Daily Communion
By Howard G. GoldbergOf course, French immigration never equaled Italian immigration, which explains why nobody has ever met a home winemaker named Thierry in New York City's borough of Queens, an ethnic stronghold.
But check the winery signs on the North Fork of Long Island, to the east of Queens - Castello di Borghese, Diliberto, Galluccio, Macari, Pellegrini, Pugliese and Raphael (owned by a couple named Petrocelli) - and they scan like a libretto. So the New World is, to a degree, the Old World transplanted.
Which brings us to 59-year-old Salvatore A. Diliberto ("call me Sal"), who with his wife, Maryann, lives in Hollis Hills, Queens, and has practiced elder law since 1984. Until August, virtually no New Yorkers had ever heard of Sal's wines.
Sal typifies many so-called Cal-Itals on the West Coast who have gone pro. They were born to lesser wines made by nonno (grandpa) from grapes like alicante bouschet and French colombard, and as adults graduated to sangiovese (which has flunked in the marketplace), barbera and pinot grigio, all homegrown.
Before the Diliberto Winery opened, Sal entered three reds in the 2004 New York State wine contest and - mamma mia! - won three gold medals, a feat that's virtually unheard of. Fittingly, one wine, a blend, carried an Italian name, Tre (Three). Publicity flowing from the contest obliged Sal to move up the winery's opening date in August.
A customer, after all, is a customer.
"In 1986, I decided to make wine for personal consumption," Sal recalled. "I purchased about 500 pounds of cabernet sauvignon grapes from California. The first time I smelled the fermenting grapes in my enclosed patio, I knew I would be making wine the rest of my life. The next year, I discovered the North Fork of Long Island and began buying grapes there. I purchased merlot, cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay. The wines turned out wonderfully.
"In November 1986, just a few short months before he would pass away, my father tasted my first wine," Sal continued. "He had helped me to crush it. It was young, but very clear and had a fruity taste. He was proud of it, and spoke of the wine his family had made when he was a young man.
"There has not been a day of my life that has not been influenced by my Italian-American heritage," Sal said. "Since the first year I made wine, I have enjoyed the peacefulness of being alone with the wine in my cellar. When I touch the wine, it makes me feel a connection to the past, and I remember family members and paisans. Sometimes in my barrel room, I feel their presence, and I sense their hands guiding me, giving me the benefit of all their knowledge of winemaking."
Sal's story and others like his are familiar and, yes, ripe for sentimentality. That doesn't diminish them. One thing I like about native Italians and many Italian-Americans is that they take wine as a given, like breathing in and breathing out. No highfalutin' talk. And at the table, no fussy, thin-stemmed wine glasses that break if you look at them. Just tumblers, plain glass tumblers. Vino is vino. No big deal.
Even Italian dogs share their masters' values.
One August, a couple, eager to escape Rome's heat, loaned my wife and me their villa. One attraction was their wine cellar in a modernized catacomb under the backyard. Every year, our host drove to a favorite winemaker's Tuscan estate, filled his car with magnums, chiefly reds, drove home and stacked the bottles for a year's consumption. Drink what you want, he said, with typical Italian generosity. We did. We also fed the couple's two German shepherds. The owners left the dogs' menus: pasta, cooked daily, and meat. The older dog was not averse to a deep dish of vino rosso, lapping it up as he wolfed down the pasta. (He showed no interest in vino bianco, which I thought was a defect in his culinary judgment.)
Back to Sal. "In 1989, I put an addition on my home, and added a wine cellar so that I could increase my annual production to 100 gallons or more," he said. "The crushing of the grapes and the fermenting became an annual event in which my son, Michael, and my daughter, Dena, and their friends participated. The only thing more pleasurable than drinking wine with family and friends is making wine with them."
When Sal was growing up, he was not like many of his friends, because he ate different foods, lived with people who spoke another language and wore a fedora when he was 10. (He still does, in winter.)
"Wine was more a part of my life than the lives of my friends, whose families had already been absorbed into the melting pot," Sal remembered. "But I never saw wine by itself. The stage had to be set for the wine. When you walked into a home on a Sunday, you should be able to smell the fresh-baked bread, frying meatballs and a bubbling tomato sauce. The bread should be dipped in the sauce to see if it's ready. As a boy, I always appreciated the taste of crusty Italian bread dipped in wine, and to this day I enjoy that blending of flavors. It is a communion of sorts. Not a religious one, but a cultural expression.
"I have never sat down at a meal at the home of a friend or relative in Italy where wine was not on the table," he said.
Que sira sira. In 1991, the Dilibertos bought two acres in Jamesport, on the North Fork, so they could plant vines, and they had its 19th-century barn converted into a summer home. At the time, Sal hadn't thought about entering the wine business. Later he built another dwelling, and has since used part of it to produce 1,500 gallons per year.
Today the property has increased to five acres, two of them under vine: merlot, cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay. Sal hopes to plant four more, adding sauvignon blanc or pinot gris. In 2001, he obtained a farm-winery license and made his first wines for commercial release. An architect is designing a tasting room.
"My wines are simple, clean and uncomplicated," Sal said. "They are the best wines they can become without my intervention or manipulation. My wines are not big and overpowering. They are round and supple. I want them to be a pleasing accompaniment to a delicious meal."
Five years ago, the Dilibertos traveled to Italy for the first time, and met their relatives. "When I visit my family, they always bring me to their cantina - everyone has one - to show me their wine," Sal said.
Sal plans to reduce the time spent in his law practice gradually so as to give the winery and vineyard more hours. He and Maryann hope to be full-time Long Islanders by 2006, and "most importantly" - no surprise - "to be able to spend a month or two or more in Italy each year."
Howard G. Goldberg, who contributes columns on wine to The New York Times, is author of All About Wine Cellars, a book that is part of The Complete Wine Cellar System kit (Running Press, 2003).