As a young child in Naples, Italy, Sergio Esposito sat at his
kitchen table observing the daily ritual of his large, loud
family
bonding over fresh local dishes and simple country wines. While
devouring the rich bufala mozzarella, still sopping
with milk
and salt, and the platters of fresh prosciutto, sliced so
thin he could
see through it, he absorbed the profound relationship of
food, wine,
and family in Italian culture.
Growing up in Albany, New York, after
emigrating there with his family, he always sat next to his
uncle Aldo
and sipped from his wineglass during their customary hours-long
extended family feasts. Thus, from a very early age,
Esposito came to
associate wine with the warmth of family, the tastes of his
mother’s
cooking—and, above all, memories of his former life in
Italy. When he
was in his twenties, he headed for New York and undertook a
career in
wine, beginning a journey that would culminate in his
founding of
Italian Wine Merchants, now the leading Italian wine source
in America.
His career offered him the opportunity to make frequent
trips back to
Italy to find wine for his clients, to learn the traditions
of Italian
winemaking, and, in so doing, to rediscover the Italian way
of life
he’d left behind.
Passion on the Vine is Esposito’s intimate
and evocative memoir of his colorful family life in Italy,
his abrupt
transition to life in America, and of his travels into the
heart of
Italy—its wine country—and the lives of those who inhabit
it. The
result is a remarkably engaging and entertaining wine/travel
narrative
replete with vivid portraits of seductive places—the
world-famous
cellars of Piedmont, the sweeping estates of Tuscany, the
lush fields
of Campania, the chilly hills of Friuli, the windy beaches of Le
Marche; and of memorable people, diverse and vibrant wine
artisans—from
a disco-dancing vintner who bases his farming on the rhythm
of the moon
to an obsessive prince who destroys his vineyards before his
death so
that his grapes will never be used incorrectly.
Esposito’s luscious
accounts of the wonderful food and wine that are so much a
part of
Italian life, and his poignant and often hilarious stories
of his
relationships with his family and Italian friends, make
Passion on the Vine an utterly unique and enchanting
work about Italy and its eternally seductive lifestyle.
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