlinger | July 20, 2013 |

According to Paolo Rodaro, there are only four kinds of wine: red, white, good, or bad. If you taste a wine and think, “Hmmm…might be off.” and you taste again, and maybe a third time, Paolo thinks you are wasting time. You were right the first time, send the wine back. He uses real corks, dismissed screw tops as an abomination, politely listened to the virtues of glass caps and then changed the subject to sex. If you do not look a person in the eye when you clink glasses you will be condemned to seven years of bad sex! And so the conversation meandered during a lovely evening at the Enoteca Wine Club in Umbertide as we ate Antonella’s delicious food and tasted the wines from the Rodaro cantina.

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Market Mojo

By JudithKlinger | May 7, 2010 |

Euro 1,50 I may have arrived back in Italy on Monday, but I had to wait until Wednesday’s Market before it felt like I was truly back.

I was looking forward to all things spring at the Umbertide market: fresh fave beans, artichokes, good oranges, getting a big hunk of parmigiano, abundant flowers, radishes, peas, asparagus….and I was not disappointed.
I was, however, disappointed in my marketing skills. It’s an acquired skill to muscle your way up to a crowded vegetable stand, choose your produce and then get to pay for it. The old ladies will either stab you with an elbow, or simply lob their bag over your bag and you go to the back of the crowd, in disgrace.

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